On with Kara Swisher - Will California Elect a Republican Governor? Steve Hilton Thinks He Can Win

Episode Date: August 10, 2026

California is one of the most Democratic states in the nation. But former Fox News host and British American Steve Hilton is mounting a long-shot bid to be the state’s next Republican governor. He��s banking on voters’ disaffection with the state’s notoriously high cost of living to beat Democrat Xavier Becerra in November.  While Hilton scored President Trump’s endorsement ahead of the primary, he’ll need to win over a lot of Democrats and Independents who loathe Trump to have any shot at winning. Is that even possible for a Republican in 2026?    Questions? Comments? Email us at [e-mail] or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I love California, completely love it. I'm in love with it still. I get really excited driving around as I do and just seeing all these incredible things that we have. Everything is just amazing. Hi, everyone, from New York Magazine and the Box Media Podcast Network. This is on with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. It's been two decades since California voters elected a Republican to lead the state, and while it's a long shot, former Fox News host and British American Steve Hilton believes he can defeckel.

California's deep blue politics and become the state's next governor. He's trying to appeal to voters' anger over the state's high cost of living and their desire for change. His personal story is also interesting. He was born in London to Hungarian refugees who fled communism, and his background in Silicon Valley and as an advisor to former British Prime Minister David Cameron could give him some separation from Magistyle Republican politics. But in a state like California, Hilton will have to win over a lot of Democrats to have any shot of winning in November.

And if there's one thing California voters hate more than paying close to $6 a gallon for gas, it might be President Donald Trump. I do think Hilton's long shot bid is worth paying attention to, even if his chances of winning are slim, because he's actually a very interesting thinker. Well, I do not agree with him on a lot of stuff, and I thought he went sometimes off the rails on his Fox News show.

He's also someone who's a lot more thoughtful, and he is the kind of Republican absent Donald Trump if he didn't have to be so close to him, that might be interesting to a lot of voters. We've also reached out to Hilton's Democratic opponent, former Health and Human Services Secretary, Javier Bacera, his team declined an interview at this time. I don't think that's a great idea for anyone running for governor.

They should talk to reporters and give interviews and not be safe. Sorry, sorry, Bacera, but you should have talked to me. So let's get to my interview with Steve Hilton. Our expert question comes from Sarah Longwell, publisher of the bulwark. So stick around. Support for this show comes from Odu. Running a business takes everything you've got,

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This week, Unexplained it to me, how to make the most of that precious PTO. New episodes, Sundays, wherever you get your podcasts. Steve, thank you for coming on on. Of course, great to be with you. So we've known each other for a long time, correct? I guess we met through Rachel, your wife. Yes, yeah.

I will say, I'm going to pay you a compliment. You wanted to come and do an interview. Mr. Becerra would not. So I appreciate that you're here. Well, it's great to be here. I mean, I just think it's important to have conversations just generally. and I know you're going to give me an incredibly easy time, Karras. So it was a no-brainer to come and talk to you today.

I thought so. I knew you could keep up. But 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 2006. So to start, give us your theory of the case. Why do you think you could be the state's next Republican governor? I think it really starts with the reality of life in California. We've had 16 years now where you've had one party in control.

And the results, especially for regular working people, small business owners in particular, are just really tough, right? I mean, we can go through the data, 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. Highest gas prices, electric bills have doubled in the last 10 years. They're now double the national average. grocery is the most expensive. A lot of that is driven by energy costs. Housing, the most expensive

in the country. It's just really tough to live here. 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 of the most expensive states in general. Yeah, but I think it's the sort of combination of things. You've got all of those economic factors. You've got the fact that the homelessness problem seems so intractable. 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 definitely something that's gotten worse. And you see that reflected in so many companies leaving. And actually, the lost investment from businesses that normally you'd have expected maybe to set up in

