The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - The Anchormen Show EP 113 - The Right Thing to Do w⧸ Pearson Sharp and Mayor Bill Wells

00:00:00.000 now it's time for the anchorman podcast with matt gates and pearson sharp

00:00:10.580 welcome back to the anchorman show i'm matt gates the host of the matt gates show here

00:00:24.420 on one american news and i'm joined as always by my co-host the investigative reporter

00:00:29.280 extraordinaire. He's the host of the Sharp Report on One American News, Pearson Sharp.

00:00:33.100 And we've got one of our very favorite guests here at One American News, Mayor Bill Wells of

00:00:37.060 El Cajon, California. Our viewers are familiar seeing him on our various programs. And I tell

00:00:42.300 you what, Mr. Mayor, you've just found a way with your cozy little city to get into a lot of really

00:00:49.020 interesting battles and fights that are indicative of these big discussions that are going on around

00:00:54.620 the country regarding immigration enforcement, how local authorities are supposed to operate

00:01:00.800 where you've got a federal government with a strong desire to enforce those laws, and

00:01:05.760 at times recalcitrant or outright hostile state governments like you have here in California.

00:01:11.620 You're also Pearson's mayor, which means I'm going to let him ask you a lot of questions

00:01:15.480 about when the garbage gets picked up and potholes get built.

00:01:17.260 When my street's going to get repaved.

00:01:18.780 I've got to be nicer to him than you.

00:01:21.400 Of course, of course.

00:01:22.740 My grandfather was a small-town mayor, and it's really the front porch to government.

00:01:28.960 There's a special place in heaven for mayors and bartenders because they're the two jobs where you have to listen to everybody's problems.

00:01:35.260 You can't really just send the problem up the road.

00:01:38.280 My career has been as a mental health psychologist, so I've been listening to people's problems for a long time.

00:01:45.200 We will diagnose Gavin Newsom's mental status in moments.

00:01:49.200 But first, there is a real conflict that communities are facing in California as it relates to this immigration enforcement discussion.

00:01:58.160 Walk us through what El Cajon has faced and how you've navigated that.

00:02:02.760 Well, you know, of course, when they were dropping 2,000 people a day off at the border during the Biden administration, they came to three different places.

00:02:11.020 One was San Diego, one was Oceanside, and the other was El Cajon.

00:02:14.120 So we had a dog in the fight in this.

00:02:16.640 And so I was always pushing back against those kids for the safety of my community.

00:02:20.440 It just seemed like a super unsafe thing to be doing.

00:02:24.420 And so we've always kind of taken an adversarial stance with the federal government in that case.

00:02:31.000 Now we're on the same page with the federal government and the state government.

00:02:35.740 The other part of this is El Cajon is one of the only conservative towns in the San Diego County area.

00:02:43.740 And so for that reason, I think I owe it to the people that live in El Cajon

00:02:47.500 who voted for Trump by over 7% more than Kamala Harris.

00:02:54.440 I owe it to them to fight for the things that they think are worth fighting for.

00:02:58.220 And so immigration is a big part of that.

00:03:00.540 And maybe talk to us about how actions by the state legislature have put you guys in a bind.

00:03:07.980 Yeah.

00:03:08.200 Well, right now we're in a situation, I think really every municipality in California is in this situation, where a police officer doing his regular duties or her regular duties is going to violate the law on a daily basis no matter what happens.

00:03:23.640 If they follow SB 54, which is the law in California that says we're not allowed to speak to anybody from the federal government regarding immigration, we can't talk to the Border Patrol, we can't talk to ICE, we can't coordinate with them.

00:03:37.000 If there's a dangerous person running around, we can't help them.

00:03:40.480 If we have somebody that we've arrested that we know is just going to be kicked out back on the street but is deportable,

00:03:46.640 we're not allowed to tell about that.

00:03:48.460 So that's a problem.

00:03:49.940 But on the other hand, the federal government says that anybody who, the law,

00:03:53.960 says that anybody who aids and abets an illegal alien knowingly is breaking federal law and it's a felony.

00:03:59.800 So what are our police officers supposed to do?

00:04:03.220 And so we're in the process of trying to get clarification on that.

00:04:07.160 I would be very shocked if this didn't eventually end up as a lawsuit where we want to just get down to the question of who's right?

00:04:17.420 Whose law are we supposed to follow?

00:04:20.100 I know.

00:04:20.600 What is it?

00:04:21.060 Like last year?

00:04:22.000 Yeah, it was last year.

00:04:22.880 Tom Holman said he was coming for you guys.

00:04:24.520 He said that he supported El Cajon.

00:04:26.300 Like he specifically talked about what was going on there.

00:04:28.480 Yeah.

00:04:28.920 Has anything come of that?

00:04:30.140 Have you heard anything else?

00:04:31.280 Yeah.

00:04:31.640 You know, Mr. Holman's been a great friend, and, you know, he can only do so much.

00:04:38.520 Of course.

00:04:39.520 Of course.

00:04:40.520 It's really going to have to be the DOJ out of Washington that's going to do this.

00:04:45.020 But I think before any of that can happen, the city's-

00:04:48.700 So you're saying it's hopeless?

00:04:49.700 No, not at all.

00:04:51.700 I think I have- I will make a prediction this eventually goes to the Supreme Court.

00:04:56.700 And I think the Supreme Court is in a situation where they really don't have a whole lot of choice.

00:05:02.240 I don't see how the Supreme Court can say that it is okay to violate federal law.

00:05:07.780 I just don't see how that can be the case.

00:05:09.580 Especially when there's such a constitutional basis for having the federal government resolve these immigration questions.

00:05:17.080 It is in the Constitution that the federal government owes a duty to us to protect us from invasion.

00:05:23.660 President Trump has observed this invasion harm the country, and now he wants to use local and state law enforcement as force multipliers, people who can assist in that effort.

00:05:34.220 Now, there have been some Republicans who I know have worked to convince the president that you really shouldn't do immigration enforcement in blue states.

00:05:44.220 It's just too hard. Places like California, Minnesota.

00:05:47.080 and really what you need to do is just go to the red states where there's still plenty of illegals

00:05:52.300 and there are people like Mayor Wells everywhere to work with and I don't like that advice I think

00:06:01.020 that we owe an obligation to Americans in red states and blue states to uphold the law and if

00:06:06.960 we start treating states differently based on that then you get a real inequitable application

00:06:13.680 What would be the point you would want the president to hear about the need to not forget about red communities and blue states grappling with these questions?

00:06:22.400 Well, that's a great point.

00:06:24.100 People think that a place like California is monolithic, that everybody here wants to be very progressive and very far left.

00:06:34.840 It's just not the case.

00:06:35.940 I mean, it really is only the coastal areas that hold that price.

00:06:40.120 The rest of California, there's 40 million people in California.

