PBD Interview: Steve Hilton - How California Became America’s BIGGEST Political Failure
PBD Podcast
PBD Podcast
4.4 • 4.1K Ratings
🗓️ 21 May 2026
⏱️ 106 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Patrick Bet-David sits down with Steve Hilton to discuss California’s economic decline, Gavin Newsom’s leadership failures, the state’s $425 billion in alleged fraud and waste, businesses fleeing California, high taxes, the housing crisis, teachers unions, energy policy, the high-speed rail disaster, and whether Republicans can win back the state.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Did you ever think you would make it? |
| 0:03.0 | I feel I'm supposed to take sweet victory. |
| 0:06.0 | I know this life's meant for me. |
| 0:09.0 | Adam, what's your point? |
| 0:11.0 | The future looks bright. |
| 0:13.0 | My handshake is better than anything I ever size, right here. |
| 0:16.0 | You are a one of one? |
| 0:18.0 | My son's right there. |
| 0:19.0 | I think I've ever said this before. |
| 0:25.6 | She is. |
| 0:26.3 | She is. |
| 0:26.6 | And a couple other people are as well. |
| 0:27.8 | Okay. |
| 0:28.0 | So today we have a special guest who is trying to do the impossible. |
| 0:32.1 | I would say you're trying to do the impossible. |
| 0:33.6 | The reason why I say that is because California politics is so controlled by so many different people, but to take somebody with courage who is willing to go and drive some conservative, common sense ideas, two people in California who've been devastated the last four to eight years, who love their state, who don't want to leave, who want to see this place become the state. |
| 0:52.3 | Everybody would flock to instead of not looking at the numbers back to back to back |
| 0:56.3 | the last six years, number one state in America for negative net migration. |
| 1:00.6 | They had so many different issues, most expensive homes. |
| 1:03.1 | Average home in California right now is about $906,000. |
| 1:06.0 | Number one in homelessness, 13% in population, but 28% in population of homelessness. |
| 1:44.3 | You can go highest prices of gas, so many different things. And then comes a guy like you that wants to run for governor, the state of California, and it's great to have you here with us. Fantastic. One and only Steve Hilton. Yes, great to have you here. So before we get into the story, I want to ask you a very open-ended question. Yeah. Who runs California? Is it the governor? Is it the unions? Is it the money, the billionaires? Is it the NGOs? Who runs? Who's the most powerful institution or individual in California when it comes on to politics? What a great question. I'm going to answer it with this story, which is almost the reason that I'm doing this. |
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