California than now, the choice is wider in terms of other states where you can do a startup, whatever it may be. You know that very well. So I think basically it's just all these things have come together to a point where there's a majority. Now, this is news. If you look at the polling, right across the board, 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. So why are you the person who can fix this? Because like I said, these aren't new problems. And these homelessness in particular has been intractable through many governors, including Schwarzenegger. Why are you the person to fix this? Well, this sort of literal, factual answer to the question is that 2.3 million people voted for me

in the primary to be the challenger. And so the question behind that is, well, why did I succeed in the primary beating, even Tom Steyer with his hundreds of millions of dollars? Well, it's good to know money doesn't buy politics, even how much money Elon's going to be putting into this race, I'm guessing, but go ahead. I don't know about that, but I don't know anything along those lines yet. But look, I think that the sort of prior question is, well, why did I do well in the primary? I think it's because I've been putting forward, honestly, a pretty pragmatic, positive set of things to change those, basic realities in California, especially focused on cost of living in the business climate. And we can get into the individual elements there. But it's been something that is not,

I really feel strongly that, you know, who I am as a kind of person who's now participating in this race is someone who's just a pragmatist. I'm not ideological. I don't want to tell anyone how to live their life. I just want everyone to be able to live the life they want in California in an affordable way, and that's really what got me focused on running. Yeah. Now, you did get a lot of votes. There weren't a lot of Republicans running. It was you and former Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianca, who seems vaguely insane, who was a very hard MAGA guy. But let's talk first about President Trump has endorsed you in the race. But in California, Democrats have been nearly two-to-one voter registration advantage, as you know, over Republicans

that a poll came out last month pretty closely mapped that had you trailing the Democratic. Democratic candidate, Bacera, by 25 points. So you'll need Democrats to win. So make the case for why a Democrat should vote for people who are independent slash Democrats. So I've been directly making that case, you know, since this phase of the election. We actually launched our general election campaign a couple of weeks ago now in East Los Angeles, Boyle Heights, a working class Latino neighborhood that 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 like 85 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 we actually ran ads in the LA Times, in 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've been. put forward a number of questions. For example, this is in the, you know, there's a sort of test that you could take. I'm a Democrat, but I think the state needs change. I care about climate, but $6 gas is insane, et cetera. I can't remember those exact questions, but in other words, there are millions of Californians who can't stand President Trump. That is very clear. There's not a

mystery who would never think of themselves as Republican, but who think we need change in California. So you think they can buy farcate on this? Because regardless of a party, there's lots of people who aren't happy with the president, barely a third of Americans approve of his job performance right now. I'd like to get one of the issues. And you see that in other states actually. So for example, there are other states, Vermont, Maryland, either now or in the past, where you've had a strongly Democrat state that's elected a Republican governor. Sure, Massachusetts. So exactly. So it's not an unusual thing. Well, it may That's a particular kind of Republican, and I'm not so sure you are that, and politics are different right now.

Well, let's see. Let me ask you. 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 doing bad for California? I don't know. The biggest one, I don't know if you'd call it a policy question, but I certainly have said very clearly, 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.

I will note that you didn't say certified, thank you, because I would have slapped you. I can feel the enmity, exactly. So Biden won the election. Go ahead. The way I think about it is that as things come along, there's a few things. I mean, just since I've been a candidate, for example, I strongly disagreed with this suggestion that they would take out customs and border patrol from California airports in retaliation for the state sanctuary policy. That's ridiculous.

You know, you'd only have international flights going to neighboring states. ridiculous. I don't, I don't agree with the withdrawal of funding from the University of California. It's an incredibly important institution in our state. Maybe there are things that we need to improve in terms of the focus of the university system here on anti-Semitism, whatever it may be, but I don't think that's a sensible way to prosecute that. I don't know, what's another? Landline, right, the FCC just sided with the phone companies against California regulators on the provision of landlines as a service for people who couldn't get cell service. So I think that my attitude is, I'm going to say what I think is in the interest of Californians,

regardless of what the administration is doing. However, I think it's just to 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. So Trump prizes loyalty above all else, and you know this. He seems to take credit for your primary victory.

How are you going to walk that line of appealing to disaffected Democrats that you're talking about without hurting his feelings and having him lash out? Because he does that. He just went after Janine Piro for telling the truth about the Lincoln Reflecting Pool. Well, I think the answer is we'll see. Look, my attitude is just, you know, is to be open and have a good rate. And it's not just the president, it's his team. You know, I know many of his senior team.