00:06:42.640 There's a lot of people that want to be protected. 0.81

00:06:45.300 We don't want our daughters to be raped. 0.99

00:06:47.340 We don't want our moms and dads to be murdered. 0.94

00:06:50.640 We don't want big rigs full of people that can't speak the language 1.00

00:06:55.520 and aren't qualified to drive big rigs running into our teenagers.

00:06:59.680 We don't want our children kidnapped.

00:07:01.120 Yeah, and so you can't leave us alone.

00:07:05.540 But the other part of it is the Constitution means something to me.

00:07:09.240 I know that's not very interesting to people anymore.

00:07:12.320 But the Tenth Amendment says that the federal government has supremacy over the state government.

00:07:18.140 This is a perfect example of supremacy.

00:07:21.640 And if you ignore that, you set up an example for the states where they can just pick and choose laws that they want to follow and don't want to follow.

00:07:31.900 At that point, we are down the road to anarchy.

00:07:34.840 We are down the road to having no rule of law whatsoever.

00:07:37.820 And I think that's a dangerous place to be living.

00:07:39.920 Pearson, you are the unsatisfied everyman.

00:07:42.000 And what do you want to see out of your municipal government when dealing with the impossibility of complying with what the California legislature has requested?

00:07:51.900 I mean, I like what what Bill has been talking about.

00:07:56.100 I like your approach. You've taken a very not antagonistic, but sort of we're going to follow the law and this is the right thing to do.

00:08:03.940 And we don't care what you say. And I like that. I think more people need to do that.

00:08:06.800 And I think if the state governments in California and Illinois and other places can thumb their nose at the government and say, we're not going to follow that, why can't red cities do that, too?

00:08:17.400 Why can't we say, well, we're not going to follow you because you are breaking the law.

00:08:20.980 We're going to follow the federal law, which is the right thing to do.

00:08:23.960 Why don't we just have an uprising of red cities do that? 0.99

00:08:26.420 Because in California, if you took out the coastal cities, the state's red, man.

00:08:31.780 It's red.

00:08:32.660 If we didn't have Prop 50 just redistrict everything, when you look at the districts, we're a red state.

00:08:37.820 We've got tons of agriculture, tons of people living in rural communities.

00:08:41.480 We want common sense laws to protect our freaking families. 0.86

00:08:45.740 This is insane what we're having to go through right now.

00:08:49.980 Some have suggested this fever dream to me politically right now that because of your crazy jungle primary system, we could have two Republicans in the runoff statewide.

00:09:00.820 Yeah, I want to unpack this for viewers who, like most of our viewers would say, wait a second, the Republicans do the Republican primary and the Democrats do the Democrat primary and then they face off against each other.

00:09:11.540 But California has the jungle system. 0.85

00:09:13.680 Now, Republicans did not bring this to the state of California.

00:09:16.960 It was an effort by Democrats to ensure that you had a Democrat against a Democrat in the general election and that Republicans wouldn't even have a seat at the table, which is often the case.

00:09:26.500 Oh, yeah, it is.

00:09:28.660 And by the way, that's not good for democracy.

00:09:30.620 To be clear, this is Democrats swallowing their own poison pill, potentially.

00:09:36.740 But now you've got Eric Swalwell, Katie Porter, the former HHS secretary, Villagorosa.

00:09:44.320 You've got all these folks running.

00:09:46.300 They're splintered.

00:09:46.780 You've got two Republicans who both are well-known, I think competent, upstanding people, Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco.

00:09:53.780 So, I mean, are people crazy to think that this thing that the Democrats imposed on their own state might end up biting them in the rear end?

00:10:03.140 I think that if you judge it by Republican standards, it's interesting.

00:10:09.060 But the problem is Republicans aren't nearly as disciplined as Democrats are when it comes to keeping the party alive.

00:10:17.420 A Democrat strong person will come and pick the person they want to.

00:10:23.280 If it gets down to the point where it looks like it's going to be Hilton and Bianco in the finals, three of those Democrats are going to drop out, and somebody's going to be annoyed.

00:10:32.000 I agree.

00:10:32.500 Wait a second.

00:10:33.020 This sounds familiar, Pearson.

00:10:34.640 This sounds exactly like what happened to get Joe Biden the Democrat nomination in 2020.

00:10:40.060 You had a bunch of Democrats running, and then right there before Super Tuesday, Barack Obama picks up the phone, Buttigieg drops out, Klobuchar drops out, they screw over Bernie Sanders, and Joe Biden becomes the nominee.

00:10:53.100 Oh, yeah. So do you envision a world as a Californian? Absolutely. Where Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, the true people that run the Democratic Party get together and say, this is this is our candidate.

00:11:04.360 You think there's a chance they won't do that? Well, if I mean, I know who they're picking. You're getting Swalwell.

00:11:10.340 Well, yeah, of course. You're totally going to get Swalwell. And well, right now, the last poll I saw, he was ahead. Not by much.

00:11:16.200 It was like a point or two, but he was ahead. And so I think the others are going to drop out.

00:11:20.200 I think he's going to get chosen, and I think the two Republicans, Bianca and Hilton, are going to split the vote, and we're going to have Swalwell.

00:11:26.540 I think Katie Porter's a hard pill to swallow. 1.00

00:11:29.120 Yeah, she's not getting it. 0.97

00:11:29.780 She's just so unlikable and so hateful. 0.87

00:11:33.220 Can you imagine? 0.97

00:11:34.920 That's my favorite thing about her, her screaming at her staff all the time. 1.00

00:11:38.680 That's a woman in charge. 1.00

00:11:40.060 There must be a hard drive full of clips of her just berating people and treating them like horrible in horrible ways.

00:11:47.120 Never stop Hillary Clinton. 1.00

00:11:49.060 Well, yeah.

00:11:49.660 This is such a gendered criticism. 1.00

00:11:51.420 If a man yelled at staff that way, you all would think it was the new frontiers of leadership.

00:11:55.480 Honestly, I wouldn't.

00:11:56.480 Honestly, I believe in civility.

00:11:58.560 I really do.

00:11:59.160 I've always conducted myself that way.

00:12:01.140 I can't stand what people are bullies.

00:12:03.640 Yeah, I think that in this state, it must be really hard to maintain that civility

00:12:10.120 when you're confronted with a lack of common sense so often.

00:12:14.020 I wanted to get into another one of these.

00:12:15.900 We may get back to the governor's race, but in El Cajon, you're dealing with a fight over a license plate reader.

00:12:22.100 Walk us through that battle.

00:12:24.640 Okay.

00:12:25.680 There's a law that was passed in 2017 that said we could use license plate readers and connect to a national network.

00:12:33.400 And we went along with it like most every other city in California.

00:12:37.600 And we have been sharing data back and forth.

00:12:39.740 So say there's somebody coming from Louisiana that has committed a violent crime and we pick them up on our license plate reader. 1.00

00:12:48.780 We go to the database and it will flag us and say, watch after this guy.

