In this episode, we're joined by California Republican Governor candidate Steve Hilton to discuss his campaign and why he's running for the office of Governor of California. Steve is a former Fox News host and has been a business owner and has worked in government in the UK. He's been in politics for 15 years and is now running for Governor.
00:06:23.000Hey guys, and welcome to another huge episode of Triggered.
00:06:27.000Today, we're going to do a deep dive into the state of California and how the California dream morphed into a golden state nightmare.
00:06:36.000We'll look at the fire rebuilding, or should I say, the lack thereof.
00:06:40.000We'll look at the rising costs, insane fuel prices, the policy of failure, and everything in between.
00:06:48.000We'll be joined by Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton, a friend you probably know Steve because he used to have a show on Fox News.
00:06:58.000He worked in government over in the UK.
00:07:00.000And now he's taking his mission straight to Sacramento to expose all of the far-left failures.
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00:09:21.000Okay, so you're running for governor in California as a Republican.
00:09:24.000Not always easy, historically not easy.
00:09:27.000And yet it feels like if there was ever a time, now would be it because we've witnessed nothing but gross incompetence from the ruling party of California, which has been the Democrat Party forever.
00:10:44.000I mean, literally, if you just go through it, right?
00:10:46.000We have California today, highest unemployment rate in America, highest poverty rate in America, highest taxes, highest costs for everything that matters.
00:10:56.000Gas, electric, water, insurance, rents, home prices.
00:11:00.000Chief Executive Magazine runs a survey every year on best and worst states to do business.
00:11:05.000For the last 10 years, California was rated worst of the 50 states.
00:11:10.000We are 50th on affordability, 50th on opportunity, according to U.S. News and World Report.
00:11:36.000So, you know, Steve, let's start with the devastating fires.
00:11:39.000Obviously, Pacific Palisades and the communities across the states, they face catastrophic wildfire risk.
00:11:45.000And yet, between environmental regulations and a bunch of other nonsense, they make it nearly impossible to clear brush.
00:11:53.000do controlled burns or properly manage forests.
00:11:57.000They also refuse to tap into, you know, the little water resource that you have called the Pacific freaking ocean because, you know, it was seven feet away from most of the fires, but you can't possibly use that.
00:12:07.000You know, insurance companies are fleeing the state.
00:12:10.000You know, to start, you know, what is the status of rebuilding?
00:12:38.000So nearly a year ago now, it's 10 months, like last January, soon after the fires, Newsom went there to LA and he stood there in the ruins of the Palisades and he said, we're going to have a Marshall plan to rebuild LA.
00:13:21.000Beyond, I mean, and you knew what was going to happen anyway, because they were going to have to put up affordable housing on the most expensive real estate in the history of mankind.
00:13:28.000You knew they were going to do that because, of course they were.
00:13:37.000So you're going to have to build back a lesser property, even if you can build it back.
00:13:40.000And if you do that, you're going to have to fund the housing for, you know, because again, someone making $10 a year should be able to have waterfront views and big backyards.
00:13:53.000But the apartment thing is actually, again, an example of their ideology.
00:13:57.000So here in California, the way that we've grown and developed and to enjoy the weather and everything is single family homes, you know, the suburban lifestyle.
00:14:04.000That's what families want when they have kids, a yard where their kids can play and enjoy the weather.
00:14:14.000So it's all got to be density and infill development.
00:14:17.000And that's what they're pushing through, apartments in suburban areas.
00:14:20.000And they're using this as the test case for it.
00:14:22.000But that's not how people want to live in California.
00:14:25.000And it's driven by this climate insanity that says that if you build outwards rather than upwards, that's bad for the climate because people have to drive their cars and they want everyone to live in apartments with no parking and take transit.
00:14:38.000And I always say, is that how they live?
00:14:49.000They don't want it for what they have themselves.
00:14:52.000They don't want it for regular working people.