You know, Brooke Rollins, the ag secretary, is going to be hugely important for us in California with the trouble our ag industry is in. Doug Bergham for Interior, we've got to do a lot on our forest management and so on. So I think that there's, the way 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 has those kinds of relationships. California also occupies uniquely almost international role, right? It could be a country unto itself and a very, very successful one. When you get to international issues like the war in Iran, again, it will be the same thing when you disagree with them. Are there things that you

very much disagree with them on an international basis right now? 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, 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, 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, some international agreements and trying to, in a way, act as a counterweight to the Trump administration's foreign policy. And I just think, 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? That could be about the situation in Iraq. I mean, I don't think that's within gas.

Well, it's $2 higher now than anywhere else in the country, even with the situation in Iran. We have more taxes here on gas. Yeah, we have the highest gas tax, but mainly it's regulatory. So it's the low carbon fuel standard. It's the cap and trade. Sorry, they now call it cap and invest. It's refinery 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. 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. Yeah, but not the relative. I mean, it's $2 higher here than the rest of the country. So let's at least get that down.

Okay. So you're running on a platform of affordability in the state with notorious 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're going to 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 a lot. such a huge issue and people want to hear, is that I want to get people better job. Be very specific about what you mean and how you're going to, you're going to have to work with Democrats one way

or the other. Yeah, yeah. And I've got experience with that. I mean, the last job that I did before moving here in 2012 with my wife, Rachel, who you know 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, another party, the liberal Democrats. I was actively involved in negotiating the coalition agreement, and then I 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 often the

policy process would go through us. So I do have some experience about that 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. Definitely in terms of the diagnosis of the problem, as you just said, 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 it wasn't all the candidates about like five other Democrats. And they went in front of them before me and like everything they said, was what I was planning to say.

Antonio Viragoza stands out. He's the first one. I remember it so clearly said, we have the worst business climate in America. We have to do more to help business, 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 Democrat pack,

she adopted my tax plan and said so very openly in the debates. So the first part of my tax plan, in the primary was to eliminate state income tax for lower paid workers. That's one of your big campaign promises to eliminate state income taxes. Let me be specific for people who make less than $100,000 a year. And as you said, others campaigned on this idea too. Yeah, we've actually lifted it to $100. 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 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, you're really struggling in that category between 100 and 150,

so we've lifted it. And we've made adjustments to the 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 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 Amazon rainforest, rather than 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 it's the process through which they refuse to give permits for any part of the production

process, including maintenance of wells. That's how they've shut it down. That's a direct change you can make by putting in their people. By putting in the appointment system. Yeah, or even maybe the same people will come to their sense. You just need some common sense on this stuff. So there's a lot of areas where you can really affect it directly through executive action. But getting back to your tax plan, Porter plan to make up for the drop in state revenue

that would come with that by taxing wealthy people more. Your plan is to cut services and waste as you call it. No, cut spending. That's not the same. Yeah. Okay. What are you going to cut? So I just want to put it in the context of the budget. So they've doubled the budget nearly in the last 10 years. 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 I think we just got a rein 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 proposed in January, 20, just before the pandemic, $220 billion. It's like a massive increase. That's my target.

I would like to get the budget back to pre-pandemic levels allowing for inflation. So when you take inflation to account, that's probably $100 billion reduction in spending. Obviously, you're not going to do that in one go. So where? Well, there's different categories. So I'll give you one example 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 bureaucratic, the kind of stuff that Ezra Klein has pointed out, Derek Thompson in their book, Abundance, you know, project, labor agreements, community, workforce agreements, endless environmental processes.

is if you strip all that out, you can get the same result with less money. So that's one category, getting just a bit of value for the money that you're putting in. Secondly, there are areas where I think we shouldn't be spending the money. And here, I would say, is what, you know, national Democrats, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem-Jeffries, and particularly have said is an unacceptable area of spending. And that is full-scope Medi-Cal, Medicaid, as it's known across the country, for citizens of other countries. Now that's about $13 billion a year in California.

Even Gavin Newsom has said that's gone too far, and they're now reducing eligibility for that. I just think that when Californians are struggling to pay health care costs, it's just not an acceptable use of money, and national Democrats agree with that. So Democrats absolutely deserve something blame for California's affordability problems.