00:12:52.900 He's not only is he wanted, but he's had a history of shooting people.

00:12:58.900 So and we had this exact same thing happen.

00:13:01.240 This is it happened from somebody from Phoenix.

00:13:04.260 He had shot his girlfriend, and we picked up his car on one of our streets.

00:13:10.840 He was sleeping there.

00:13:12.140 So instead of sending one cop to say, hey, you can't sleep here, we sent four cars, guns drawn,

00:13:20.120 and he still tried to shoot at our police officers.

00:13:23.280 So that's why this is a good system.

00:13:25.800 Sounds very reasonable.

00:13:26.760 Now, what did California do?

00:13:28.200 Well, California said, wait a second.

00:13:30.200 What if you use the – you put this data on this database that, of course, doesn't ask any questions about immigration status or legality status or anything like that.

00:13:41.880 But what if you did this and somebody from Arkansas said, oh, well, I'm going to call my friend in ICE and tell him about this person.

00:13:51.900 And then they're going to send somebody to pick him up in California.

00:13:55.560 They also said – believe it or not, this is a little hard to swallow.

00:13:58.600 But if somebody was coming into California for transgender care, we might call Alabama and say, hey, there's somebody here getting transgender care or getting an abortion, and you should pick them up and arrest them when they come back because they came from a state that doesn't allow those things. 0.97

00:14:17.660 And it's just lucrous.

00:14:19.520 Like you don't have enough to do as mayor of El Cajon that you're going to be calling Alabama over transsexual surgeries. 0.95

00:14:26.520 That's so crazy.

00:14:27.480 So they sent every city in California a letter saying, you've got to comply and not put this

00:14:34.120 on the database. You've got to get out of the national database. And everybody said, yeah,

00:14:39.120 okay, we'll do it. And I said, well, show me the law. So my attorney brought me the law. It was a

00:14:43.800 little paragraph. And I said, where does it say in this law that we can't do this and that they

00:14:50.020 can stop us from doing it? And they said, no, it's very clear. In fact, they've been doing it

00:14:54.140 since 2017 nobody's ever complained about it before and so i said no you could you get me a

00:14:59.340 judge's order telling me we have to and we'll do it because i'm not going to put people's lives at

00:15:03.360 risk just on on the whim of rob bonta who's our attorney general so so let me let me ask a more

00:15:09.760 fundamental question are you cool with license plate readers in your city oh yeah you're the

00:15:15.680 you're the constituent here do you like do you like that do you like giving the government the

00:15:19.300 power to read license plates?

00:15:22.360 There's a pro and a con.

00:15:24.220 There is a pro and a con.

00:15:25.220 I honestly don't know.

00:15:26.540 So if you were on the city council of El Cajon, and whether or not to use license plate readers

00:15:31.820 in the world of data aggregation and AI, saying where people are moving, all that gets stored.

00:15:38.320 At all times, keeping track, yeah.

00:15:39.360 You don't think that there's some world in which the left uses that against conservatives?

00:15:42.960 Absolutely, yeah.

00:15:43.260 I'm thinking about the post-January 6th hysteria.

00:15:46.100 They would have been hunting down MAGA grandmothers. 0.99

00:15:48.220 100%.

00:15:48.660 My first instinct is absolutely not anything that tracks us anywhere is a bad idea.

00:15:54.860 However, that's my Pearson.

00:15:56.780 We have a cop, several cops who might be alive today because of that example that you gave.

00:16:02.580 Give me another example.

00:16:03.560 We had this dentist who was Jewish and somebody came in screaming Allah Akbar and killed him in his office. 0.55

00:16:13.140 Horrible.

00:16:14.480 We were able to pick that guy up in about 30 minutes because our license plate reader caught his truck leaving and he didn't go and hurt anybody else.

00:16:23.680 All surveillance tools can be helpful.

00:16:28.480 Like when I was fighting against what I thought were abuses in FISA at the federal level, we would regularly be presented with, well, it helped us get this guy.

00:16:36.940 Well, it helped us get that guy.

00:16:38.640 And I wonder if that can always be a justification for violation of people's civil liberties.

00:16:43.040 I get it.

00:16:44.180 Did you weigh that, Mayor?

00:16:45.420 Oh, yeah.

00:16:46.180 Yeah, we talked about it a lot.

00:16:50.540 It just turned out that I was convinced in the end,

00:16:54.780 number one, the cat's out of the bag on surveillance.

00:16:57.760 I mean, you think it's just license plate, right?

00:17:00.440 It's everywhere.

00:17:01.520 Well, you've got to fight it where you can.

00:17:02.720 I mean, there's something called the stingray application

00:17:07.320 where I can turn on, our cops can turn on your phone

00:17:11.480 and listen to your conversations.

00:17:13.360 Oh, sure.

00:17:14.240 There's a technology called Pegasus that Israel developed

00:17:17.180 that allows them to activate those without you even hitting a button

00:17:21.380 and the principal buyer of the cartel.

00:17:23.240 What we finally decided was that we would set firm boundaries

00:17:27.080 on how the data could be collected and how long kept for.

00:17:30.580 So it can only be kept for 30 days.

00:17:33.160 It has to have a judge's order to be accessed.

00:17:35.880 And after that, it goes away.

00:17:37.560 So was it Franklin who said that a society that trades their safety for their freedom deserves neither?

00:17:44.200 Yeah, I'm sure that's the argument of all the libertarians against this.

00:17:47.700 But I don't pretend it's a close call.

00:17:49.540 I think it is an easy call.

00:17:51.620 I think that there are equities to weigh on both sides.

00:17:54.820 But where it reaches the point of absurd is when you have the left saying, we're not against surveillance for the sake of the surveillance.

00:18:01.280 We're against it because, you know, it could be used by ICE or it could be used by—

00:18:05.940 You might pull an illegal, you know, and you might catch him in the net.

00:18:08.580 So you know who else right now is obsessed and paranoid about this discussion we're having?

00:18:14.900 Vladimir Putin.

00:18:16.520 Vladimir Putin put up the article from Puck News, Putin's post-Iran paranoia.

00:18:23.180 And Puck News has this report where Putin has observed how the Israelis hacked the cameras in Iran and used that for years to track where the key members of the regime and the IRGC were, and that that capability allowed Israel to vanquish a lot of people a lot faster than they might otherwise would have done.

00:18:46.680 So now Putin has ordered all of the traffic cameras in Russia dismantled as a consequence of this.

00:18:54.760 It's a legitimate concern.

00:18:56.020 You cover Russia frequently.

00:18:57.740 You cover Putin's administration.

00:18:59.680 What do you make of Vladimir Putin being scared of his own traffic cameras?

00:19:04.320 I mean, I think that's a legitimate concern.

00:19:05.640 And he is someone who is famously paranoid about these things.

