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The Interview
Steve Hilton: Brit running for California governor
00:23:01
Steve Hilton on leaving Britain and his Trump-backed bid for California governor
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- [00:00]
Steve Hilton
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.
- [00:06]
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- [00:54]
Nick Robinson
Hello, I'm Nick Robinson, BBC presenter, and this is the interview from the BBC World Service. The best conversations coming out of the BBC people shaping our world from all over the world. I want to get freedom. I like that. Freedom. A gender equal world would be a better world for men too.
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- [01:21]
Steve Hilton
This is a war.
- [01:22]
Nick Robinson
The first thing that we want is the war to end. For this interview, I met Steve Hilton, who's running to be the next governor of California in the U.S. midterm elections in November. Hilton hasn't been an American citizen for long. He was born and raised in the UK to parents who'd escaped Soviet Hungary during the 1956 uprising. After attending Oxford University, he went on to become a key figure in British politics and a top aide to Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron before taking the decision to emigrate with his family to America, where he became a naturalised citizen in 2021. That means he can run to be governor, but not to be president. He's been endorsed by President Trump and the MAGA movement, having made his name as a Fox News TV host who attacked those he called the radical left and argued for what he calls positive populism.
- [02:18]
Steve Hilton
My job as governor will be to stand up for California. That is the case regardless of who's the president. It happens to be the case that on a whole set of policy issues, unsurprisingly, because I'm a Republican candidate, I happen to agree with the Republican administration at the federal level. Having a governor with a good working relationship with the president and his cabinet, I think will provide concrete benefits to California.
- [02:46]
Nick Robinson
Welcome to the interview from the BBC World Service with Steve Hilton.
- [02:51]
Steve Hilton
The beauty of America, and it's a really unique thing. I would say about this country is that anybody can come here, anyone from anywhere can do anything. That's the idea of America. That central idea of becoming an American that puts you on exactly the same level field in, in terms of citizenship and belonging as anyone else is truly unique. I often make this point that you could go to the UK and become a citizen and never really be British. My parents are Hungarian, both my parents and my stepfather. You could live in Hungary for 40 years and comply with all the requirements of citizenship, whatever, but you're never going to be Hungarian. And there's something very special about America that welcomes people here and gives people the opportunity. And I'm a proud American. I became a citizen in 2021. I feel at home here, both in America and actually in California. I'm a very proud Californian, obviously. And I feel at home here in a way I actually have never felt before. I feel like this is where I'm meant to be, and I couldn't be more honored that people now are putting their faith in me to turn the state around.
- [03:58]
Nick Robinson
There are other reasons that Brits in particular may be a bit puzzled by this journey. The you've been on. Those who remember you, those who read about you, heard about you back when David Cameron was Prime Minister in 2010, will remember that you were the guy that told him to go and accompany a pack of huskies to the Arctic, who told him to put a windmill on his house to prove that he was committed to clean energy, who at one news conference arranged for journalists to be handed saplings, silver birch saplings, to plant at home. And now you're a representative of Trump's MAGA movement. What on earth happened?
- [04:34]
Steve Hilton
Well, first of all, I didn't tell him to do anything, so that's just to make sure that everyone understands that. Secondly, I'm an environmentalist, I always have been. But that specific contrast that you draw there, I think it's worth digging into. I mean, environmentalism. Let's just start with the big picture. To me, never has just meant. I think it's actually a failing of the environmental movement that it's become very ideological and very focused on just one aspect of environmentalism, which is climate change, albeit a very important one. But there's more to it than that. Conservation, protecting our beautiful parks and public spaces. Here in California, environmentalism is very deeply felt. In a way, California invented the modern environmental movement, and I feel very much part of that. Specifically on climate change. I think that when you actually look at the policies I'm just talking about California. Now we've got a set of energy policies that are being pursued in the name of fighting climate change, but which are actually increasing carbon emissions. For example, importing now most of the oil that we use from halfway around the world on giant supertankers instead of producing it here in California.
- [05:44]
Nick Robinson
So you're saying you're still a green, but you have an argument about the way that green policies are pursued. Do you believe in man made climate change?
- [05:51]
Steve Hilton
Yeah, yeah. And I think we need to have common sense policies on that. Just to go back to the oil example, we are literally increasing carbon emissions in the name of climate change policy because the tankers. There's no oil pipeline into California, we're an island in that sense. But we have abundant oil and gas reserves here in California. We used to produce most of the oil we use right here in our state. By some measure we have the second largest oil reserves in the world. But in the name of climate change, oil, oil production has been shut down in California to the point we're now importing nearly 80% of what we use.
- [06:23]
Nick Robinson
Well, look, there are obviously some echoes in the policy debate that's being had in the uk. Let's get to policy in a little while though. What I want to understand to start with is whether you accept you've been on a political journey, that there is a big difference in the Steve Hilton running as the Trump backed candidate in California with the David Cameron advisor, or in reality, do you think that's a superficial view, that you're still you, you always were, you always will be?
