Is diversity a founding American value? Also, Steve Hilton joins the show to talk about his campaign for Governor of California, and we hear his case for why he is the best choice for the next Governor of the Golden State.
00:00:41.000He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
00:00:47.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
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00:01:46.000And beyond that, I agree with him completely on what he wants to do for California.
00:01:49.000And I just love his spirit, his spunk, his wit, his charm.
00:01:52.000And it's Steve Hilton, who is hopefully going to be the next governor of the great state of California.
00:01:57.000Well, the once great that we want to make golden again.
00:02:01.000Mikey and my team knows that every time I land in California, which is quite often, I'll be there next week quite a lot, I say the same thing.
00:02:42.000From Yosemite National Park, from Orange County to Santa Barbara to the Bay Area to the Redwoods, there really isn't a place quite like California.
00:02:54.000I say, if California was like as liberal as, I don't know, if it was like Nevada, if it was as liberal as like a moderate liberal state, I would live in California.
00:03:26.000We are on the road, fighting to save California.
00:03:28.000We're just driving from San Francisco, where we were yesterday.
00:03:34.000Dealing with all those horrendous issues, the complete collapse of civilization that you see on the streets of San Francisco.
00:03:41.000We're now on the road to Fresno in the Central Valley, our amazing agricultural heartland.
00:03:47.000But first, Charlie, I just want to say thank you so much for being part of our amazing event in Huntington Beach on Tuesday.
00:03:53.000I wish you'd been there to hear the gasp of excitement when we didn't tell people you'd be joining us.
00:03:58.000We just played your wonderful video and the crowd was so excited, as was I. And I really, really appreciate your friendship over the years and your support of me in this effort.
00:04:10.000Because it actually means, I say this the whole time, California is too important to let it slide further into stagnation and decline.
00:04:23.000We've got to end this 15 years of Democrat one-party rule and go in a new direction.
00:04:28.000So Steve, tell us the agenda that you presented of exactly your plan to make California golden again.
00:04:35.000So it's got to focus on those positive, practical things that are common sense.
00:04:41.000That term that President Trump uses the whole time, it's exactly right.
00:04:44.000We've had so much ideology over these past years.
00:04:47.000That's what's driven all this extremism and ended with those terrible results that we all know.
00:04:52.000So we've just got to think about those basic things.
00:04:55.000It's a simple story of the California dream.
00:04:58.000A good job where you make enough to raise your family in a home of your own, a safe neighborhood with a good school so your kids have a better life than you.
00:05:25.000So the number one thing I want to do, the quickest thing we can do to directly put more money in people's pockets is take working people and working families out of state income tax because it's insane the level of taxation in California.
00:05:39.000You add it all up, we have the highest taxes in the country.
00:05:41.000So the first part of my plan is to take anyone earning $100,000 or less, which is not a big salary.
00:05:47.000California, considering how expensive everything is, won't pay state income tax.
00:05:51.000Right now, they're paying 9.3% state income tax.
00:05:54.000Even if you're earning $70,000, it's insane.
00:05:57.000Secondly, we've got to make it easier to start and run a business in California.
00:06:01.000I've run businesses both here in America.
00:06:49.000So we've got to remove those restrictions, get rid of the complexity and all the building codes, make it easier and cheaper to build the homes we want.
00:07:38.000And I don't know if you heard what I said earlier, but it's a tragedy and a crime against the country what the Democrat cabal have done to California.
00:08:41.000We had the most fantastic building and engineering projects in the world.
00:08:45.000We're literally about to drive past one of them, San Luis Reservoir, just here in...
00:08:50.000Just close to the Bay Area, built in the 1960s.
00:08:54.000We built the State Water Project to collect the melted snow melt from the Sierras and get it to Los Angeles and the dry parts of Southern California and the Central Valley.
00:09:05.000We did that a generation or more, two generations ago.
00:09:09.000We stopped being able to have that ambition and hustle, and that's what we need to get back to.
00:09:14.000It's all possible and doable if we have the right mindset, the right ambition, and get rid of this far-left ideology that's ruined this beautiful state.
00:11:05.000So the first point is that California is already...
00:11:08.000Much more of a Republican state than people think.
00:11:12.000The average share of the vote in California for Republicans, even in the last 20 years or so, where there hasn't been the kind of energy we're seeing today, it's over 40%.
00:11:21.000That's more than a lot of people think.
00:11:23.000But in the last year or so, you're seeing real energy and change.
00:11:27.000And I think it's part of the Trump factor that's sweeping the nation.
00:11:31.000So you look at the last election in California.
00:11:36.000From blue to red in California, including where I'm heading today, Fresno County.
00:11:41.000It's the fifth biggest city in the state.
00:11:43.000These aren't just tiny little rural areas.
00:11:45.000Ten counties, Democrats and Republicans.
00:11:48.000Then you see what happened on the statewide ballot initiatives.
00:11:51.000In a way, last November, Republicans won in California without anyone realizing it.
