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Spinquest is a free to play social casino void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details. This is Jim.

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Hello.

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Jim started advertising with iHeartRadio way back.

Buck Sexton (3:38)

In April and now I have customers out the door.

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And this is Sarah.

Katie Zachariah (3:43)

Hi.

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Katie Zachariah (3:48)

Business is big, booming. That's why I'm working on a Saturday.

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Buck Sexton (4:15)

What's California going to look like without Nancy Pelosi running things for them over in Congress? We're going to talk about that. And also Gavin Newsom. Is he going to be the nominee?

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Uncle Bill?

Buck Sexton (4:25)

Bill O'Reilly says that Clay and I are crazy. Our guest here might have a different take. We will talk to her about it. She is a Californian and she is somebody who understands what's going on in that part of the world quite well. Katie Zachariah is with us right now. She's a legal and political analyst. Let me start with this. Pelosi, I feel like said more than she as we know she's going to be retiring. I think she said more than she meant to here though, when she's telling everybody, hey, climate change is an affordability issue and it's why people are all coming to America.

Congresswoman Castor (5:00)

So some of us on the immigration issue had traveled to the Northern Triangle a few years ago. And what we found there is one of the reasons people were migrating to the United States is what has been mentioned. And that is they had a drought, the people couldn't farm, so they didn't have a job and they didn't have the food that farming would produce, hence they were coming to the United States. So this is, again, as Congress, the congressman mentioned a migration issue, which is an economic issue. So this is again, economic. As Congresswoman Castor said, it is not only a moral issue, but it is an affordability issue. As.

Buck Sexton (5:43)

What do you make of that?

Katie Zachariah (5:45)

Well, California is the best experiment on this. We just saw Gavin Newsom tout his effective policies of California and by effective, quote, effective, he said, California is running 67% on green energy. What does that mean for the California residents? So from 2019 to 2023, the price of electricity surged 50% for residential electricity alone. So we are paying the highest electricity costs in the United States. And so we can say that actually it's not an affordability issue. Green energy defers the cost to the consumer and increases the cost, not decreases.

Buck Sexton (6:31)

It's amazing to me that the answer that we're getting from the Democrats about how to. How to work with the affordability issue in any way touches on the climate stuff, because that's just. They're just lighting money on fire with this and then I guess causing more CO2 in the process, but they're actually making everything, all the climate legislation that California does, everything. Wait, don't you guys not have plastic bags in the grocery stores? Right. Isn't that a thing?

Katie Zachariah (6:59)

Yeah, it's. You're hard pressed to find a county that has a plastic bag and you have to pay for all of your bags. And they're usually paper and the handles break, it's out, and then plastic straws go across the board. It's. It's all ridiculous because I just think.

Buck Sexton (7:12)

That when you talk about climate, California as a piece of land might be the most, and it pains me to say this as a Floridian, but might be the most blessed place in the entire United States of America in terms of climate, access to different kinds of, like, microclimates, but also the agricultural farmland, all this great stuff. The coastline's absolutely beautiful. And yet the mismanagement, whether it's on water use, forest fire stuff. We'll talk about the Palisades in a second cost of energy. It's a disaster and yet they think that they're going to do well with affordability. How does that make any sense?

Katie Zachariah (7:51)

Well, and to your point, in addition to all of the other amazing geographical things that we have in California, we also have a lot of oil right off of the coast. Up to 30 billion barrels of recoverable oil that we are not using. Instead, we're importing our oil from countries like Brazil and other nations. I think up to 75% of California oil is imported. Why are we not drilling our own oil? This is a national security issue. And look, these Democrats have run this state into the ground. They've taken golden opportunity, quite frankly, and wasted it. They burned it. And Nancy Pelosi retiring. I don't know if we get someone worse like Scott Wiener who tries to take her seat. California just keeps, you know, it's a race to the bottom with our politicians.

Buck Sexton (8:38)

What is the future of the Palisades? You mentioned burning and the fires, right? What is going to happen there? Because Gavin Newsom, I see, is now making the rounds talking about how the slow rebuilding is what a shock. Not his fault in my state included.

Climate Expert (8:55)

Which is one of the most blessed and cursed states as it relates to climate. We're on the tip of the spear of climate change. Simultaneous droughts and simultaneous floods. The hots are getting a lot hotter, the dry is drier. You saw one of the most devastating wildfires in American history in the middle of winter in Los angeles in January. 100 mile hour winds attached to fire. And as we rebuild, the number one concern people have how do I get my home insured? And how do you get a developer to develop a home that can't get a mortgage, which requires home insurance. So from across the spectrum, from financial risk to the issue of cost of living, which is universal, to global competitiveness, this is a no brainer.