- [06:50]
Steve Hilton
I do actually think it's a bit superficial, but I would totally accept that there's been a personal and a professional journey which has been great in the sense of giving me opportunities I never would have dreamed of back in the UK to teach at Stanford University, start a business here in California, have a whole new career in the media, which I never would have expected. All those things definitely would represent a journey, of course.
- [07:16]
Nick Robinson
Did you come to a view that some of the things that you stood for, that you're associated with back in the UK were actually the wrong analysis and that you and conservatives, whether in the US or in the uk, needed to shift?
- [07:28]
Steve Hilton
The way I'd answer that is to the thing that comes to mind is a moment, it really was a very specific moment in 2015 and I'd just, just published a book in the UK. We probably talked about it at the time, More Human Designing a World where People Come first. And the argument in the book was that everything's Become too big and bureaucratic and centralized and distant from the human scale. We need to decentralize power and so on. The UK book came out in 2015, and then in 2016 a US version was published. And during 2015, I was working on updating the UK version with American case studies and statistics and so on. And at that point, I think in the chapter on inequality or poverty, whatever, I came across this chart of data which really struck me, and it's become quite well known now, but it plotted on a chart the earnings after inflation of the majority of American workers. I think the term is non managerial, non supervisory workers, about 80% of the workforce, their earnings plotted on a chart. And basically it showed that after inflation, those earnings have been flat, like totally flat, since 1974, I believe. So you've had decades of wildly differing economic policy, left, right, globalization, so on. And at the end of all of that, the economic position of most people was flat, whereas on the same chart they plotted the earnings of the top 20% and corporate earnings, and they went up like a hockey stick. And to me, that captured something that really was the underlying driver of what I came to call positive populism, which is something's not working here. And the economic policies that have been pursued on an ideological basis by both sides are not delivering for most regular people.
- [09:19]
Nick Robinson
So that took you on a journey, on a journey to backing Brexit in the UK and to backing Donald Trump in the us.
- [09:27]
Steve Hilton
Yes. And the specifics on both were with Trump, you could see that even going right back to the start of his campaign in 2015. He was talking about that in a way that Hillary Clinton and no other candidates were. And now these themes are actually quite familiar in our politics. But when Trump started talking about it in 2015, it was very unusual that the role of China manufacturing, being driven, offshore immigration, in terms of lowering labor costs, importing low wage workers and so on. And those arguments were new. And I thought he was the only one talking about that in a way that made sense, having seen that data about the position of most people. And I thought the same argument applied in relation to Brexit, although with Brexit there was a deeper sense of frustration. Of course, I was very familiar with the role of the eu. That went back a long way. I don't want to rehash the whole Brexit conversation, but that wasn't just about the economic impact on working people. It was a deeper conviction about centralization of power and democracy. Actually,
- [10:34]
Nick Robinson
you're listening to the interview from the BBC World Service.
- [10:44]
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- [11:31]
Nick Robinson
I know Steve Hilton pretty well. We used to deal with each other when I was political editor of the BBC. And and he was a key advisor to the opposition leader and then Prime Minister David Cameron. He played a vital role in transforming the Tories image, modernizing it, in his words, to show that the Conservatives could be green, could be open to diversity, and could sound as if they welcomed the modern world rather than seeing it as a risk. It's striking catching up with him now that a guy who is going to challenge for such high office in the United States has in some senses changed very little. Certainly not his look and not his accent either. But the politics he espouses does sound very different from what we used to hear back in the early 2000s. Okay, let's return to my conversation with with Steve Hilton.
- [12:30]
Steve Hilton
I was born in England. My parents are Hungarian. My stepfather's Hungarian. My parents split up when I was young. My stepfather's also Hungarian. We would go back to Hungary all the time. And you just saw the contrast between a free country and one where people didn't have freedom. And Hungary was not nearly the worst of the oppression that you saw in the Soviet bloc. But it just became very striking to me, the difference between the lives that my cousins lived and, and so on.
- [12:55]
Nick Robinson
And, and did it make you suspicious of the state, suspicious of the left?
- [13:00]
Steve Hilton
Yes, all of those things. But also a sense of, I think it's a very powerful driver of hating arbitrary authority and bureaucratic control over people. I think that's a very, very deep belief in me.
- [13:15]
Nick Robinson
It really kind of like, not just to be clear, communist hungry. But we'll come to that. Let's carry on with your life story. Let's come carry on with your life story. When Your parents come to the UK as, as refugees from communist Hungary. You have, as a young boy, quite a tough life, don't you? I mean, your parents get divorced, you end up in a damp basement flat in Brighton. This is a pretty tough start.
