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Sept. 9, 2025 - Sean Hannity Show
29:16
Newsom Under Challenge - September 8th, Hour 3
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This is an iHeart podcast.
Coming up next, our final news roundup and information overload hour.
All right, news roundup, information overload hour.
Here's our toll-free telephone number.
If you want to be a part of the program, it's 800-941.
Sean, if you would like to join us, it's very interesting that the part-time governor of California that loves attention, the guy that is missing in action, you know, guy that has no explanation why fire hydrants in the Pacific Palisades during the predictable wildfires and Santa Ana winds that knocked out nearly, what, 13,000 homes, he doesn't have an answer for ask local officials was one of the answers that he gave.
Now he's actually trying to claim the reservoirs were brimming over with water.
Well, that's not according to reports that we've seen and reported on.
And he's now a part-time governor, full-time governor, Tweety Bird, we call him, full-time podcaster, full-time Trump hater.
And he's garnered a lot of attention.
He was on the cover of Drudge yesterday.
Democrats, you know, great new hope.
But if he's going to run a national campaign, it's going to be very different than running a campaign in California, especially with his track record, especially when you have the highest income taxes in the nation, the highest sales taxes in the country, the highest gas taxes in the country, the sixth highest corporate taxes in the country.
Then you add into that quality of life issue, some of the worst public schools in the entire country.
You look at the sanctuary state policies that have cost the people of California billions and billions and billions of dollars for Medi-Cal and other services.
And, you know, a state that is the highest tax, you would think is running massive budget surpluses.
No, they have billions and billions of dollars in budget deficits that they have.
It was his state that gave this truck driver that license.
Well, not only a license, but sanctuary state protections when he entered the country illegally into California.
Washington state, California gave him a commercial driver's license.
Then we find out after he killed three Floridians that he was not proficient at speaking English, couldn't read road signs.
We have been trying to get Governor Tweety Bird, Governor Podcaster, Governor I Hate Trump every second of every minute of every hour of every day to respond to us.
And Mr. Part-time Governor, full-time Tweety Bird, full-time podcaster won't get back in touch with us.
And I'm trying to understand why.
We used to have such a good relationship.
Anyway, we welcome back to the program our friend Steve Hilton.
He is running as a Republican to be the next governor of California.
How are you, sir?
I'm great, Sean.
And I'll tell you why he won't go on with you.
Just in the same way he won't have me on his pod.
I've offered many times to go on and debate him because we know the facts.
You just laid them out.
His record is such a total disaster.
It's literally the worst of any governor in America by far.
I think you could make the case that he's the worst governor in American history to take a great state like California with everything we have to offer, the amazing, beautiful landscapes, all our people, the talent, the ingenuity, the entrepreneurs, and what's he got to show for it?
We now have the highest, on top of everything else you laid out totally correctly, the highest unemployment rate in America today, the highest poverty rate, the worst business climates.
Chief Executive Magazine does a survey every year, best and worst states to do business.
California's been bottom for the last 10 years.
We are 50th out of 50 states to opportunity.
The place that, in many ways, California represented the American dream, the California dream.
We have the highest housing cost, lowest home ownership.
Everything is a disaster.
And so he can't run on his record for anything.
I can't wait to, first of all, beat this corrupt Democrat elite here in California next year.
And then when he's off running for president, tell the whole country the last thing you want to do is bring this nightmare and take it national and put this guy in the Oval Office.
Not going to happen.
I'd love to see you win.
I know you do a good job.
I've known you for many, many years.
I know how smart you are.
I know how dedicated you are.
I know you've got the work ethic of, say, President Trump.
I know you have the right policies for California.
The problem is you've had such a mass exodus of people that would otherwise be open to voting for a Republican, and they have left.
They have decided they can't take the high taxes, high crime, horrible quality of life issues that exist between homelessness and drug dens, open-air drug dens, et cetera.
And it makes it that much harder for somebody with common sense like you to win.
How do you overcome that?
Well, there's a couple of things, Sean.
Look, you're right.
And I've never said, and I don't say that this is going to be easy.
I've said it's very difficult, but it's not impossible.
And what did President Trump teach us?
Fight, fight, fight.
You've got to fight.
And that's what I'm doing.
And here are a few signs that I think this time it could be different.
Things are changing a little bit.
Last November, President Trump got more votes, number of votes in California than any Republican presidential candidate for a generation.
Ten counties flipped from blue to red out of 58.