00:19:08.820 When I experienced that when I was in Russia in September, in Nizhny Novgorod,

00:19:13.700 They had cell networks that were shut down because they were afraid of drones flying over the area.

00:19:19.280 And so they just shut down cell networks so we couldn't get any reception.

00:19:22.220 So, like, that's fairly common in that area.

00:19:25.640 I mean, what's the consequence?

00:19:27.740 I don't know.

00:19:28.240 I think that—I don't think Israel is going to go after him, but I think it's reasonable to assume that, you know—

00:19:32.820 I don't even think that it is Israel.

00:19:33.500 It has nothing to do with Israel.

00:19:34.620 Right, I understand, but the capability that Zelensky, you know, and his regime could use.

00:19:41.140 But I don't think he has that capability either.

00:19:43.700 Yeah. The point is, if the technology exists to hack these cameras that now we've put everywhere, that Mayor Wells is rightly using to make sure that cops aren't killed and that people who are slaying a poor dentist are captured.

00:19:58.440 But if those can be hacked and used by the enemy and we've built that tool for the enemy, at least Vladimir Putin is concerned.

00:20:05.100 Maybe you're not as paranoid as Vladimir Putin, Mayor Wells.

00:20:07.300 I don't know that anybody's tracking me, but yeah, there's a lot to be worried about.

00:20:12.940 that whole pager debacle or, you know, yeah, I mean, actually, I think it was genius, but

00:20:18.240 you know, that, that's got to make everybody who's one of the bad guys look at everything

00:20:23.380 that they've got on their body and say, is my watch going to explode and kill me?

00:20:26.580 Well, we're all bad guys to somebody.

00:20:28.380 So that's an interesting point.

00:20:29.680 Yeah.

00:20:29.840 Yeah.

00:20:30.240 And, and, uh, yeah, that, I wonder if like future cities will want the kill switch where

00:20:36.320 if you ever find that a nefarious actor has gotten into this and is, Oh, we do have the

00:20:40.280 kill switch.

00:20:40.440 Oh, you have the kill switch.

00:20:41.440 You carried around.

00:20:42.100 if in the next few minutes it's you know the nuclear football i've got but i've got the

00:20:47.180 version of that it's like the new terrific it's the nuclear wallet but yeah i want to talk about

00:20:51.500 another consequence of this war that your constituents may be feeling and it's the price

00:20:55.520 of gas yeah uh people who live in your city often drive into san diego or to other areas in southern

00:21:03.260 California for work. They are working class folks. How has the rise in gas prices impacted

00:21:12.180 working people in your city? And have you heard about it even from your own city workers?

00:21:17.120 It's negative. I mean, I paid $150 to fill up my car yesterday. That hurts because you're

00:21:24.140 usually about 80. But, you know, my thoughts on that, number one, if you want to go after

00:21:29.580 the rise in gas prices how about the two dollars a gallon we pay extra in california yeah then

00:21:34.760 they're not paying in other states you know so you don't complain you don't complain about that

00:21:39.720 but you know it goes up on a temporary basis for a war that may stop an existential threat of us

00:21:47.420 being destroyed with nuclear weapons to me it's worth the extra and stop driving out the refineries 0.98

00:21:52.560 and you know they i didn't hear any of them complaining yeah exactly explain that i don't

00:21:56.520 understand that, Pearson. Chevron

00:21:58.560 and Valero, they shut down the refineries.

00:22:00.460 In California? In California, yeah. It's been over

00:22:02.380 50 years since we've built a refinery in California.

00:22:04.780 We used to have, I think, 67

00:22:06.540 in California, and now we've got six.

00:22:08.800 And another one is planning on shutting down.

00:22:10.600 Do you feel like your

00:22:12.420 constituents make that connection

00:22:14.300 that you just make, that, okay, it's costing

00:22:16.600 me, you know, $150

00:22:18.260 to fill up my car, but what I'm

00:22:20.440 really doing is I'm investing in my

00:22:22.520 defense against a nuclear strike from Iran.

00:22:24.420 I think they must be, because I'm not hearing

00:22:26.380 a lot about it. The only voices I'm hearing are the people that if Trump cured colon cancer,

00:22:33.100 they say, but we loved colon cancer. They're going to look for any excuse to go after Trump

00:22:38.600 and not weigh both sides of the argument. The people that I know are just hardworking,

00:22:45.520 not overly political people. I think they understand what's going on.

00:22:50.000 How long do you think that lasts? Because you made the reference that it's temporary.

00:22:53.940 time i think there's a time limit where do you think that stands maybe two three months may four

00:22:58.820 if that is that is that how you feel pearson that that two to three four months of of higher prices

00:23:05.200 you know if it if it gives people a stronger sense of security is something they will welcome

00:23:10.700 possibly but i didn't want this war and i think a lot of people in america didn't want this war

00:23:16.680 either you know this is not what i voted for to get involved in foreign wars like this so

00:23:20.220 I see no upside at this point we had we had a guest on our program this week who said

00:23:24.420 uh this is a 47 year war that Iran has been waging against us we didn't start this war 0.74

00:23:29.680 we didn't choose this war Trump is ending it how do you respond to that argument yeah I mean they

00:23:34.660 they may have posed a threat at one point I don't think we'd have my dad on to talk about this he's

00:23:41.380 got very strong feelings about a nuclear armed Iran I don't feel the same way I don't think they

00:23:45.620 genuinely posed a threat to us um and I don't think this was necessary I think we got dragged

00:23:49.780 in by some allies who were very vigorously pursuing an anti-Iran agenda for many years.

00:23:57.060 I think we got pulled in on that one. Now, let the ships fall where they may. I mean,

00:24:03.140 we can't, we're in this now. I think we need to win it and we need to win it hard.

00:24:07.620 What does that look like to you? What is a victory? When you look at the landscape and say,

00:24:11.780 that's how I know we won. To me, it's having a gay guy in charge of Iran. To me, that is total 1.00

00:24:17.620 complete victory like when you have a gay ayatollah that's not i don't want that don't we don't 1.00

00:24:23.440 isn't that the case right now right right i i think we can declare victory and walk off the 0.90

00:24:28.240 secular democracy that that we got this that's not a win for radical islamist theocracy to put 0.98

00:24:33.100 a gay guy in charge absolutely not when they surrender uh but when's that going to be i don't

00:24:37.300 know to who well we've waged war on them so it's either us or israel and it ain't going to be 0.85

00:24:41.960 israel like if an irgc general wanted to surrender now yeah well they're so who would he walk on the

00:24:48.000 streets and surrender to i i honestly well trump's saying that he's on the phone with these people

00:24:52.300 that he's making negotiations that he's talking to them and they're making progress so if he's

00:24:56.200 talking to someone someone has the authority to surrender over the phone well he did say that

00:25:01.600 they were close to or that they were working on in-person talks so i don't know what's happening