- [13:38]
Steve Hilton
Also quite normal. I wouldn't want to overstate it. It wasn't destitute poverty, but it was, yeah, I mean, that's true what you just said. But soon after that, if I'm trying to recall the sequence, my mum met my stepfather, who's also Hungarian, and, you know, he was a, I'd say a regular kind of working class immigrant home. And I very much absorbed that sense of a work ethic. And that was the time when Mrs. Thatcher had just been elected. And that sense of, you know, striving, upward mobility, working hard, you know, that was what I really remember from those years.
- [14:10]
Nick Robinson
And they send you to a very smart boarding school, presumably with a scholarship.
- [14:14]
Steve Hilton
It's an amazing school, it's called Christ Hospital. Most of the kids there are from less advantaged backgrounds. I think something like 85% of the kids, parents don't pay any fees. The word unique is overused. It's a genuinely unique institution. It's a very different to anywhere else.
- [14:32]
Nick Robinson
And do you believe it took you from poverty to privilege? Because you then go to Oxford University, you go on to work for the Conservative Party, you work for Old Etonian, the oldest, richest school in the uk, produces multiple prime ministers, including the man who's your friend. And you become an advisor to David Cameron for sure.
- [14:50]
Steve Hilton
That's exactly what happened. It's a springboard to opportunity, actually. I remember thinking years later, you know, I was in a position to discuss and influence policy, like, is there something we can do to create more institutions like this? Because it had a profound impact on me, a game changer completely. As was Oxford University, in fact. And so I look back on that with huge appreciation and gratitude.
- [15:14]
Nick Robinson
Having moved to the United States, your first big move a little while later into US politics, certainly into the awareness that people had of you, was as a host of the Fox News show, the Next Revolution. One reason you upset quite a lot of people is on that Fox News program that you presented, you appeared to go along with suggestions that the 2020 election had been stolen. And you said at one point, you said at one point, it'll be resistance all the way every day. As you were angry with what the Democrats were saying about that election. Do you accept now? You should have said, look, Biden won it.
- [15:52]
Steve Hilton
I did. It's a very Interesting example of how misinformation takes hold, which is that I never said any of that in terms of 2020. In fact, just to be really precise about it, there was a lawsuit around all of that at the time. There's that whole process of discovery. And my team had to go and see the lawyers and they merged, saying, well, we got nothing to worry about, because I apparently sent an email to the team around that time saying, I don't want to go near any of this stuff.
- [16:20]
Nick Robinson
But what did you mean by it'll be resistance all the way every day?
- [16:24]
Steve Hilton
I can't remember the whole context of it, but what I'm assuming I meant is resistance to the policies that I disagreed with.
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Nick Robinson
Well, I thought you meant resistance to those who said there wasn't a problem with the election. I guess what the critics would say is, should you have been clearer about it? Should you have just gone on your show, an influential guy, and said, Look, Mr. President, look, Donald Trump, just accept you lost.
- [16:45]
Steve Hilton
I remember having an interview with him around that time, when that's basically what I did say, a phone interview. I think it was soon after January 6th. So I think there's just.
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Nick Robinson
It's all.
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Steve Hilton
The way that this has been reported is not just wrong, it's the opposite of the truth.
- [16:59]
Nick Robinson
Because some people wonder whether, given your closeness to Trump and given your closeness to the MAGA movement, whether the guy who boasts of standing up for the little guy, which is a lot of your pitch, would really stand up to the powerful people. Let's start with Trump. Would you stand up to him?
- [17:16]
Steve Hilton
Yeah, of course. My job as governor will be to stand up for California. That is the case regardless of who's the president. It happens to be the case that on a whole set of policy issues, unsurprisingly, because I'm a Republican candidate, I happen to agree with the Republican administration at the federal level. One example is gas prices. We talked about that earlier. The president and his team wants to expand energy production across America, and especially in California. I agree with that. The current governor's blocking that. It's an example of how actually having a governor with a good working relationship with the president and his cabinet, I think will provide concrete benefits to Californians.
- [17:56]
Nick Robinson
But then we go to the environment where he calls it a climate hoax. Do you call it climate hoax?
- [18:02]
Steve Hilton
No. However, let's just be clear. Right now in California, we have the highest gas prices in the country. The highest. Even though we have abundant oil reserves, the highest electric bills everywhere except for Hawaii, the highest cost of living Overall, driven in large part by energy. The highest poverty rate of any state. We're tied with Louisiana for that. The highest unemployment rate of all 50 states, the highest cost of living. It's a real economic disaster going on right now in California, which is masked by the fact that we are the fourth biggest economy in the world. So actually, what we've got to get to is a point where we can take care of environmental concerns and climate change in a way that doesn't crush working people and small business in particular. So my approach to that, for example, going back to where we started, the conversation about environmentalism, is a much less punitive one, which is about planting trees. I've got a plan. We can get to the net 0, 20, 45 goal that California has set, which to me is somewhat arbitrary, but still, if you buy into that goal at the moment, the current path to getting that is a disaster for California because it will just drive business away and make people poorer. There's a much better way of doing that, which is to, for example, protect wetlands, plant trees. Got a whole plan around that, a more practical and positive way of meeting the goal. So it's a question about how you get there.
