Steve Hilton Is Running for Governor of California. And He's Actually Winning.

Summary

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The Sage Steele Show

Episode: Steve Hilton Is Running for Governor of California. And He's Actually Winning.

Date: April 29, 2026
Host: Sage Steele
Guest: Steve Hilton

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Episode Overview

This episode features an in-depth one-on-one conversation between Sage Steele and Steve Hilton, a former UK government strategist, Silicon Valley entrepreneur, Fox News host, and now Republican frontrunner in the California gubernatorial race. The discussion covers Hilton’s diagnosis of California’s decline, his campaign platform, policy priorities, and why he believes the state is ready for political change—despite entrenched one-party rule. With a focus on homelessness, fraud, affordability, and cultural conflict, Hilton outlines the concrete actions he’d take if elected, weaves in firsthand stories, and appeals to Californians across party lines for a fresh start.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Why California is “Broken”

• One-Party Control and Political Arrogance
  • Hilton attributes California’s crises to 16 years of continuous Democratic dominance, leading to “arrogance,” loss of focus on public service, and a proliferation of burdensome regulations.
  • “The Democrats have run this place...total control. And when that happens...they lose touch with what they're supposed to be doing…They forget about the actual outcomes, they only think about their own power.” (Steve Hilton, 04:14)
• Data Points on Decline
  • Highest unemployment and poverty rates in the U.S., lowest opportunity and affordability rankings, and an exodus of companies and families frustrated by high taxes and the cost of living.
  • “U.S. News and World Report ranks California fiftieth out of fifty states for opportunity…Chief Executive magazine, we're fiftieth out of fifty for business climate, ten years in a row." (Steve Hilton, 05:00)

2. The 2026 Gubernatorial Race: Why This Year is Different

• Increase in “wrong direction” polling: 55-65% of voters believe California is off-track (06:43).
• Enthusiasm among Republican voters due to major ballot initiatives: “Save Prop 13” for property taxes, and most notably, voter ID measure—expected to spur higher GOP turnout (06:43).
• Many Democrats are disappointed with their own candidates, opening a window for real change.

3. Fraud and the “Homeless Industrial Complex”

• Investigative “Revolution”
  • Hilton credits young citizen-journalist Nick Shirley (and others) for exposing large-scale fraud and mismanagement—millions meant for the vulnerable being funneled to politically connected nonprofits instead of reaching their targets.
  • “I will make [Shirley] a hero of the revolution. Because he started it...the fraud is biggest here…” (Steve Hilton, 11:39)
• Documented fraud: e.g., over $1B budgeted for solar panels in low-income housing; most of the money went to political activist groups, not the intended solar projects.
• State controller has the audit power, but historically, oversight has been lax as officeholders used it as a “stepping stone” rather than a real check.

4. Top Issues and “Califordable” Solutions

• Hilton’s Three Policy Pillars (17:09):
  1. Affordability (“Califordable”): Lower gas to $3, cut electric bills, make first $100K tax-free, make home ownership realistic.
  2. Reducing Bureaucracy: Immediate review of climate policies, permit processes, regulatory overreach, and labor/environmental mandates.
     • “The real job is to dismantle this bloated nanny state bureaucracy.” (Steve Hilton, 18:20)
  3. Restoring Public Safety and Common Sense: Address crime, homelessness, and urban decay by “enforcing existing laws, clearing the homeless encampments,” and prioritizing treatment for underlying addiction or mental health issues (28:30).

5. Rapid Action and Specific Policy Plans

• Touts unique business/government hybrid experience—confidence in executing rapid reforms through immediate personnel changes, executive orders, and focused budgets (23:23).
  • “If you know what you’re doing, you can actually make some of these changes quickly...” (Steve Hilton, 23:23)

6. Homelessness: Policy Failures and Correctives

• Policy Inertia and Ideological Constraints
  • “Housing First” laws prevent enforcing sobriety or treatment as conditions for shelter.
  • “The Democrats...passed a law in 2016...that…is not allowed to require as a condition of helping people that they get clean and sober. That they...it’s illegal.” (Steve Hilton, 32:50)
• Accountability and Follow-the-Money
  • Untracked spending: $24B spent on homelessness missing or poorly directed, $2.4B “lost” in LA alone (37:33).
  • Resistance to transparency: Newsom vetoed a full audit bill; LA mayor seeks to dissolve the auditing office (37:33).

7. Building a Reform Team and Ensuring Accountability

• Hilton’s “Golden Ticket for the Golden State”—a team of running-mates for key positions (state controller, attorney general, insurance commissioner) pledged to audit, stop, and prosecute corruption.
  • “We’re going to find the fraud...stop the fraud...and prosecute the fraud.” (Steve Hilton, 41:50)

8. Wildfires, Insurance, and Business Flight

• Preventative Forest Management
  • Restore controlled burns, logging, and thinning to reduce catastrophic wildfires—policies abandoned due to environmental overregulation.
  • “There’s a lot we could be doing if you just had this problem-solving, business-like mindset rather than bureaucracy.” (Steve Hilton, 43:53, 47:58)
• Insurance Crisis
  • FAIR Plan, intended as “last resort” insurance, now covers ~650K homes (!); propose regulatory and litigation reform to get private insurers back in the market (48:57).
• Business Environment
  • California’s #4 global economy is unduly reliant on big tech, masking high unemployment.
  • Overregulation, union-driven mandates, litigation, and “climate extremism” drive businesses to Texas, Tennessee, Florida.
  • “Exact same facility in Nashville or somewhere there, California, seven years; Tennessee, two years. And cost three or four times as much.” (Steve Hilton, 54:21)

9. Cultural Issues: Women’s Sports, Parental Rights, and School Policy

• Hilton pledges to reverse 2013’s AB1266 (“open access” for transgender students in sports, locker rooms, and activities) using constitutional challenges focused on school safety and gender discrimination against girls.
  • “I'm not going to take [my Save Girl Sports wristband] off until I have saved girl sports.” (Steve Hilton, 58:01)
• Reiterates support for parental rights and the necessity of informed, consensual involvement in children’s lives.
  • “[Parents] must be informed. There must be consent.” (Sage Steele, 59:46)

10. Campaign Momentum and Bipartisan Appeal

• Leading in latest polls, attracting interest from Democrats as well, signaling a breaking of old voting habits.
• “There’s a real movement and energy for change here. It’s going to be difficult to beat...but I’m really confident...people are done. It’s too much, it’s gone too far.” (Steve Hilton, 61:02)

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On One-Party Rule and Its Effects:
  “They forget about the people. That’s what’s happened...We are done with it in California.”
  — Steve Hilton (04:14)

