Steve Hilton was endorsed by Trump. Can he win over Democrats?

Steve Hilton 0:00 The biggest one, I, I don't know if you'd call it a policy question, but I certainly [laughs] have said very clearly, but, you know, on the 2020 election, for example, Biden won the election. I mean, that's something-

Kara Swisher 0:09 Mm

Steve Hilton 0:09 ... where I definitely, you know, he, he has a different view. Um-

Kara Swisher 0:12 I will note that-

Steve Hilton 0:12 As-

Kara Swisher 0:12 ... you didn't say certified, thank you. [laughs]

Steve Hilton 0:15 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 0:15 'Cause I would've slapped you. Yeah.

Steve Hilton 0:16 [laughs] Okay.

Kara Swisher 0:17 Go ahead.

Steve Hilton 0:17 I can feel the, the energy. [upbeat music]

Kara Swisher 0:25 Hi, everyone. Today, I'm talking to Republican candidate for governor of California, Steve Hilton. His bid is a long shot, but it's worth paying attention to because we should always pay attention to people with good ideas, and some of Steve's ideas are good, and some I don't like so much. It's also interesting to see how much he's gonna suffer from his endorsement by Donald Trump, who California voters do not like. We've also reached out to Hilton's Democratic opponent, former Health and Human Service Secretary Xavier Becerra. His team declined an interview at this time, which I think is, I'm sorry, wimpy. Even if you're ahead, you should take a chance and do an interview so that people can hear what you have to say, and so I appreciate that Steve did that. All right, let's get to it. Steve, thank you for coming on, on.

Steve Hilton 1:07 Of course. Great to be with you.

Kara Swisher 1:09 So we've known each other for a long time, correct? I guess we met through Rachel, your wife.

Steve Hilton 1:13 Yes. Yeah.

Kara Swisher 1:13 I will say, I'm gonna pay you a compliment. You, you wanted to come and do an interview. Uh, Mr. Becerra would not, so I appreciate that you're here, so...

Steve Hilton 1:22 Well, it's great to be here. I mean, I just think-

Kara Swisher 1:24 Yeah

Steve Hilton 1:24 ... um, it's important to have conversations-

Kara Swisher 1:27 Mm-hmm

Steve Hilton 1:27 ... just generally. Um, and, um, I know you're gonna give me an incredibly easy time, Kara. So it was a-

Kara Swisher 1:33 That's-

Steve Hilton 1:33 It was a no-brainer to come and talk to you today. [laughs]

Kara Swisher 1:36 [laughs] I thought so. I knew you could keep up. But let, let's start with the first question. California is one of the bluest states in the nation and hasn't elected a Republican for governor since Arnold Schwarzenegger's re-election in 20- 2006. But it... They've had, y- you know, Reagan, other, many others.

Steve Hilton 1:52 Mm-hmm.

Kara Swisher 1:53 Um, so to start, give us your theory of the case. Why do you think you could be the state's next Republican governor?

Steve Hilton 2:00 I think it really starts with the reality of life in California. Um, we've had 16 years now where you've had one party in control, and the results, especially for, for sort of regular working people, small business owners in particular, are just really tough, right? I mean, we can go through the data, um, but it's bad. I mean, we have the highest poverty rate in the country right now, tied with Louisiana. Highest unemployment rate of all 50 states. The highest cost of living by far. Groceries, the most expensive. A lot of that is driven by energy costs. Uh, housing, the most expensive in the country. It's just really tough to live here, and I think the... therefore, going way beyond just politics-

Kara Swisher 2:38 This is not a new thing, Steve. This is not a new thing. It was tough to live here during Schwarzenegger. It's tough... California has always been one-

Steve Hilton 2:44 Yeah

Kara Swisher 2:44 ... of the most expensive states in general.

Steve Hilton 2:47 Yeah, but it's, I think it's the sort of combination of things. You've got all of those economic factors. You've got the fact that-

Kara Swisher 2:51 Mm

Steve Hilton 2:51 ... the, the homelessness problem seems so intractable. Uh-

Kara Swisher 2:55 Mm-hmm

Steve Hilton 2:55 ... the school results are really bad, even though we spend a lot of money per student. I think it's just a sort of combination of all these things. The business climate, I think is, is, is, is definitely something that's gotten worse, and you see that reflected in so many companies leaving, and actually the lost investment from, from businesses that normally you'd have expected maybe to set up in California that now... The, the choice is wider in terms of other states where you can do a startup, whatever it may be. You, you know that very well. So I think basically it's just all these things have come together, um, to, to a point where there's a clear majority who say the state's going in the wrong direction and needs change, and that wasn't the case before.

Kara Swisher 3:34 So why you? Why are you the person who can fix this? 'Cause like I said, these aren't new problems, and these are... the, uh, homelessness in particular is in, has been intractable through many governors, including Schwarzenegger. Um, why are you the person to fix this?

Steve Hilton 3:47 Well, the sort of literal, factual [laughs] answer to the question is that, um, 2.3 million people voted for me in the primary to be the challenger.

Kara Swisher 3:55 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Steve Hilton 3:56 Um, and so the, the q- question behind that is, well, why, why did I succeed in the primary-

Kara Swisher 4:00 Mm-hmm

Steve Hilton 4:00 ... beating even Tom Steyer with his hundreds of millions of dollars, uh-

Kara Swisher 4:05 Well, it's good to know money doesn't buy politics-

Steve Hilton 4:07 Yeah, exactly

Kara Swisher 4:07 ... given how much money Elon's gonna be putting into this race, I'm guessing, but go ahead.

Steve Hilton 4:11 Oh, I don't know about that, but we'll se- [laughs]

Kara Swisher 4:12 Yeah.

Steve Hilton 4:12 I don't know.

Kara Swisher 4:13 Yeah.

Steve Hilton 4:13 I've not heard anything along those lines yet, but look-

Kara Swisher 4:15 Yeah

Steve Hilton 4:15 ... I think that the, the, the sort of prior question is, well, why did I do well in the primary? I think it's because-

Kara Swisher 4:19 Mm-hmm

Steve Hilton 4:19 ... I've been putting forward honestly a pretty pragmatic, positive, uh, set of things to change those, those basic realities in California, especially focused on cost of living and the business climate. Um, and we can get into the individual elements there, but it's been something that is not... I, I really feel strongly that the... you know, who I am as a kind of person who's now participating in this, in this race is someone who's just a pragmatist. I'm not ideological. I don't wanna tell anyone how to live their life. I just want everyone to be able to, to live the life they

Steve Hilton 4:57 want in California in an affordable way, and that's really what got me-

Kara Swisher 5:02 What got you in

Steve Hilton 5:02 ... focused on running. Yeah.

Kara Swisher 5:04 Now, now you did get a lot of votes. There weren't, weren't a lot of Republicans running. It was you and former Riverside-

Steve Hilton 5:08 One other. Yeah

Kara Swisher 5:09 ... County Sheriff Chad Bianco, who seems vaguely insane, who was a very hard MAGA guy. Um, but let's talk first about President Trump has endorsed you in the race. Um, uh, but in California, Democrats have a nearly two to one voter registration advantage, as you know, over Republicans, and a poll came out last month, pretty closely mapped that, had you trailing Democ- uh, uh, uh, the, the Democratic candidate, Becerra, by 25 points. So you'll need Democrats to win, so make the case for why a Democrat should vote for... or people who are Independent/Democrats.

Steve Hilton 5:41 So I've be- I've been directly making that case, you know, since the, since this phase of the, of the election. We actually s- launched our, officially launched our general election campaign A couple of weeks ago now, in East Los Angeles, Boyle Heights, a working-class Latino neighborhood that had been in the news because there's that terrible warehouse fire there that burned out of control for a week, and then you had the terrible situation with the, like, eighty-five million pounds of rotting meat and flies and disease and the terrible smell. It just really represented for me a classic example of a community just let down and abandoned by the leadership of the city and the state. And explicitly in, uh, the, what we were saying, uh, in that launch and continue to say, we actually ran ads in the L.A. Times and the San Francisco Chronicle and some other publications explicitly addressing your question. And the headline of the ads was, "Can you be anti-Trump and still vote for me?" And we put forward a number of questions. W- for example, this is in the, in the, you know, is a sort of test that you could take. I'm a Democrat, but I, I think the state needs change. I care about climate, but six-dollar gas is insane, et cetera. I can't remember those exact questions, but in other words, there's a, there's, there are millions of Californians who can't stand President Trump. That is very clear. You know, that's not a mystery. Um, who would never think of themselves as Republican, but who think we need change in California. And what I'm saying to them-

Kara Swisher 7:07 You think they can bifarcate, they can bifarcate on this issue.

Steve Hilton 7:10 Yes.

Kara Swisher 7:10 'Cause regardless of party, you have... Th- there's lots of people who aren't happy with the President. Barely a third of Americans approve of his job performance right now. Um, I, I'd like to g- one of the issues-

Steve Hilton 7:21 I kind of just want to take care of the... And you see that in other states, actually.

Kara Swisher 7:24 Sure. Yeah.