- [19:26]
Nick Robinson
So you say you'll stand up to Donald Trump in certain circumstances. What about big tech? You're in the big tech state. Your wife, as you say, has had jobs at Google and Uber and now at Netflix. Sergey Brin, the co founder of Google, was one of your big backers. Here in Europe, people increasingly think big tech is too big to too powerful, causing social problems. Have they got a point or are you going to fight for tech against European governments?
- [19:52]
Steve Hilton
I'm going to fight for people, and that includes supporting California businesses. So my job as governor will be to make sure we do everything to increase jobs and wealth and opportunity here in California. Tech is one of our biggest and most important industries. I'm incredibly proud that we've led so far is part of the spirit of California, that innovation, that rebel spirit, where you have people deciding that they're going to change the way things work and invent new ways of doing things. Very proud of that.
- [20:23]
Nick Robinson
You said that part of the problem with the world was that what you described as mostly national corporations that had a sense of connection to and responsibility for their local communities have given way, and I'm quoting you now, to rootless global entities, private sector bureaucracies, many of which have lost all sense of community perspective. Sounds to me like you're describing those big tech firms in California. They're the rootless ones, aren't they? They've the one who haven't got a sense of community or perspective.
- [20:51]
Steve Hilton
Well, I think that, you know, it's, it's not, it's not a sort of general point. I think I was more referring to businesses that, for example, have offshore manufacturing devastating communities in the process. That's what I think that I was really, you know, that that's the context for that argument. But I think that with business, it's not one thing or other you want to maximize. I started a business. Most of my career has actually been in business. Of course, people know me for my roles in politics and in the media, but most of my career actually did an analysis of it because when you run for office, you've got to put a ballot description next to your name. You're allowed three words. And so I went through my career since 1990, when I left Oxford, 36 years. The majority of them have been in business and majority of those running my own businesses, including the startup here, a couple of restaurants in England. And so actually what I put on the ballot was small business owner. That's really been the most. What I think of myself as. So I think of these companies as primarily the engine of opportunity. And we've got a climate for business in California that's literally the worst in America. Right. Chief Executive magazine ranks California 50th out of 50 for business climate, which is one of the reasons so many companies are leaving, including. What I'm really concerned about with tech, Nick, is that you've got all this amazing innovation going on. It's mostly in the Bay Area where I live, all these AI companies. But the investment that's creating jobs, they generate a huge amount of wealth and revenue. But the investment that's building the high end, manufacturing the chips and all of that is going to other states, not California, because we make it so expensive and difficult to do business here, to build anything here.
- [22:32]
Nick Robinson
Yeah, you've talked about these big companies, big tech companies in particular, being an engine for opportunity. Some people think they're an engine for inequality. Is your message maybe in this campaign that inequality doesn't really matter? It doesn't matter if Elon Musk becomes a trillionaire, if the guys who you mix with are vastly, vastly richer than anybody you or I have ever known in our lifetime. So that's not really relevant. Is that your argument?
- [23:01]
Steve Hilton
It's not really. That's a very academic, conceptual kind of conversation that doesn't really fit with how I approach this, which is very pragmatic and simple. And positive and practical. So what I'm arguing in this campaign is captured in one word, calafordable. Make our state Cal affordable. What's that about $3 gas. Cut your electric bills in half, your first 150 grand tax free. A home you can afford to buy start homes for young families. And so I approach this as a pragmatic, problem solving, business minded person rather than a kind of political theorist.
- [23:38]
Nick Robinson
You renounced your British citizenship. What made you decide you didn't want to be a Brit? Or was it simply that you wanted to become an American politician to become a governor and that's what you felt was necessary?
- [23:48]
Steve Hilton
Well, it's a combination. I mean I feel I love this country. I love California. I feel deeply at home here in a way I never was in the uk just to be honest. I feel that this is where I'm meant to be. In so many ways. I really identify with the soul and spirit of California, what we represent. Not just obviously the natural beauty and the great weather and all the rest of it, but that kind of rebel spirit that I think is the foundation of California's success in so many areas.
- [24:19]
Nick Robinson
Thank you for listening to the interview. You'll find more in depth conversations on the interview wherever you get your BBC podcasts, including episodes with the former US Secretary of State John Kerry, the head of UNICEF, Katherine Russell and the co founder of LinkedIn Reid Hoffman. Until next time. Bye for now.
- [24:46]
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- [25:46]
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