00:14:54.000And so you see that, again, the fire situation kind of illustrates what's going on all around the state.
00:15:00.000Well, I mean, in fact, we've covered on this show the scandal surrounding the state insurance commissioner, taxpayer-funded trips that have literally nothing to do with being insurance commissioner, basically lavish vacations.
00:15:15.000How much of a crisis of leadership does California currently have?
00:15:20.000How much further does it go beyond this one guy that we've covered extensively because it was particularly egregious, but I'm sure there's plenty of this going on.
00:15:28.000We just saw another scandal last week.
00:15:29.000Gavin Newsom's former chief of staff, Dana Williamson, she was just indicted, federal indictment on corruption charges, tax evasion, all these things, because it's the same mentality.
00:15:39.000It's this arrogance of the one-party rule.
00:15:42.000They think they're entitled to everything.
00:15:44.000They can dip into campaign funds and use it for personal expenditure.
00:15:48.000Actually, she was dipping into someone else's campaign funds.
00:15:53.000I mean, you know, communists isn't going to dip into their own funds.
00:15:56.000They're going to dip into someone else's, dude.
00:15:58.000And then, and then she's now saying that Newsom himself, she was, they were asking her to get involved in some federal investigation of Newsom, which hasn't been confirmed.
00:16:13.000It's California, so it's going to go nowhere, even if he actually had something to do with it, which wouldn't surprise any one of us who's been watching for the last few years.
00:16:22.000There's this thing called behested payments, which is insane, where an elected official in California can just literally phone up whoever they want with business before the state, totally corrupt, and say, please give money to, I don't know, random example, my wife's non-profit.
00:16:44.000And then you've got the real kind of systemic corruption, of course, which is the unions, the government unions in California totally control the and the trial lawyers, the two biggest donors to Newsom and to the Democrat politicians, government unions and trial lawyers.
00:16:59.000And they completely control the politicians.
00:17:20.000You're hit by these totally extortionate lawsuits called PAGA lawsuits, Private Attorney General Act, which is basically a license for lawyers to just extort money from decent businesses.
00:17:31.000And 75% of the settlement goes back to the government.
00:17:39.000Everywhere you look, it's totally corrupt and totally failing.
00:17:42.000And the person, you know, obviously involved with Gavin Newsom, I mean, I talked about it on the show on Monday, but I didn't even hear about it.
00:17:50.000Like my team sort of flagged it, like, hey, by the way, did you see this?
00:17:53.000Because they're in there looking into the details on stuff that is not going to get any news coverage.
00:17:58.000I mean, I wouldn't have even known about it.
00:17:59.000And I literally do this for a living because they're going to cover up for that person.
00:18:02.000I have a feeling that if it was you, we wouldn't be getting that same kind of treatment.
00:18:06.000So imagine how much more of this is going on that's just never going to see the light of day because they're just going to be like, hey, you got to, but maybe they tell them to stop.
00:18:13.000Maybe they say, hey, you can keep going as long as there's 10, 15, 20, 30, 50% for the big guy.
00:18:21.000The fact that this isn't covered wall to wall, I mean, you have a person who's going to be likely a leading contender for the Democrat nomination in 2028.
00:18:31.000This is one of his top employees doing this in such a flagrant manner.
00:18:40.000And that's the, and, and that, because it's all part of this one-party rule regime.
00:18:46.000And Sacramento, I often say, I mean, you know, you know it, you've seen it and your father's seen it and all the team going to Washington and battling the swamp.
00:18:55.000And we see now that that's really happening.
00:18:57.000The swamp in Sacramento, much worse, because at least in DC, you've had over the years, you know, Republican administration, Democrat, at least some change up.
00:19:08.000Here in California, it's been a one-way street, left, left, left, the same people that just get held over from one rotten administration to the next one without any interruption.
00:19:19.000That's why I think really this is the moment where people are sick of it.
00:20:04.000And also, you see it, by the way, in that attitude with one of the candidates for governor, one of my Katie Porter, in that meltdown interview she had the other week.