• On Massive Fraud:
  “They’ve been siphoning off the money to build their own political machine and no one’s been looking at it.”
  — Steve Hilton (13:00)

• On Turning California Around:
  “We need to make our state Califordable. That really is the number one thing you’re hearing. Everything is so expensive...it’s the direct result of Democrat policies.”
  — Steve Hilton (18:20)

• On Karen Bass and LA Governance:
  “She said: I have just signed an executive order tasking agency heads with developing paths forward to streamlining permitting. And you just realize nothing’s going to happen.”
  — Steve Hilton (28:30)

• On Homelessness Solutions:
  “It used to be rehab or jail...This used to be the case in California not that long ago. And the mental health centers were where the police, law enforcement could take people off the streets.”
  — Steve Hilton (32:50)

• On Accountability:
  “We’re going to find the fraud...stop the fraud...and prosecute the fraud. And...get the money back...give back to taxpayers.”
  — Steve Hilton (41:50)

• On Women’s Sports and Parental Rights:
  “I’m not going to take [my wristband] off until I have saved girl sports.”
  — Steve Hilton (58:01)
  “Parents...must be informed. There must be consent.”
  — Sage Steele (59:46)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:59 – 03:02: Introduction to Steve Hilton and state of California’s crisis
• 04:14 – 06:02: Hilton diagnoses causes of California’s decline
• 06:43 – 09:23: 2026 political landscape and chance for change
• 11:39 – 14:44: Fraud, Nick Shirley’s investigations, and money misuse in CA
• 17:09 – 22:54: Top campaign issues: affordability, bureaucracy, and core reforms (“Califordable”)
• 23:23 – 28:30: How reform would be implemented quickly and challenges facing a new governor
• 28:30 – 32:25: Relationship with mayors/local leaders, homelessness enforcement policies
• 32:50 – 37:33: Housing first policy flaws, relapse of effective institutions, the “homeless industrial complex”
• 37:33 – 41:50: Where homelessness money goes, need for audits, and building a reform team
• 43:46 – 48:57: Wildfires: management, prevention, and failures in current policy
• 48:57 – 51:58: Insurance crisis and rebuilding after disasters
• 51:58 – 55:26: Business flight, regulatory and litigation burdens
• 55:55 – 59:45: Women’s sports, parental rights, and restoring school safety
• 61:02 – 62:05: Campaign momentum, Democrats rethinking support, call for accountability

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Tone and Language

• Hilton’s tone blends passionate critique with policy detail and optimism, using both formal analysis and anecdotal evidence.
• Sage Steele amplifies urgent concerns, grounds the conversation in real-world struggles, and presses for specificity and accountability.
• The conversation retains sincerity, a sense of mission, and intermittent humor (especially around “Califordable” and Hilton’s British background).

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Takeaways

• Hilton positions himself as a practical reformer with both business and government experience, explicitly contrasting his plans with what he sees as ideologically-driven, ineffective Democratic governance.
• The episode serves as both a campaign platform and a policy deep-dive for voters and observers far beyond California, offering hope for bipartisan solutions and warning of the consequences of inertia.
• The “Califordable” mantra, fraud investigations, and unapologetic stances on social issues anchor Hilton’s case for a Republican breakthrough in the Golden State.

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Transcript

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[Sage Steele]

My next guest is somebody you might recognize from his broadcasting career and crazy successful business career. But there is so much more to the guy with the British accent who has a super sharp insight into American politics, Steve Hilton. His rise to international prominence as the director of strategy for the British government more than 15 years ago has taken him across the Atlantic all the way to California, where he's bidding for the Republican nomination for governor to take on Gavin Newsom in November. Hilton is a naturalized American citizen with fascinating experience as a college professor in advertising, the Silicon Valley and as a Fox News host. So he's really uniquely positioned to take on some of the most liberal policies in California, policies that have led to dozens of companies leaving the Golden State thanks to those crazy high taxes, high cost of living, and record high homelessness and crime numbers. As you'll hear, Hilton's firsthand experience in Los Angeles and really throughout California reflects a wider trend that a majority of Californians recently polled think the state is heading in the wrong direction. With voter id, a ballot initiative in November, a high Republican turnout is expected and it has many believing this. This is the year Newsom can no longer explain away his long trail of failures as governor. Here now, my conversation with Republican hopeful for governor in California, Steve Hilton on

this episode of the Sage Steele Show.

[Steve Hilton]

Sage Steel Show.

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[Sage Steele]

Steve Hilton is joining me and he of course is running for governor in the great state of California. And Steve, I've only met you one time in person, but I feel like I know you more and more because you're everywhere. Thank you for taking the time to sit down with me. How are you?

[Steve Hilton]

I'm great. Sage, it's so wonderful to be with you. I feel the same way about you and I've been dying to have this conversation because I just love your warmth and your energy and your passion and that's how I feel about California. I know you do too. We got to save this beautiful state. And so far it seems to be going okay. Very happy to be where we are in the campaign, but especially happy to be here with you.

[Sage Steele]

No, thank you. And yes, I want to dive deep into that and of course, how the race is going. Some recent changes in the overall race. But first and foremost, thank you for saying that. Save the state of California, I have always said, and I lived there as a little kid and then of course I worked there for many years when I was hosting NBA coverage in Los Angeles. And I've always said California is the most beautiful, most diverse state. You can have the ocean and the desert and skiing and the redwoods and there's no state like it. And diverse with people from all over the world, including you, young man. Right. I mean, it is, it's an incredible state. But obviously right now it is marred with so many issues that even from across the country and across the world, people talk about why and what is happening in the state of California. I want to get into to your, of course, your what you're focusing on with the campaign and if and when you win. But let's get into the why real quick. How and why do you think the great state of California got to this point where you have said I want to run and save this state?

[Steve Hilton]

Well, the first part of it, I think is almost the inevitable consequence when one party has too much power for too long. And that's what's happened in California. The Democrats have run this place. It's 16 years now of complete one party control, all the statewide elected offices, super majority in the legislature, 2/3 majority, all the cities, the big cities, the big counties, the state supreme court, six one Democrat appointees. It's just like total control. And when that happens, I've seen it many times before, the people in control, they just get arrogant. They lose touch with what they're supposed to be doing. They forget about the actual outcomes of what they do. And they only think about their own power, their own kind of internal constituencies, the activists and their own internal machinations and they forget about the people. That's what's happened. And so you see, for example, the legislature in Sacramento just churning out endless, insane bills that no one's asking for that just massively increase the cost of and hassle of doing anything to the point where we now have the highest unemployment rate of all 50 states, the highest poverty rate of all 50 states, the highest cost of living by far. U.S. news and World Report ranks California 50th out of 50 states for opportunity. Wallet Hub ranks U.S. 50th out of 50 for affordability. Chief Executive Magazine, we're 50th out of 50 for business climate. Ten years in a row. It's because these people have just given up trying to do their job, which is to help the people, and they're just trying to help their own political control get stronger. And I think that's why we're going to kick them out this year. We are done with it in California.