So that's significant, including some big counties like Fresno County, our fifth biggest city.
You saw the place I launched my campaign, Huntington Beach, the biggest city in Orange County, Surf City, USA.
The reason I went there, you had a strong team of common sense conservatives who just over four years ago got together and said, we're sick of all the nonsense.
We're going to run for office as a team.
So just over four years ago, Huntington Beach was 6-1 run by Democrats, the city council.
Today, 7-0 Republican.
So things are changing.
You look at the polls, there's a majority who say the state, a big majority who say the state's going in the wrong direction.
So I think if we put all that together, and also the Trump playbook, working class voters, right?
The multiracial working class coalition.
It's working class Californians who are hammered by these ridiculous, the climate elitism, the gas prices, the cost of everything, electricity rates, double the national average.
And so my pitch is very simple.
$3 gas, cut your bills in half, a single family home that you can afford.
Practical things.
Just like President Trump made those arguments at the national level, I think that's how we do it in California.
I wonder, I really do ponder whether or not the people in California, and I did live there five years.
If you talk about its geography, I lived in Santa Barbara.
There's no more beautiful place on the face of the earth except with my free state of Florida.
It's stunning.
Do you think the people of California, now you're giving me anecdotal information that shows signs of hope?
Are they tired of the sanctuary state policies?
Are they tired of paying tens and tens of millions of dollars in services for all the illegals that are protected by Gavin Newsom and California government?
Do they want law and order restored so they can be safe and secure and pursue happiness?
That they want lower government costs?
Do they want more efficient government?
Do they want better schools?
Because if they do, there's really only one answer, and that they're going to have to vote Republican and just change their mindset.
Do you think that California is ready for that?
Yes.
I mean, look, let's just put some real numbers on it.
The Republican vote in the state of California, the average Republican vote in statewide elections the last 20 years, and it's been 20 years since the Republican won statewide.
The average share of the vote is 41.7%.
So look, that's not 50, but it's not 20, right?
So the baseline is higher than a lot of people think.
Then you look at the number of votes that President Trump got.
This is the crucial thing.
So next year is a midterm election.
And of course, that means you get a lower turnout.
Now, if you take the average of the last two midterms, that's what people do to estimate what it's going to be.
The total number of votes to be cast, we think, in California next year, around 11.8 million.
So to win, you need roughly half of that, call it 5.9 million votes.
President Trump, just this last election, got 6.1 million votes in California.
So the Republican votes are there.
We just need to turn them out in a midterm election that's all about California.
There's a really important thing going on that could help with that.
A ballot initiative that I'm working on with some friends and colleagues here in California on voter ID.
Republican voters love voter ID for obvious reasons to help stop the cheating.
So if we get that voter ID initiative on the ballot for next November, that'll help with the turnout and we can pull this off.
It's going to be difficult, but I really know that we can do it.
People are sick of this nonsense.
They just haven't believed that it's possible.
That's why I'm running such an energetic campaign.
I've got to be out there fighting, showing with energy that we really can do this and hopefully inspire people to come out and vote for the change we so desperately need.
Tell me about the lawsuit you filed in federal court to block Gavin Newsom and his Democratic elitist allies and their redistricting power grab.
It's already a very heavily gerrymandered state as it is.
Yeah, they've already gerrymandered.
I mean, this is the ridiculous thing about when they say, oh, we're just responding to Texas.
No, they took the independent citizens districting process that we voted for in California 15 years ago.
They took that and hijacked it and drew the maps.
And their lawyers were the DNC lawyers.
The whole thing was hijacked by Democrats.
So today, if we had fair maps and fair representation in California today, Republicans would have an extra 12 House seats, which that alone would be a game changer.
So let's put it this way.
They've already stolen 12 seats.
Now with these new maps, they want to steal another five.
Now, you've had Republicans file lawsuits in state court to try and stop him from doing this because it's illegal and unconstitutional, as you said.
Those lawsuits have been thrown out by the state court, the state Supreme Court in California, which is basically all appointed by Democrats.
That's why I filed in federal court.
We've got a better chance there.
And the argument is very simple.
The equal protection clause of the federal constitution and the California Constitution, very simple principle, guarantees one person one vote.
And that's been established in cases over the years to mean that every vote should have roughly equal value.
Right now, because of the gerrymandering, a Democrat vote in California is worth three times a Republican vote.
With these new maps, it would be eight times the value.