00:25:06.700 behind the scenes but i think we should clearly i think we should make it a drag brunch we should 0.95

00:25:10.580 just lean in and have the talks as a drag brunch and bring the gay Ayatollah in and just sass it 0.99

00:25:15.900 up. How do you see right now the war going from your standpoint as a local leader? And if it 0.98

00:25:22.700 sounds odd that I'm asking a mayor that question, what I learned in state government, your

00:25:26.600 constituents don't care where you rest in government. They think if you're in government,

00:25:32.260 you ought to have an opinion on everything. So what's yours? I'm so excited when we get our

00:25:37.340 merriweather farm shipments and you get a beautiful piece of ribeye look at that marbling

00:25:41.740 now i take it out of the package let it get down to room temperature all i've got on here is a

00:25:46.840 little salt a little pepper and then a little avocado oil and then i've had my pan preheating

00:25:52.020 with a little oil head to merriweatherfarms.com and enter promo code matt g for 15 off your first

00:26:04.880 order. You know, I was just in Israel about a month ago, and I got a chance to talk to a lot

00:26:10.520 of people from all the different aspects of people that are living in Israel. And it's clear to me

00:26:18.480 that Iran has been the destabilizing influence throughout the Middle East, and that we don't 0.99

00:26:26.020 get peace until that destabilizing influence is gone. I think that it's important. Israel's 1.00

00:26:35.240 important to us because it's the one Western-style democracy that we have out there, an ally,

00:26:42.500 and we certainly need allies there. Unless you live in Area C of the West Bank,

00:26:46.080 then you don't get to vote for the national leaders of the country.

00:26:50.120 You know, I don't know about that. I'm sorry. But, you know, I, you know, maybe it's hard for me to be objective. I sent a son to Afghanistan who sustained injuries and, you know, it was really hard for the whole family. And I just don't think that a nuclear armed Iran is a good thing. 0.96

00:27:13.480 I also don't think Donald Trump gets led by the nose by anybody, not Israel, not BB, not anybody.

00:27:22.700 So I have come to trust President Trump.

00:27:27.260 I wouldn't say with carte blanche, but for the most part, I trust his instincts.

00:27:32.740 I think he's done a good job, and I think he knows things that we don't know,

00:27:36.640 and I believe that he's doing the best he can to keep us safe.

00:27:41.540 That matches what I'm seeing.

00:27:43.480 too. From the viewpoint of a Trump supporter and someone who's traveled to the Middle East,

00:27:47.660 when you say there will be no peace until the destabilizing force is removed, is that

00:27:53.920 destabilizing force the Iranian regime, the mullahs, the IRGC? Help me understand how I know

00:28:02.460 as the viewer of this war that we have done the thing that you would want in removing the

00:28:07.940 destabilizing force you know i'll be a little hyperbolic here sure i watched a video after

00:28:13.640 october 7th of a woman that was pregnant get knocked down to the floor in her apartment and

00:28:18.960 they they cut the baby out of her while she was still alive with a military knife the people that 0.52

00:28:24.980 funded those guys they're the destabilizing force we we've got we've got to stop allowing that and

00:28:32.960 just turn the other way and so every funder of a terrorist network has to be vanquished for victory

00:28:37.720 to be achieved? No, I don't know that it's every funder, but there's no larger funder of terrorism

00:28:42.440 than Iran. I mean, perhaps China, but that's a little bit more ambiguous. Yeah, we don't have

00:28:48.440 to compare. I mean, terrorism is bad. The events you're describing are bad. I don't know that

00:28:53.560 uprooting the regime and having something else stand in its place is a realistic outcome based

00:29:00.740 on my observations of of of the war and like pearson said trump is talking to someone over

00:29:08.280 there now and trying to negotiate an entity here's the hard part yeah i think that the bill clinton

00:29:13.020 style of warfare where you drop some bombs from the sky and and you never get involved personally

00:29:19.280 never touch the ground i think that's unrealistic but didn't that work like i'm no bill clinton fan

00:29:25.020 but i actually thought he might have had the right middle east policy kind of fly i'm talking about

00:29:29.340 kosovo oh okay okay yeah uh it no i there poof that was a rough situation bill clinton bombed

00:29:36.420 with the aspen factory because uh because he was get getting caught in his uh yeah fly over

00:29:42.100 afghanistan drop a few bombs during the lewinsky thing got caught with his pants down kind of a

00:29:46.440 tail legs the dog thing but i but but you were making i think an important point if if bombing

00:29:51.640 overhead doesn't work do you believe that the right approach is is boots on the ground unfortunately i

00:29:55.640 think that that might have to be the case. And when American caskets draped in flags start

00:30:01.840 coming back to this country, do you think the American people are still going to support this

00:30:05.740 war? Some of them will, some of them won't. You and I are used to thinking about things in political

00:30:13.280 terms. How's this going to play at the ballot box? There are times when you make decisions just

00:30:17.560 because it's the right decision. And I'm sure there was an advisor that said gas prices are

00:30:22.820 going to go up and we've got the midterms coming. You've got to do something. And I'm hoping Donald

00:30:28.120 Trump said, I don't care. It's the right thing to do. And another advisor said, if you send troops

00:30:34.420 over there, there's going to be flag-draped coffins coming back. And he says, as much as that sickens

00:30:39.580 me, it's what we have to do to keep the preponderance of the people safe. I'm willing to do

00:30:46.780 that. I've done that. Your family has certainly shown elite patriotism. There's no question.

00:30:52.820 I remember talking to my son once, he called me before he went out on patrol, and I said, so when are you going on patrol?

00:30:59.520 He said, at about 10 minutes.

00:31:01.020 I said, so you think you'll see any action?

00:31:02.820 He goes, oh, Dad, when I walk out the gates, they'll start shooting at us, and they'll shoot at us for the six weeks that we're out.

00:31:10.020 Yeah, I guess I would posit this theory.

00:31:14.260 Maybe Iran isn't the most destabilizing force in the Middle East over the last 30 years.

00:31:19.820 Maybe it's been us.

00:31:21.100 You know, maybe it's been the Obama administration's funding of the Muslim Brotherhood that evolved into ISIS.

00:31:27.440 Maybe it's been George W. Bush's toppling of the Iraqi regime that actually strengthened Iran's hand. 0.83

00:31:34.200 Maybe it was Hillary Clinton working to get Gaddafi out of power in Libya that now has open air slave trade in Libya, just a crime against humanity. 0.99

00:31:44.660 And so I think that if you compared what Iran's done, which has certainly not been good, to what we've done in Syria, where you've traveled, that we have really, really, really destabilized the Middle East. 0.50

00:31:57.780 And that when we put boots on the ground and we topple governments, we oftentimes are creating more terrorists.

00:32:04.640 There are no positive outcomes.