[Sage Steele]

Yeah. I have so many friends that say what you just said, we're done. The problem is many of them have picked up and left because of it, which, you know, at some point, you have to stop the bleeding. My question is, there are a lot of brilliant people in the state of California, normal, everyday residents who continue to vote for the madness. And I think that's the issue when you're looking at it and you see it and you're living it and you're stepping over, you know, homeless people, disenfranchised people, the crime, obviously, the economic issues. But you continue to vote for the same party. Does that concern you, knowing the history of Californians and how they vote, despite how bad it's been?

[Steve Hilton]

Well, it's definitely, you know, I'm not pretending this is easy, that suddenly everyone's going to wake up and say, you know what? It's a disaster. We better change direction. There's a habit of voting a certain way, and people have lost the habit to a certain extent, of voting Republican. But when you actually look into the details, there's real hope for this year that it could be different. The first is that if you look at polls about, you know, when they ask people, is the state going in the right direction or the wrong direction, but which is usually the main indicator if you're going to get a change in the election that's coming. Even in the last governor's race, the wrong direction number, wrong track number, whatever was around 45%. Now it's 55 and above. I've seen it as high as 65. So simple point is, there's a majority of Californians want change, want to go in a new direction. That's A good starting point. Secondly, in a midterm election, all the political experts will tell you the most important thing is turnout, getting your voters out to actually vote. I mean, for example, if you look at the raw numbers, if every single person who voted for President Trump in California in 2024 votes for me in 2026, I'll be elected with something like 200,000 votes to spare because there are enough Republican voters. We just have to get them out to vote this year. There are two things on the ballot in November that Republicans really love. One is a ballot initiative called Save Prop 13, which is all about property taxes. But the big one is voter id. There's a ballot initiative for voter ID on the ballot in November in California that's going to really help Republicans turn out. The other thing is, look at the Democrat candidates. I mean, I know we'll get into all of that, but even before the Swalwell stuff, they're not sending their best. As the President might say, we've got really bad candidates on the Democrat side. And then the final point I'd make, and this is a feeling more than anything I can point to in terms of actual data yet, but this fraud story, the fraud that is being uncovered, right? Nick Shirley, James o', Keefe, we're doing it with my Cal Doge initiative, the Vice President's Fraud Task Force, Dr. Oz, CBS News, you know, and it's building. The growing volume on the fraud story is enraging people. And that. And before that it was just how come we're paying the highest taxes in the country for the worst results. But now it's like that's where my money's going. That, that is not okay. And so I think this is going to kind of really fire people up. The fraud story is a big factor this year.

[Sage Steele]

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I just sent a text to several of my friends in California. And just to say, okay, as a voter, and a couple are Democrats, one's

more independent, in the middle, one's a Republican.

And I said, I just want your opinion. What is your biggest issue? And this is from a friend who actually lost their home in Pacific Palisades. And they're on the run as they try to figure out the rebuild, which is a topic I'd like to touch on with you. And this is what she said. Homelessness, our streets are not safe. We'll get into that. And then she said, where are tax dollars going? California is a shit show, was the quote. And then high taxes, high crime, and what you just said, so much fraud. I feel like we've known it's there. It's just not being spoken about. And then all of a sudden, you have a young Nick Shirley come out and do the job that so many others have refused to do. And certainly James o' Keefe and I love what you're doing as well. How has it gotten to this point with fraud and how it's basically just been accepted?

[Steve Hilton]

Yeah. I do want to just quickly mention Nick. Sure. I saw Nick in Orange County a couple of weeks ago. We did an event together. And I said, look, my parents are Hungarian. They were refugees from communism. And I made a little joke that there's not really anything good about communism, but they had this kind of nice way of honoring people, and they would call people heroes of the revolution. And I said, look, we're going to have a revolution in California this year. It's a political revolution. And Nick Shirley, when I'm governor, I will make you a hero of the revolution. Because he started it. He really did. It was Nick Shirley's first report from Minneapolis. Got this whole thing going. And in fact, I responded to that here in Cal, and I said, look, however bad it is in Tim Waltz's Minnesota, you can be sure it's a. I said, a thousand times worse. In Gavin Newsom's California. And then I said, well, let's try and figure it out. So we set up Cal Doge to start to investigate. I've got volunteers now, lots of them digging into the numbers. And that led to, you know, Dr. Oz and all these other people. But it's Nick that got it started and it's an incredible service he's done, especially to us in California because the fraud is biggest here, but to the whole country in terms of how it happened. It's this arrogance. It goes back to what I said before, the arrogance of one party rule. They think they can get away with anything. There's no scrutiny, no accountability. There's a couple of specific things. I'll give you much of the fraud that we are finding and we're just getting into it now. We've published four fraud reports. I'll give you an example of one of them. $1 billion over the last 10 years that was supposed to be spent on solar panels for low income apartment buildings. 100 million every year since 2015. We actually looked into that one. Turns out the actual amount spent on solar panels was 72,928,000,000. Nearly all of it went to non Democrat nonprofits, activist groups, voter registration, all the things James o' Keefe were documenting. And so they've been siphoning off the money to build their own political machine and no one's been looking at it. And the other part of it is when I say they've got total control, all the statewide offices. There is an office, elected office in California called the state Controller. The state controller has the power to audit any organization receiving state money and then to stop the money if there's fraud or irregularity. But for the longest time it's really been used as a stepping stone to something else by Democrat hack politicians who just don't care. Because their whole attitude is it's our money, we take it from the taxpayers, we don't care what happens to it. They have no, they're so like disrespectful of the fact that hard working people go to work every day, they start businesses, they run small businesses, they work incredibly hard and they take the money, these politicians and they just have no respect for the, for the fact that this is hardworking taxpayers who produce that. And that's the culture that we're going to change as well as the specifics of stopping the actual fraud in all these programs.

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You know, better late than never, right? And it's just amazing that I think nick Shirley is 24, maybe 25. I have a 24 year old daughter, Steve. Like, this is insane that this young man. And I'm so grateful for that courage. And so what does that do? It opens the eyes of probably millions of Californians and then it's like, okay, this has been happening.