Katie Zachariah (9:49)

Nothing's ever his fault. I think there's only been about 167, 182 permits issued. And this is an actual residential website that tracks the permits issued versus the mayoral website which says so many more have been issued. There's a large discrepancy on reality and what they want to purport as reality. The left and Mayor Bass, so the Palestinians. This is such a devastating situation. It's this confluence of factors where you have homes that homes where insurance commissioner and insurance insurance companies dropped these homes prior to the fires. So a lot of these elderly people had not renewed insurance, had not moved to the California fair plan. So they're left without a lot of remedies to rebuild their home. They're older homeowners. Many have left sold their land at pennies, pennies on the dollar to big developers. Look, the situation is they're going to bleed this out and then they're going to move in low income housing. This has been their plan all along. They stopped it because people still have people's wounds are still fresh and they were angry. But as time goes on and people need money and their insurance does not no longer covers temporary housing for them, they're going to start selling these lots of again to major developers and or the state for low income housing. It's a tragedy if you just ran on the Palisades alone and the negligence. He should never even have a chance at becoming president or even being the presidential nominee for the Democrats.

Buck Sexton (11:20)

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Katie Zachariah (13:08)

Well, the Democrats, again, this goes to the bottom line. The Democrats don't have a policy. Their policy is Trump derangement. Trump derangement syndrome. Tds, we know this. And now they've splintered off into this incredibly communist slash socialist, whatever word you want to use. Mamdani is a communist. He is not a socialist. But you have then Bernie Sanders and the aoc, they are totally free falling into the very far left radical faction of their party. So they're going to try to distract the American people on Epstein. Oh, never mind. We just cost the American people $1.5 trillion in keeping the government shut down for no reason. Now we're just going to say, look at Epstein. Look, just be done with this. Whether whether Speaker Johnson brings it out to the surface and Thune sits on it until 26. I don' what happens. I just want it to go away. The president's right. It's a massive distraction and it is a red herring from what all of the effective policies that he's bringing forth. But people love this conspiratorial nature and they think, they think that exposing it brings some kind of justice, which I think more it's going to expose the Democrats than it is the Republicans.

Buck Sexton (14:20)

What is going to be the rallying cry of those who think that Gavin Newsom, by the way, will be the opposition to Donald Trump? Like what? What do the people who think that. Do Californians all think that it will be Gavin Newsom, would you say? Is that a widespread belief among Democrats in your state? I'm always curious about how this is going to line up because by next year's election, we're going to be talking about the presidential election. Right? This is going to come upon us pretty quickly.

Katie Zachariah (14:49)

Right. So I don't hear, I don't sense a strong taste in my state for Gavin Newsom as a presidential candidate. Yes, he. You look at Prop 50 and you and the Democrats want to use the success of Prop 50. Really? This is a numbers issue. We have a math issue in California. We don't have a lot. We don't have enough registered Republicans. They were not motivated. If every single Republican that voted for Donald Trump voted no on Prop 50, it would have been wiped out. But the Republicans were not motivated on this election for some reason. But the Democrats want to say that this is a smack to Donald Trump and it shows that Gavin Newsom is affected. Effective. Gavin Newsom did that to kiss the Barack Obama ring. And we saw Barack Obama come out and support him. And he's kind of trying to navigate with his clever hands the entire system of how to gain favor in the Democrat Party. But his own state, really, the Los Angeles county alone of which I'm affiliated, have such a strong distaste based on his ineffectiveness, based on all of the problems that he's created. So looking forward, looking at the seven swing states, particularly those swing states that he has to garner all of their love and support, I don't think he wins. I don't think there is a taste that is palatable for Gavin Newsom just in the swing states alone. Back.

Buck Sexton (16:11)

I would certainly hope that that's the case. But sometimes I have my, I have my worries. Our sponsor is Hillsdale College. There's so much confusion in the world today about our own history and Hillsdale wants to do something about that. In a brand new six part documentary series, Hillsdale College professors teach the religious, political, cultural and economic ideas that shaped America, our unique culture. And they particularly focus on the colonial period. You can learn the idea of liberty, especially religious liberty, and how it inspired the settlers. How Americans organized local government to rule and protect themselves and why America has always been a land where virtue can lead to peace and prosperity. We know about the Declaration of Independence, but what led up to that? Hillsdale College is doing so much to educate Americans about their own history, but also a lot of things. The Book of Genesis, the rise and fall of the Roman Republic. C.S. lewis 40 online free courses from Hillsdale College. Go to Hillsdale Edu Buck to enroll for free. That's Hillsdale Edu Buck and you can enroll in these Hillsdale College courses for free. Now I have to ask you about something. Are you, do you ever use OpenTable?