It would take roughly 190,000 votes to elect a Democrat to Congress, 1.52 million votes to elect a Republican to Congress.
This is clearly illegal and unconstitutional.
We filed the lawsuit yesterday.
We'll see how we do.
We've got to stop this because apart from the thing else, Newsom's about to spend $250 million of taxpayer money on what is basically a corrupt contribution to his presidential campaign.
We can't let that happen.
You think it's going to be Commonwealth?
You think she will get in?
Or do you take her at her word she's not getting in?
I think she's not going to do it.
I think she still wants to run for president.
And she just has this extraordinary, you know, ridiculous vanity that she's a serious contender and somehow could be president.
I think she sincerely thinks, I know Clay Travers thinks this as well.
She actually believes that she's got a shot at being president, and that's what she wants.
Quick break, right back more with Republican candidate for governor, great state of California.
Steve Hilton is with us more on the other side.
We continue now with our friend Steve Hilton.
He is running for governor of the great state of California as a Republican.
Definitely an uphill battle.
Can he pull it off?
We continue with Steve now.
I don't know what it is.
I've observed this my entire career.
I don't care if you're a senator or congressman or a cabinet member.
I don't know what it is, but anybody that ever really walks into that oval office that's an elected official in particular, you know, they just, their wild imagination takes them to the place where they think that they can be in that office.
We did see that, if you remember, during the Biden years, the day Biden wasn't even in the White House, and Gavin walked into that oval office like he owned it, flipped his jacket over his shoulder, and he was picking out the drapes.
It was pretty obvious to me.
Look, I'll tell you something, Sean.
I mean, okay, we've talked about his record.
I'll give you something, you know, a more human version of this.
I know people who work in his office as governor, and there are other people.
He's been written as well over the years.
He cannot do this job, let alone the next job he wants, because he's just got no ability.
He's got no follow-through, no attention to detail, nothing like that.
You look at the difference with President Trump, someone who understands how to make things happen, a pragmatic, problem-solving business guy.
And there's just no comparison.
You can't have people like this.
This is the problem in California.
You have these machine politicians whose only skill is navigating the political world, right?
You know, pandering to the unions whose money they need and the activists, all the rest of it.
They're all the same.
Newsom, Carmela's the same.
Biden was the same.
Karen Bass, they don't believe in anything really.
They just, all they want to do is climb the ladder by pandering to whoever they need to suck up to to get power.
They can't actually get anything done.
You know, that's why I think I can do them.
Look, I've just like you, I've had real jobs most of my career, worked in, I've started companies, run businesses.
My first job, project manager for a construction company.
You've got to understand how to get things done in these jobs, and Newsom absolutely can't.
It's interesting that, you know, I know Gavin can't stand any criticism.
And now that I've been challenging him after he attacked me, he's gone eerily silent.
Very interesting.
If people want to get in touch with you, how do they do so, Steve Hilton?
SteveHilton4Governor.com.
Anyone in California, we're trying to build a movement here.
We need to beat this big machine, very corrupt union-backed machine.
So any help with that would be great.
Steve Hilton4Governor.com.
Steve Hilton, always a pleasure, my friend.
Thank you.
We'll follow this race very closely.
800-941 Sean is our number if you want to be a part of the program.
All right, so we have Marxist Kami Mamdani with Kami, you know, Grandpa Sanders in New York.
They were in New York.
Did you notice they were in New York campaigning together, Linda, this weekend?
I'm sure you are part of it.
It's embarrassing.
It's not embarrassing.
It is embarrassing that people are that stupid to show up for Grandpa Bernie and Kami Donny.
It's embarrassing.
Anyway, one heckler called Mamdani a communist and that this is not Cuba.
obviously this guy's not voting for marxist commie mumdani i mean at least there was one person there with common sense then Then you have Grandpa Bernie saying, Well, we're not going to allow Elon Musk to become the first trillionaire.
How are you going to stop it?
Oh, that's right.
You'll confiscate his wealth.
Listen, one guy, Mr. Musk, whose own wealth is more than the bottom 52% of American households.
And you may have seen in the papers, they want to give him a little bonus, another $800, $900 billion.
We are living in crazy worlds.
Millions of people struggling to put food on the table.
And making one guy a trillionaire is insane.
Not what this country is supposed to be about, and we are not going to allow that to happen.
I mean, these two were made in heaven.
I mean, this is a guy that vacationed in the former Soviet Union or a honeymooned in the former Soviet Union.