00:20:13.000Yeah, it's embarrassing for her and ridiculous the way she behaved.
00:20:16.000But actually, the attitude that it was conveyed there, which is like, how dare you ask me questions?
00:20:22.000You know, oh, of course I'll win if there's a Republican.
00:20:24.000It's just this arrogance that they all have.
00:20:27.000Yeah, we should actually play the clip back for the people.
00:22:26.000Well, that's why their entire campaign, whatever it is, right?
00:22:29.000You just saw it with this election rigging thing from Newsom.
00:22:33.000You'll see it in the governor's race next year.
00:22:35.000The entire thing that they, all they ever talk about is Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, because they have nothing to say on anything of substance because they've totally failed on everything.
00:22:46.000And they've got nothing to offer except more of the same.
00:22:49.000So all they can ever talk about is, oh, we're fighting Trump.
00:22:52.000And that's what she said in justifying that meltdown was like, well, we need a fighter to take on Trump.
00:23:41.000I mean, I think it's a very difficult and thankless task.
00:23:44.000But again, I think if there was ever a time that you can actually get people to understand now is it, what do you do to take on the challenge?
00:24:21.000The second point is it's already a more, it's a more Republican state than people realize.
00:24:25.000Even in the last governor's race, where you had a candidate that wasn't well known, didn't raise money, didn't even really campaign, they still got 40.7%, nearly 41%.
00:24:34.000Now, that's not 50%, but it's not 20%.
00:24:52.000But actually, if you look at the numbers and you look at what we can expect in terms of the vote next year in California by taking an average of the last two midterms, the total number of votes estimated next year is 11.8 million.
00:25:07.000So to win, let's just say just over half of that, the target number of votes for me, 5.9 million.
00:25:14.000So the reason that's important, you look at what President Trump got last year in California, without, for obvious reasons, didn't particularly campaign here, 6.1 million votes.
00:25:24.000In other words, if everybody who voted for the president in California last year votes for me next year, I'll win with 200,000 votes to spare.
00:25:32.000Now, of course, we're not going to get everyone, but the reason that's important is it gives you a strong campaign strategy.
00:25:40.000For too long in California, I think Republicans here have believed that the way you win is to try and be some kind of Democrat light, some wishy-washy, you know, watered down version of the GOP.
00:25:56.000What you've got to have is a strong message that actually inspires people and gets them to turn out.
00:26:02.000And so I see exactly as President Trump has put together nationally, that multiracial working class coalition that is strong and clear, common sense.
00:26:12.000And that's why my entire campaign is like very direct.
00:26:14.000You know, we're going to get rid of the climate insanity so we can cut gas prices, $3 gas, cut electric bills by killing windmills and ending the solar subsidies and using natural gas, cut your electric bills in half, cut taxes, your first 100 grand free of state income tax, a home you can afford to buy, you know, really simple, but going directly at these people and just dismantling this far-left insanity with a really strong, clear message.
00:26:44.000So, Steve, you know, I love that and it makes so much sense.
00:26:47.000Hopefully, you know, there's enough people that have suffered under this failed leadership for so long that you get there.
00:26:53.000But, you know, on a personal note, what motivated you to do this?
00:26:57.000And, you know, what's your story and personal connection to California?
00:27:01.000Because again, this not an easy task and oftentimes probably a thankless task.
00:27:05.000And you put the R next to your name in California, your persona non grata.
00:27:10.000You know, how did this whole voyage start for you?
00:27:14.000So most of my career, as I mentioned, I've been in business back in the UK, restaurants, other kinds of business.
00:27:22.000And then we moved here in 2012 with my wife and my two sons.
00:27:25.000I taught at Stanford University for a bit, started a business here as well.
00:27:30.000Just before moving here, I actually worked in the government in the UK.
00:27:34.000I was senior advisor to the prime minister.
00:28:47.000I'd actually tried to put a ballot initiative together to cut impact fees on developers and get rid of the environmental lawsuits that mainly are filed by unions to block housing.
00:30:20.000If you know what you're doing and you're well prepared, you can go in there.
00:30:23.000You've got as governor, thousands of appointments to hundreds of agencies, these insane bureaucracies that are holding everything up and making everything so expensive and complicated.
00:30:33.000The Coastal Commission, the CARB, the California Air Resources.
00:30:39.000Well, all the, well, the governor appoints people to these things.
00:30:41.000You have like four, you know, thousands of appointments to hundreds of these agencies.
00:30:45.000So if you know what you're doing and you're lawyered up because they're going to sue you to hell and back, but if you're really well prepared, and I'm already doing that work now because it also makes you a better candidate, if you know what you're talking about, you can actually make a difference, I think, quite quickly, especially to the business climate.
00:31:04.000I think that's where we can do, like one example is these PAGA lawsuits that are just extorting money out of restaurants and other businesses.
00:31:14.000I'm in the middle of the Central Valley, our great agriculture industry being completely crushed by ridiculous policies from Sacramento.
00:31:23.000You can really turn that around quite quickly by appointing smart, sensible people, kicking out the ideologues and the useless bureaucrats.
00:31:32.000I think the business climate is one of the quickest things we can turn around.
00:31:36.000And then, of course, that leads to incomes and growth and less unemployment, all those good things.
00:31:41.000Yeah, I mean, so I've dealt with the California Coastal Commission as it related to, you know, golf course that we have in Rancho Palace Verdes.
00:31:47.000But the best story perhaps I've had to hear about that was even during the transition period as I was getting to know Elon Musk quite well.
00:31:54.000And he was literally telling me that in the time it took to get a permit to build a landing pad for one of his rockets, he was able to design, build, and test a rocket.
00:32:07.000Like something that you send into space, like that, the design, building, engineering, and testing of a rocket was actually simpler than getting a permit to like land it there where you could actually make sense to domicile a company that generates billions in revenue.
00:32:25.000I mean, that to me was like the epitome of stupidity.
00:32:29.000And so if you could wipe out all of those people and put common sense people in there, like think of what that could do to the California economy.
00:33:47.000I mean, I think back on the skills that you need to actually make things happen in government, that job teaches you more, you know, more what you need to know because basically you've got to focus on results and outcomes.
00:33:59.000I mean, I would show up on the construction sites.
00:35:55.000And then, you know, you've got, I mean, San Diego, Orange County, these are, you know, they're becoming more purple, if you like, but there's a lot of strong Republican support there.
00:36:05.000But I really believe that if you look at LA County, that's the biggest county in the country.
00:36:11.000Like nearly a quarter of the voters of California are in just that one county.
00:36:16.000And that's where I think we've got a lot of opportunity if we have this very clear populist message with working class people in LA County who have just been completely destroyed by the gas price.
00:36:29.000These are people who drive their trucks every day, you know, hours every day.
00:36:33.000And the gas, I talk about $3 gas with them and they immediately can tell me the dollar amount that they will save every month, which, you know, some fancy Marin County laptop wielding work from home climate warrior just doesn't care about.
00:36:51.000So I think that's really the opportunity.
00:36:53.000And Republicans have never been there in California in that same way.
00:36:56.000Just as, you know, to me, it's the equivalent of no tax on tips, that kind of thing, which is very powerful for working class people.
00:37:04.000Yeah, I mean, Hollywood and the sort of industry is obviously very liberal, but their business and production is also suffering in California.
00:37:14.000I mean, people are looking at your reasons to go elsewhere.
00:37:17.000There's obviously, you know, the union guy putting up a set probably doesn't have the same view of the actors or the producers.
00:37:24.000I mean, is there any real opportunity for engagement there?
00:37:27.000Because again, if you vote to vote, it feels like there's a lot more of those guys than there are, you know, actors and producers.
00:37:34.000And also you've got, I mean, other, it's all those ridiculous regulations that make everything so expensive.
00:37:39.000The climate regulations even affecting filming, like they're banning the kind of generators that they used to use on set to keep the light, literally keep the lights on because of climate.
00:38:11.000Anyway, I was, yeah, and I was talking to the president, actually, and on the phone, even months ago, and he said to me, hey, Steve, I saw your thing for $3 gas.
00:39:14.000There's plenty of moderate Democrats around America as voters, but they have no representation because you can't get elected into a national office or even a statewide office without the help of the radicals on the coasts.
00:39:29.000You're not going to get the Soros money needed to win some of these congressional races unless you're like, hey, defund the police and let's have some radical transgender DEI hire that was a formal social worker be the chief of police.
00:39:47.000I mean, by the way, that's a great point, which is on top of all these disastrous kind of practical economic things going on, you've got all the woke stuff still.
00:39:59.000The biological boys and girls sports, just the other week, that story in the LA gym where a woman was complaining because a biological man was in the locker room and she was the one who was kicked out.
00:40:13.000I mean, the people that bitch about victim blaming a lot seem to really blame the victims.
00:40:18.000I mean, imagine another time in history where that would be the outcome.
00:40:22.000Imagine another civilization that could survive with that mentality.
00:40:33.000You know, the parents just, you know, completely, you know, again, you talk about working class voters and Latino voters, particularly, the kids coming back with kind of going on about all these different genders and they hate this stuff.
00:40:49.000And I think if we just give them that glimpse that it doesn't have to be like this, that you don't have to put up with this nonsense, that we really can have something just normal in California.
00:41:00.000I think people are really going to go for it.
00:41:02.000I mean, the truth is that because we have this very messed up system in California, which this top two system, so you don't have a Republican primary, Democrat primary.
00:41:11.000All the candidates are on the same ballot.
00:41:14.000And so right now, I'm sort of navigating all of that because we've got to have a Republican in the top two.
00:41:20.000There have been races in California where you end up with two Democrats in the final.
00:41:25.000And so that just ends up being a race to the far left.
00:41:30.000So we've talked about gas prices, but beyond that, what's the most important way life in this state will tangibly improve for the average family if you're governor?
00:41:40.000Well, I think that it will be, well, I think it's the cost of living, honestly.
00:41:43.000I mean, that's just one example, but you've got electric bills and food price.
00:41:48.000I mean, all of these cost of living issues.
00:41:50.000Remember, it's the most expensive in the country right now.
00:41:54.000That is the most tangible thing because so much of that is driven by energy costs.
00:41:59.000And that's something we can turn around very quickly.
00:42:02.000Because as governor, you can reverse what Newsom's been doing, which is shutting down the California oil industry so that now we're importing oil from halfway around the world, including ludicrously from the Amazon rainforest.
00:42:14.000Newsom's just running off to the Amazon preening in front of the global climate elite.
00:42:18.000Meanwhile, because of his policies, California is buying half the oil that is drilled in the Amazon rainforest.
00:42:42.000You actually have a lot, like literally under your own ground.
00:42:45.000You could just utilize that, but no, instead, they're going to deforest the Amazon, which I'm sure the average Libtard over there probably isn't a fan of.
00:43:06.000And it leads to the high prices, but also the destruction of these drugs.
00:43:09.000I mean, I'm in Bakersfield, Kern County, all around there, you know, the heart of our energy industry.
00:43:15.000And they just, every time I go back there, and I spend a lot, I spent a lot of time there, and I talk about the number, you know, how many barrels and millions, you know, hundreds of thousands of barrels are being produced.
00:44:03.000The other thing now, because they've reduced it so much, the refineries in California, which are built to refine California crude, are actually losing the business.
00:44:51.000But we could actually drill crude in Texas where you can do it.
00:44:54.000We ship it abroad to be refined and back to the United States.
00:44:58.000Like rather than just building a refinery there or utilizing the existing refineries that we had, they're shutting them down, which, you know, again, if we've learned anything over the last few years, it's like we need supply chains.
00:45:10.000We need to be able to do these things.
00:45:12.000We can't be dependent, especially when, you know, whether it's Iraq or Iran or Venezuela, like, you know, not exactly our friends.
00:45:21.000So, you know, if and when the crap inevitably goes down, like, are they going to be reliable partners with us or will China show up with a briefcase of cash and control their oil reserves for the rest of the eternity?
00:45:50.000And actually, what's happening in California in relation to that is a perfect example of what's gone wrong.
00:45:56.000So you're seeing now, because of what's happening from the federal government, from the Trump administration, massive investment in manufacturing, all these things.
00:46:04.000Bay Area companies, California companies like Nvidia just announced at the White House a few months ago a huge investment in America, half a trillion dollars.
00:46:16.000By the way, you should get, if you build a new business or start a business in California, especially in the public markets, I mean, you should be liable to the shareholders for breaching your fiduciary duties because how can you?
00:46:30.000You know, you're going to get sued to oblivion.
00:46:31.000You know, you're going to get regulated to death.
00:46:35.000That's why the Elon example earlier about the California Coastal Commission, not letting them, being harder to literally get a permit to do a launch pad and a landing pad than to actually build a rocket and design one and engineer it is exactly example.
00:46:57.000I guess they're going to keep, they're going to tax their way into prosperity.
00:47:00.000That hasn't exactly worked in all that many places.
00:47:03.000All that's left, I mean, I've made this point.
00:47:05.000Like it's like they won't be satisfied until the only people left are kind of government unions and far-left activists.
00:47:12.000That seems to be their vision for what this state is.
00:47:15.000Of course, they don't generate any wealth.
00:47:17.000And so right now, you have Gavin Newsome bragging about how California is the fourth biggest economy in the world.
00:47:23.000And that's literally true statistically right now because we have these big tech companies mainly generating huge amounts of revenue, but not creating jobs.
00:47:31.000The jobs, the blue-collar jobs, and all the rest are going to other states because, like NVIDIA's investment in Texas and Arizona rather than in California, there's another one, Anthropic, just last week, and made a big announcement: 50 billion this time, 4,000 jobs, all in Texas, not in California, even though it's a California company.
00:47:48.000Yeah, and by the way, a pretty damn liberal company.
00:48:30.000And he was really, what I loved about Charlie was he really loved California and he really saw this actually.
00:48:36.000He said, look, we can't let it go down because it's kind of funny to joke about it and so on.
00:48:41.000But actually, it's really important for the country that California doesn't completely fail.
00:48:46.000And it's a beautiful, you know, at its best, has been a beautiful example.
00:48:50.000I mean, I sometimes say California means to America what America means to the world.
00:48:55.000It represents, or the best version of it, represents everything that's great about our country: energy and ambition and optimism and dynamism.
00:49:02.000And that's been completely destroyed by Newsom and these people.
00:49:08.000So, Steve, I got to ask you a little bit about just, you know, obviously we're focused on California and America, but I do have to ask you, since, you know, everyone can hear it in the accent, you're from the UK.
00:49:19.000I mean, speaking of lost causes, I mean, that's a scary, scary place.
00:49:24.000Do you think that this election, you know, coming up, do you think that, you know, a guy like Nigel Farage, what can he do to win?
00:49:32.000You know, when I see places, you know, people are thrown in jail for criticizing roving gangs of migrant rapists, literally raping children in the street.
00:49:41.000And if you criticize them on social media, rightfully so, you actually have greater penalties, jail time, greater than those who are actually doing the raping, which, you know, I mean, it feels like a scene out of blazing saddles, like, but it's happening.
00:50:09.000It's actually unbelievable to see how badly it's fallen.
00:50:14.000I mean, even, I mean, I left when was it 2012, so 13 years ago.
00:50:18.000And the big thing, I mean, there's a couple of components to it.
00:50:22.000There's an economic aspect, which is the country's just a mess economically.
00:50:26.000I mean, we, and the big thing with Brexit, of course, I went back to the UK to campaign in favor of Brexit, and that's when I met Nigel and so on.
00:50:33.000Of course, he was really leading all of that.
00:50:36.000And no one, it was just the precursor to President Trump winning the first time around in 2016.
00:50:42.000And yet they completely threw that away.
00:50:44.000And the whole point of Brexit was to control the UK's borders, to get rid of the ridiculous regulation from Brussels and the EU bureaucracy.
00:50:53.000If that immigration went up, I mean, it's just, and that was conservative governments to their great shame.
00:51:00.000And now you've got a socialist government elected, making it even worse.
00:51:05.000And then on these social issues, the immigration that's out of control and the censorship and the total subversion of values of decency and morality.
00:51:57.000I'm not really in touch with it at all.
00:51:59.000But he's the only one that's out there with that kind of energy and clarity about how far gone things are and how things need to be turned around.
00:52:08.000Yeah, listen, your focus is on California.
00:52:12.000But I look at these other places that, you know, really, I always say sort of prior to COVID, you said, hey, the UK, Ireland, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, great democracies around the world.
00:52:50.000And everyone else was so much more far gone than we would have believed.
00:52:54.000I think during 2020 and that election and then prior, you know, post that, you know, COVID, you realized America was also struggling with a lot of the same problems.
00:53:11.000And funnily enough, it's something I say often when I'm on the road and I'm talking about what's, and I mention what's going on in England as an example of what not to allow happen here.
00:53:23.000And I connected to Charlie and his fight for free speech, what he lived and fought and died for, and the threat to free speech.
00:53:30.000And I tell that story of the comedian that got on a flight just the other week, a couple of months ago now, in Phoenix and was arrested at Heather Airport in London for telling jokes on the internet.
00:53:41.000And I always make this joke, like they sent five armed police to arrest him at the airport.
00:53:45.000I said, you're lucky you get five armed police anywhere in England for anything.
00:54:11.000And the line that I often use in these speeches, I say, I'm, among the other things I'm fighting for in this campaign, I'm fighting to make sure that this state that I love does not turn into the country I left.
00:54:34.000You saw the consequence to being on our side of the table fighting for the basic things as sort of entrenched in our Bill of Rights from 1789.
00:54:52.000You know, you don't think they're going to take it further?
00:54:54.000I mean, if they could try to throw Trump in jail, if they can try to take away his businesses, that they can create such rhetoric that they actually tried to kill him.
00:55:02.000Like, you don't think they'll do that to you?
00:55:04.000Like, if they can do it to a guy with that platform, with the means to fight back, with that balance sheet to be able to push back, with that big a soapbox and that big a following, if they can do it to him, they can do it to anyone.
00:55:14.000But more importantly, I think, Steve, if they will do it to him, who won't they do it to?
00:55:29.000And the totalitarian impulse that they could, and that's that, that's in them anyway, because they hate freedom, they hate free enterprise, they hate free society.
00:55:37.000They want to constantly boss you around, tell you what to do, run your business, you know, here in California from morning to night, what kind of house to live in, what kind of car to drive, you know, how to raise your kids, how to cook your food, no gas stoves, all of this nonsense.
00:55:52.000You know, their impulse to totally take over is incredibly strong.
00:55:56.000Well, Steve, lastly, you know, where can voters learn more and get involved to help you out on this?
00:56:01.000Because again, it's sort of like this show.
00:56:03.000It's like, these are not easy things to do, but people have to be part of that line of defense.
00:56:47.000We all have to be part of it to be able to control our own destiny, which is something we haven't done all that well for a long time, but we cannot let it continue this way.
00:56:54.000So thank you for having the guts to get out there and do that.