00:11:57.000The measure of Prop 36 to make crime illegal, again, after Kamala Harris's ridiculous Prop 47 that legalized theft up to $950 today, the notorious one, that was overturned by 70% majority across the state, but also measures to stop a big tax increase,
00:12:14.000to stop rent control, to stop the minimum wage rising.
00:13:13.000You've got to have that fighting spirit.
00:13:14.000You've got to have clear, simple ideas that can give people hope.
00:13:18.000I think everyone understands you need change in California, but they haven't had that sense of, this really could happen, so I should get engaged.
00:13:25.000That's the whole point of my campaign.
00:13:27.000Say, look, here are the things we can do to make your life better.
00:14:32.000There's a whole farming industry there that's being crushed by Democrats every day.
00:14:36.000I'm going to be telling the story of how we can change things for the better.
00:14:40.000We're going to be putting it all out, live streaming our events at a policy forum in San Francisco yesterday where we asked questions from the crowd on every single issue.
00:14:50.000And so this is going to be a very visible, high-energy campaign.
00:14:53.000And I hope people follow the best way to follow the campaign.
00:14:56.000Follow me on social media at Steve Hilton X. See you on the road.
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00:18:00.000It was extra legal, and the idea was that they would protect themselves, all these different groups, the middling artisans of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, against threats from the French and pirates in the Delaware as well as on the frontier.
00:18:12.000And what he saw was that many of the Germans who had come over, they'd migrated and massed to the colonies, had not participated in this effort, even though he tried to woo them into it.
00:18:22.000And so in 1751, he'd made this effort in 1747.
00:18:26.000In 1751, he starts railing against the German immigrants.
00:18:29.000And he says, why are we bringing in all of these German migrants?
00:18:33.000He says, rather, what's going to happen?
00:19:21.000So that was immigration awareness number one, was we actually don't want to bring in lots and lots of immigrants because of certain threats that they pose, although we do admit immigrants.
00:19:56.000And the second was the kind of character.
00:19:59.000What are the manners and the habits of the people that are coming over?
00:20:02.000And what kind of institutions will they endorse if they're allowed to vote in our political system?
00:20:07.000Is it the case that they're going to bring over some of the bad policies and habits that they had left and that they had fled from?
00:20:14.000So that was the second major important point.
00:20:17.000It's also the case that if we're going to be honest, the founders' warning to us would be that diversity undermines unity.
00:20:24.000And that's why if you get to the first Naturalization Act of 1790, and this is just truth, it may offend us today, but the founders said only free whites could become citizens.
00:20:35.000And the reason for that wasn't just you have ideas of inequality, natural inequality.
00:20:41.000But even Franklin in the 1760s, he looks, he goes, he visits the Negro school and he says, well, I've changed my mind about these black children.
00:20:49.000It seems like they can learn just like white children.
00:20:52.000But even then, he says, I hope that will discourage migration.
00:20:56.000And the reason that Franklin and Jefferson, Jefferson as well, took this position and notes on the state of Virginia, was they didn't think you could have Republican freedoms.
00:21:04.000If you had a population that was torn apart by faction.
00:21:08.000And so this becomes, of course, this guides immigration policy, who can become a citizen all the way until the 14th Amendment and the New Naturalization Act of 1870.
00:21:21.000And that's when white Americans say, particularly the radical Republicans, they could see that the attempt on the part of the Southerners was to reintroduce slavery through a loophole in the 13th Amendment.
00:21:32.000And so in the 14th Amendment, they recognized natural-born citizenship for the freedmen, as well as they changed naturalization policy.
00:21:42.000And so you have whites and blacks can become citizens.
00:22:49.000It also increases the entitlements program or the welfare programs of the localities and the states and, of course, today the federal government.
00:22:57.000And so from 1880 to 1920, we do see a change.
00:23:21.000And I think the challenge to us is, how do we maintain this sense of unity so that we can protect those Republican freedoms and freedom under the law?
00:23:29.000And so I can go to the last two waves in law.
00:23:38.000And that created all kinds of problems.
00:23:40.000The attempt to assimilate them into the body politic.
00:23:44.000It was also the case that they introduced new institutions to try to manage the migrants.
00:23:49.000What we look at is the family courts today.
00:23:51.000If you read Roscoe Pound, this was the dean of Harvard Law, he's writing about the family courts.
00:23:57.000And he says these are introduced to manage all of these Southeastern Europeans who are coming over here who don't know our ways.
00:24:03.000And so in the family court, you don't have due process rights.
00:24:06.000You have maxims of equity that guide all the rulings of the judge.
00:24:11.000If you don't follow them, you're in contempt of court.
00:24:13.000So what happened after the 1920s was two laws passed, 1921 and 1924, and they introduced a national origins quota, and this would have basically froze out those who could migrate to the United States.
00:24:26.000Seventy percent of all migrants would come from just three countries, northwestern European countries.
00:24:31.000But the real effect of that immigration law of 1924...
00:24:40.000So the percentage of foreign born in 1920 was about 14%.
00:24:44.000When you get to 1960, it's about 4 or 5%.
00:24:47.000And what that meant was all Americans just had more kids.
