← The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
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- [00:02]
Buck Sexton
You're listening to the Buck Sexton show podcast. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, everybody, let's check in on what's happening in California these days. Democrats having a rough time at the national level. State of California not seeming to change very much with the times when it comes to its politics. Katie Zachariah is with a senior advisor to Fix California and a Republican political strategist. Katie, there's so much that we can dive into with California, but let's start with this. Elon just, just retweeted something with this headline. Maybe people in Santa Monica should consider voting Republican. It is from the social Justice Santa Monica group. They're talking about all kinds of stuff in Santa Monica. Reparations, task force, cannabis equity. They just go into all this left wing craziness. So is this just going to continue on no matter what happens in the state? You live there. What's happening?
- [01:07]
Katie Zachariah
Well, we're actually seeing a pretty big shift in California. I think it goes under recognized and people want to believe that we're completely out to sea. However, the fires completely highlighted the fact that we are absolutely in a big shift. People see that the leadership is not working. So what's happening in Santa Monica? Santa Monica is adjacent, adjacent to the Palisades fire. So the fact that they're even talking about this kind of ridiculousness when people have lost their homes, when people literally have nothing left, have nowhere to go, and they're worried about reparations and they're worried about LGBTQ rights within Santa Monica is just more, more and more the hypocrisy of the left and not actually serving the needs of the people. Right.
- [01:58]
Buck Sexton
How is that rebuilding effort? I mean, I know it's very early, it's going to take a long time, but we were led to believe, meaning people that were just paying attention to the news cycle, that Gavin Newsom, who we'll talk more about him in a second, got a new podcast that Gavin Newsom was going to clear away all the regulations. So, for example, people in the Palisades fire aftermath could clear away the debris. How is that moving things more efficiently actually going?
- [02:29]
Katie Zachariah
Well, I will say that I was able to be with Ambassador Rick Grinnell, who the president appointed to oversee the fire damage. And then administrator from the epa, Lee Zeldin came out to visit a few weeks ago. And the only reason that things started moving forward is because those two were out with Mayor Karen Bass asking questions to the people. What do you need to start rebuilding? What do you need to clear this debris? How can we be helpful? And Karen Bass sat there, oh, well, they've been able to get there, they've been able to come back in. And the residents are saying, no, we haven't. There's so much red tape that's not allowing us to clear this debris. So EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and then Ambassador Rick Grinnell pushed forward. And again, it's so clear, when President Trump came, he told Karen Bass exactly how this was going to go down and what she needed to do, and she started doing it. So what we're seeing is without leadership from President Trump's team, nothing's getting done. And it's only when they are told what they need to do that they start doing it.
- [03:32]
Buck Sexton
So Gavin Newsom has announced a new podcast that is out there. Is this, Is this real? Is he actually doing this or is this a joke?
- [03:43]
Katie Zachariah
I thought the same thing when I first saw it. I was, is this from the Babylon Bee or is this real? Why? Why is he starting a podcast when he is responsible for one of the most devastating fires, one of the most devastating losses of any state in history? Right? What is he doing? He's sitting up in Sacramento starting a podcast, talking about the price of eggs, engaging MAGA conservatives, being the, being the moderate voice for. For who? We need your leadership and we need you to actually get stuff done. And enough of this self aggrandizing and enough of this constant narcissistic self absorption from Gavin Newsom. He has no solutions. And honestly, the podcast is just more symbolism of the fact that he doesn't really care what is happening with Californians. He's already eyeing 2028 and a potential presidential run, and he's trying to make himself look magnanimous and approachable.