00:32:05.900 I mean, if you have to pick Iran or the United States as a more destabilizing force in the Middle East, where do you land, Pearson?

00:32:14.660 I mean, you know where I land.

00:32:17.280 It's going to be the United States. 0.81

00:32:19.140 We've destroyed Libya and Syria and Iraq and now Iran. 1.00

00:32:22.420 And, you know, the knock-on effects from all of those,

00:32:25.620 the tens of millions of refugees that have flooded Europe. 0.87

00:32:28.980 Fortunately, I don't think we've seen any from Iran yet. 1.00

00:32:32.860 Oh, but that's coming, baby.

00:32:34.400 I don't know.

00:32:34.840 That comes with every one of these wars.

00:32:35.920 I don't know. We'll see.

00:32:36.260 There's a bunch of refugees coming into our country.

00:32:38.180 It's happened with every one of the last ones.

00:32:40.320 The problem with this is this has 100% cost us the midterms.

00:32:44.660 like this is it we're dead in the midterm but i agree with mayor wells actually that there are

00:32:49.640 times the right thing yeah there are times when you i don't think you do the right political

00:32:53.800 kamikaze mission because the the objective has to be achieved true my view this was not the right

00:33:00.140 thing though yeah my view is if we would like to do the political kamikaze mission let's do it on

00:33:05.600 the mass deportations let's take the political heat let's do the mass deportations and to me

00:33:11.340 that would actually improve on the ground for mass deportations i want i want troops in the city

00:33:17.940 going house to house getting these people out of here can i ask you a question sure sure man

00:33:22.660 so we're we're dealing every country is different in the middle east we're dealing with a country

00:33:29.340 that is waiting for the mahti to return that will lead the world into fire everywhere where all the 1.00

00:33:38.880 non-Muslims will be killed. And this regime feels like it's their obligation to help bring that 1.00

00:33:47.580 upon us. Now, if they have a nuclear weapon, it's a little different than some of the other

00:33:54.880 countries that have nuclear weapons because they don't have this fervent religious drive to try

00:34:01.060 to end the world. Some of those Pakistanis do, depending on who's in power in Pakistan at any 1.00

00:34:06.520 given moment. And look, there was a time when we had, I assume, had to make a decision to let the

00:34:12.400 Pakistanis do their thing and have their nuclear weapon or not. I'm just saying that people brush 1.00

00:34:19.800 off this nuclear problem like, yeah, yeah, whatever. I think it's a big deal. It is, but I can draw on a

00:34:25.800 little experience here because, I mean, I'm aware of the reports we got on the Armed Services

00:34:31.000 Committee that Iran had suspended their development of delivery systems of intercontinental ballistic

00:34:37.500 missiles back in 2015. And Tulsi Gabbard, just within the last two weeks, testified that they

00:34:43.640 wouldn't even be able to reignite that program until 2035. And the challenge, that's just part

00:34:50.320 of it. Country, the easiest thing about a nuclear program is actually getting the warhead. The

00:34:56.440 The second easiest thing is getting that warhead in the air into intercontinental orbit, which, by the way, the Iranians couldn't even get going until 2035. 0.94

00:35:04.100 And then the third thing, which really no one has been able to achieve at scale other than us, the Chinese, the Russians and the Europeans, is the reentry vehicle, where after the weapon is in orbit and it comes back through the atmosphere, the atmosphere doesn't just dissolve it.

00:35:21.420 That's what the North Koreans really never got going. 1.00

00:35:25.320 They can get it up in the sky, but they can't get the warhead back down in a reentry vehicle.

00:35:30.380 So Iran not having those things makes me less concerned about them.

00:35:34.660 I do believe that Iran having a nuclear weapon, even if they couldn't deliver it, is a really bad idea because of dirty bombs, because of suitcases, anything that they can do. 1.00

00:35:42.720 So I think those are good points.

00:35:44.420 But like the notion that an Iranian nuclear weapon was like weeks away from landing in New York is not scary.

00:35:50.040 No, and I want to reiterate, last year after Trump bombed them with our B-2s, phenomenal strike,

00:35:56.800 Tulsi Gabbard came out and said we had absolutely decimated their nuclear capabilities.

00:36:00.740 They had nothing left. Nothing.

00:36:03.560 Last week, she came out and said the same thing.

00:36:06.800 She said, since then, they still have no nuclear capabilities.

00:36:11.140 They can't hit us.

00:36:13.480 So I don't think that this was a legitimate concern.

00:36:16.880 But don't you think that they've been telling us for several years now

00:36:22.060 that they're a week or two away from having a nuclear weapon?

00:36:24.860 Well, they've been telling us that for 20 years.

00:36:27.140 That's what he was telling us in 2001.

00:36:30.360 But for guys like me who have never been in an Armed Services Committee briefing,

00:36:36.060 you know, it's a little disconcerting that we're allowing this to just continue and continue.

00:36:41.380 I mean, the same people who sold us the last war sold us this war,

00:36:45.060 And they told us weapons of mass destruction.

00:36:47.280 Weapons of mass destruction.

00:36:49.420 And the concept that we attacked Iraq because a guy from Afghanistan, a guy from Saudi Arabia who was living in Afghanistan,

00:36:58.160 attacked us so we beat up on Iraq.

00:37:02.200 Look, I'm not ashamed to say that this is above my pay grade.

00:37:07.560 But I'm just saying my common sense tells me that I trust the president.

00:37:11.260 And I think if he's telling me the truth, that there's legitimate reasons.

00:37:15.620 Now, if he's lying to us, that's a different story.

00:37:17.380 No one's accusing the president of lying.

00:37:19.100 I think that we want to make sure that no one's lying to him.

00:37:23.980 And I worry about people lying to him because sometimes people do.

00:37:28.700 And he's got to make a lot of tough decisions.

00:37:30.360 That's why he's there and we're here.

00:37:33.000 You are an outspoken supporter of the U.S.-Israel relationship.

00:37:37.920 I believe Israel has a right to exist.

00:37:40.120 I believe that they have a right to self-defense. But when I look at what's happened in Gaza

00:37:45.400 and I look at what's happening in southern Lebanon right now, I have a concern for Israel 1.00

00:37:51.620 that they may be creating more terrorists than they're vanquishing. When I see whole

00:37:56.800 apartment buildings and city blocks just laying in rubble, I wonder, gosh, when this is all over

00:38:02.820 and we're looking back at this 10 years from now, are we going to say, oh my gosh, thank goodness

00:38:07.080 Israel did that because now they're not under this terrible threat of these events like you

00:38:11.140 described? Or are we going to say, man, they're under, it's worse than ever because all these

00:38:15.200 kids grew up and their parents were dead and they became radicalized. Do you have any of those

00:38:20.180 worries about what's happening? Sure. I have all those worries. I just, I think there are some

00:38:26.360 things that become so existential that you have to act and you can't plan for all the contingencies.