00:24:51.000Americans of all different races because there was a prioritization on those who were natural born citizens.
00:24:57.000The 1965 Immigration Act, as we all know, changed much of that.
00:25:01.000And one of the great dangers that it introduced was this.
00:25:05.000At every period of mass migration, whether you talk about the Irish in the 1840s or the migrations from southeastern Europe, 1880 to 1920, that you had a period of assimilation that followed these waves.
00:25:18.000What's happened since 1965 is an ever-increasing number of migrants, and it poses that great threat to us that I think the founders warned about, and that is how do we maintain some kind of a unified...
00:25:55.000But if you get to the end of Federalist 10, he warns about a lack of any common sense of the whole.
00:26:00.000And so there's a mean that has to be achieved.
00:26:03.000And then obviously, again, the founders did not think we could have a racially diverse body politic that would also secure Republican freedoms.
00:26:12.000And that's why in the Naturalization Act, again, one of the first acts passed by Congress in 1790, only free whites could become citizens.
00:27:01.000So what are you doing this Easter to celebrate with your family?
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00:28:27.000I need to ask about the 14th Amendment.
00:28:29.000Do you believe the intent of the 14th Amendment was to apply to the children of illegal aliens?
00:28:35.000Do you believe that was the original intent?
00:28:38.000And how should we think about it in a modern context?
00:28:41.000No. I think it's kind of absurd that those who...
00:28:47.000Wrote, ratified the 14th Amendment, would have thought that it applied to the children of illegals, even when the Supreme Court weighed in to establish those who were born on U.S. soil were U.S. citizens, that it was for a migrant worker who was here legally.
00:29:21.000Doe, they've talked about certain rights of the children of illegal immigrants to education in the United States, but Supreme Court's never actually ruled on that question, whether birthright citizenship applies to those who are here illegally.
00:29:34.000Not legally, those who are here to work,
00:29:38.000And so, going back to this idea of the founders and their intent on immigration, It seems as if we are just constantly flooded.
00:29:47.000With this idea that we must allow in the entire world and the entire planet, you said something noteworthy to me, which is faction.
00:29:55.000It seems as if we are suffering under great faction here in this country.
00:29:59.000In fact, it seems as if we are a nation of strangers, not a nation of neighbors, that we all have different origin stories, sometimes different languages, and we are ships passing in the night.
00:30:08.000Talk more about the founders' caution around faction and connect it to some of the things that we're experiencing today in 2025.
00:30:16.000Well, you know, Madison, he defines faction in Federalist 10. He says any time that there is an individual or a group whose ends would deprive other citizens of their rights, that's a faction.
00:30:29.000But the real caution that I think the founders give us with regard to faction of ethnicity, race, those kinds of things, is you begin to see yourself as a member of a certain insular tribe.
00:30:40.000That's why they're cautious about some of these religious groups.
00:30:43.000You know, Roman Catholics, Jews, they were less than, you know, maybe a percent of the population.
00:30:48.000So Federalist II talks about all the things that would unite a people, and that would be a common language, common customs, common religion, common ethnicity, migrating from the same parts of Europe.
00:30:58.000So that was their idea as to what would help root a people, that would help to maintain the affection that would preserve the common and the common good.
00:31:06.000I think what we've seen, and this is particularly since, and we see really two movements of this.
00:31:11.000The first one begins in the That's where you have certain thinkers who begin to argue that they ought to be able to maintain their group identity as well as be citizens of the United States.
00:31:26.000The argument there is that America is nothing but an idea.
00:31:30.000That really begins, as best as I can tell, in the 1920s.
00:31:34.000And so you have Elaine Locke talking about the new Negro and blacks being able to retain their own identity.
00:31:41.000You have the same thing for Jews in the 1920s talking about how all these groups, they ought not to have to assimilate, but rather...
00:31:52.000It has no common ethical principles, and of course they extend that to religion and all these other things.
00:31:57.000The danger with that is, and that kind of mentality, is that once you begin to import more and more groups, they keep their tribal identities, and there's no longer a pressure to assimilate.
00:32:08.000And by the time you get to the late 60s...
00:32:10.000Then the problem is, is that in the interpretation of what, you know, the 64th Civil Rights Act, whether you agree with it in relation to the government, federal government to private business or not, that what had been a colorblind act, at least in its intentions, was interpreted in a very lawless way to begin to recognize different groups.
00:32:31.000And you have to understand, this is why the founders revolted, that they revolted against the British Empire because...
00:32:37.000In the British Empire, you were accorded certain privileges and duties, not based upon equal citizenship, but based upon your overlapping assigned group identities.
00:32:45.000And that's what we see beginning to happen in the 1970s through the EEOC, Title VI and Title VII, as well as even in Title IX, that in a very lawless way, we begin to manage and balance these different groups that only have their own interests in mind.
00:33:01.000You can see this, by the way, with some of the insular minorities who, when they talk about...
00:33:06.000Donald Trump will say something like, well, what have you done for my people?
00:33:10.000I think that's the dangerous part, is you only think about the good of your people.
00:33:14.000Dr. Slack, we'll have you on again soon.