Katie Zachariah (17:29)

Very limited, but yes, when I need a reservation in a pinch.

Buck Sexton (17:33)

So there is a New York Post story that is talking about how Open Table, we all think of it as like, oh, it's a convenient way to get it's one of these apps, there's a few of them, but it's a convenient way to get a restaurant reservation set up somewhere. But what we're, what they're reporting on now, New York Post just reported on this yesterday, is that when you whatever you do at Open Table, they keep tabs on things including are you a repeat cancellation person? Do you cancel day of do you try to make multiple reservations at restaurants the same night and then change it up at the last minute, like all these things. Now generally I, you know, I don't like the surveillance state stuff, but I gotta say, I kind of think this is fair game. Like, I think if people are going to cancel on restaurants over and over again because they're blocking out other people, they're hurting the restaurant, I think restaurants should be allowed to know this. What say you, Ms. Zachariah?

Katie Zachariah (18:30)

It's a great point. I was a waitress through college and I relied heavily on, especially those Friday night, Saturday night tables to be booked and filled. So if OpenTable is taking this information again, I'm with you a little bit. Having lived in China, I'm also ultra sensitive to the surveillance state nature, the social credit score that they grade people on as to, you know, their, their performance in society and whether they have access to restaurants. So if this is some kind of grading situation where they're sending the restaurant a score on the person. Reliable, not reliable. I think that gets a little bit big brotherish though. I think it should just be if it's in the truth is if they just use the information to inform themselves on whether or not this person's likely to show up. Okay, fine. Is that how what we've seen buck in the, in the past, how what we've seen people use information for? Probably not. I think it probably has a slippery slope tendency to become detrimental to people who are going to restaurants and, you know, maybe they had a series of repeat cancellations for some unknown reason and then they tend to be reliable. If that information's used against them, I don't know if that's fair. So I guess I don't really give you a good answer. Is it both and if it's used, well, fine. If not, I don't know. There's a lot.

Buck Sexton (19:52)

I know you're an attorney. I feel like you're waiting for me to tell you whether you're going to be prosecuting or defending on this one because you covered a lot of, a lot of the various sides of the issue. I just, I think that generally I. Well, one thing I hate is when they call you for. They call you multiple times and sending all these text messages like, are you actually going to show up for your reservation? I want them to be able to look at the app and say, I always show up. Okay, I'm the show up guy. I'm like a 99%. If I say I'm going to be there, I'm going to be there. And I feel like that should be something that, that people are allowed to make decisions based off of. Right. Especially when here in my. I mean, I'm sure it's the same thing out in LA area. In Miami, there's some restaurants where you've got to set your alarm 30 days before. Or you can just be cool and know somebody. When you, when you know, you tell me you. You know those people. I don't. So I have to like actually just be one of the peasants that's waiting for the time for the reservation to open. I can't just call like Alphonse or whatever and get in. But nonetheless, I think that the open table situation is indicative of. Of how we're not in a. You said you live in China. Social credit score in China is a big deal. We don't have that here, but we have Uber ratings. We have open table ratings, essentially. Now more and more people are being judged because of tech, because it's possible now with technology. By the other side of the transaction, it's not. The consumer is being judged as well. That's a new thing.

Katie Zachariah (21:14)

Yes. It goes to that, that dating app. I'm, I'm hard pressed on the name of it that came up where guys were rating women and then it got exposed or women were rating guys on if they were paying for their dates. And this whole thing kind of exploded in everyone's faces. Look, you can't take that kind of information and think, buck, it's not going to be used against you. As you just said, it will be used against the consumer, whether it's deserved or not. What if you're missing a flight or your flight's delayed, you have to cancel and you get punished for this type of stuff. Like what kind of exceptions are there? You always have to go into that. But I guess what I look at is like what Ronald Reagan always used to say. And it's applied to government power, but I also think it's applied to information. The more power. You're never going to have a bureaucracy defund itself or make itself smaller. Government will never choose on its own to make itself smaller. And I think when you have that kind of information and you allow it to be a regulating body, it's going to be a lot harder to retract than to allow it, you know, than to prevent it from growing, I guess, is the. Is the overarching concern.