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. And Trump isn't helping Republicans like you by saying things like he's not even thinking about Americans' finances even a little bit. Again, 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 its cost of living worse? I've heard so many Californians about the tariffs because there's a lot

of import, export businesses here. And they directly blame Trump for this. Yeah, I think that that's a good example of, you know, I want to focus on the things that general policy direction that, you know, it isn't going to affect, there's not a particular effect on California. It's just a policy position. And, you know, they're not going to affect it.

So I think I would not get involved in that. But where you've got specific things, affect California. I think it's going to be very important on agriculture, actually. If you look at the impact of some of the policies on beef, I was just with some beef, our largest beef producer actually the other week. 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. You would advocate the White House. These things are hurting the people you represent. That would seem to be your job. You could tell them tariffs are hurting businesses. What effect could

you have? Well, I wouldn't make a broad, I would just say this particular thing. I think it's always good to focus on the details and something 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 Ronans, who I know very well. And I don't know. I mean, we'll see. But I think that that's, I think 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 pick up the phone and say, come on, this is not, oftentimes it may 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. Well, he does love those tariffs. Trump has been sowing a lot of

doubt about the U.S. 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? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, look, the voter rolls 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 that definitely is a problem. I think the sort of general concept of it, the operation of it, I think, is secure. Yeah, I think it's the voter rolls part that's not. And you're pro-mail-in ballots?

No, not really. I mean, I think they're convenient. I mean, I generally like, I personally like... I mean, Donald Trump does it. I personally, I love voting on Election Day. I love the civic ritual. I think that's great. 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 you target your resources in terms of getting out the vote. So I don't think there's any going back on that. I think that actually people like it. And so, fine, let's keep it. Do you agree with Trump's claims that there were irregularities in the state's primary election results enough so as to warn investigation from federal prosecutors like Trump asked for? We didn't see anything.

I mean, look, 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 didn't see anything that caused us concern. So you don't think a federal investigation is. Well, I think that Bill Assaley, who's the U.S. attorney's doing, I think he was going to do it anyway. I don't know, actually. I haven't spoken to Bill about it, so I don't know. Is a legal voting of non-citizens a widespread problem in California?

I don't think, I don't think so. I mean, neither does anybody else, but Trump. There's definitely controversy over extending it to local elections. I can't remember where we stand on that. I think San Francisco did it for school boards. I think it's being debated in L.A. I don't know. I think I don't agree with that. No, I think the real problem is the voter roles being so out of date. Yeah. We'll be back in a minute. Support for the show comes from IQ Bar. If you're looking for a delicious low-sugar way to fuel both your body and your brain,

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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 how have your views evolved over time? Okay. I think that I just want to start by saying I really do see it as my job as governor to help every industry in California. I think that of all the industries in California, the one that needs the least help right now is tech, to be honest. They're doing well.

I think that just, I don't want to detour into this, but I think that the two industries that I think really need emergency attention from the governor is agriculture that we've mentioned, but also entertainment. I think there's a massive, you know. I'm going to ask you about that later. Yeah, so I've spent a lot of time on that. Right, let's get to tech. So I think generally speaking, it's not top of my list of priorities in terms of going to help. There's probably two issues that when I think of AI, I know it's not just AI, but obviously that's the dominant narrative in tech right now.

I think that, broadly speaking, I'm very nervous and cautious about unintended consequences 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 copyright and artists' rights and the creative product and all of that. So I think those two are really important areas. Honestly, I think the main thing I'm focused on in relation to tech is actually getting, to use a tech term, the full stack of tech jobs into California. So what you've seen lately is all these kinds of tech jobs, into California. So what you've seen lately is all

these California homegrown companies, really fantastic companies. Invida, 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 this is going here, though. They still, we get our fair share, I would say. Yeah, but this is the point, right? So 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, the labour force participation rate is pretty historically low in California. It's about 62.something percent.