More Bernie Sanders, Grandpa Bernie mocking criticism of Marxist Mamdani's government-run food grocery stores, which, where did they fail miserably?
In Missouri, I think they had government-run grocery stores.
They were a disaster.
And grocery stores don't have a big profit margins, maybe one or two percent.
You have this, you know, grocer Castamatidis.
He's saying he's leaving if, in fact, Kami Mamdani wins.
Listen, what a radical idea to say that working-class families should be able to go into a grocery store in an area where there are food deserts and be able to afford decent quality food for their children.
Oh, man, what a radical guy he is.
Why would you think, why would anybody think government can run anything well?
How did it work out with Social Security and Medicaid?
Oh, that's right.
The lockbox doesn't exist.
They squandered the money and it's headed for insolvency.
How are New York City schools doing?
Some of the worst in the country.
You know, how's Law and Order, the defund dismantled no-bail law insanity that we have in New York and reimagine the police as Kami Mamdani wants.
Anyway, more Grandpa Bernie and saying Democratic leaders should be jumping up and down and supporting the Kami, the Mamdani.
My understanding is you are the Democratic Party candidate for mayor of the city of New York, correct?
Now, apropos of that question, I find it hard to understand how the major Democratic leaders in New York State are not supporting the Democratic candidate.
One might think, one might think that if a candidate starting at 2% in the polls gets 50,000 volunteers, creates enormous excitement, gets young people involved in the political process, gets non-traditional voters to fuck, Democratic leaders will be jumping up and down.
This is our guy.
So we got another fight on our hands, and that is the future of the Democratic Party.
All right, so it was a hell of a weekend in New York City.
I'm so sorry I missed it in the free state of Florida.
Momdani himself, Marxist Kami Mamdani, said he hopes to convince wealthy New Yorkers to pay higher taxes.
Good luck convincing them.
They already pay some of the highest taxes in the country.
But right now, the top 1% earners in the city pay 40% of the city's income taxes, according to the Empire Center for Public Policy.
How do you bring these wealthy residents to the table as mayor?
Stop them from saying they're leaving, going to Florida, because we need that tax revenue to pay for some of the things you're talking about.
What I have put forward is a vision to make the most expensive city in the United States of America affordable at a time when we have the wealthiest city.
It is also one where one in four are living in poverty.
And to your point, we have a number of New Yorkers who are doing quite well.
The top 1% of New York City earns $1 million or more a year.
And my vision is not one where they leave.
It is one where they stay.
Why do you stay?
In part by showing them that asking them to pay more in taxes would increase even their quality of life.
And if that's not bad enough, he's doubling down on dumb, dumber, and stupid.
This is great, great for criminals.
And there was a front page article in the New York Post today.
There's more than 5,000 arrests for only 63 subway repeat offenders.
Of the 63 repeat offenders that have 5,000-plus arrests, only five of the 63 are behind bars.
But that's not stopping Marxist Kami Mamdami from doubling down on dumb and dumber, saying he would support abolishing the NYPD gang database.
If city council legislation to abolish the NYPD gang database were to pass, would you support Ensign that?
I have supported that proposal.
It's one that I've supported because of the vast dragnet has meant the inclusion of New Yorkers on the basis of whether they go out late, photos they put on social media, so much of the facts of life of being a young New Yorker.
And yet it then becomes a mark of suspicion.
There's no question that we have to take gangs extremely seriously.
And yet I find that a database that includes New Yorkers on such bases is one that doesn't actually do exactly.
All right, let's get to our busy phones, shall we?
Jan is in North Carolina.
Jan, hi, how are you?
Glad you called.
Hey, Sean, how are you doing today?
I'm good.
Thank you.
Happy Monday.
Is there such a thing as a happy Monday?
Not down here in North Carolina after what happened.
Which is why I'm calling.
And it's kind of a two-part question for you.
You know, all these murders and all this stuff is happening, and they're repeat offenders.
I mean, they just keep going and doing it again and again and again.
Is it possible?
This is where my two-part question is.
Is it possible that the Democrats are not putting them in prison because it costs, what, $45,000, $50,000 a year to keep somebody in prison?
Is it possible?
Well, they're not doing it for other reasons.
They are not doing it because they don't want to do it.
They literally have an aversion against policing.
And in the process, they're making life unsafe for law-abiding citizens.
I mean, Donald Trump's offering to do it for free right now by sending in the National Guard.
And you see the reluctance, resistance, fierce resistance towards keeping citizens safe.