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[Sage Steele]

I hope they feel taken advantage of because that is the only way to get them out of what you described as a habit of only voting for one party. You know, let me backtrack a little bit and if you could just give me your top three, the top three biggest issues that you see. And I know there's about 63, but if you could give the top three for people who are really struggling. Because I did read how 1 in 4 California voters right now are still undecided. And that's a pretty high number relatively speaking, which makes this very hard to predict as far as the election coming up. Although you Certainly are polling at the top, but it is otherwise, I mean, statistically speaking, a wide open race. So give those people your top three issues.

[Steve Hilton]

So just quickly, before I do that, I gotta say, Nick Shirley, guess what? The California legislature. There was a bill introduced into the California legislature this week that we're, we're taping this called the Stop Nick Shirley Act. They are literally. No, I'm not making it up. They're passing, they're trying to pass legislation to stop the fraud from being exposed. It's incredible. The arrogance of these people. It's kind of amazing.

[Sage Steele]

It's disgusting. And that's the thing is, I've gotten to the point with so many of these cultural issues, Steve, where I'm like, how can they look themselves in the mirror? And then obviously they do every day. But I think it's deeper. I mean, I, I was talking to, talking to Dr. Peter McCullough yesterday on my show, and that's a different issue. But hey, California was certainly affected by the chaos of COVID and how it was handled. But I think there's a real darkness within these people's souls to know and to be okay with cheating other people. So I'm sorry, I digress. Yes, no, you're totally right. The fact that they are starting this campaign to stop Nick Shirley tells you about the darkness.

[Steve Hilton]

Yeah. To pass a law, I mean, it's just unbelievable. So in terms of the issues, I mean, there's actually one. And I can say, I mean, you can't quite see, it's on the banners that we have for our town halls that we're doing up and down the state. And the theme of it, I can say in one word, Cal, Affordable to make our state Califordable. That really is the number one thing you're hearing. Everything is so expensive. We have the highest gas prices in the country, the highest electric bills. Everywhere except Hawaii, the electric bills have doubled in more than doubled in the last 10 years. In California, highest housing costs, by far, lowest home ownership, insurance, groceries, the highest, you know, everything is just insanely expensive. And that's the direct result of Democrat policies. So my response to that, the simple pledges in my campaign, from day one, I've been saying, $3 gas, cut your electric bills in half, your first hundred grand, tax free, a home you can afford to buy. So behind each one of those is a reform plan. And then I'll say when you say, what's the top priority? So actually the real priority is to, is to dismantle this bloated nanny state. Bureaucracy that they've built because it's the regulations and the fees and permits and hassle and ridiculous labor rules and environmental rules and all this crap that they've just layered on year after year. That's what makes everything so expensive. And so the real job is to dismantle all of that. In particular the climate agenda, as the Democrats call it, which is doing nothing for the climate. I love our. You know, in California, we love our beautiful environment, want to protect nature. Of course we do. But what they call their climate agenda doesn't even make sense. For example, one of the reasons we have the highest gas prices in the country is that even though we have abundant oil reserves in California, we used to produce most of the oil we use in state. Now we import nearly 80%. Instead of getting it from right here in California and taking it in a nice clean pipeline from Kern county in the Central Valley, where most of the oil fields are, to refineries in Long beach or up in the Bay Area. We are now shipping oil halfway around the world in giant supertankers spewing out carbon emissions because they run on the most disgusting dirty fuel, it's called bunker fuel. In the name of climate. They're literally increasing carbon emissions in the name of climate. I tell you an even more insane example. The refineries that are built in California, we used to have about 40. Now we're down to about seven. Were built to refine California crude oil, which is kind of heavier. You know, there's different types of oil. It's known as heavy oil. So that doesn't work for everything. One of the types of oil that works with California refineries is the oil you get in South America. So here's what's happening. As a result of Gavin Newsom's climate policy, they are increasing oil drilling in the Amazon rainforest to provide California with oil. We are now the number one buyer of oil from the Amazon rainforest. We buy about half of it because of their climate policy. It's so mad and like, there's so many examples like this where it doesn't even make sense. It's pure. I was going to say virtue signaling. It's not. It's like ideology signal. I'm a climate warrior. So we're going to shut down the oil companies in California, but we're not really using any less. We're just now shipping it in. It's crazy. Anyway, when we stop all that, we can get gas prices down. And so each one through the list. But I think the important point is the goal is to make life just less of a struggle for working people, for small businesses, by getting rid of this insane bureaucratic monstrosity of a bloated government that they've built.

[Sage Steele]

California, right? Did I say it right? California.

[Steve Hilton]

There you go.

[Sage Steele]

I love it. And it makes sense. And it's. And it's simple because that's the other thing. Even if you ignore some of the societal and cultural issues, I mean, if you just look at the sheer numbers and why people have left or, you know, just been unhappy there, you got to be able to afford to live and to have hope for your children, etc.

[Steve Hilton]

So.

[Sage Steele]

So let's say you win. And I imagine that's one of the first things you're gonna tackle. Obviously, it's the financial part, so people can feel like they have hope, can afford it. The problem with anything, just like with Donald Trump running and saying, this is what we're. Everything takes time, and it isn't overnight. And when it is to these depths. Steve, realistically, what should Californians expect as far as trying to turn this economic ship around?

[Steve Hilton]

Well, some of it you can. If you know what you're doing, then you can actually make some of these changes quickly. And it is going to be complicated. And. But one of the things that, you know, people need to understand about me, a lot of people may know me from my time hosting a show on Fox News and being a sort of media commentator, but most of my career has actually been in business, working in business all around the world, starting my own companies of all different kinds. A tech company here in California, restaurants for a while in London. But I've also worked inside of a government, the UK Government. I was senior advisor to the prime minister, worked in 10 Downing street, had my little office next to the Cabinet Room. And I really, my job was to try and implement the reform program we had. And actually, to be honest, it didn't go that well. But what I learned was how hard it is actually to make things happen, how hard the bureaucracy fights to stop change happening, and how you need to be incredibly determined. And I was the advisor. I wasn't the boss, as it were. But now I've really learned what it takes to make change happen. So what I would say is, first of all, I'm going to have the attitude that is realistic about how hard it's going to be, but prepared to make the changes. Right. When you get into it, some of these things. I'll give you an example on the oil, for example, the way that they've shut down California Production is through an agency of the state government, the California Department of Geologic and Energy Management. Where they've put in there, Newsom has put, the governor appoints these people, has put in there the kind of climate warriors who refuse to give permits for any aspect of oil production. That's how they shut it down. You can make that change almost overnight by kicking out those people, replacing them with pro energy people, telling them to issue permits. It's the same with the issue of water for our farmers in the Central Valley. Spent a lot of time there. I understand that issue very well. There's an agency called the State Water Resources Control Board, and they've been shutting down water supplies to our farmers in order to protect this fish that they're worried about in the San Joaquin Sacramento Delta. That's based on these biological assessments that have been put in place. You could just get rid of them and replace the people. So as you go through each issue, there's a lot you can do if you, if you, if you understand how the system works by being ready on day one with those people, with the executive orders written, with the legal briefs prepared to withstand challenge. And that's the work that I'm doing as well as running and trying to win. I've got a whole operation in place, preparing to start on day one. And so you're right. And also on day one, I will be submitting my budget to the legislature. The governor sets the budget. That's the main policy making vehicle in California. Of course, then that becomes a negotiation with the legislature.