00:38:33.180 And you say, at some point, we have to protect ourselves because this is not working.

00:38:39.860 And I was very, very shocked and offended by what happened on October 7th.

00:38:45.820 And to me, I always put myself in the frame of mind of if that had been my wife, if that had been my child, if that had been my parents, I don't know.

00:38:59.320 I'd want to take action.

00:39:00.700 But maybe that's why we don't let the parents of the victims make those policy choices because you can get so – have a human moment of rage and anger that captures you in a moment of retaliation.

00:39:14.880 Like, if a bunch of Tijuana drug cartels crossed over the border and, God forbid, harmed our families, we probably would be at the front of the line saying, level all of Tijuana and, you know, kill everyone you have to to get the perpetrators.

00:39:31.140 Do you think that if that were to happen, 80% of the people in Tijuana would be glad it happened to be celebrating in the streets?

00:39:38.460 I hope not.

00:39:40.080 But that's what happened with Gaza. 1.00

00:39:42.100 So they deserve to die? 0.97

00:39:43.240 no but it shows that they are not looking for peace that they're not interested in any of the 1.00

00:39:50.760 solution than the death of all israelis you think 80 of the people in gaza want the death of all 0.66

00:39:55.720 israelis that's the reports that i that i've read say yeah that they did surveys after there and 80

00:40:03.040 said it was justified it was the the attack on israel was justified it was a good thing that's 1.00

00:40:08.300 a horrendous that's just a sad thing for humanity if true it is horrible it's just hard to it's hard

00:40:13.880 to imagine but it's they've been indoctrinated with this for for so long they you know they 0.98

00:40:22.100 and we pay for it they they practice they they practice killing the killing the jew in in 0.98

00:40:28.100 kindergarten i thought that was borat but but but the noise but you're right that i've seen i have

00:40:35.980 seen those videos well i've seen the materials i've seen the materials where they glorify

00:40:41.140 martyrdom uh and we the we pay for it through the un which i think is is horrendous and there's no

00:40:47.360 like whataboutism oh this side uh does that to children so it justifies it on the other side

00:40:53.140 it's just categorically universally wrong but i mean pearson you've you've spent time in syria

00:40:58.260 you covered that's that civil war and i think you saw how uh these conditions of desperation

00:41:05.260 nurtured terrorism along do you worry there are places in the world right now repeating some of

00:41:13.040 those cycles you reported on in syria well first it wasn't a civil war and we engineered that war 0.99

00:41:18.320 in the first place the united states yeah i call it the syrian civil war because there were so many 0.90

00:41:23.100 different groups all fighting each other that's kind of what i think a civil war it wasn't it

00:41:26.040 wasn't natural uprising but in any case the i don't know what came first the chicken or the egg

00:41:33.460 between Israel and the Palestinians and Hamas,

00:41:37.100 but I've seen a horror on both sides,

00:41:42.740 and I think that has to be recognized.

00:41:44.960 Atrocities that Israelis have committed against children,

00:41:48.360 which are just unspeakable,

00:41:50.180 and atrocities that Hamas have carried out

00:41:54.540 that defy belief.

00:41:57.500 I had a lady on my report last year. 1.00

00:42:01.620 Her name was Mona.

00:42:03.460 and she's Lebanese, and she was from a small town.

00:42:09.080 And Hamas came in. 0.97

00:42:10.480 She was, I think, 10 or 12 when it happened,

00:42:15.440 and they butchered her whole village.

00:42:21.640 And they came into her house,

00:42:24.700 and they killed her brother and her sister

00:42:26.620 right in front of her, and they killed her parents.

00:42:29.560 and she's she's had over 50 surgeries reconstructive surgery they shot her in the face 0.94

00:42:36.440 and left her for dead and this is hamas you know these are evil evil people that needs to be wiped 0.92

00:42:43.120 out absolutely i i just i don't know where how do you wipe out an ideology i don't know but i think

00:42:51.520 i think israel is doing things that perpetuate the people to hate them and i think that people

00:42:57.120 who hate them are doing horrendous things that perpetuate Israel to defend itself. I don't know 0.50

00:43:02.620 where you draw the line. It's almost like you need an outside force that can institute some order in

00:43:10.880 some of these places. And I think that's what President Trump and kind of the relationships

00:43:18.140 he was forming with Turkey and Qatar to try to come in there and say, okay, like we're not,

00:43:23.380 we're not going to have abject chaos that turns Gaza into Haiti, where everything is just about 0.93

00:43:29.000 violence and bloodshed. You know, Mayor, do you think that in our lifetime, the people of the

00:43:35.440 Middle East, whatever side of this they're on, will get some respite and some sense of peace?

00:43:41.580 I mean, it's the Holy Land, for goodness sakes. I'd like to think so. It's hard to imagine how

00:43:46.320 that can happen. But, you know, frankly, it's hard to imagine that Democrats and Republicans

00:43:51.260 can sit at the same table again in America.

00:43:53.940 You know, I've got a whole lot of belief in humanity

00:43:56.500 that most people are like me,

00:43:59.760 and I'm assuming both of you guys,

00:44:01.660 we pretty much just want people to live in peace.

00:44:05.160 We want to be able to make money and...

00:44:08.500 Raise our families.

00:44:09.540 You know, watch my kids' football games and hockey games

00:44:12.100 and, you know, do as best as I can with myself

00:44:15.200 and enjoy my old age with my wife.

00:44:17.220 That's really what I think most people want.

00:44:20.800 Sure.

00:44:21.260 And so I have to hold out hope that that's the possibility.

00:44:26.640 But I couldn't answer you for sure.

00:44:28.260 It does oftentimes feel hopeless.

00:44:30.460 Unfortunately, the three of us are unable to resolve peace in the Middle East this hour.

00:44:34.300 But I do, before we get out of here, bringing the discussion back to the United States,

00:44:38.980 your governor, Gavin Newsom, is running for president.

00:44:41.280 Since we've had our last discussion, his odds in many of the prediction markets are rising.

00:44:47.080 And I don't know if that's a consequence of some of the Republican infighting we see.

00:44:51.260 or if he is out there on his media circuit and podcast circuit really changing minds,

00:44:57.460 what would you want voters in the country to know about Governor Newsom

00:45:01.420 that might not be a part of the big national image and national picture?

00:45:06.700 Well, I'd want them to know he doesn't seem very interested in our quality of life.

00:45:11.580 You know, we have the highest taxes.

00:45:13.860 We have the highest electric bills.

00:45:15.740 We have anything that costs money.

00:45:17.740 We're the highest.

00:45:18.980 We're the leader.

00:45:19.300 but but that's I could even live with that if we had a great place to live you know I was born here

00:45:25.120 in the 60s I grew up here in the 70s and 80s I went to college raised my family here

00:45:32.440 and we had a really great quality of life I mean California was the the greatest place to be I

00:45:39.500 couldn't understand why anybody wouldn't want to live here but you know starting about 20 years

00:45:44.820 ago, we decided, we made a decision that we would be the homeless capital of America.