Steve Hilton 7:25 Um, so for example, there are other states, Vermont, uh, Maryland, either now or in the past, where you've had a strongly Democrat state that's elected

Steve Hilton 7:33 a Republican governor.

Kara Swisher 7:34 Sure.

Steve Hilton 7:34 And that, that, that's-

Kara Swisher 7:35 Massachusetts.

Steve Hilton 7:36 So... Exactly. So it's not an unusual thing. Well, maybe, uh, uh, not-

Kara Swisher 7:39 That's a particular kind of Republican, and I'm not so sure you are that, and politics are different right now. Are, are... H- let me ask you.

Steve Hilton 7:46 Well, let's see.

Kara Swisher 7:46 Give us two examples where you disagree with the President on policy issues. This is sort of the Kamala Harris on The View question. What's he, what's he doing bad for California?

Steve Hilton 7:56 I don't know. I mean, look, the, the biggest one, I don't know if you'd call it a policy question, but I certainly have said [chuckles] very clearly, but, you know, on the 2020 election, for example, Biden won the election. I mean, that's something where I definitely, you know, he has a different view. Um, as-

Kara Swisher 8:09 I will note that you didn't say certified. Thank you [chuckles] because I would have slapped you.

Steve Hilton 8:14 Yes.

Kara Swisher 8:14 Yeah.

Steve Hilton 8:14 [laughs] Okay.

Kara Swisher 8:15 Go ahead.

Steve Hilton 8:15 I can feel the, the e- exactly.

Kara Swisher 8:17 He did not say certified. He was certified.

Steve Hilton 8:19 Um, on the-

Kara Swisher 8:21 Go ahead

Steve Hilton 8:21 ... uh, I mean, the way I-

Kara Swisher 8:22 So Biden won the election. Go ahead

Steve Hilton 8:24 ... on, on, on, the way I think about it is that, um, as things come along, I mean, there's a few things I've s- I mean, just in, since I've been a candidate. Uh, for example, I strongly disagreed with the suggestion that they, uh, they would take out the border, uh, Customs and Border Patrol from California airports in retaliation for the state sanctuary policy. That's ridic- you know, the, you'd only have international flights going to neighboring states. Ridiculous. Um, I don't, I don't agree with the withdrawal of funding from University of California. It's an incredibly important institution in our state. May, you know, maybe there are things that we need to improve in terms of the focus of the university system here on, on anti-Semitism, whatever it may be, but I don't think that's a sensible way to pros- pr- you know, prosecute that. Um, I don't know. What's another? Landline. Right. The FCC just, um, sided with the, with the phone companies against California regulators on the, uh, provision of landlines as a, as a, as a service for people who couldn't get cell service. You know, so I think that my attitude is I'm gonna say what I think is in the interest of Californians, regardless of what the, you know, administration

Steve Hilton 9:32 is doing. However, I think it's just be honest to say that it's a Republican administration. I'm a Republican candidate. Generally speaking, you'd expect me to agree with the kind of direction in terms of economic policy reform, deregulation, tax cuts, you know, those kinds of things I support, yeah, and I think we need more of it in California.

Kara Swisher 9:51 So Trump prizes l- prizes loyalty above all else, and you know this. He seems to take credit for your primary victory. How are you gonna walk that line of appealing to disaffected Democrats that you're talking about without hurting his feelings and having him lash out? 'Cause he, he does that. He just, he just went after Jeanine Pirro for telling the truth about the title, about the Lincoln Reflecting Pool.

Steve Hilton 10:13 Well, we'll... I, I think the, [chuckles] the answer is we'll see. Um, look, my attitude is just, you know, we, uh, is to be open and-

Kara Swisher 10:21 Mm-hmm

Steve Hilton 10:21 ... and, and, and, and have a good re- And it's not just the President, it's his team. You know, I'm, I'm-

Kara Swisher 10:25 Mm-hmm

Steve Hilton 10:25 ... I know many of his senior team. Um, uh, you know, B- Rollins, the ag secretary, is gonna be hugely important for us in

Steve Hilton 10:33 California with the, the, the trouble our ag industry is in. Um, Doug Burgum for Interior, we've got to do a lot on our forest management, and so on. So I think that there's... I think, the, the way I, I think about it is let's just be practical and focus on what we can do together to help California, and I think it's just good to have a governor that ha- has those kinds of relationships.

Kara Swisher 10:53 California also occupies a uniquely almost international role, right?

Steve Hilton 10:57 Mm-hmm.

Kara Swisher 10:58 Or a national role. It, it, it's a... It could be a country unto itself-

Steve Hilton 11:01 Mm-hmm

Kara Swisher 11:01 ... um, and a very, very successful one. When you get to national issues like, or, or international issues like the war in Iran or... We'll get to immigration in a second. We have a whole section on that, but, um, how, how, how will you... Again, will be, it be the same thing when you disagree with him? Are there things that you mu- very much disagree with him on, on a national basis or an international basis right now?

Steve Hilton 11:24 I just don't think I'll be getting into that, honestly. I think there's just a lot to fix here in California. I think one of the problems we've had, and it's not just limited to California. First of all, I just want to agree with you. Of course, you're right, and I'm proud of the fact that we're the fourth biggest economy in the world. That is great, and I think we can do even better with the reforms I'm talking about in terms of our business climate. I think we can become the third biggest and overtake Germany. That's my goal. Um, as well as doing it in a way that actually helps lift up working people and small business, not just big tech companies, which is kind of where we're going at the moment. I think that in terms of the international thing, I really, um I think there's been too much of that. I really do. I think that Gavin Newsom, for example, has been sort of running around doing, you know, in- sign- international agreements and trying to, in a way, counter... act as a counterweight to the Trump administration's foreign policy, and I just think w- meanwhile, we have the highest gas prices in the country that's crushing working people. Can you just focus on that? The fact that less than half the kids in our school-

Kara Swisher 12:23 That could, that could be about the situation in Iran, Steve. I mean, I don't think that's within Gavin Newsom's-

Steve Hilton 12:27 Well, it's $2 higher now than anywhere else in the country, even with the situation in Iran.

Kara Swisher 12:32 Taxes.

Steve Hilton 12:32 Let's, let's at least-

Kara Swisher 12:33 'Cause there's certain ta- we have more taxes here on, on gas, but go ahead.

Steve Hilton 12:36 Yeah, we have the highest gas tax, but mainly it's regulatory.

Kara Swisher 12:38 [laughs]

Steve Hilton 12:39 So it's the low carbon-

Kara Swisher 12:40 Mm-hmm

Steve Hilton 12:40 ... fuel standard, it's the-

Kara Swisher 12:41 Mm

Steve Hilton 12:41 ... cap and trade... Sorry, they now call it cap and invest. It's refinery-

Kara Swisher 12:44 Mm

Steve Hilton 12:44 ... regulations. There's a whole bunch of things we do in California that actually don't help the climate at all. They make no difference to climate. They just really hurt, especially those people who use their cars and trucks.

Kara Swisher 12:54 I, I, I pretty much... I think most of the ra- the... I, I get the higher prices, but the most of the raise is because of Iran right now. I mean, you would acknowledge that. That's what's happening.

Steve Hilton 13:02 Yeah, but not the relative. I mean, it's $2 higher-

Kara Swisher 13:05 Ri- I see

Steve Hilton 13:05 ... here than the rest of the country, so let's at least get that down.

Kara Swisher 13:09 Okay. Uh, you're running on a platform of affordability, as you know, in a state with notorious, uh, affordability problems, the issue Democrats have struggled to tackle even with full control of the government. Assuming you won't get that, where can you... You, you're gonna need to work across the aisle on the issue, and what can you do at an executive level to ease the cost of living? And let's be specific here, because this is such a huge issue, and people want to hear s- Not, not, "I wanna get people better j-..." You know, be very specific about what you mean and how you're gonna... You're gonna have to work with Democrats-

Steve Hilton 13:38 Yes

Kara Swisher 13:38 ... one way or the other.

Steve Hilton 13:39 Yeah, yeah. And, and, and, um, there's a... I've got experience with that. I mean, the last job that I did before moving here in 2012 with, with my wife, Rachel, who you know, and, and our, and our kids, was in the UK government. I was senior advisor to the prime minister. I really focused on domestic policy there. He was a conservative prime minister, David Cameron, but it was a coalition government, two parties, um, another party, the Liberal Democrats. I was actively involved in negotiating the coalition agreement, and then I, you know, worked... lived that every day. I actually shared an office in 10 Downing Street, a little office right next to the cabinet room, with my opposite number from another party, Polly McKenzie. We would sit there every day, and we would, you know, hash it out, and, and often the policy process would go through us. So I do have some experience about that, o- of that. The other thing I'd say is that during the primary campaign, what was interesting to me was how much common ground there was between the candidates, between me and the other Democrats. Um, definitely in terms of the diagnosis of the problem, as you just said, you know, there's no disagreement about that. I remember the very first kind of candidate forum we did, I think it was the Chamber of Commerce in Sacramento about a year ago, and I... There was m- It wasn't all the candidates, about, like, five other Democrats that... And they went in front of, before me, and, like, everything they said was what I was [laughs] planning to say. You know, Antonio Villaraigosa stands out. He was the first one. I remember it so clearly. He said, "We have the worst business climate in America. We have to do more to help bus-" et cetera. So I think there's shared ground in terms of the problem. In terms of solutions, I think there's shared ground. For example, Katie Porter, who at one point was leading the, the, the Democrat pack, she adopted my tax plan, um, and said so very openly in

Steve Hilton 15:21 the, in the, in the debates. So my... The, the first part of my tax plan in the primary was your... was to eliminate state income tax for lower paid workers, your first 100 grand-

Kara Swisher 15:31 Right. Well, and, uh, that-

Steve Hilton 15:32 ... tax, tax-free

Kara Swisher 15:32 ... that's one of the... That's one of your big campaign promises, to eliminate state income taxes for pe- let me be specific, for people who make less than $100,000 a year, and, and as you said, others campaigning on the side of you too.

Steve Hilton 15:42 Yeah, we've actually lifted it to 100 and f- I got a lot of feedback that actually that level was too low, which to a lot of people in the country might sound crazy, but actually in California, we've got multiple counties now where the f- because of the cost of living, the official poverty level, low income, is 100,000. So you've got a lot of people who are not, by no definition, wealthy, really struggling, uh, in that category between 100 and 150, so we've lifted it. Um, and we've made adjustments to the o- overall financing as a result. So I think there really will be areas of common ground where we can get things done. Not everything, but some things. On executive orders... On your question about executive orders, I think there's a couple of specific examples. So one part of my plan to bring gas prices down is to stop the insanity of importing nearly 80% of the oil that we use in California from countries like Iraq or the A- or the Amazon rainforest, rather than, uh, producing it here in California. The way that Newsom and the current administration has shut down California production is through an agency called CalGEM, California Geologic Energy Management, and they... And it's the process through which they refuse to give permits for any part of the production process, including, you know, maintain- maintenance of wells. That's how they've shut it down. So that's a direct change you can make by putting in their people or, you know-

Kara Swisher 17:00 By putting in appoint- By the, the appointment system. I, I'm just saying.

Steve Hilton 17:03 Yeah, or even maybe the same people will d- you know, will come to their senses. You just need some common sense on this.

Kara Swisher 17:07 But getting back to your tax plan, Porter planned to make up for the drop in state revenue that would come with, with that by taxing wealthy people more. Your plan is to cut-

Steve Hilton 17:15 Yeah

Kara Swisher 17:15 ... services and waste, as you call it.

Steve Hilton 17:17 Cut- No, cut spending. That's not the same. [laughs] Yeah.

Kara Swisher 17:19 Okay.

Steve Hilton 17:19 But-

Kara Swisher 17:19 What, what, what, what are you gonna cut?

Steve Hilton 17:23 So I just wanted to, you know, put it in the context of the budget. So the... They've doubled the budget nearly in the last 10 years.

Kara Swisher 17:28 Mm-hmm.

Steve Hilton 17:28 It's especially rapidly accelerated since the pandemic. So the argument that spending more gives you better results I think has been disproven by the facts. So my... I think we've just got to reign in the spending. What's really happened is the pandemic spending has got baked into the baseline. If you look at the budget this year that Newsom just signed off, it's about $350 billion. The budget that he's p- he proposed in January 2020, just before the pandemic, 220 billion. That's, like, a massive increase. That's an... So what I'm... That's my target. I would like to get the budget back to pre-pandemic levels, allowing for inflation. So that's... When you take inflation into account, that's probably 100 billion reduction in spending. Obviously, you're not gonna do that in o- in one go. Well, there's, there's different categories. So I'll give you one example that's, that's not cutting spending, it's just getting more value for money so you can reduce the spending. There's a contractor I spoke to. She does roads, road building. They do public works all over the country. She was explaining that in California It costs four times as much to build the exact same equivalent piece of road as it does in Texas. Now, their road quality is rated higher than ours. It's not going into that, it's going into all this unnecessary process and bureaucracy, the kind of stuff that Ezra Klein has pointed out, and Derek Thompson in their book, Abundance, you know, uh, project labor agreements, community workforce agreements, endless environmental processes. If you strip all that out, you can get the same result with less money. So that's one category, getting a, just better if, m- better s- better value for the money that you're putting in. Secondly, there are areas where I think we shouldn't be spending the money. And, and here I would say is what, you know, uh, national Democrats, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, and particularly have said is an unacceptable area of spending, and that is full scope medical, uh, Medicaid as it's known across the country, for, uh, citizens of other countries. Now that's c- that's about thirteen billion dollars a year in California. Um, even Gavin Newsom has said that's, you know, gone too far, and they're, they're now reducing eligibility for that. I just think that when Californians are struggling to pay healthcare costs, it's just not a acceptable use of money, and national Democrats agree with that. So I think that, that, you know, there are things like that where you can-

Kara Swisher 19:43 That can do-

Steve Hilton 19:44 Um, yeah

Kara Swisher 19:45 So, so, so Democrats absolutely deserve some of the problems for California's affordability problem, there's no question about that. But also currently, the Trump administration's policies are also hurting Americans. Tariffs have driven up prices, as I noted, the war in Iran. Um, and Trump isn't helping Republicans like you by saying things like he's not even thinking about Americans' finances

Kara Swisher 20:03 even a little bit. Um, w- w- how w- a- again, again, with... Since Trump is such a huge figure everywhere and is fixated on California among other states, how would you handle a situation where you believe the president's policies are making California's cost of living worse? I've heard from so many Californians about the tariffs-

Steve Hilton 20:22 Mm-hmm

Kara Swisher 20:22 ... because there's a lot of import-export businesses here, and they directly-

Steve Hilton 20:26 Mm-hmm

Kara Swisher 20:26 ... blame, blame Trump for this.

Steve Hilton 20:28 Yeah, I think that that's, um, a good example of, you know, I want to focus on the things that, look, g- general p- policy direction that, um, you know, doesn't, it's not gonna effect... There's not, there's not a particular effect on California, it's just a policy position and, you know, uh, you're not gonna affect it, so I think I would not get involved in that. But where you've got specific things that affect California, I think it's gonna... Very important on agriculture actually, um, if you look at the impact of some of the policies on b- I was just with some, some, um, beef pr- the la- our largest beef producer actually the other, the other week. And, and where there are specific things that you can say, "Look, are you aware that this is really hurting our producers here?" Then yeah, I would lobby very hard for that. Um-

Kara Swisher 21:16 You would advocate the White House these things are hurting the people you represent.

Steve Hilton 21:19 Yeah, for sure. That's right.

Kara Swisher 21:20 That would seem to be your job. You could tell them-

Steve Hilton 21:21 Exactly

Kara Swisher 21:22 ... tariffs are hurting businesses. What effect could you have?

Steve Hilton 21:24 Well, I wouldn't make a broad, I wouldn't make a br- broad... I would just say this particular thing. I think it's always good to focus on the details and something s-

Kara Swisher 21:30 Mm-hmm

Steve Hilton 21:30 ... specific. I don't, I mean, I don't know, but at least I'm going into it with a good relationship, particularly on ag with Brooke Rollins, who I know very well. Um-

Kara Swisher 21:38 Mm-hmm

Steve Hilton 21:38 ... and um, I don't know. I mean, we'll see, but I think that that's... I, I think it, it's a good example of where I think it's helpful to have someone who at least has a good relationship, so you can-

Kara Swisher 21:47 Mm-hmm

Steve Hilton 21:47 ... pick up the phone and say, "Come on, this is not..." Uh, uh, um, oftentimes it may

Steve Hilton 21:53 just be they're not aware of the impact, and so you might win that argument because it was something that wasn't particularly an important priority for them anyway.

Kara Swisher 22:01 Well, he does love those tariffs. He's loved those tariffs for decades. Trump has been sowing a lot of doubt about the US election system, so I want to quickly hit a few of this and get some short answers from you. Is California's mail-in ballot system secure?

Steve Hilton 22:13 Yeah, I, ugh, I don't know. I mean, look, um, the, the voter rolls are, are not, and so that part of it, I think is the problem, where you've got millions of ballots sent out to people who have moved out of state or moved multiple addresses, and so y- that definitely is a problem. I think the sort of general concept of it, the general j- the operation of it I think is, is secure. Yeah, I think it's the voter rolls part that's not.

Kara Swisher 22:37 And you're pro mail-in ballots?

Steve Hilton 22:40 No, not really. I mean, I think they're convenient. I mean, I generally li- I personally like-

Kara Swisher 22:44 I mean, Donald Trump does it, so he does

Steve Hilton 22:46 ... Yeah, I, I p- personally, I love voting on election day. I love the civic ritual.

Kara Swisher 22:50 So do I.

Steve Hilton 22:50 I think that's great. Um, but I absolutely understand that it's convenient. And funnily enough, I think that as a candidate, you can see that it's in many ways helpful to have mail-in voting and early voting because it helps-

Kara Swisher 23:03 Mm-hmm

Steve Hilton 23:03 ... you target your resources in terms of, you know, getting out the vote. So-

Kara Swisher 23:07 But in early, yeah

Steve Hilton 23:07 ... I, I don't think there's any going back on that. I think that actually people-

Kara Swisher 23:11 Right

Steve Hilton 23:11 ... like it, and so fine-

Kara Swisher 23:12 Like it

Steve Hilton 23:13 ... let's keep it.

Kara Swisher 23:13 Fine. Do you agree with Trump's claims that there were irregularities in the state's primary election results enough so as to warrant investigation from federal prosecutors like Trump asked for?

Steve Hilton 23:22 W- we didn't, we didn't see anything. I mean, look, we, we, you know, we... All I know is what we saw in our campaign. As I said at the time, I wanted to make sure to our supporters that we were on top of everything and so on, and we, w- we didn't see anything that caused us concern.

Kara Swisher 23:38 So you don't think a federal investigation is necessary?

Steve Hilton 23:41 Well, I think that Bill Isley, who is the US attorney, he's do- w- I, I think he was gonna do it anyw- I don't know actually. I haven't spoken to Bill about it, so I don't know.

Kara Swisher 23:49 Okay. Is illegal voting of non-citizens a widespread problem in California?

Steve Hilton 23:55 Um, I don't think, I don't think so. I mean, um, there's definitely controversy over-

Kara Swisher 24:00 Neither does anybody else but Trump

Steve Hilton 24:01 ... There's-

Kara Swisher 24:02 Trump does

Steve Hilton 24:02 ... there's definitely controversy over extending it to local elections. I can't remember where-

Kara Swisher 24:08 Mm-hmm

Steve Hilton 24:08 ... we stand on that. I think San Francisco did it for school boards. I think it's being debated in LA. I don't know. I think, I don't agree with that.

Steve Hilton 24:16 Um, but no, I think the real problem is the, is the, is the mail-in, is the voter rolls being so out of date. [upbeat music]

Kara Swisher 24:25 Support for this show comes from Fodzyme. Feeling stressed about what you're eating doesn't let you enjoy the meal, neither does consistently worrying about how you're gonna feel after you eat. With Fodzyme, you can enjoy your favorite foods without the stress or the pain. FODZYME is a tasteless powder you sprinkle right onto your food. It helps break down FODMAPs, the hard-to-digest components in food that can cause bloating, gas, and pain before they cause discomfort. It mixes into your food fast, and it comes in portable packets you can take with you everywhere. Just sprinkle, eat, and feel great. I was able to try some, and I have to say, it's very tasteless. I didn't feel digestive issues afterwards. I felt a lot more comfort. I also put it on a bunch of vegetables that tend to make me bloated in some fashion, and it worked great. Here's what really sets FODZYME apart. Every customer gets access to a free product consultation with a registered dietician. We're excited to partner with FODZYME and offer you 30% off your first order when you go to icaneatagain.com/kara. That's icaneatagain.com/kara for 30% off your first order. Finally, you can enjoy your favorite foods without the pain. Just go to icaneatagain.com/kara. So let's move on to tech in Silicon Valley. You mentioned it briefly, and you said the job of a governor is to grow the economy and support industries here rather than regulate them. In the past, you've been critical of corporate monopolies at the same time and concentrated power like we see in tech increasingly. So what role, if any, should the state play in regulating massive homegrown industries like tech? And have your-- how have your views evolved over time?

Steve Hilton 26:02 Okay. I think that-- I just want to start by saying I really do see it as my job as governor to, to help every industry in California.

Kara Swisher 26:09 Mm-hmm.

Steve Hilton 26:09 I think that of all the industries in California, the one that needs the least help right now is tech-

Kara Swisher 26:14 Correct

Steve Hilton 26:14 ... to be honest. They're doing well.

Kara Swisher 26:16 Mm-hmm.

Steve Hilton 26:16 Um, I think that just, um, I'll-- I don't want to detour into this, but I think that the two industries that I think really need emergency attention from the government is agriculture that we've mentioned-

Kara Swisher 26:26 Mm-hmm

Steve Hilton 26:26 ... but also entertainment. I think there's a massive, you know-

Kara Swisher 26:29 I'm gonna ask you about that later, but go ahead.

Steve Hilton 26:30 Yeah. So I-

Kara Swisher 26:31 No, go ahead

Steve Hilton 26:31 ... I've spent a lot of time on that. Right, let's get to tech. Um, so I think generally speaking, it's not top of my list of priorities in terms of gonna help. I think that there's a major issue with, uh--There's probably two issues that when I think of AI, I don't know-- I know it's not just AI, but, um, obviously that's the dominant narrative in, in, in tech right now. I think that broadly speaking, I'm very n-nervous and cautious about unintended consequences of, of regulations where the people doing the regulating don't know what they're talking about. I think there's two major areas where I think we probably need more regulation urgently. One is in relation to children, and one is in relation, actually connects to Hollywood, and entertainment on, um, copyright and artists' rights and the, and the c-creative product and all of that. So I, I think that those two are really important areas. I think that, um, the-- honestly, I think the pro-- the, the main thing I'm focused on in relation to tech is actually getting, to use a tech term, the full stack of t- of j-tech jobs into California. So what you've seen lately is all these California homegrown companies, really fantastic companies, Nvidia, for example, was the big one. You know, last year, 2025, I think it was April, they made a huge announcement about investment in the US, even if, you know, they inflate these numbers for the press release, and they were talking about half a trillion dollars of investment, none of it in California. Later that year, Anthropic, big investment, that was all going to, I think, New York and Texas, and that's where all the-

Kara Swisher 28:00 They have a big-

Steve Hilton 28:01 It's all going

Kara Swisher 28:01 ... footprint here, though. They, they still-

Steve Hilton 28:03 Yeah, but-

Kara Swisher 28:03 We get a, our fair share, I would say.

Steve Hilton 28:05 Yes, but not the-- Yeah, but this is the point, right?

Kara Swisher 28:07 The new.

Steve Hilton 28:07 So you've got, uh, you've got this contrast. You've got fourth-biggest economy in the world. A lot of that is driven by these big tech companies and the huge revenue that they bring in, and the highest unemployment rate in the country. And also, to use a really nerdy term, um, the labor force participation rate is pretty historically low in California. It's about sixty-two-point-something percent. At its peak in California, it's been nearly seventy percent. So you take those two together, the highest unemployment rate, low labor force participation, there's probably about four or five million Californians of working age who are not working. And I think the, the gap is in these manufacturing blue-collar-type jobs. And so I wanna see the manufacturing and high-end production side of tech here as well. That's really what I'm interested in. Um-

Kara Swisher 28:51 But one of the things you mentioned is the, the, the problem isn't tech companies or apps, it's screens and child-children's-

Steve Hilton 28:56 Yes, yes, yes

Kara Swisher 28:56 ... unsupervised access to the internet.

Steve Hilton 28:58 Exactly.

Kara Swisher 28:58 Who's responsible for that? I mean, right now there's, you know, there's talk that Meta is gonna start being heavy on the chi-child safety thing. They're looking for anything at this point.

Steve Hilton 29:08 Mm-hmm.

Kara Swisher 29:08 Um, I don't know if you've seen their recent ads where they, they believe in humans now, apparently-

Steve Hilton 29:13 [laughs]

Kara Swisher 29:13 ... which is great. Um [laughs] ...

Steve Hilton 29:16 Good to know.

Kara Swisher 29:16 Disclosure, your wife worked there, but I'm sure she laughed at it too. Um, so who's responsible besides, and how can the government do that? I mean, they've had very little-

Steve Hilton 29:27 Yeah

Kara Swisher 29:27 ... as you know, very little regulation on anything that they do.

Steve Hilton 29:31 Yeah. So-

Kara Swisher 29:31 I mean, compared to the-

Steve Hilton 29:32 This does go back-

Kara Swisher 29:33 ... the corner deli. Sorry.

Steve Hilton 29:35 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've, I've been on this a long time, honestly.

Kara Swisher 29:37 Yes, I know.

Steve Hilton 29:37 So you mentioned human. I wrote this book in 2015 called More Human: Designing a World Where-

Kara Swisher 29:42 I remember

Steve Hilton 29:42 ... People Come First. It was my book coming out of working in the government, and it was-

Kara Swisher 29:46 Mm-hmm

Steve Hilton 29:46 ... a sort of ideas policy book. And then, this is 2015, I, I had a chapter on-- And the theme of the book, the sort of argument was everything in the world's become too big and bureaucratic and centralized and distant from the human scale, and it's applying that argument to different areas of policy. And there's a whole chapter on childhood, and in it, I argued at the time, just as you referenced, that the real problem is not the apps and the websites or whatever it is, it's the device. It's the unsupervised access to the internet, specifically screens, specifically smartphones. So what I argued back then was that under-- the children should not have smartphones. Now, I didn't propose a specific policy. I just said, "I don't think it's a good idea." And the-- And when you ask the question like, "Who's responsible?" Often the reply comes, "Well, it's parents who are responsible." Um, and in an ideal world, yeah, that's generally true. I believe parents, you know, I'm a parent, you've got responsibility for your own kids. But I think it's a classic example of a kind of, you know, um, uh, it's k- kind of like the pollution problem, which is you're affected by other people's decisions. In particular, that kind of, you know, um, peer pressure point, which is, okay, fine, you don't want your own child to have a smartphone, and I don't meet many parents who think they should. They all just feel they have to 'cause all the other kids have them.

Kara Swisher 31:04 Sure. Again-

Steve Hilton 31:05 And you don't want your kid to be the only one

Kara Swisher 31:06 ... where does the government step in? What, what, uh-

Steve Hilton 31:09 Well, my-- So the, I'm just trying to work to, and I wanna have more conversations on this with people like Comet, Jim Steyer at Common Sense and so on. He's been very good on all this, which is to say, look, at le- and, and, and obviously, um, uh, you know, we've had that, what's his name's book last year that had a big impact on all of this. Um-

Kara Swisher 31:26 Oh, Jonathan Haidt.

Steve Hilton 31:27 Jonathan Haidt, of course, yeah. Um, so he, and, and I think where he was going was let's try and establish a social norm, which is not regulation, it's not making it illegal, but if we can establish a social norm, that helps parents enforce a, a ru- I think his age was 14, actually, for-

Kara Swisher 31:45 Mm-hmm

Steve Hilton 31:46 ... for smartphones. That that should be the social-

Kara Swisher 31:48 Yeah, but he's, he's calling for regulation. I mean, there's a mountain of evidence that say social media companies knew their products were harmful to kids, and time after time chose engagement over safety in the design. Earlier this year, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and YouTube liable in a case about whether they designed their platforms to hook kids in a landmark lawsuit. And I, of course, interviewed parents who say their children died by suicide with the encouragement of chatbots, and if you read, if you read these texts between them, it's very disturbing and heartbreaking as a parent.

Steve Hilton 32:16 Yeah, it's terrible. Terrible.

Kara Swisher 32:17 But i-i-I think it would be better for the federal government to step in and regulate these platforms, but it hasn't, and that means it has been up to the states. Um, so there, there is a product li-- W-what's happening right now is a lot of these are product liability lawsuits versus, 'cause they've been pushing against the First Amendment part of it, but now, or, or Section 230. Why shouldn't California follow the evidence and adopt, say, a social media ban as some countries have done? I mean, w- if the government isn't gonna do it-

Steve Hilton 32:43 Yeah, like Australia started it. I don't, I-

Kara Swisher 32:45 Right

Steve Hilton 32:45 ... because I think that the problem is the devices-

Kara Swisher 32:47 And it's France that's going, Spain.

Steve Hilton 32:48 Yeah, but, uh, uh, and the early verdicts are not-

Kara Swisher 32:50 Britain, y- your home country.

Steve Hilton 32:51 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 32:51 Go ahead.

Steve Hilton 32:51 The early verdicts I think are not good on, on, on that in terms of-

Kara Swisher 32:55 Well, so

Steve Hilton 32:55 ... kids being able to get a... Well, because it's ineffective, so I'd much rather have something that's effective.

Kara Swisher 33:00 Well, I, I, I could argue kids drink, and yet we say as a coun- as a country, as a country they can't drink till they're 21 or-

Steve Hilton 33:06 Yeah

Kara Swisher 33:06 ... kids smoking. We, lots of kids smoke, but it does, it's not meant-

Steve Hilton 33:10 No, that's actually my argument. No, I, I love you, that you said that. That's actually my argument to when people say, "Well, how are you gonna stop kids having phones under 16?" I say, "Well, maybe you won't, but at least you're setting a guideline, and if most follow it, that's good news. That's progress." I think that whe- in, in terms of the social media ban, I, I'm, I think it's so easy to evade. That's the problem. The problem is the smartphone.

Kara Swisher 33:32 Ex-except it's so easy to evade drinking. It's so, we have rules about drinking. We have rules about smoking. We have rules about driving. The kids can't drive-

Steve Hilton 33:40 Yeah, but why, why not? But w- is it the-

Kara Swisher 33:41 Why not have rules about social media if it's a product liability issue?

Steve Hilton 33:46 I think it's bigger than social media. It's, it's, it's access to, it's, it's digital content. It's, it's the unsupervised access to this, where kids, when they're not in school... I mean, for example, like, you know, one thing we can do at least is enforce the school smartphone ban. Like I, that's one, when, I would, I really agree with Gavin on that, except classic California, we've passed this thing, and it's not enforced at all. So let's at least do that, right? That, so you've got z- wide consensus now that you have, you should have a smartphone ban in schools. But then in a way, that puts it onto parents. Like the only time is, is outside of school, and I think that that's, th- that's the problem, which is the smartphone, because you can't be supervising your kids all the time. You want them to have their independence, and so they will find ways around these bans.

Kara Swisher 34:34 Sure.

Steve Hilton 34:34 And then, you know, like in Australia, for example, they had a s- a sort of specified number of apps. Well, if there's a new one, do you keep... And it's like a Whac-A-Mole thing. I think it's much-

Kara Swisher 34:42 Yes, it is

Steve Hilton 34:43 ... more effective to try and stop kids having smartphones. I think that would do much greater good.

Kara Swisher 34:49 So g- remove the device itself.

Steve Hilton 34:51 Yes.

Kara Swisher 34:51 Which you'll think would be much harder, I would imagine. I'm sure Apple would love to hear that from you. Um, on AI in particular, the backlash-

Steve Hilton 34:57 No, I'm sure they... Well, actually, let's talk about that. I'm sure-

Kara Swisher 34:59 Okay

Steve Hilton 34:59 ... that actually their response to that as a fantastic, um, you know, innovative company would be to say, "Can we not invent a really attractive, um, like not phone that still allows kids to text each other maybe, or call each other, or stay in touch with their parents, that just doesn't have the, uh, doesn't have the internet all the time?"

Kara Swisher 35:18 Well, Apple spends a lot of time trying to stop doing age verification and fighting with Meta over it, because Meta doesn't think it should do age verification, and Apple doesn't think it should do age verif-

Steve Hilton 35:28 Mm-hmm.

Kara Swisher 35:29 It's a really interesting fight where nothing's happening to... You could verify ages of using these devices.

Steve Hilton 35:34 I mean, it's a good, good example. I mean, my response to that, my instinctive response to that is it's exactly why, i- in a way, it's why I, I, I wanna do this show. It's one of the reasons I wanna do this job. I think you have a real ability as governor to get those people around a table and, and have a real conversation. Say, "Come on, guys, let's figure this out." Right? "This, where, where we are is not acceptable. And so, and you can't just keep blaming each other. Let's, you know, you say this, you say that, let's talk together and fix it."

Kara Swisher 36:01 Well, did you, did, did, do you s- do you have a phone now? You didn't have a phone.

Steve Hilton 36:05 I do. Yeah.

Kara Swisher 36:05 You, you do?

Steve Hilton 36:06 I have a, I'll show you. It's right here. I, this is my phone.

Kara Swisher 36:09 What is it, one of these-

Steve Hilton 36:10 Yeah. It's a flip. I know.

Kara Swisher 36:10 Oh, you have a flip phone. Wow.

Steve Hilton 36:12 I know.

Kara Swisher 36:13 You've really made it up- upwards. [chuckles]

Steve Hilton 36:15 It's an upgrade. This is real technological progress for me.

Kara Swisher 36:18 Yeah. Okay.

Steve Hilton 36:18 You're right. I haven't, for a long time I've had no phone.

Kara Swisher 36:20 On AI in particular, you'll, you'll just go right to the glasses. Uh, AI in particular, the backlash is real, though. We did, just did an episode about data centers that were a flashpoint across the country in the midterms. Sherrod Brown in, um, where he's running for Senate is do- getting some, some real traction around naming the others, the Republican senator, data center senator. Um, and a recent Gallup poll found Americans are becoming more skeptical of AI, not less, and they be-- as they become more familiar with it, and it's especially true of young people. I, my both sons have great worries about it. Who's to blame for that growing enthusiasm gap then, and how would you try to bridge it as governor? 'Cause there's all these, as you and I know, amazing things that could be done with AI. But the AI, uh, the AI leadership It feels villainous at this point talking about babies being, babies being more energy than AI, which is, is not a particularly good argument, or we're all gonna die. That was, that was a nice message. Or, uh, get used to it, too bad. Too bad if you lose your jobs. Where do you blame the enthusiasm gap? 'Cause it's, it's a real thing, is... And data centers-

Steve Hilton 37:23 Yeah

Kara Swisher 37:24 ... to, to me is the proxy for it, uh, of the anger.

Steve Hilton 37:26 Exactly. It's a proxy. I think that, um, I, I honestly, I-

Kara Swisher 37:30 And abuses, like actual abuses by, say, Elon in Memphis. Those are real abuses of pe- of, of local areas and, and local citizens. But go ahead

Steve Hilton 37:38 So I'd, um, overwhelmingly I think the blame is with, with probably two people actually, um, the kind of, you know, double A boy, whatever you wanna call them, Altman and Amidei. They've been completely insane rhetoric over the last couple... Insane in this sense, right? If they really believed that what they were working on was gonna destroy humanity, [laughs] gonna end the human race, destroy jo- What? Then why would they keep working on it? I mean, what kind of pathological person would do that if you truly believe that? So why are they doing that? Why... I think it seems they've dialed it back, but they've done enormous damage. Enormous damage. Because that narrative has, has taken hold, and it was the first narrative about this really. I remember actually funnily off got in More Human, uh, in 2015, I did, I had, I th- It was just emerging, the technology was really g- And, and, and I wrote about it and I said, "Look, I don't know. Um, it's just emerging. I'm not an expert." Here's... It, it, it, w- it's laughable now in retrospect. This is what I wrote. Um, I'm not quoting, but something like this: "Well, I'm not the ex- I don't know where this technology's going. It's certainly gonna have a huge impact, but the good news is that some of the smartest people on the planet who really know about this have gotten together and formed an institute called OpenAI, which will make sure that AI is developed in a way that benefits humanity," and Elon and all, all these... So look what happened there. I think that they ba- bear the greatest responsibility. I think that on data centers, um, the... Remember the data centers is w- you know, people use their phones all the time and try and, you know, every time you fire up Google Maps or whatever, that's a data center, as well as AI. It's n- I mean, that's obviously now part, part of the product. So I think it's, it is a proxy for the concerns, and I think there's so, it's, there are so many

Steve Hilton 39:30 simple, practical ways that you can, you can turn the data center thing around, and, and we're seeing some of that actually coming from the federal administration in terms of electricity usage. The Times had-

Kara Swisher 39:39 Noise

Steve Hilton 39:39 ... a great story about that recently.

Kara Swisher 39:41 Data centers.

Steve Hilton 39:41 I think that's all sensible stuff that you can do.

Kara Swisher 39:43 Yeah.

Steve Hilton 39:43 And also in terms of where you locate them, and the noise.

Kara Swisher 39:46 Yeah.

Steve Hilton 39:46 I think everything that people are concerned about in terms of a, uh, data centers can and should be mitigated. And if they don't-

Kara Swisher 39:53 Yeah

Steve Hilton 39:53 ... and if the companies aren't doing it voluntarily, absolutely the government should make them do it.

Kara Swisher 39:58 Mm-hmm.

Steve Hilton 39:58 'Cause it's an, it's essential infrastructure. Um-

Kara Swisher 40:00 Well, I, I, I just, it... I, I interviewed the, one of the may- mayors of Lansing, Michigan, and he did a-

Steve Hilton 40:05 Mm

Kara Swisher 40:05 ... one of these good data centers, and the citizens-

Steve Hilton 40:08 Mm

Kara Swisher 40:08 ... still didn't want it because of the anger towards it. And he said, "I can't even get a, one that's e- ecologically-"

Steve Hilton 40:13 Yeah. It's interesting. I mean, and we'll see whether... Yeah, I mean, okay.

Kara Swisher 40:16 I think it's gonna be one of the biggest issues going forward. I think these people-

Steve Hilton 40:19 I think on the, generally on, on AI, I mean, I, I think that you've got also, there's a big potential which hasn't really been talked about as much in terms of the r- bringing manufacturing back. If you can use AI to really reduce the cost of manufacturing and combine it with automation, then you could see a real reshoring of manufacturing, 'cause suddenly it becomes affordable to make things in, in California again.

Kara Swisher 40:42 Sure.

Steve Hilton 40:42 And AI could be a real part of that.

Kara Swisher 40:43 Except you might not need people as much, right? That's, I mean, you're talking about your-

Steve Hilton 40:47 Yeah, but you need people t- You need some people. I mean-

Kara Swisher 40:49 Right. Right

Steve Hilton 40:49 ... you know, and, and, and the scale of it could be really big here.

Kara Swisher 40:52 Right. Right. It could be. All right. Re- uh, speaking of people, immigration is a huge issue. Every episode we get an expert, uh, question, uh, from outside. Here's yours.

Sarah Longwell 41:01 Hello, Steve Hilton. I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark, and you have a lovely accent, but your story is a quintessentially American one. You're the British-born son of Hungarian immigrants. You get an Oxford education. You ascend to the heights of British politics, working for David Cameron and the British Conservative Party. You come to America, you make a name for yourself here, and you end up as the Republican nominee to run the biggest state in the union. That is a genuinely inspiring immigrant story, and a tribute to the power of immigrants. Yet you're endorsed by Donald Trump, a man who calls immigrants vermin, who are poisoning the blood of our country, and whose ICE agents are killing innocent people on the streets of America right now. You are running to be governor of a state that more immigrants call home than any other. More than 11 million Californians are from someplace else. We've already seen the carnage that this administration is causing by unleashing immigration authorities on the streets of California and across America. So my question is this: How will your approach to immigration at the state level differ from Donald Trump's? And more importantly, why should California voters place their trust and the lives of their friends and neighbors in the hands of a Trump-endorsed candidate like yourself? Thank you.

Kara Swisher 42:23 That's a good question.

Steve Hilton 42:24 All right. Very good. I think Sarah's question is exac- You know, I, I appreciate it, and, and it's actually how I feel, and I'm total- I'm so proud to be an American. Um, and you know, I've renounced my UK citizenship, and um, I say all the time, I'm the candidate of the legal immigrant community for the legal immigrant community, but we have to be able to draw a line between legal and i- illegal. Um, I think that in terms of inf- Let's just get straight to the, the, the, the kind of key part of this, which is immigration enforcement. The, the way I think about it is the, ob- obviously you don't want ev- never wanna see anything like we saw, like we have seen, you know, earlier in the year in In, uh, in Minnesota, um, and, and more recently, no. And I-- and also don't wanna see anything like we saw last summer in, in, uh, in Los Angeles with, with, with the rioting prompted by immigration enforcement. And if you look at the anatomy of those things, certainly the California things, which I've studied in detail, spoken to law enforcement, um, in great detail about it, I think the-- my approach would be to actually, uh, have the kind of immigration enforcement that we, to be honest, we saw in the Obama years, which is a sort of common sense, cooperative relationship between state and local law enforcement and federal-

Kara Swisher 43:41 Mm-hmm, which wasn't there. The state s- the state law enforcement did not-

Steve Hilton 43:44 Well, but here's the thing. So we've got... Ri- Right. So w- there's a sanctuary law in California, SB 54. It was passed in 2017, and despite the f-- And, and a lot of people say, "Oh, that means that you can't cooperate with, with federal." That's not true. In fact, it was criticized at the time. Kevin de León, one of the authors, I believe, was criticized by the left for making it too, um, federal immigration enforcement friendly, as it were. That you-- there's a whole set of things, uh, specific offenses and conditions that, that allow for cooperation between state and local law enforcement and federal law enforcement in California. So that-- So actually, you would just be following, never mind the precedent set by previous Democrat administrations, but California law, and that would be my attitude, to have calm, peaceful cooperation, so you don't need that kind of heavy-handed enforcement. That would be my goal.

Kara Swisher 44:36 So how would you have handled the ICE raids as governor? Would you have sued the Trump administration like Newsom did when he tried to deploy them?

Steve Hilton 44:42 They wouldn't have neede- They wouldn't have happened. They wouldn't have happened because you would have had cooperation at the, at the local level to say-

Kara Swisher 44:48 Mm-hmm

Steve Hilton 44:48 ... right, where, where you say, "Yes, you can work with them to find the people they're looking for," and then they don't have-

Kara Swisher 44:53 Mm-hmm

Steve Hilton 44:53 ... to go into the community.

Kara Swisher 44:55 Well, uh, uh, I think Stephen Miller has some other ideas. They were going for, you know... Uh, you could hear all their rhetoric. It was quite violent. They said the city was controlled by gangs. They made a narrative as if they had to come in, which wasn't-- none of which is true. And you, you know, you just-- I don't know if you saw that Elon interview with, uh, The Economist editor. She's like, "It's nothing like what you're saying is happening here." So, uh, y- uh, going back to my earlier questions, what wouldn't you-- w- what won't you do to help the Trump administration if they get what, if they do what? And I d- I know you don't like hypotheticals, but-

Steve Hilton 45:26 I don't, I don't know. I don't think... No, I'm just c- curious. I'm, I'm thinking about what that looks like. I want to see-

Kara Swisher 45:32 How do you get it to be peaceful when-

Steve Hilton 45:34 ... the laws of-

Kara Swisher 45:34 I would say probably Stephen Miller doesn't want peaceful, is not his... The-

Steve Hilton 45:38 I-

Kara Swisher 45:38 I've not heard that out of his mouth yet

Steve Hilton 45:39 Well, he's not running it directly. Uh, Tom Homan is, is running it directly.

Kara Swisher 45:42 Yes, I get that.

Steve Hilton 45:43 I think that, um-

Kara Swisher 45:44 But I'm gonna use him

Steve Hilton 45:44 ... and I know Tom and... Yeah, no, I know Tom, and I d- and I think he-- I don't think they wanna see this. I mean, I really don't. I don't think Tom wants that.

Kara Swisher 45:49 Well,

Kara Swisher 45:50 he doesn't. Kristi Noem kind of did. But yes, and so did the little tiny guy who looks like Chad Bianco. That [chuckles] that whole genre of American.

Steve Hilton 45:58 Oh, I know who you mean. I don't-

Kara Swisher 46:00 Yeah

Steve Hilton 46:00 ... look, I, I just, uh... I don't think-

Kara Swisher 46:03 Bovino. Greg Bovino

Steve Hilton 46:03 ... we'll get to that point, right? I don't think-

Kara Swisher 46:06 Yeah

Steve Hilton 46:06 ... because I think that we'll have... And, and if you look at the prioritization now in terms of immigration enforcement, generally speaking, it seems to me that they are very much focused on the part of this where there's wide consensus, which is criminals, you know, who've broken the law-

Kara Swisher 46:24 Sure

Steve Hilton 46:24 ... beyond just entering illegally.

Kara Swisher 46:26 But they've gone beyond that. Would you acknowledge they've gone beyond that?

Steve Hilton 46:27 They have in the past. Yes, but I think they, they're dialing it back. That is my sense-

Kara Swisher 46:31 Mm-hmm

Steve Hilton 46:31 ... of where they are today.

Kara Swisher 46:32 So, so you pointed out your own story as an example of doing it the right way. You and your wife moved to the US in 2012 for her job, and she was a top executive at Google at the time. But we've seen the Trump administration strip legal status from close to two million immigrants, many of whom arrived through legal pathways like yourself, some with temporary protected stratas, uh, status, others come under Biden-era programs. You may not have liked those programs, but they were legal programs. What makes your immig- Like, my son was asking, why is your immigration story different from someone who's been stripped of their legal status or is threatened? I have so many friends, you know, this new PhD thing, they're thinking of stripping them for j- just four years. Uh, I have many friends on green cards that are n- came in here legally, very nervous. These are all people that come in the way you say they should come in, correct?

Steve Hilton 47:19 Mm-hmm.

Kara Swisher 47:20 How should we treat these immigrants?

Steve Hilton 47:21 They, they sound like... I mean, I think the temporary thing is different 'cause of the name, temporary. I mean, it was a p-- I think it was-

Kara Swisher 47:27 Sure

Steve Hilton 47:27 ... legally established to be temporary. When the conditions-

Kara Swisher 47:30 Right

Steve Hilton 47:30 ... of emergency are no longer present-

Kara Swisher 47:32 Mm-hmm

Steve Hilton 47:32 ... then that's different. Student-

Kara Swisher 47:34 Mm-hmm

Steve Hilton 47:34 ... visas, um, I've alw-- gr- green cards, I mean, I totally disagree with taking that away. I mean, you gotta-- if you go through a process, you, you can't retroactively change the process, I think. The temp, the TP, whatever it's called, the temporary protected status, I think that is different because the l- in the establishing law was at a... I don't know the exact time limit, honestly, but I think it was supposed to be temporary.

Kara Swisher 47:59 Yeah, but it-- again, these are people who are here trying to actually... And a lot of them actually support, say, the elderly here in this country and e- et cetera.

Steve Hilton 48:07 Mm-hmm.

Kara Swisher 48:07 There's gonna be a lot of issues. Is there-- Would you stand up for someone from El Salvador, for example? A big-- there's a big Salvadoran population in LA who came here legally, maybe on TPS, some of them not,

Kara Swisher 48:18 but now will have their legal status stripped. Did they do it the right way?

Steve Hilton 48:24 Well, it, uh... I mean, you gotta look at the individual case. I mean, the, the, the temporary, as I say, that is a federal program that, that is very specific, and it's very limited, and I think that you can't then, as it were, transfer it into a general, um, le- legal immigration status. If, if, if, if that-- if the law that set that up is... I don't know what the right term is, whether it's expired or the, the conditions that gave rise to it are no longer there, then, then you gotta-- I think there needs to be a process to get you onto another track. Maybe that's the right way of thinking about it.

Kara Swisher 48:57 Okay. Um, and, and for the dreamers?

Steve Hilton 49:01 Yeah, I've-- I think that's honestly unarguable that we-

Kara Swisher 49:04 He's going for the dreamers now, so.

Steve Hilton 49:05 Well, I disagree with that very strongly, and I, I don't know if that's true. I mean, where have you-- I haven't heard that. I haven't seen any evidence of that. I know that there may be-

Kara Swisher 49:12 Well, they, they're looking at PhD candidates

Steve Hilton 49:14 ... concerns.

Kara Swisher 49:15 Don't we want to keep those candidates here?

Steve Hilton 49:16 Yes, for sure.

Kara Swisher 49:16 Don't we want people come-

Steve Hilton 49:18 For sure

Kara Swisher 49:18 ... to this country to go to, say, U- a UC school? Don't we want them to stay?

Steve Hilton 49:24 If you're born here, yeah

Kara Swisher 49:25 ... the smarter-

Steve Hilton 49:26 If or, or-

Kara Swisher 49:26 And so you would-

Steve Hilton 49:27 ... if you're, if you're brought across, um, uh, as a child, yeah, I think that's exactly right. I've always been strong. I've been, uh, very ... I mean, I used to talk about that on my Fox show all the time.

Kara Swisher 49:37 Mm-hmm. Okay. I'm gonna end with talking about Hollywood very quickly, um, about what's going, because there's so much going on. Hollywood has been bleeding jobs in California. It's especially true in the years since the pandemic and the strikes. The state is trying to lure those jobs back with more tax incentives. You wanna make those incentives even bigger, but incentives can also be a race to the bottom, as you know. Um, what can be more, what can the state do more to lure those jobs back?

Steve Hilton 50:02 It's, you've got to start with the tax incentives. That's the main reason, um, that you've seen places like, well, East- well, actually the UK. I mean, when I [laughs] , when I was in the UK government, my friend and colleague George Osborne was the Treasury Secretary, Chancellor of the Exchequer as they called him, and he d- he devised the UK tax incentive that's been incredibly successful for the UK, uh, uh, and draining production from, from the US. But now you've got other places. You've got Hungary and these other countries in Eastern Europe. Within Ame- within the States, you've got, um, New Mexico, you've got, uh, Georgia's long, longstanding, now New Jersey has a really strong incentive, so it's just highly competitive. And you can take a pos- a philosophical position and say, "I don't like the kind of tax incentive race to the bottom thing," et cetera. But on the other hand, my job is not to, you know, pontificate on what, what I think about that and say, "Right, we got a crisis. We gotta do something about it."

Kara Swisher 50:53 Mm-hmm.

Steve Hilton 50:53 What can you do? And I think my, my attitude to this is we've got to have the best ... We have, we have to have a kind of wake-up moment

Steve Hilton 51:00 where, where, where you suddenly, where anyone who's making these decisions, like, sees a real change, a big change, and notices-

Kara Swisher 51:09 So tax incentives, but what else?

Steve Hilton 51:10 Well, that's number one, but, but, and it's not just the size, it's the-

Kara Swisher 51:14 Mm-hmm

Steve Hilton 51:14 ... what's included as, in the technical term, above-the-line spending, so it's the whole production, not limited to certain parts. It's uncapped. That's really important. That means that what, what you have now is, 'cause there's a certain amount allocated, that means that-

Kara Swisher 51:28 Mm-hmm

Steve Hilton 51:28 ... every time you try and get it, you have to kind of apply and go through a bureaucratic process, and there's a lack of certainty. You don't know if you're gonna get it. That puts people off. If it's uncapped, you know you're gonna get it. It's automatic almost.

Kara Swisher 51:41 Mm-hmm.

Steve Hilton 51:41 But on top of that, you've got to make the process of production easier. There's a, the California Film Commission needs to be revamped. I've said I want to turn it into a kind of a concierge service where you just basically get all the help you need to navigate state and local bureaucracies in terms of permits and, and all of that stuff, which is just a nightmare in California, just like everything else. And then the final piece of it is actually the same cost pressures that are driving other businesses out. It's just incredibly expensive to live in Los Angeles 'cause housing is so expensive, energy costs are high, and so on. So I think the general things that we do to bring, to improve the business climate for everyone will also help, but I think the two big ones are the tax incentive and the bureaucracy.

Kara Swisher 52:20 So, no Califor- uh, California's leading also a group of states in a lawsuit to block Paramount's merger with Warner Brothers Discovery. You say the suit is pure politics, but many in the industry oppose the merger, and also, you know, the, the, the, the journey to get to the approval from the, from the Department of Justice felt a little political too. So why is, why is it in Hollywood and California's best interest for this merger to go through?

Steve Hilton 52:45 Well, look, um, they've ... I, I think one of the, one of the strongest reasons is that you've got a real commitment to theatrical release-

Kara Swisher 52:52 Mm-hmm

Steve Hilton 52:52 ... which is, a lot of the industries really wants to see, and by, and by the way, I do. I love going to the movies.

Kara Swisher 52:58 Mm.

Steve Hilton 52:58 I saw The Odyssey in the movie theater. You know, like-

Kara Swisher 53:00 Well, that's hard not to see in the movie theater, yeah

Steve Hilton 53:00 ... I love, of course you can, I know, I understand, it's not released yet, but you know what I'm saying. I enjoy the pro-, you know, it's an exciting ... I love the fact that that's getting, films like that are getting people back into movie theaters. So I think that they've made a strong commitment to that, to the, a specific number of releases per year that are gonna be in the movie theaters. That's new. And I think also you gotta see it in the overall competitive, um, landscape. I think that they sort of, Rob Bonta, the California Attorney General, really can't defend this. I mean, I saw his interview on The Town.

Kara Swisher 53:31 Mm-hmm.

Steve Hilton 53:31 Um, you know, from pa- with, you know, when someone who really knows about the industry pressed him on these details, he basically fell apart. And when you really look into what he's been saying about all of this, the main driver seems to be a concern about what would happen to CNN. Honestly, I think that is the main driver.

Kara Swisher 53:49 Except he never mentioned it. He didn't mention it in it.

Steve Hilton 53:51 Yeah, but, like, it comes out in all the interviews, um, and in, in the way he-

Kara Swisher 53:54 No, he didn't. You know, people ... No, I'll be, I've been

Kara Swisher 53:57 following this rather closely. He actually-

Steve Hilton 53:58 Mm-hmm

Kara Swisher 53:58 ... he, they bring it up to him, and that's a different thing-

Steve Hilton 54:02 Right

Kara Swisher 54:02 ... I think. Now, the judge seems to be agreeing with Rob Bonta, because he's won pretty ... He got the TRO. He was gonna get the private, the preliminary injunction, and now the trial's not till March. Uh, so someone agrees with him. The judge certainly does.

Steve Hilton 54:16 Yeah, look, I mean, it's a, you've got, it's a thorough process. I mean, I, I-

Kara Swisher 54:18 And so do many in Hollywood, the Writers Guild, the Screen Actors Guild, the, uh, a lot of the general, the general acting groups do, SAG and, and, and WGA.

Steve Hilton 54:29 Mm-hmm.

Kara Swisher 54:29 Um, and a lot of, and a lot of theater owners, too.

Steve Hilton 54:33 Look, I, I mean, fine. I mean, it's, uh, to be honest, it's a, it's like some of these other things. It, from a policy point of view, that's not where my focus is. I can give you opinion about it.

Kara Swisher 54:42 Mm-hmm.

Steve Hilton 54:42 But my, from, you know, as governor, that would-

Kara Swisher 54:44 Well, you can't really do anything. That would-

Steve Hilton 54:45 Right, exactly. So what I'm-

Kara Swisher 54:46 The attorney general gets to do whatever he wants, yeah.

Steve Hilton 54:48 Yeah, and so what I'm focused on is all the other stuff we've been talking about where you were-

Kara Swisher 54:51 Yeah

Steve Hilton 54:51 ... and actually, for example, I had a really good meeting with the unions-

Kara Swisher 54:54 Mm-hmm

Steve Hilton 54:54 ... about all of that. Um-

Kara Swisher 54:55 Mm-hmm

Steve Hilton 54:56 ... and that was part of my pro- policy development process, was to sit down with everyone, and so I got good relationships there, and I think that we've got to save this industry. That's really my overall view.

Kara Swisher 55:06 There's also, to be fair, a little bit of anti-tech-ness to this because of the Ellisons and their, you know, they did suck up to Trump in order to get this through, um, which, you know, you kind of have to. Um, we haven't talked a lot about housing, but, uh-

Steve Hilton 55:19 Mm-hmm

Kara Swisher 55:19 ... you did mention keeping people in housing is one of the biggest problems.

Steve Hilton 55:23 Mm-hmm.

Kara Swisher 55:23 And, uh, and homelessness is, is intractable. Um, I've got two more questions. One's about homelessness. Um-

Steve Hilton 55:29 Mm-hmm

Kara Swisher 55:29 ... how do you, what is your s- signature policy to deal with this? Because s- many people have tried.

Steve Hilton 55:36 The big, [laughs] it sounds really not that new of an idea, but it's enforce the law. Um, and I think that the, the starting point, of course, is to acknowledge that most of the people, um, in terms of street homelessness, have some combination of severe mental health problems and addiction. And it, in, in a sense, it doesn't matter whether they became homeless because of those things or they developed those things once they were homeless.

Kara Swisher 56:04 The stress of being homeless, right.

Steve Hilton 56:04 So there's a def- there's... Exactly, the stress. And also you're the target for criminal drug-dealing gangs, right? You're just in an incredibly vulnerable situation. But in a s- in a sense, like, that part doesn't matter. You've got to help people where... And you're never going to get people helped if they are on the streets living in those conditions.

Kara Swisher 56:22 So-

Steve Hilton 56:22 So the first step-

Kara Swisher 56:23 ... do we fine homeless people? We put them in jail?

Steve Hilton 56:25 No, you re- you have to... Yeah, you-

Kara Swisher 56:26 What's enforcing the law mean for people who are at the end of enforcement?

Steve Hilton 56:29 It's, well, it's illegal.

Kara Swisher 56:31 Mm-hmm.

Steve Hilton 56:31 It's illegal to str- li- camp, live on the streets. It's against the law. It's always been against the law. And so I w- you've got to physically take people off the streets and put them somewhere where they can get better.

Kara Swisher 56:43 Where?

Steve Hilton 56:43 Well, for example, there's a really interesting proposal from down near San Diego, a disused military base to use as a shelter. There's so... Th- we have a million and a half empty properties by one estimate in California. So the idea that we can't provide shelter, I mean, look, you'd... The, the numbers, what is it, 188,000, something like that. It's large, but it's not impossible to imagine that we can, we can do that. So there's another really important aspect to this, which is the funding. So there's a lot of money going into homelessness. I mean, the state auditor reported-

Kara Swisher 57:14 Mm

Steve Hilton 57:14 ... $24

Steve Hilton 57:15 billion, for example, that go... Um, so I don't want to get into that except to say this, that for the mental health component, we are way short of mental health beds and capacity in California. There's a really technocratic reason for this that is completely avoidable. When, when Medicare, Med- when the whole Medicare system was set up in the '60s, there was a rule put in place called the IMD rule, Institutions of Mental Disease, and that states that there is no federal Medicaid reimbursement for any mental healthcare delivered in a facility with more than 16 beds. It's very specific. It's a 16-bed limit. Now, that inevitably means that the money doesn't go very far, because it's not... Imagine if hospitals couldn't be more than 16 beds. It'd be crazy. That's what happened with mental health. And so the first Trump administration created a waiver. It's called the IMD Waiver. States can exempt themselves from this. That's a very practical thing you could... We haven't done that in California, a practical way of getting more money into the system, because you get federal reimbursement. You can have bigger, more efficient... Nowadays we'd know how to do it in a humane way. So I think there's all these... You know, it, it, I don't think it really is intractable. I think you just need to sort of, you know, practical approach where you work through these problems.

Kara Swisher 58:28 So last question, since I assume you're, you said will. You're saying will a lot, when I am governor. Um, and you've argued that California's problems are the result of political choices, and voters want change. But if voters choose to stick with Democratic leadership, and you are behind, will you stay in California to help and do that, or decamp to Texas or Florida like other wealthy Republican Californians?

Steve Hilton 58:46 No, no, no, I love California. I wouldn't want to live anywhere... No, I love California, completely love it. I'm in love with it still.

Kara Swisher 58:51 [laughs]

Steve Hilton 58:51 I get really excited-

Kara Swisher 58:52 Me too

Steve Hilton 58:52 ... um, driving around as I do, and, and just seeing all these incredible things that we have. The beauty of, um, the s- everything is just amazing. And it's not just the physical beauty and the weather and all these things and the innova- there's a, there's a sort of spirit. I call it the rebel spirit.

Kara Swisher 59:08 Mm-hmm. There is.

Steve Hilton 59:08 That's why we've created these amazing industries, and that's kind of-

Kara Swisher 59:11 Mm-hmm

Steve Hilton 59:11 ... rebelliousness that is very much-

Kara Swisher 59:15 Yeah

Steve Hilton 59:15 ... I don't know, I'm, I feel in tune with. I couldn't imagine being anywhere else.

Kara Swisher 59:20 All right. That, you know, they hate us 'cause they ain't us. That's why.

Steve Hilton 59:22 [laughs] Exactly.

Kara Swisher 59:25 Anyway, Steve, thank you so much. I really appreciate it, you coming on, and I hope... I, I don't think it was too hard to... I wanna, I wanna illuminate voters rather than just give them my opinion.

Steve Hilton 59:33 No, no, I, I appreciate it. It was real. It was real. It was good conversation.

Kara Swisher 59:35 Yeah.

Steve Hilton 59:36 I appreciate it.

Kara Swisher 59:36 Good. Today's show was produced by Nishat Kurwa, Michelle Aloy, Katherine Millsap, Madeline LaPlante-Dube, Megan Bernie, and Cailin Lynch. Special thanks to Eamon Whelan, Dave Shaw, Lissa Sowep, and Julia Sharp Levine. And our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, you're living the California dream. If not, you're paying $6 for gas. Thanks for watching. See you on Monday. [upbeat music]