[Sage Steele]

So.

[Steve Hilton]

But you know, you, you set the kind of agenda. So I agree, it's not going to be overnight. I've never said that. But if you know what you're doing, you can make some pretty big changes pretty quickly.

[Sage Steele]

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the governor, yes, setting the budget, running the state and working hopefully alongside the mayors of these big cities. And of course, unfortunately, a lot of those mayors have been in the news since they took office. So what does that look like as far as your relationship with, for example, a Karen Bass? Anyone who's running any of these cities? Yeah, I know, because I know what I would want to say to her and I don't live in California. What does that look like as far as forming these relationships? And I guess if there's no relationship, you know, you still have control and can give people in Los Angeles hope.

[Steve Hilton]

Yes. So let me give you two sides of that story. So I'm in LA right now. We were just, you know, chatting before we started the show. I mean, it's just the shocking state of things in this, America's second city, California's biggest city, where we're about to welcome the world for the Olympics in two years time. It's just unbelievable how bad it is. And they keep telling us things are getting better. They're not. I mean, I just went downtown la, staying in a hotel, went out last night after an event to try and grab some food. I'm just walking down the streets. It's like a, like a zombie horror movie. Just around the corner from a sort of a regular hotel in downtown la. This is not skid row or whatever and you've just got Pershing Square right in the middle of downtown. And it's just unbelievable, the state of things and the stink of, of shit and piss. I'm just gonna. We gotta be honest about what's going on. It's disgusting. And, and so the first point is we gotta have a change because she's not getting it done. And so I'm very clear and proud to support Spencer Pratt for mayor because we've got to elect a new mayor. If we go on like this, we're just going to have. I mean, why would anyone expect any different if we vote the same way? And so, and I'll give you one example. You mentioned the Palisades of kind of why she is such a disaster and, and politicians like her as such a disaster. It's a very specific thing, but it kind of tells the story. A few months into the after the fires, Karen Bass did put out a social media post which caught my attention, maybe it's about four or five months afterwards. And, and it said, I have just signed an executive order streamlining permitting so we can quickly rebuild in la. I remember thinking, good, you know, it's five months too late, but whatever, good. But then I watched the video clip. It was of a press conference. What she actually said. Here's what. Here's the. I remember the words. This is what she actually said. I have just signed an executive order tasking agency heads with developing paths forward to streamlining permitting. And you just realize nothing's going to happen. She's set up some bureaucratic process and she thinks that's it, job done. And that's what you get with these Democrat career politicians who've never run a business, who've never been accountable. They think that just a process is the same as a result, that announcing something is the same as doing something. And that's why nothing happens. And we've had year after year of we're cleaning up the homeless, we're cleaning up the streets, we're doing all these things. Newsom does it, Karen Bus does it. Nothing happens. And so we've got to have a change. And I'm supporting Spencer's Pratt, but to your point, who knows what elections bring? And my job as governor will be to work with whoever is. Is the people choose. And that's my attitude. But if they don't get it done, the governor has power to do things. And I've said very clearly, let's just take homelessness, homeless encampments, living on the streets. It's against the law. It's always been against the law. They've hid behind all these super. These court rulings and even. And the Supreme Court's actually taken that excuse away in 2024. There is no reason that they can't clear the streets of homeless encampments. Just like you see in Florida and other places, it's about the will to get it done. And I've said the governor has a state law enforcement agency and I will direct state law enforcement to clear the homeless encampments. If Karen Bass and these are the local politicians aren't doing it. And then we have to get people into treatment for drug addiction, mental health problems. I've got a whole plan around that. But it starts with saying it's unacceptable and we're going to clear the streets.

[Sage Steele]

I don't think people realize. I'm sure some do, but I didn't realize or remember that it's actually illegal to have these encampments. But they're being created and they're being almost enhanced by the governments there in Los Angeles, in San Francisco. So where do these people go?

[Steve Hilton]

So I'll give you an example of how crazy things have got. The Democrats a while back passed a law which has become known as Housing first, which is that you can't require. Remember the background to this, all the studies show people who've worked with this issue. Over 80% of people who are homeless have either serious addiction problems or mental health problems or both. And honestly, it doesn't matter whether they became homeless because they had those problems or they developed those problems once they were homeless, because, of course, it's an incredibly stressful thing. And if you're. I've spent a lot of time, you know, with, with faith groups and others working with homeless people. I've really deeply understood it. And, you know, if sometimes it's true that you become homeless through, you know, in a way no fault of your own, you might lose your job, you don't have insurance, you don't have savings. You, you know, you know where to live, you can't pay rent, you end up sleeping on people's couches, you run out of friends, you end up sleeping in your car, you have to give the car up because you can't afford the payments, and you're on the streets that, you know that happens, and you're not a drug addict, you're not some kind of bad. But you just hit rough times. But then once you're on the streets, you are the target for criminal gangs who are pushing drugs. And you're in that environment that you can easily fall into that. The point is, it doesn't matter. We got to get you clean. We got to get you back on track. And they passed a law in 2016, 10 years ago, which said that if you. Any organization that receives state money for homelessness is not allowed to require as a condition of Helping people that they get clean and sober, that they, it's illegal. It's amazing that you have to just give them shelter. So what you're seeing now is you're seeing, you know, this is where the money's going, $900,000 apartments, sometimes a million dollars to crony developers. This is called the homeless industrial complex where you get an apartment, they call it permanent supportive housing. They put you in an apartment, no requirement to get clean, you're continuing to use drugs, you're back on the street buying drugs, dealing drugs. It's really ridiculous. Last year in the legislature, the Democrat legislature passed a bill called the sober housing Act. As the name suggests, it would have taken, it was a small step, 10% of the budget and said it goes to sober housing where a condition of getting the shelter is you get clean. The Democrat super majority passed that. Newsom vetoed it. It's just insane. So at the very least we're going to do that. And you know, before all this in California there was a system of drug courts and mental health centers which basically worked. It's going back about 20 years, which is the drug courts were very simple, you rehab or jail. That was the choice. This used to be the case in California not that long ago. And the mental health centers were where the police, law enforcement could take people off the streets, take them to a mental health center and There was a 72 hour hold where they could be confined while they're assessed and then transfer. Both of those things have gone. And so now law enforcement picks someone up, take them to the regular hospital, they have no ability to detain them, so they're out the door again. And so all of this just has to change. And it's not, it's with, you know, we used to do that in California before these ideologues got hold of the system. And so none of this is that complicated or radical. It's just common sense and it's what we used to do. Even here in California, with Verbal's last

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[Sage Steele]

You know, I guess I think about all these people on the streets not even understanding, comprehending fully the amount of money going towards them to, you know, apparently help them, get them off the streets, prevent it all together. So if we've Got even more people on the streets. The number one state in the country, unfortunately for it, with a homelessness problem. But all the, but all the money going towards it alleged. Where's the money? Where is that? That's part of the fraud, right?