00:45:50.820 We have 188,000 homeless people living on the streets of San Diego.

00:45:54.900 A third of the homeless in America are in California.

00:45:58.860 And the municipalities have had their hands tied. Every time I try to make this situation better,

00:46:04.540 I get a letter saying they're going to sue me either from the ACLU or from the Department of

00:46:08.980 justice they they absolutely defend when when i fought back on some of these other issues they

00:46:16.940 punished me by starting a homeless voucher program and even though our city only makes up three

00:46:22.440 percent of san diego county they put 55 of the people in that voucher program in in our city

00:46:28.820 they weaponized the homeless against the quiet little conservative city of el cajon

00:46:33.820 that's terrible did you guys see the james o'keefe expose on skid row yes absolutely and did you see

00:46:40.360 that i did with the homeless and the voting and bribing homeless with drugs and money to register

00:46:46.720 and vote and the homeless people said they had no idea what they were doing they were just you know

00:46:49.840 give me some fentanyl whatever and so my thought is we wonder why they're not cracking down on

00:46:54.840 homeless because the homeless are winning them elections that's exactly what it is let's let's 1.00

00:47:00.800 talk about the law that allowed most crimes that were considered serious violent crimes

00:47:07.900 were now considered misdemeanors. And we don't put anybody in jail. We've closed

00:47:11.580 two prisons in California. Well, that's because crime is down.

00:47:17.320 Yeah, that's right. We were in that laughable situation where you could steal $950 a day.

00:47:24.140 Yes. And so then the citizens stood up and said, okay, we're done with that. We're going to pass

00:47:29.800 an initiative that will change some of those laws back and make it more restrictive. And

00:47:36.360 then Governor Newsom said, I won't fund it. So he is fighting actively to make our streets

00:47:42.000 dirty, to make them dangerous, to let people die in their addictions on the side of the

00:47:46.920 road, to make it so unaffordable that nobody can afford to live here, to be fighting against

00:47:57.340 every uh chance to try to make fair elections it just goes on and on so my my question to anybody

00:48:07.540 who's thinking about voting for it's like do you really want those things to come to your state

00:48:12.680 and you want them to be initiated nationwide i just don't see how you can make a case for the

00:48:17.220 thing is like he has just failed upwards continuously like he's the poster child for

00:48:22.360 failing upwards nothing he has done in our state has has produced good results we are a train wreck

00:48:28.260 absolutely so sorry pearson diagnosis diagnosis why he's been able to do that and fail up so

00:48:34.740 effectively well he's got tons of friends in the media he's got a good public image and he's got

00:48:39.800 the right people behind the scenes it's making it happen for him it's d versus r i but even the

00:48:46.060 like even the democrats i think could find somebody who would be better because of what

00:48:52.200 you just said what he just offered there was a totally non-partisan critique but what bill said

00:48:58.320 is he doesn't care about our quality of life you could use that attack not just in a r versus d

00:49:04.940 but even among democrats if you show someone allowed things to fall into such disrepair like

00:49:09.580 if i was some moderate democrat i'd just go try to run against this guy i mean like look

00:49:13.360 you can have all these pipe dreams but you can't put the fires out the other issue the other issue

00:49:20.020 is maybe he is not winning because the voting system here in california is extremely suspect

00:49:25.540 in riverside right now they're in it they're doing an investigation and all these other

00:49:30.980 democrats when he ran for governor in an investigation they're doing one right now

00:49:34.200 chad bianco is working on it they had 650 000 people vote in riverside there's only 600 000

00:49:41.400 voters and so active participation right and so they're doing an audit and they're they're pulling

00:49:47.540 all these uh votes and the secretary of state is trying to shut them down a judge overruled it and

00:49:52.880 said go ahead with the investigation but california is fighting to keep that under cover that's just

00:49:57.020 one county cliffhanger we'll have to get we'll have to get sheriff bianco uh on the couch to

00:50:01.000 talk to us about his investigation i want to mention two other like basic things uh we always

00:50:06.720 complain about drought. Everybody says, oh, drought, drought, drought, drought. You know

00:50:10.960 that we flush out 17 times the amount of water that every man, woman, child in the industry

00:50:16.920 could use in California. We flush it out to sea because we refuse to build any reservoirs

00:50:23.660 or basins. You mentioned the oil refineries. We have to have a special blend in California

00:50:29.980 of gasoline, but we only have two oil refineries.

00:50:32.060 else in the country we only have two oil refineries it just it just goes on and on and on it's like

00:50:39.340 he's he is the manchurian candidate that was sent here from some america-hating evil country and 0.88

00:50:46.580 said all right this is your goal i know you're never yet to all these things i don't know hold

00:50:50.740 my beer i'm gonna i'm gonna check off everything on the list well the point the point is though

00:50:54.400 this is not an accident this is you know we go through our lives right man why does stuff suck

00:50:58.320 so much here it's on purpose this is all on purpose they're doing this on this is the plan

00:51:03.860 destroy america destroy our way of life well and that's why i think these fights that el cajon

00:51:09.860 this relatively small city in this big state that's why these fights are so important and

00:51:14.760 that's why even like you might think something as simple as the the reader of car plates uh would be

00:51:21.840 manageable but it raises these big questions about privacy and the 10th amendment and government

00:51:27.060 cooperation. And we certainly hope you're successful on the cooperation that you're

00:51:31.920 trying to provide the federal government and just that you get clarity. I think you're probably

00:51:36.440 right. This could be a matter that goes before before the high court. And it's something a lot

00:51:40.860 of different communities are dealing with. This hour flew by. I've got to get out of here. But

00:51:45.120 any final comments or where can people follow you on social media and see what you're up to in the

00:51:49.520 city and how some of these issues progress? Yeah, they can follow Bill Wells, Mayor of

00:51:54.240 El Cajon on Twitter. You can email me at bwells at elcajon.gov. And I'm not running for anything

00:52:02.880 right now, so I don't have a website for that. But you just pray for me that we stay strong

00:52:08.860 through this process. Absolutely. We indeed will. And Pearson, what do you think we missed this week?

00:52:13.880 What do we think we missed? That's right. I always give you a little final moment here

00:52:17.180 if you think I blew past something of great import. No, I think we covered it all. Iran

00:52:21.480 and El Cajon. That's really the only issues that I care about right now.

00:52:24.340 That's right. I think that's how it should be. What a wonderful conversation, Mr. Mayor. Thanks

00:52:29.580 for joining us, Pearson. I had a great time. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Bill. Thank you.

The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - March 26, 2026

The Anchormen Show EP 113 - The Right Thing to Do w⧸ Pearson Sharp and Mayor Bill Wells

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript