Triggered - Donald Trump Jr - Can California be Golden Again? Interview with Gubernatorial Candidate Steve Hilton

Nov. 20, 2025 - Triggered - Donald Trump Jr

57:54

Can California be Golden Again? Interview with Gubernatorial Candidate Steve Hilton | TRIGGERED Ep.293

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	Hey guys, and welcome to another huge episode of Triggered.
	Today, we're going to do a deep dive into the state of California and how the California dream morphed into a golden state nightmare.
	We'll look at the fire rebuilding, or should I say, the lack thereof.
	We'll look at the rising costs, insane fuel prices, the policy of failure, and everything in between.
	We'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.
	He's been a business owner.
	He worked in government over in the UK.
	And now he's taking his mission straight to Sacramento to expose all of the far-left failures.
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	Joining me now, guys, California Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton.
	Steve, great to have you back here, man.
	How are you doing?
	It's fantastic to be with you.
	Good to see you.
	Okay, so you're running for governor in California as a Republican.
	Not always easy, historically not easy.
	And 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.
	Yeah, exactly.
	I mean, it's so insane now.
	I mean, you look at Gavin Newsom and his corrupt crew here in California, what they've done.
	They've basically run this far-left experiment, as you say, completely unchecked.
	It's been one-party rule for 15 years directly.
	This goes back even further with the legislature, and the results are in, and it's a total and complete disaster.
	Literally, the worst performing state in America.
	I sometimes joke that your father ran, obviously, for president on the platform of Make America Great Again, MAGA.
	Newsome's going to run on MAGA, the most useless governor in America, because he is.
	He really is.
	We have.
	I think I said Joe Rogan said something like the best.
	It's like, you were a mayor of a city that turned into a failed city.
	You became the governor of a state that became a failed state.
	And now you're going to run for president ultimately.
	What exactly is the record that you're running on?
	I mean, with that kind of experience, it should be disqualifying, not qualifying.
	100%.
	I mean, literally, if you just go through it, right?
	We have California today, highest unemployment rate in America, highest poverty rate in America, highest taxes, highest costs for everything that matters.
	Gas, electric, water, insurance, rents, home prices.
	Chief Executive Magazine runs a survey every year on best and worst states to do business.
	For the last 10 years, California was rated worst of the 50 states.
	We are 50th on affordability, 50th on opportunity, according to U.S. News and World Report.
	We have the worst roads.
	I mean, literally, it's kind of genius to screw it up so badly on absolutely everything else.
	Yes, it's like a monkey guessing at random would do better than this.
	Meaning like, you know, you flip a coin, like maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong, but it's 50-50.
	It's like, this is, how do you flip a coin on tails a thousand times?
	Exactly.
	It's unbelievable, actually.
	So, you know, Steve, let's start with the devastating fires.
	Obviously, Pacific Palisades and the communities across the states, they face catastrophic wildfire risk.
	And yet, between environmental regulations and a bunch of other nonsense, they make it nearly impossible to clear brush.
	do controlled burns or properly manage forests.
	They 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.
	You know, insurance companies are fleeing the state.
	You know, to start, you know, what is the status of rebuilding?
	Because it seems so dire there.
	It's a joke.
	It's a total joke.
	And it's a really good illustration of everything else that's gone wrong.
	Because actually what it is when you drill down is this terrible combination of ideology, far-left ideology, and just sheer incompetence.
	And it's both those things that are turning California into this disaster.
	So you look at the rebuilding, okay?
	So 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.
	It's what he said, a Marshall plan.
	10 months on, I was there the other day, barely anything is happening.
	Why?
	Because they just can't get it together because they send everyone demented with the bureaucracy.
	So I've talked to homeowners there the whole time.
	You go to the building department every time there's a different person, some new rule, some new ridiculous requirement.
	They won't give you a permit until you get insurance.
	The insurance won't give you that until you go and show you have a permit.
	I mean, on and on.
	Beyond, 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.
	You knew they were going to do that because, of course they were.
	So now you say ideology.
	People can't build back what they had because we didn't love the zoning code.
	So we're going to change it.
	So you're going to have to build back a lesser property, even if you can build it back.
	And 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.
	It's nuts.
	It's totally nuts.
	But the apartment thing is actually, again, an example of their ideology.
	So 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.
	That's what families want when they have kids, a yard where their kids can play and enjoy the weather.
	They hate that.
	They've gone to war with single family homes.
	They hate the suburbs.
	They hate all of that.
	So it's all got to be density and infill development.
	And that's what they're pushing through, apartments in suburban areas.
	And they're using this as the test case for it.
	But that's not how people want to live in California.
	And 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.
	And I always say, is that how they live?
	Does Newsom live in an apartment?
	Is Nancy Pelosi now in her retirement going to be trundling around San Francisco on transit?
	Of course not.
	It's just elitism.
	They don't want it for what they have themselves.
	They don't want it for regular working people.
	And so you see that, again, the fire situation kind of illustrates what's going on all around the state.
	Well, 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.
	It's just corruption.
	How much of a crisis of leadership does California currently have?
	How 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.
	Yeah, totally.
	We just saw another scandal last week.
	Gavin 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.
	It's this arrogance of the one-party rule.
	They think they're entitled to everything.
	They can dip into campaign funds and use it for personal expenditure.
	Actually, she was dipping into someone else's campaign funds.
	Javier Pascari.
	Because of course you would.
	I mean, you know, communists isn't going to dip into their own funds.
	They're going to dip into someone else's, dude.
	And 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.
	We'll see where that goes.
	The whole rotten system is corrupt.
	It'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.
	Yeah, but there's this whole thing.
	There'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.
	All of this stuff has been going on.
	Totally legal.
	It's legalized corruption.
	And 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.
	And they completely control the politicians.
	So they get whatever they want.
	You have the longest lockdowns and school closures because the teacher unions wanted it.
	You have the most litigious state now in California in America.
	You can't build anything.
	You can't do anything without being sued.
	You know, back in the day, I mean, people know me from TV, but most of my career has been in business.
	In England, I used to run restaurants.
	You run restaurants in California.
	You'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.
	And 75% of the settlement goes back to the government.
	It's just this legalized extortion.
	And that's what's going on here.
	Everywhere you look, it's totally corrupt and totally failing.
	Yeah.
	And 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.
	Like my team sort of flagged it, like, hey, by the way, did you see this?
	Because they're in there looking into the details on stuff that is not going to get any news coverage.
	I mean, I wouldn't have even known about it.
	And I literally do this for a living because they're going to cover up for that person.
	I have a feeling that if it was you, we wouldn't be getting that same kind of treatment.
	So 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.
	Maybe they say, hey, you can keep going as long as there's 10, 15, 20, 30, 50% for the big guy.
	But it's crazy.
	The 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.
	This is one of his top employees doing this in such a flagrant manner.
	And it's like crickets, nothing.
	Exactly.
	Exactly.
	And that's the, and, and that, because it's all part of this one-party rule regime.
	And 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.
	And we see now that that's really happening.
	The 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.
	Here 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.
	That's why I think really this is the moment where people are sick of it.
	There's a majority for change.
	You look at the polling, there's really big numbers now saying the state's going in the wrong direction.
	So I think this is our best shot to change it in at least 20 years.
	Yeah, I never thought of it that way, but you're right.
	When you have one party rule for so long, it doesn't even matter who the leader is.
	If the bureaucracy gets so entrenched because there's never been a changeup, they do get a little bit more relaxed.
	They do start doing these kinds of things.
	There is going to be no check and balance.
	And so I imagine the problems really accumulate in aggregate to where they got to be totally disastrous.
	Yeah, exactly.
	And they're so arrogant.
	They assume that they're going to be there forever, that there's nothing that's going to happen.
	That's why they behave like this.
	And 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.
	Yeah, it's embarrassing for her and ridiculous the way she behaved.
	But actually, the attitude that it was conveyed there, which is like, how dare you ask me questions?
	You know, oh, of course I'll win if there's a Republican.
	It's just this arrogance that they all have.
	Yeah, we should actually play the clip back for the people.
	We just put it in here now.
	You haven't written and I'll answer it.
	And we've also asked the other candidates, do you think you need any of those 40% of California voters to win?
	And you're saying, no, you don't.
	No, I'm saying I'm going to try to win every vote I can.
	And what I'm saying to you is that multiple voters.
	Okay, so you don't want to keep doing this.
	I'm going to call it.
	Thank you.
	You're not going to do the interview with us.
	Nope, not like this.
	I'm not.
	Not with seven follow-ups to every single question you ask.
	Every other candidate has answers.
	I don't care.
	I don't care.
	I want to have a pleasant, positive conversation with you ask me about every issue on this list.
	And if every question, you're going to make up a follow-up question, then we're never going to get there.
	And we're just going to circle around.
	I am annoyed by the people.
	I haven't had to do this before, ever.
	You've never had to have a conversation with me.
	Okay, but every other candidate has done this.
	What part of, I'm me, I'm running for governor because I'm a leader.
	So I am going to make.
	So you're not going to answer questions from reporters?
	Okay, why don't we go through?
	I will continue to ask follow-up questions because that's my job as a journalist, but I will go through and ask these.
	And if you don't want to answer, you don't want to answer.
	So nearly every you're right.
	It was like, it wasn't, by the way, this is like Democrat regime media questioning, you know, a leading Democrat candidate for governor.
	Like, it wasn't like it was hardball.
	It wasn't anything.
	And it was like, how dare you not just accept my non-sequitur, my non-answer answer?
	They actually pressed.
	I think they've just never been pressed on anything before.
	It's like when I went on the view years ago, they're like, wow, you went.
	I was like, well, I don't know.
	No one's ever gone on the view apparently and like pushed back.
	And they're so accustomed to just, you know, getting whatever narrative they want.
	And everyone wants to come back to sell a book or whatever they're doing.
	So no one's ever pushed back.
	But when you do, you realize it's just a house of cards.
	They have no substance.
	There is no answer.
	There is nothing there.
	Well, that's why their entire campaign, whatever it is, right?
	You just saw it with this election rigging thing from Newsom.
	You'll see it in the governor's race next year.
	The 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.
	And they've got nothing to offer except more of the same.
	So all they can ever talk about is, oh, we're fighting Trump.
	And that's what she said in justifying that meltdown was like, well, we need a fighter to take on Trump.
	No, we don't.
	It's not Trump's fault that we make this point all the time.
	Our gas prices are double what they are in places like Texas and Tennessee.
	But President Trump, the last time I looked, is also the president in those places.
	So it's obviously not his fault that everything's so expensive in California.
	It is a homegrown disaster.
	But of course, they can't admit that.
	So everything has to be put on President Trump.
	Well, you know, they're petrol and children, and we've seen that.
	And the results really speak for themselves.
	But I guess, Steve, from a bigger picture, how are you approaching this campaign?
	Democrats have a big registration advantage.
	How do you go about taking on this challenge?
	I mean, I've known you a long time.
	I think you're great.
	I mean, I think it's a very difficult and thankless task.
	But 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?
	Yeah.
	Well, I think the first point is, as I said earlier, that there is a majority for change, right?
	So that's a good starting point.
	People think more than 50% of California says we're going in the right.
	It's actually as high as 60% in some of the polls.
	Who are the other 40% out of California?
	I always say that.
	I don't understand.
	I know.
	Is this like Nancy Pelosi's family and the Gettys and the Newsoms or something?
	And then a bunch of homeless people.
	It's insane.
	I agree with that.
	Anyway, we don't need everyone.
	A majority is enough.
	The second point is it's already a more, it's a more Republican state than people realize.
	Even 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%.
	Now, that's not 50%, but it's not 20%.
	It's not nothing.
	So you're starting from higher than people realize.
	But the real point that is, excuse me, how I'm seeing the race is next year is a midterm election, obviously.
	And you tend to get a lower turnout.
	But 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.
	So to win, let's just say just over half of that, the target number of votes for me, 5.9 million.
	So 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.
	In 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.
	Now, of course, we're not going to get everyone, but the reason that's important is it gives you a strong campaign strategy.
	For 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.
	And actually, that hasn't worked.
	What you've got to have is a strong message that actually inspires people and gets them to turn out.
	And so I see exactly as President Trump has put together nationally, that multiracial working class coalition that is strong and clear, common sense.
	And that's why my entire campaign is like very direct.
	You 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.
	So, Steve, you know, I love that and it makes so much sense.
	Hopefully, you know, there's enough people that have suffered under this failed leadership for so long that you get there.
	But, you know, on a personal note, what motivated you to do this?
	And, you know, what's your story and personal connection to California?
	Because again, this not an easy task and oftentimes probably a thankless task.
	And you put the R next to your name in California, your persona non grata.
	You know, how did this whole voyage start for you?
	So most of my career, as I mentioned, I've been in business back in the UK, restaurants, other kinds of business.
	And then we moved here in 2012 with my wife and my two sons.
	I taught at Stanford University for a bit, started a business here as well.
	Just before moving here, I actually worked in the government in the UK.
	I was senior advisor to the prime minister.
	I'd been in and out of politics.
	I'd worked as a junior researcher when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister.
	I helped elect David Cameron Prime Minister.
	And then when I was in 10 Downing Street, helped the implementation of our reform program.
	I was there battling the bureaucracy, doing all of that.
	And then very unexpectedly, most people know me from being on Fox and my show, The Next Revolution, and you're a guest there.
	And it was a great honor to do that.
	But it's really all about talking.
	And most of my career has been doing.
	And as the years went on, I just got, I don't want to say frustrated, that's a bit negative, but I just wanted to do things again.
	And I love California.
	You know, I raised my family here, made my life here, became an American, started a business, all of those great things.
	And I love the state so much, I can't stand to see what's happening.
	So I started getting involved a few years ago.
	I set up a policy organization called Golden Together.
	And I started just getting back into the world of policy, right?
	You know, learning about why the housing situation is such a disaster, you know, putting forward solutions.
	And then I had this incredible meeting that really kind of tipped me over.
	It was about housing.
	I'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.
	Anyway, that didn't work.
	We didn't raise enough money.
	So I was in Sacramento trying to persuade lawmakers to try and implement some of this stuff.
	And I was in a meeting with a Democrat legislator from the state legislature.
	And this person was, you know, agreeing with me on all the policy stuff, said, yeah, you're right.
	This would be transformational.
	So I said, great, let's work together on it, you know, bipartisan.
	That'd be cool.
	And they said, oh, I couldn't, I couldn't say that publicly.
	I said, why not?
	I said, well, the unions would hate it.
	I said, yeah, but so what?
	You've just told me it would be transformational.
	And they said, yeah, but they'd waved their arm around like this and said, the unions run this place.
	And I just thought, no, like, F that, right?
	This is like, this is America.
	We don't just put up with that.
	And it made me really determined to like fight back against this.
	And really, that was the starting point before just, you know, thinking about it, talking to my family and then getting in the race.
	So what kind of reaction are you getting from business leaders?
	I mean, for example, in places like Santa Monica, there's tons of vacant storefront.
	Third Street Promenade is a shell of what it used to be.
	How can you get that back on track?
	Yeah, I mean, that's the good news is that as governor, you control the very similar story to the executive branch at the federal level.
	You control the executive branch.
	If you know what you're doing and you're well prepared, you can go in there.
	You'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.
	The Coastal Commission, the CARB, the California Air Resources.
	I know the Coastal Commission well.
	Right.
	Well, all the, well, the governor appoints people to these things.
	You have like four, you know, thousands of appointments to hundreds of these agencies.
	So 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.
	I 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.
	Farmers, I'm right here.
	I'm taping this with you.
	I'm in the middle of the Central Valley, our great agriculture industry being completely crushed by ridiculous policies from Sacramento.
	You can really turn that around quite quickly by appointing smart, sensible people, kicking out the ideologues and the useless bureaucrats.
	So that's the real plan.
	I think the business climate is one of the quickest things we can turn around.
	And then, of course, that leads to incomes and growth and less unemployment, all those good things.
	Yeah, 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.
	But 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.
	And 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.
	Like 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.
	I mean, that to me was like the epitome of stupidity.
	And 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.
	100%.
	I mean, that's what I'm really excited about.
	And that's what I know, you know, that's why I think this is a good, you know, a good fit for me.
	I've got the business experience, the government reform experience, and the media platform.
	I think because you've got to tell the story about all of this.
	You've got to expose, just like with Doge, you've got to show the examples of the insanity.
	The other one is like, we built the Golden Gate Bridge in four years in the middle of the war.
	You can't build a house that quickly now in California.
	I mean, it's just insane.
	Yeah.
	Well, I mean, listen, I think America's also experienced, hey, if you actually have a business guy at the helm, you can get things done.
	You're right.
	Like the difference between a talker and a doer.
	Trump was always a doer.
	He could also talk.
	But when you back it up with something, it's a big deal.
	You've signed the front of a paycheck, not just the back.
	When you've had people's livelihoods, their families' well-being dependent on your success as a business owner each and every day.
	Maybe you can probably accomplish a lot more than a bureaucrat who's had none of that, who's just spent other people's money all day long.
	And it's the attitude and the mindset.
	Like my first job, much younger, but my first real job was project manager for a construction company, actually, in London.
	And that job teaches you.
	I 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.
	I mean, I would show up on the construction sites.
	I was only a kid.
	It was a very fast-growing company.
	I had an amazing opportunity.
	I mean, this is back in the day.
	I don't, you know, I talk to a lot of my supporters now, real estate guys and builders.
	And it's not with the bits of paper now, but Gantt charts.
	And have you built, you've got to ask the right questions.
	Has that been finished?
	If it hasn't, the next team can't do their work.
	Why not?
	Why did it go over buttons?
	You know, you've got to keep and not accept things.
	I know it well.
	I used to do that myself.
	Right.
	It's a real job.
	And look at the contrast.
	I mean, going back to the fires, there's an amazing little moment that for me captured everything that's wrong with these people.
	It was Karen Bass, the mayor of LA, and it was a few months into the, after the fire disaster.
	Nothing was happening on the rebuilding.
	And she did this press conference.
	And the social media post read as follows.
	I have just signed an executive order streamlining permitting so we can rebuild LA.
	And I thought, okay, you know, good.
	I mean, it's four months late.
	She promised your father to his face she would do it immediately, but whatever, I'll take it.
	But then I watched the clip of what she actually said.
	Here's what she said.
	I have just signed an executive order tasking agency heads with developing paths forward to streamlining permitting.
	And you think that's it?
	That's exactly the problem with these bureaucratic-minded people.
	They think that a process or an annotat is the same as doing something.
	Yeah, no, there's a big difference.
	Steve, you said earlier that there's a lot of Republican voters in California.
	That's definitely true.
	I mean, especially once you get about three miles, you know, let's call it east of the coast.
	What does the map look like?
	Where can you make the most gains?
	And what's it been like on the campaign trail as you're with those people?
	Well, I'm getting a lot of, you know, I'm in the Central Valley a lot.
	That's a very strong area for us.
	And 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.
	But I really believe that if you look at LA County, that's the biggest county in the country.
	It's 10 million people.
	Like nearly a quarter of the voters of California are in just that one county.
	And 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.
	These are people who drive their trucks every day, you know, hours every day.
	And 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.
	So I think that's really the opportunity.
	And Republicans have never been there in California in that same way.
	Just 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.
	Yeah, I mean, Hollywood and the sort of industry is obviously very liberal, but their business and production is also suffering in California.
	I mean, people are looking at your reasons to go elsewhere.
	There's obviously, you know, the union guy putting up a set probably doesn't have the same view of the actors or the producers.
	I mean, is there any real opportunity for engagement there?
	Because 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.
	Exactly.
	It's the working class guys.
	And also you've got, I mean, other, it's all those ridiculous regulations that make everything so expensive.
	The 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.
	Just crazy.
	By the way, I've got to tell you a funny story about the gas thing because right now in California, so the gas price is around $5.
	So I'm very conscious when I say $3 gas to people around the country, that's like big deal.
	I think it was like $278 when I filled up my truck the other day.
	It's not that bad.
	In California, it's like a miracle.
	Anyway, 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.
	He said, that's great.
	Keep saying that.
	You'll win the race just with that.
	And then I said, thank you.
	And he said, wait, what about 250?
	Try 250.
	I thought it's classic Trump.
	I said, look, I'd love that.
	I think three is going to be a stretch.
	Maybe in the second term, we can do 250.
	But it's a real point that this is one of the quickest ways we can help working class people.
	I think that's where the energy of this campaign is going to come from.
	And all these Democrats that are running, you know, there's apparently going to be, you know, there's new people getting in Swalwell.
	Eric Swalwell is apparently going to run.
	Rick Caruso, who's a billionaire there in LA.
	You know, I just think that a Democrat, you know, they're not going to challenge the ideology, the climate ideology.
	Of course not.
	They've pushed it their whole careers.
	They've been funded by that nonsense.
	It's how they got elected in the first place.
	Exactly.
	There'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.
	You're not going to do that.
	You'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.
	You just can't do it.
	Exactly.
	I 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.
	The 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.
	I mean, the people that bitch about victim blaming a lot seem to really blame the victims.
	I mean, imagine another time in history where that would be the outcome.
	Imagine another civilization that could survive with that mentality.
	I mean, it's nuts.
	Yes, exactly.
	And it's in the schools.
	You 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.
	You know, they really do.
	And 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.
	I think people are really going to go for it.
	I 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.
	All the candidates are on the same ballot.
	And so right now, I'm sort of navigating all of that because we've got to have a Republican in the top two.
	There have been races in California where you end up with two Democrats in the final.
	And so that just ends up being a race to the far left.
	So that would be a disaster.
	So 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?
	Well, I think that it will be, well, I think it's the cost of living, honestly.
	I mean, that's just one example, but you've got electric bills and food price.
	I mean, all of these cost of living issues.
	Remember, it's the most expensive in the country right now.
	That is the most tangible thing because so much of that is driven by energy costs.
	And that's something we can turn around very quickly.
	Because 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.
	Newsom's just running off to the Amazon preening in front of the global climate elite.
	Meanwhile, because of his policies, California is buying half the oil that is drilled in the Amazon rainforest.
	I mean, you can't make this stuff up.
	So that is something that can be reversed pretty quickly to increase California oil production.
	Yeah, you actually have a lot of oil production.
	I know guys they're like, I'm an old guy.
	I'm like, so where in Texas are you from?
	Oklahoma.
	They're like, no, I'm from California.
	I'm like, wait, what?
	You actually have a lot, like literally under your own ground.
	You 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.
	I'm not even a fan of.
	And yet they're doing it anyway because one is virtue signaling.
	The other would actually create great, hardworking jobs for Americans.
	It's nuts.
	It's totally nuts.
	And it leads to the high prices, but also the destruction of these drugs.
	I mean, I'm in Bakersfield, Kern County, all around there, you know, the heart of our energy industry.
	And 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.
	Used to be millions.
	Now it's every time I go there, it's fewer and fewer.
	And the percentage of what we use that we produce in state goes down and down and down.
	Now we're down to nearly 80% imported.
	But it used to be the other way around.
	Most of what we used, and not that long ago, just a couple of decades ago.
	But since this war on fossil fuels, they've just shut down the industry.
	But we're not using much less, hardly any less, actually.
	It's just that we're importing the number one source of oil for California now is Iraq.
	Iraq, when it used to be California.
	And they're bringing it across the ocean in these giant supertankers, spewing out carbon emissions.
	It's so insane.
	The 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.
	So they're shutting down.
	So now we have to import finished refined gasoline.
	Guess where that's coming from, among other places?
	Turkey and India.
	And guess where that's coming from?
	Russia.
	So Gavin Newsom, lecturing us all the time about Ukraine, ends up, because of his climate policies, partly funding Putin's war machine.
	I mean, all of it is insane.
	Yeah, I mean, the refinery shutting down is a really big deal.
	I just, I know this text.
	I know the oil industry fairly.
	We haven't built a new refinery in America since 1977.
	Wow, I didn't know that.
	I was born on New Year's Eve of 1977, and I'm not a young man, unfortunately, anymore.
	But I mean, think about that.
	But we could actually drill crude in Texas where you can do it.
	We ship it abroad to be refined and back to the United States.
	Like 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.
	We need to be able to do these things.
	We can't be dependent, especially when, you know, whether it's Iraq or Iran or Venezuela, like, you know, not exactly our friends.
	So, 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?
	I mean, it doesn't make any sense.
	Exactly right.
	And I just think it's the same with, you know, every single thing.
	California should be leading the charge.
	And actually, what's so exciting to see from the federal administration is that attitude of let's do it in America.
	Let's make it build it in America.
	And actually, what's happening in California in relation to that is a perfect example of what's gone wrong.
	So you're seeing now, because of what's happening from the federal government, from the Trump administration, massive investment in manufacturing, all these things.
	Bay 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.
	None of it in California, not a cent.
	It's going to be a lot of sincerely.
	By 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?
	You know, you're going to get sued to oblivion.
	You know, you're going to get regulated to death.
	I mean, you're minimizing shareholder value.
	That'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.
	It's why everyone's fleeing.
	Now, when that tax base flees, what's left?
	Who's going to pay that?
	I guess they're going to keep, they're going to tax their way into prosperity.
	That hasn't exactly worked in all that many places.
	All that's left, I mean, I've made this point.
	Like it's like they won't be satisfied until the only people left are kind of government unions and far-left activists.
	That seems to be their vision for what this state is.
	Of course, they don't generate any wealth.
	And so right now, you have Gavin Newsome bragging about how California is the fourth biggest economy in the world.
	And that's literally true statistically right now because we have these big tech companies mainly generating huge amounts of revenue, but not creating jobs.
	The 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.
	Yeah, and by the way, a pretty damn liberal company.
	Right.
	It's not even like it's a conservative company saying, hey, we got to get the hell out of here.
	I mean, these are fairly radical, you know, left AI organizations that are still leaving.
	Exactly.
	It's a great point.
	And so that's right.
	And the same with the Hollywood people.
	They're all on the left.
	They're sending the jobs to other states and even other countries.
	And so, you know, this whole thing is just a total mess.
	But I think that, you know, we, it's really interesting.
	I remember, so Charlie, obviously, you know, you were so close to him.
	And I was good friends with Charlie for many years.
	And he was one of the first people I saw.
	That's actually where we met, I think, the first time.
	Was our turning point?
	Exactly.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And he was really, what I loved about Charlie was he really loved California and he really saw this actually.
	He said, look, we can't let it go down because it's kind of funny to joke about it and so on.
	But actually, it's really important for the country that California doesn't completely fail.
	And it's a beautiful, you know, at its best, has been a beautiful example.
	I mean, I sometimes say California means to America what America means to the world.
	It represents, or the best version of it, represents everything that's great about our country: energy and ambition and optimism and dynamism.
	And that's been completely destroyed by Newsom and these people.
	But we can get it back.
	So, 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.
	Yes.
	I mean, speaking of lost causes, I mean, that's a scary, scary place.
	Do 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?
	You 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.
	And 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.
	You know, what can happen in the UK?
	Do they have a chance?
	Can a guy like Nigel pull it off and win?
	Or is it just so far gone?
	It's really, it's so shocking.
	It's actually unbelievable to see how badly it's fallen.
	I mean, even, I mean, I left when was it 2012, so 13 years ago.
	And the big thing, I mean, there's a couple of components to it.
	There's an economic aspect, which is the country's just a mess economically.
	I 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.
	Of course, he was really leading all of that.
	And then it won.
	And no one, it was just the precursor to President Trump winning the first time around in 2016.
	And yet they completely threw that away.
	And 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.
	None of that happened.
	If that immigration went up, I mean, it's just, and that was conservative governments to their great shame.
	And now you've got a socialist government elected, making it even worse.
	And 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.
	I don't know.
	Nigel, the problem is it's a two-party system and in a parliamentary system that's very entrenched.
	So he got a huge support in the last election, his party.
	But I think something like they got half the vote share.
	as the Labor government that won, I don't know, 400 plus seats in Parliament.
	And Nigel got about four for like half the votes.
	And so I think that the problem is, how does he get the seats in parliament to match his support in the country?
	He's leading in the polls very clearly.
	So one theory is that there may be a merger with the Conservative Party and he becomes the leader.
	That would definitely work.
	I don't know.
	I'm not there anymore.
	I'm not really in touch with it at all.
	But 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.
	Yeah, listen, your focus is on California.
	It's on America.
	That makes a lot of sense.
	But 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.
	Bullshit.
	I know.
	Bullshit.
	Like so corrupted, so broken, so beholden, you know, basically to the globalist agenda that it was truly scary.
	And maybe it took COVID and sort of the draconian response to get people to wake up to see how far they've all fallen.
	I don't think we're that far behind, frankly.
	But, you know, you figured there was a bunch of us kind of still together.
	And it turns out we weren't.
	And everyone else was so much more far gone than we would have believed.
	I 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.
	But man, it's like you lose that.
	We're the last sort of beacon of hope.
	That's sort of scary.
	I totally agree.
	And 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.
	And I connected to Charlie and his fight for free speech, what he lived and fought and died for, and the threat to free speech.
	And 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.
	And I always make this joke, like they sent five armed police to arrest him at the airport.
	I said, you're lucky you get five armed police anywhere in England for anything.
	And they arrested him.
	The police aren't even armed there, but this guy's obviously a real threat making jokes.
	Exactly.
	But then I say, and you think that couldn't happen here.
	It is happening here.
	The California legislature just passed a bill this session that was exactly that kind of censorship.
	Exactly.
	And so they do want to do that here.
	And 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.
	We cannot let that happen.
	I like that a lot, man.
	I like that a lot.
	And I agree because, you know, if you think it can't happen here, you haven't been paying attention, right?
	I mean, you saw the cancellation.
	You 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.
	Didn't matter.
	There was no con, you could say whatever you wanted on the left.
	If it was with the leftist talking points, there was no consequence.
	You didn't lose your business.
	You weren't boycotted.
	You weren't censored.
	You weren't banned.
	You know, you don't think they're going to take it further?
	I 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.
	Like, you don't think they'll do that to you?
	Like, 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.
	But more importantly, I think, Steve, if they will do it to him, who won't they do it to?
	Everyone's a target, obviously.
	Exactly.
	And it is terrifying.
	And they've got that combination, that's got a self-righteousness.
	Oh, we're so right.
	And therefore, anything is justified.
	And 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.
	They 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.
	You know, their impulse to totally take over is incredibly strong.
	Well, Steve, lastly, you know, where can voters learn more and get involved to help you out on this?
	Because again, it's sort of like this show.
	It's like, these are not easy things to do, but people have to be part of that line of defense.
	You can't be out there by yourself.
	Donald Trump by himself, guess what?
	They've seen it.
	They'll take him out.
	They'll try to censor him.
	They'll shut him down.
	Like, we need everyone to be a part of that movement.
	How do people get involved?
	Thank you.
	That's exactly right.
	They've got this big machine, the Democrat Industrial Complex here.
	You've got the unions and all this.
	We need to build our own grassroots machine.
	SteveHiltonforgovernor.com.
	F-O-R.
	SteveHiltonforgovernor.com.
	There's a get involved button.
	We've got a great volunteer army taking shape.
	We'd love everyone to be part of it.
	Well, Steve, thank you very much, man.
	I really appreciate it.
	Wish you all the luck in the world.
	I'll have to get out there and do some stuff with you because, you know, again, we don't have a choice.
	We all have to be involved.
	We 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.
	So thank you for having the guts to get out there and do that.
	It really matters.
	Thanks, man.
	Good to see you.
	Appreciate it.
	Thanks a lot, Steve.
	Guys, thanks so much for tuning in.
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