[Steve Hilton]

It is. And so I mean just look at the numbers you've got and these are real numbers that it's not even from us. This was the state auditor in California. Statewide they found $24 billion on homelessness that they couldn't track where it went. In la, just in LA city, funnily enough, the same kind of number. There was a court case, business owners in downtown LA filed a court case, you know, trying to push Karen Bass into doing something about it. And through that court case as a federal case, they established that 2.4 billion had been lost just in LA, right? 24 billion statewide, 2.4 billion. Look what then happened as a result of that auditor's report, state auditors report again, the Democrat legislature passed a bill requiring a full and complete audit of all the homeless spending. Gavin Newsom vetoed that bill here in LA. After that 2.4 billion, the judge ordered an audit and the city controller of LA got a guy called Ken Mejia who was elected as a far left, a Democrat socialist, a kind of real far left guy. But once he got there and started seeing the books, kind of realized what was going on. He demanded the power to do full audit in la. Karen Bass then announced she wants to end the position of city controller and take away the audit power. So they just, it's incredible. What does that tell you? That they know that there's corruption there. They know and that it's going to there. And the corruption is the, the built, the developers that produce these things called permanent supportive housing, the 800,000, 900,000 million dollar units for homeless people, they are donors to these Democrat politicians. And that, and that's what that is. The homeless industrial complex, the developers plus the nonprofits that are providing services, as they call it, but not services that ever help people get their lives back on track. And that's what they don't want to see exposed.

[Sage Steele]

So listen, if you get an office, then you're focusing on all the other, well, the most important things that you can fix immediately. Right. And maybe this certainly is part of it, but California, Yes. At some point will there be deeper investigations into this to hopefully hold people accountable for the decisions, for the fraud? Because I feel like there's so many people, good people, Democrat, Republican, who are suffering because of this cheating and just the disgusting things that they have not just allowed to happen, but they've chosen it. And so I know you got to focus on other things, but I want there to be accountability for you guys. I really.

[Steve Hilton]

Yeah, it's a great question. And actually, one of the things that I'm doing that's really different, that's truly never been done before by any candidate for governor in California is. I don't know about other states, but definitely not here, is putting together a team in advance of the election. Because actually all my years in business, in the government, I know that it's not just one person. You needed this huge number. It's a huge state, fourth biggest economy in the world. There's a lot of issues, as we've discussed, you're not going to be able to do it all yourself. So the starting point is we've got these other eight statewide, seven other statewide elected positions, eight in total. I've already put together a team to run with me as a ticket. We're calling it the Golden Ticket for the Golden State.

[Sage Steele]

And

[Steve Hilton]

two of the positions that are totally relevant to this story, I mentioned it earlier, the state controller. So the state controller has the legal power to audit any organization receiving money from the state and to stop the money going, being paid out if there's suspicion of any kind of corruption or fraud or whatever. So there's a guy running for that with me called Herb, more like we know, we've been working together for months, so we've got to elect that person because we're a team. Then we have running with me for AG, state attorney general, a guy called Mike, that's. He's called Herb Morgan, the state controller candidate.

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Okay.

[Steve Hilton]

Running with me for attorney general, a really strong fighter. Michael Gates, he was the city attorney in Huntington Beach. He fought Gavin Newsom on voter id, housing mandate, sanctuary state law. Then he was hired by President Trump. He's in the Justice Department for a year where he in the with Harmeet Dillon in the civil rights division. He was leading on voter integrity. He's running for attorney general. We together, the three of us have said when we're there working together, we're going to find the fraud that's the state controller and stop the fraud that's the state controller. And then we're going to prosecute the fraud, that's the attorney general. And Michael Gates has said we're going to get as far as we can get the money back like you can. You got the power to get the money back. Now some of it will have gone but and then the governor has the power to decide what to do with that money, which of course I will give back to taxpayers. So it really is the case that if you have a strong team, you need a strong team to really do this properly.

[Sage Steele]

That that gets me excited. Like, I don't even. I'm not a resident of California and I'm like, yes, yes, help these people because there has been true suffering. Speaking of suffering and with what happened with the fires 15 months ago, two things, number one, you can't prevent it necessarily. There are some things that can be done with shrubbery, of course, and keeping things trimmed up and really doing your job right there when you know that it's a potential and it's up and down the entire state. Obviously you can look at Northern California and always issues every single year. You can't prevent it, but you can be more prepared. We now know that what happened in the Los Angeles, they weren't prepared and the residents thought they were. How can you ensure during high fire season, which is going to come every single year in California that those cities will. Your entire state will be more prepared.

[Steve Hilton]

Yeah, totally. I mean, look, they're very obvious.

[Sage Steele]

Have water and the fire hydrants, God forbid, have water available.

[Steve Hilton]