Well, is it possible that rather than, I mean, I understand that point that you're saying, which is it possible they want to use the money just for the illegals or protesters or whatever?
You know, I just cannot understand anybody that wouldn't want to keep somebody in prison that deserves to be in prison.
It's a whole mindset.
And this is part of, you know what?
It's hard for somebody as nice as you, Jan, from North Carolina that was born with and maintains the common sense God gave you.
It's very hard for you to wrap your mind around this idiocy of defund, dismantle, reimagine the police with social worker mentality, no-bail law mentality.
It's very hard for common sense people to understand that because it makes no sense.
The purpose of incarcerating people is to keep other people safe and to punish people for crimes that they commit.
And it's really that basic for the social order.
You know, you look at the list of things that would be decriminalized in New York City under Marxist Kami Mandani, and you get a good idea how stupid this is.
I mean, these same Democrats, they want these safe injection sites.
There's no such thing as a safe injection site.
If you're injecting heroin or fentanyl or whatever drug you're injecting into your body, you're slowly committing suicide.
And why society would pay to help facilitate that is beyond my comprehension, too.
I don't want anybody doing drugs.
The way to answer that is what Trump is doing.
Prevent the drugs from coming in the country.
Take on the narco-terrorists.
But then again, Democrats are angry that the president struck the Venezuelan drug boat.
Unbelievable.
I just don't understand it.
Because you're too smart.
You have too much common sense.
It's hard for you to wrap your mind around stupid.
That's not a bad thing, Jan.
That means you're smart.
Aren't they worried about that their kids or their grandkids could very well be murdered or step on a dirty heroin needle or something?
I mean, apparently not, or else they'd clean it up, wouldn't they?
You would think so.
I don't know, Sean.
I mean, times are changing and they're not changing for the better.
You know, I worry about my kids, my grandkids.
I mean, next generations.
You rightfully are worried about it.
You should be worried about it.
Anyway, Jan, God bless you.
We'll stay in North Carolina.
Ed is next.
Ed, how are you?
Glad you called.
How are you doing, sir?
I'm good.
Glad you're on board.
Well, I was thinking a little bit about Eric Adams, and I was thinking that he should contact Trump and ask him to bring his federal works into New York City.
You know, it'll definitely make him more popular with the citizens, and that's who he needs to get votes.
I mean, the media is going to eat his lunch, but he doesn't need to get votes from the media.
He needs to get them from the people.
And I was reading an older, a March article in the New York Post where they were saying that the New Yorkers were so thankful for Tom Homan that, you know, cleaning up their towns because they have just been ignored for so long that this is something that you could really make political hay by doing the right thing now.
You're reminding me a little bit of Jan from North Carolina, our last caller.
You know, you have retained too much of the common sense God gave you when you were born, and you're applying your level of common sense to something that makes no sense.
And in New York, and as somebody that lived there at two different points in my life, I was raised there, and I left five years in California, five years in Rhode Island, five years in, I'm sorry, two years in Alabama, four years in Georgia.
Then I went back for Fox News.
Now I'm down in the Florida Bureau of Fox News.
And I'm just telling you, it is a very different mindset.
The common sense you're looking for does not exist.
The reason the odds are very high, do not be surprised if Marxist Kami Mumdani wins is because New York City draws to itself, you know, this crazy mindset.
I know it's hard for you to wrap your mind around, but do you know what I'm saying?
It's a very different mindset.
Well, when you were saying that to Pam, I was thinking that maybe I am that way as well as Pam.
That's not a bad thing.
I mean, that means you're, frankly, smarter and have more, you know, common sense than they do.
I don't think.
Because the city's not going to be more safe or more secure with this stupidity.
Well, it's so uncommon that people have common sense that maybe we should call it uncommon sense at this point.
I think that's a pretty wise, commonsensical thing to conclude, not to have a play on words here.
Anyway, my friend, God bless you.
I love the people of North Carolina.
They do have common sense.
All right, that's going to wrap things up for today.
We've got a great, great Hannity tonight, 9 Eastern on the Fox News channel.
We have Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
Stephen Miller tonight, he's on fire.
Stephen A. Smith also.
We'll ask him why his party is the party of illegal immigration and the party that is coddling criminals.
Also, Senator Ted Cruz, Tommy Laren, set you DVR tonight, 9 Eastern on the Fox News channel.
We'll see you tonight.
Back here tomorrow.
Thank you for making this show possible.
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