- [04:43]
Buck Sexton
The fight for life is ongoing day in and day out, and on the front lines of it. Preborn. Preborn has a network of clinics across the nation who have a very simple but profoundly important mission, which is to save the lives of as many tiny babies as they possibly can. And they do this by putting their clinics in areas of the country where abortion rates are highest and offering women an alternative to abortion with love and care and support. Now, this process usually starts with an ultrasound because once mom sees that tiny heartbeat, she knows the choice here has to be for life. But Preborn needs your help in this mission. They get no government funding. All you have to do and what you can do right now to help them is go to preborn.com buck, that's preborn.com buck. Consider donating $28 a month to be a sponsor for Pre Born's incredibly important network, saving lives day in and day out. How do you assess Newsom as the standard bearer for Democrats in California going forward? 2028 feels like a long time away. It'll come here very quickly. But Gavin Newsom as the, the person to represent Democrats from that state or Kamala Harris? I'm, I'm somewhat amazed to look at the polling and see that Kamala Harris is still the far and away favorite, at least according to the most recent polling that I've seen, to be the Democrat nominee overall, not just be the person that California would choose, but the Democrat Party nationwide. So who's stronger right now, Newsom or Harris?
- [06:25]
Katie Zachariah
Well, are those polls taken from Ann Seltzer? I mean, I just want to ask the question.
- [06:29]
Buck Sexton
Well, no, because she doesn't do polls. She doesn't do polls anymore. She retired.
- [06:33]
Katie Zachariah
That's right. I know. It's more that they're so ridiculous that how can they even be true? What, what is behind Kamala Harris? We have a DA of San Francisco, failed Attorney general, failed vice presidential state senator, did a terrible job for us Vice presidential candidate, border czar failed, did it and failed and got beat very well beat by President Trump in both the popular vote and electoral vote in the presidential election. Where is her political future? I don't see her running for anything again. I think that she would be best to stay on the sidelines. She signed some deal in Hollywood with a talent agency, probably going to make money and be relegated to the has beens of, you know, U.S. politics. Gavin Newsom, on the other hand, I think is making a very clear directed pledge and we're seeing it in California that he wants to run for president. And it is our job as Californians to expose what a terrible leader he is. What has he done right? That is the question. I wonder why are we not running 247 the things Gavin Newsom has done wrong in California, it's an endless abyss of things he's done wrong.
- [07:48]
Buck Sexton
Are you seeing any data to support the notion that more and more Californians, if not turning on, turning their party affiliation toward either independent or Republican, are at least turning on Newsom? Because I remember there was a recall and he did better in the recall than did, I think in the initial election, which felt pretty disappointing to those of us who were hoping that sanity would reign in California or would return in California at least. Is that, is that starting to happen or Is it just so entrenched, so left wing, that Gavin Newsom is going to be the guy no matter what?
- [08:24]
Katie Zachariah
Well, I point you to the fact that Kamala Harris won every state without voter id. Right. And so when President Trump landed in North Carolina to go see the damage from the hurricane, the second he got off the plane, he said, you know, maybe I should require voter ID from California as a quid pro quo essentially, for federal fire, for federal aid, for the fires. And what I think we're seeing is California is not deep blue. California came in third in the nation for votes for President Trump. So the data shows that we came in third. Most people don't know that it was Florida, Texas and California. And California gained 6 percentage points from 2020 to 2024 for President Trump. We have seen a massive shift statewide. And this is Kamala Harris home state. And there was this shift from 2020 to 2024 without voter ID, without a requirement of paper ballots. Every single person in California is mailed a ballot or 20. And there's no regulations on ballot harvesting. So if we could get at least control of the federal elections where the presidential or congressional are required, same day voting and voter id, we would see that the rest of this, that the state is turning red, if it's not already deep red, in my opinion.
- [09:45]
Buck Sexton
Let's talk about what's going on with Elon Musk and Doge out, out in the capital. These federal workers, I don't know if you've seen some of them, have taken to TikTok and Instagram to show how upset they are. One said that it feels like she's in North Korea because she has to tell people that she did something last week or she has to respond to an email to me. The work of Doe so far, if nothing else, is at least showing that a lot of federal government employees don't believe they work for the executive branch. They think they're their own branch of government. Where do you think this goes? I mean, are the firings going to start mounting up more and more? Are they going to be able to stop him in the courts? How do you see it playing out?