Kind of basic. You would think, by the way, that just one thing not everyone has understood. The Santa Ines reservoir, the reservoir that was empty because they were. They had to fix the COVID and they decided the way to fix the COVID is empty. The whole thing that was specifically built as to be a resource for firefighting. It wasn't just a regular reservoir for what it was specifically built for this purpose. So it's just an absolute crime that they let that be empty the height of fire season. It was a fire prevention reservoir. I mean, so the thing is that we've got to look at the. There's, there's two parts of the problem the you mentioned in the north, particularly in the Sierra Nevada, the big forested areas, wildfires there are ignited mainly by lightning strikes. And of course you can't do anything about. That's just nature. But what you can do is stop them turning into mega wildfires that rage out of control. And so that's what we mean when we talk about forest management. And one of the first policy plans I published was for better forest management, which is totally obvious, which is fire breaks thinning the undergrowth as the understory as it's called. So it doesn't, you know, ignite so quickly and spread so rapidly. Does, doesn't reach up to the top there's all these sensible things that we did for, you know, and even before, you know, we were here, Native Americans. It's just like basic things that were stopped because of extreme environmentalist ideology that said you can't touch the forest at all, which is actually against nature. They stop controlled burns because of stupid air quality laws, all this kind of stuff. So we're going to get. And by the way, there's an economic benefit because we used to have a thriving. It's a bit like the oil. We used to have a thriving timber industry in California where we would manage the forest. And a lot of it was done commercially by, by lumber, the lumber industry. And so you take the lumber out, the timber out and use it to, with sawmills, use it to produce wood for construction. We used to take out. And the numbers on this are amazing. They measure it in board, board feet. That's the measurement for tumble we used to take out of the forest in California. Six billion board feet a year. Now it's down to one and a one and a half. It's a quarter of what it was. We're actually using more because we're growing 9 billion. Guess where it's coming from. We're now trucking it in from Canada because we won't manage our own forests. It's another example of just insanity. You're adding to carbon emissions. Trucks coming from Canada to bring timber that we could be getting from our own forest here and manage the forest at the same time. It's just total common sense. So that's what you do there in, in la. It's different, different vegetation. It's like chaparral, you know, brush, brush rather than the big forest. But it's the same principle you put in fire breaks and the residents, some. I mean, I have direct stories from people. There's, there's, there's something there called the Santa Monica Mountain Conservancy, a state agency. In other words, the governor appoints the people. They were fining residents for clearing the brush around their homes, fining them for doing the sensible thing that they should have been doing anyway, which used to be done before these stupid rules. So you can, you need better. I'm just going to use the term forest management. Just generally you need to change, get rid of those environmental rules that stop that happening. But there's other. I mean, I've met really interesting businesses that are doing great work. Innovative technology for fire prevention, you know, coatings for your roof, for example, fire preventive roof coating. Because a lot of these fires start when the embers blow into the eaves of houses and so on. So you can do, if you, if you had some common sense in government, you could connect that to insurance policies and you get a discount on your policy if you use fire preventive materials, etc. So there's so much we could be doing if you just had this problem solving kind of business like mindset rather than the bureaucracy that we have now.

[Sage Steele]

The, the California Fair Plan is disastrous is what it sounds like. And we all know Kennedy, the lovely, talented Kennedy from Fox News. And she's so brilliant, she's so honest. We need that. And she's spoken up a lot because she is one of those many Palisades residents who lost her home. And now I think she talked about this publicly, but her insurance company dropped her just like so many other people. And so they're abusing Californians who are just trying to rebuild and to go home after the disaster that was these fires. So again with this, this is the aftermath of the fire. We know how you have ideas to prevent it, but how do you fix this part where people are sitting and waiting and they're an insurance hell when all they want to do is get some permits to rebuild?

[Steve Hilton]

Well, a couple of things. I actually published a plan on this a couple of weeks ago along with I'm going to go back to the team again. There's a great in California, we have an elected insurance commissioner. It's an elected position who runs the Department of Insurance. And there's a candidate that we're working together, part of the team, Stacy Korsgarden, who's an, is a long term, she worked in the industry a long time, very common sense with plans to fix the issue. The three big points on my plan are, number one, you mentioned there's this thing called the fair plan. And everywhere I go people call it the unfair plan in California. And it was supposed to be real emergency insurance for almost uninsurable risk for people who are in such a, you know, precarious position or whatever the risks are that the market won't insure them. And so the expectation was that you'd have about 100,000 people on that. The latest numbers are it's over 650,000. It's way bigger than it should be, heading towards a million. So you've got to stop that because it's not funded properly. And if something goes wrong, that's a massive financial disaster because it's just, it's not built for what it's being used for. So the first step is to get people, and that's an active process of managing the accounts back into private, sorry, reasonable private insurance and get the insurance companies back in. The second is to deal with the bureaucracy that the insurance companies have to face. It's the regulate over regulation. For example, how long it takes to get rate increases or decreases, rate changes approved by the insurance department. In the legislation that set it up, it's supposed to be 60 days, that's how long it's supposed to take. It's regularly over a year because they're just not. So there's all this bureaucracy. The third one is there's a lot of nuisance lawsuits, litigation that's, that's coming in from out of state, funded a lot of it by private equity that is really ramping up the cost for insurance companies, which is one of the reasons they're leaving. So you got to take action on the litigation. Democrats will never do that because trial lawyers among their biggest donors, by the way. So there's corruption. Everywhere you look

[Sage Steele]

you see so many companies. I'm just jumping around to my last few topics while I have you here. You. So you see so many companies leaving California for obvious reasons, it's too expensive to keep their business running. And these are not just, you know, smaller, you know, self owned businesses, something that I would maybe start there. These are massive corporations who are leaving for Texas, Elon, Musk, Tennessee, Florida, all of these states that are so much more tax friendly and seem to want corporations to come to their states. How do you flip that? How do you keep all businesses of all sizes in the state of California?

[Steve Hilton]

It's a really foundational goal actually, because if you don't have business here generating wealth and opportunity, then everything else falls apart. You don't get the tax revenue, you don't get anything. And so this is really serious. And I think they've got this assumption. You hear Gavin Newsom the whole time say, oh, we're the fourth biggest economy in the world. That's true. But when you dig into that number, there are two big problems with it. Number one, it's very skewed by a small number of big tech companies, particularly in the AI boom, that generate a lot of revenue and wealth for themselves, but they're small number of employees. So they add to the size of the economy, but they don't add to the success of the economy in the sense of creating jobs for regular working class people. So that's one problem. It's a very lopsided economy. We don't have the full stack of jobs being created. That's why we have fourth biggest economy in the world, but also the highest unemployment rate in America. So that's one problem. The second problem is that fourth biggest economy number. That's the size of everything. That includes the government. That includes the size of the government. They've doubled the budget in the last 10 years. So that's not exactly success. So what we've got to do is deal with the drive, the things that are driving business away. And it's the. And it's basically three things. The climate, extremism. We've talked about that a bit. But it affects everything. Just the endless cost. You know, look at building anything, whether it's a factory, a house, whatever, the building codes are insane. It's two or three times as expensive to build the same exact structure in California as it is in a neighboring state. Because the building codes, the litigation, everything is tied up in lawsuits because they've given what they called private rights of action where anyone can file a lawsuit to stop anything that enriches the trial lawyers. But it makes you know, I was talking to In Out Burger another example. They go leaving, they're going to Nashville. And I was with the fact with the owner, Lindsay Snyder's and. And Lindsay Snyder and her top team just going through the issues. They were saying they that to build the exact same facility in Nashville or somewhere around there compared to California. California seven years, Tennessee two years.

[Sage Steele]

Oh my goodness.