Buck Sexton (22:20)

What were you doing in China?

Katie Zachariah (22:23)

Well, I was the outside counsel for the World bank in the ifc, in the international division of Zhonglan law firm, which eventually became kind of the international component for Shepherd Mullen at The time buck, I got to be honest, I was just so happy to be an American getting a job in a Chinese law firm. And I only spoke a teeny bit of Mandarin at the time I got this job, I didn't really need it because it was all international. However, in looking back, and the truth is, is a lot of this was the beginning stages of the Belt and Roads Initiative and it was a lot of equity investments into energy companies outside of China. So it was an interesting time, but it's also something that I would never change. I also volunteered at these really amazing migrant communities in the outer rungs of Beijing, like 5th 6th Ring Road is what they say. And I think that gave me such a real tangible experience of what's happening in China, both on the inner city and the outside kind of migrant community. It was incredible.

Buck Sexton (23:26)

When was this?

Katie Zachariah (23:27)

It was, this was from 2011 to the 2013 kind of beginning and end. So almost three years. So this was also a paramount time, a very instrumental time. You had the handover from Hu Jintao to Xi Jinping and in a complete change of regulation under Hu Jintao to Xi Jinping, really just from the micromanaging of every decision you made started happening under Xi Jinping, from if you were driving a motorized scooter to now having to go electric. I mean they really dialed in everything under Xi Jinping and that was only in what, like late 2013. So it sense exposure exploded.

Buck Sexton (24:06)

How's your Mandarin now?

Katie Zachariah (24:13)

Okay, I said I only speak a little and I don't speak that well.

Buck Sexton (24:17)

Fair enough, fair enough. I'm going to let you close us out here in a minute with parenting advice because you've got four and I've only got one and I'm new to the game with the six month old, so we'll get into this in a second. But our sponsors, Paradigm Press, I believe we're entering a once in a century opportunity for Main street investors. Life changing stock market gains are happening in defense, finance, healthcare, energy, manufacturing, and of course AI technology. We're talking hundreds, maybe thousands of huge opportunities as AI transforms the US economy and our way of life. But a lot of Americans are going to miss out on grabbing the biggest opportunities and making fortunes in the process is why I've launched a brand new e newsletter called Money and Power. For too long, insiders have locked the biggest opportunities behind closed doors for themselves. But we're going to bust it wide open in money and power and give you early looks at the opportunity shaping America's future. I break it all down for you in an interview off air2025.com go check this out and go subscribe offair2025.com paid for by Paradigm Press. All right, your best bits of you have four kids. Congratulations, by the way. I'm one of four, as is my wife. And four is. Four is a robust number. It's a good number we're hoping to get to. I think three is what we're trying to get to.

Katie Zachariah (25:29)

We'll, you know, first part of advice, have four. There is. The fourth is amazing. All four of my kids are incredible. I'm so glad we had a fourth. I didn't feel complete at three. The situation of four kids is an amazing thing. I think everyone should have four kids. All of my kids are uniquely different. And my parenting advice from number one to number four is my fourth has such a fun sense of humor. He's lighthearted. He has to go with the flow a lot. And my firstborn, you know, was so micromanaged growing up, so from the teeny little choices he made and to see the difference of parenting. So as you have one and two, to kind of keep a perspective of how much, how much you can actually control in their life. Natural consequences matter. They're important for kids to understand. I think for me, allowing my kids, especially as I became less able to micromanage each little choice, allowing them to experience even a slight natural consequence, like the stove is hot when you tell them and you warn them and then they do it anyway, not in a sense of. For them to gain understanding that actually my parents do have knowledge and it's good. And when I don't listen, it ends up not being very good for me. And it really took me a long time, Buck, to release this. This idea that I could control all of the things in their life and to allow them to kind of be who they were and. And make choices and giving them constant, you know, parenting feedback, but also allowing them to be themselves and to see four unique humans from the same parents be completely different little people. It's just such a beautiful thing. And again, I'm going to say it one more time. Four is a great number.

Buck Sexton (27:19)

We'll see. We're going to try put in the effort. All right. Thank you so much, Katie. Zachariah, great to see you. Appreciate you making the time for us.

Katie Zachariah (27:27)

Thank you.

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Buck Sexton (28:14)

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Buck Sexton (28:16)

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