- [10:27]
Katie Zachariah
Well, by and large, I think they've gotten away with not having to work for the executive. And Elon and President Trump talk about this bureaucracy has been created and is enabling this group of people to not be accountable to anyone. Right? They're accountable to the bureaucracy that has been created. And so I think what President Trump and Elon are doing is they're exposing the bureaucracy. They're exposing that the bureaucracy is not accountable and they're now holding them all accountable. So, yes, I think that they are going to hold true to their promises. They will fire people for not responding to these emails, and they should be fired. And I think there have to be very swift consequences for not showing up to work, for not delivering on what's requested of you, unless you have a clear directive from. I know Director Patel said, hey, we're going to take an assessment. Don't respond yet to this. But there had to be some agreement made in advance that, you know, he was literally coming in that week and he had to assess what's going on with the staff. But otherwise, outside of that type of scenario, every single employee that that's requested should absolutely be responding.
- [11:35]
Buck Sexton
I think it's been really illuminating as well for people to see that a lot of the individuals working at USAID who have been affected so far by this feel like there should be no justification necessary for the money that they are spending, because their other buddies in usaid, right, they get funded by Congress and they get all this money, billions of dollars, and then they just get to determine what to do with it. And the American people saying, hey, hold on, why are you doing that with this money? Is they think of it almost as. It's rude, I think, or they think this is tyranny. It would seem to me that this kind of transparency is the bare minimum that the American taxpayer should have.
- [12:18]
Katie Zachariah
It's the bare minimum and the light needs to be shed on what's happening. And actually, the tyranny is not the exposure. It's the keeping the secret that our tax dollars are being wasted, that they're being, you know, flown overseas to endless causes that don't benefit us and likely probably laundered. Once they, once they really follow that money, they're not really spending $50 million on XYZ. These, these different causes. I think it was circumcision in Mozambique, right? The. You go follow the money and see it. Who is actually taking that money and what are they using it for and who's getting paid outside of that and how much, what percentage is actually going to the stated cause? But more, more for the President Trump, what he is continuing to do is say the American taxpayer is not going to bear the burden of the world's problems any longer. He is delivering on the promise that he will put the American citizen first, not just with this usaid, but in the deportations and making our cities safer and really making our entire country safer by securing the border. So he's across all fronts delivering on this and on transparency. He's not hiding what he's doing with the border and the deportations either.
- [13:34]
Buck Sexton
The international fellowship of Christians and Jews standing with Israel in this incredibly difficult time. Israel has been through war, as you know, and is still dealing with the constant menace of Hamas on its borders, along with other terrorist groups who seek to destroy the Jewish state. But there are people around the world, including you, who have taken action to show their support for Israel. And in this time, it is greatly appreciated providing food, providing medical necessities, all kinds of things that can be given of a humanitarian nature to help the people of Israel. Right now. Go to ifcj.org that's ifcj.org or call 888-488-IFCJ. That's 888-488. IFCJ on X. By the way, your bio, it says, former Beijing expat. How was that?
- [14:31]
Katie Zachariah
Yeah, I graduated from Pepperdine School of Law and I moved over to China to Beijing, and I worked in a law firm called Zhonglun Law Firm, and I was the outside counsel to the IFC and the World Bank. It was an interesting and exciting experience, I will say.
- [14:51]
Buck Sexton
How many years were you over there?
- [14:53]
Katie Zachariah
I was over there for about three years. Traveled extensively through China, southern China, western China. That's a Benton Plateau. It was. It was actually one of the most exciting and invigorating things to see pre Covid. I can't imagine how much has changed since then, now and now under Xi Jinping. I was there between and Xi Jinping, so I really saw a massive shift between the two leaders. And really what the availability and excitement of Westerners being there towards kind of a much more closed approach under Xi Jinping.
- [15:28]
Buck Sexton
How's your Mandarin?
- [15:29]
Katie Zachariah
My Mandarin is okay. I wouldn't sit here and try to have a long conversation. It's gotten worse and worse as time goes on. But I can understand a good amount. And what's fun is when I'm with a group of Chinese people or in a grocery store, they're speaking and this blonde pops in and says something and, oh, they're so excited that someone knows how to speak at least a little bit.
- [15:54]
Buck Sexton
Very cool. Well, Katie Zachariah, senior advisor to fix, California Republican political strategist, thanks for coming on to talk and we'll speak to you again soon.
- [16:03]
Katie Zachariah
Thank you.