[Steve Hilton]

And cost three or four times as much. And that's all driven by the three things. There's three things. There's the climate, extremism, litigation and union power. The role of the unions in running California is just off the charts again because they own the politicians. The number one donors to Gavin Newsom, the government unions. Number two are trial laws. Number three is non government unions. So and they demand all these things, you know, they call it Project Labor Agreements where to get anything done. You know another I said with a business that builds roads, they was telling me all over the country it costs four times as much to build the exact same piece of road in California as in Texas. Four times as much. Why? Well, you've got all this nonsense like Project Labor Agreements, community workforce agreements. You have to hire a certain proportion, you have to hire homeless people. I'm just. All these things are just crazy and so crazy. You've just sort of take a sledgehammer to all that regulate over regulation and bureaucratic nonsense.

[Sage Steele]

I want to end for maybe I can rebook you and we can continue to go because I Have several more questions.

[Steve Hilton]

Absolutely.

[Sage Steele]

Just.

I'm learning, I'm learning from you as well. And it's so fascinating and refreshing to have someone with obviously your acumen and a business perspective to come with these kind of ideas to give Californians hope. And even those of us across the country don't live there. Because I love your state. This one's personal to me. I've gotten in trouble for standing up for women and women's sports and protecting women.

[Steve Hilton]

Yes.

[Sage Steele]

And it's not excluding anyone, but it is making sure that we protect women and keep biological men out of women's sports. But it goes deeper than that, Steve. And it goes to in the schools and what has been allowed to happen in the state of California with parental consent non existent and with children being abused and all of the transitioning that is being allowed to happen, I mean, these are devastating results that go far beyond anything economic. What can you say about it? And again, it's a massive problem and it's deep rooted to try to give parents hope that they have the final say. They are priority, not some random counselor or teacher. Where do you begin with that?

[Steve Hilton]

So I've spent a lot of time. I'm completely with you 100%. And I spent a lot of time on this. And it really started, I don't know, maybe a year, not exactly. I can't remember the exact date, but within the. Quite soon after I launched my campaign last April, this issue came to the fore. We had the statewide track and field championships in California. And it was another one of these stories where a biological boy won all the prizes. And it was just a big national story. And I went to. And it was held in Clovis, near Fresno in the Central Valley. And I went there to make my statement. And before making my statement, I thought to myself, I don't just want to say I'm against this. I want to show people what I'm going to do about it. So I spent a lot of time getting into the details and the first thing I'll tell you is with me on that day and people can watch. The press conference we did online and it's all on social media was a fantastic young fighter campaign and activist called Sophia. And she set up an organization to save girl sports, as she puts it. And she gave me a wristband and I'm. And here it is. And, and I wear it all the time. Oh, wow, that's my Charlie Kirk one above it. Save Girl Sports. And I said to her, I'm gonna, I'm not gonna Take it off until I have saved girl sports.

[Sage Steele]

Oh, my gosh.

[Steve Hilton]

I made that commitment to her that day. And here's how we're gonna do it. The actual fact of this is that it goes back again, like, so much to a piece of legislation passed in the state legislature in California in 2013, 13 years ago. Now, this has been good just with so many things. When you dig into it, the insanity started in California. That's why actually, if we stop it in California, we're doing a service to the whole country. But this particular one, AB 1266, Assembly Bill 12, passed in 2013, and it wasn't just sports. It was also locker rooms and spaces, even field trips, school trips. You have to, you know, there was just complete open access for biological boys in girls spaces and competitions. Now, that's a piece of legislation. The governor can't just delete that. But I've looked into it. What you can do as governor is overturn legislation if it violates the state constitution. So working with serious. A guy actually, who was the legal team of previous governor Pete Wilson many years ago, we think that that law violates the state constitution in two specific places. I think I'm getting it right. One is section 28, which is about safety in schools, because you've actually had a lot of injuries as a result of this. And section 31, which is about gender discrimination. This is obviously gender discrimination against girls. So we think we've got very strong grounds for overturning that law. And I've made a commitment that that process will begin on day one when I'm governor.

[Sage Steele]

And I hope as well.

Thank you.

I didn't know about the bracelet. That's beautiful. And I know you've been at the forefront of that. I hope as well that we can begin to have even deeper conversations to give parents that right. First and foremost, they must be informed. There must be consent. When you're having school counselors talking about transitioning children and the depth that that goes. And Elon Musk has talked about that as well, of course. So, Steve, did you ever think that this young man from London with parents from Hungary would be doing this? And you've done so much in your career now you have such passion to try to save the state of California. Who would have thunk it?

[Steve Hilton]

It's amazing. Funnily enough, we did an event here with my wife was with me last night. She, you know, we got two teenage sons, so she's a lot of time on the rope is, oh, we never see your wife. I said, neither Do I'm running around the state and she's at home, she's full time job as well. So anyway, what I'm, the reason I'm mentioning, it's just literally last night in la, interestingly an event which was mainly Democrats, mainly Democrats who came to see what I had to say and she, and she came along and, and she said the same thing. She said when Steve started this, you know, a lot of people, especially in England thought this is the, is this a joke? Like what's this about?

[Sage Steele]

Right.

[Steve Hilton]

And it's kind of. But as she said, look, it's hard work and, and, and I've definitely put the work in and it's really great to see that the response to that, I mean we're leading in the polls. The last poll came out yesterday. I think there's a guy, the candidate, the, the poll, the, the results that have been published. You had a guy called Matt Mahan or 8%. We didn't even get into these Democrats. Katie Porter at 14%, Tom Stier 16%, US at 25%. So we're in the lead. Seems to be growing. There's a real movement and energy for change here. It's going to be difficult to beat. Look, the primary is in June, the ballots go out in a couple of weeks. Actually, I'm very confident I'll be in. The general election is a top two system. So it'll be me and one other person I don't know, Katie Porter, Tom Steyer, we'll see. But I'm really confident that we can do it because going back right to where we started, people are done. It's too much, it's gone too far. We got to rein it in and get a bit of balance and change in California.

[Sage Steele]

Well, the fact that you have Democrats coming out to listen to what you have to say, they're probably doing it like, keep the cameras away, don't let anybody see me here. But I think it says something, you know, like this is confidential, but it does say something. And maybe the habit that they have had for a lifetime, they're beginning to say, no, no, no, it is on us. Like you have to be accountable as a voter if you actually want change. So thank you so much for your time, but most importantly, thank you for what you're doing and it does take courage to get out. I know you've been uber successful in so many different areas of your life, professionally, personally, but this, this would be a legacy and you would change the lives of millions of people. So we're going to keep track. Of course. And Steve, thank you again. I hope to talk soon. Will you come back on?

[Steve Hilton]

Absolutely. Of course. Anytime. It's great to be with you. Thank you, Sage. See you soon.

[Sage Steele]

Thank you. God bless.

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