At its peak in California, it's been nearly 70 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 gap is in these manufacturing blue-collar-type jobs. And so I want to see the manufacturing and high-end production side of tech here as well. That's really what I'm interested in. But in an interview with semaphore, you said government regulators are aiming at the

wrong targets. The problem isn't the tech companies are their apps, it screens and children's unsupervised access to the internet. So who's responsible for that? I mean, right now, there's talk that meta is going to start being heavy on the child's safety thing. They're looking for anything at this point. I don't know if you've seen their recent ads where they believe in humans now, apparently, which is great. Good to know. Disclosure. Your wife worked there, but I'm sure she laughed at it too. So who's responsible of sides? And how can the government do that? I mean, they've had very little, as you know, very little regulation on anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been on this long time, honestly. So you mentioned human. I wrote this book in 2015 called More Human, Designing a World

where people come first. It was my book coming out of working in the government. And the theme of the book, the sort of argument was everything in the world has become too big and bureaucratic and centralized and distant from the human scale as 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 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 when you ask the question like, who's responsible? Often the reply comes, well, it's parents who are responsible. And in an ideal word, 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, kind of like the pollution problem, which is you're affected by other people's decisions.

In particular, that kind of 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 because all the other kids have them. Sure. Again, where does the government step in? Well, so I'm just trying to work to, and I want to have more conversations on this with people like Jim Starr at Common Sense and so on. It's been very good on all this, which is to say, look,

and obviously, you know, we've had that what's his name's book last year that he had a big impact on all of this. Oh, Jonathan Haidt. Jonathan, of course, yeah. 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 rule, I think his age was 14, actually, for,

smartphones. Yeah, but 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, 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 Chapox. And if you read these texts between them, it's very disturbing and heartbreaking. terrible. Terrible. But 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. So what's happening right now

is a lot of these are product liability lawsuits versus because they've been pushing against the First Amendment part of it, but now, or Section 230, why shouldn't California follow the evidence and adopt, say, a social media ban as some countries have done? I mean, if the government isn't going to do it. Yeah, like Australia started it. Right. And it's France. It's going to Spain. your home country? Yeah, but the early verdicts are not good on that in terms of kids being able to get it, well, because it's ineffective.

So I'd much rather have something that's effective. Well, I could argue kids drink, and yet we say as a country they can't drink till they're 21 or kids smoking. Lots of kids smoke, but it does. No, that's actually my argument to when people say, well, how are you going to stop kids having phones under 16? I say, 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 in terms of the social media ban, I think it's so easy to evade. That's the problem. The problem is the smartphone. It's so easy to evade drinking. So we have rules about drinking. We have rules about smoking. We have rules about driving. Why not have rules about social media if it's a product liability issue? I think it's bigger than social media. It's digital content. It's the unsupervised access to this where kids, when they're not in school. I mean, for example, one thing we can do at least is enforce the school smartphone ban. Like, that's one, 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? So you've got wide consensus

now that you should have a smartphone ban in schools. But then in a way, that puts it on to parents. Like the only time is outside of school. And I think that that's the problem. 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 bands. And then, you know, like in Australia, for example, they had a sort of specified number of apps. Well, if there's a new one, do you keep out, it's like a whack-a-mole thing.

I think it's much more effective to try and stop kids having smartphones. I think that would do much greater good. So remove the device itself, which you'll think would be much harder, I would imagine. I'm sure Apple would love to hear that from you. I'm sure that. Actually, let's talk about that. I'm sure that actually their response to that as a fantastic, you know, innovative company would be to say, can we not invent a really attractive, 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 internet at the time. Well, Apple spends a lot of time trying to stop doing age verification and fighting meta over it because meta doesn't think it should do age verification and Apple doesn't think it should do age verification. and Apple doesn't think it should do age. It's a really interesting fight

where nothing's happening to, you could verify ages of using these devices. I mean, it's a good example. I mean, my response to that, my instinctive response to that is, in a way, that's why I wanted to do this show. It's one of the reasons I want to do this job.

I think you have a real ability as governor to get those people around the table and have a real conversation. Say, come on, guys, let's figure this out. Where we are is not acceptable. 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.

Do you have a phone now? I do. You didn't have a phone. Yeah. I'll show you, it's right. This is my phone. What is it one of these? It's a flip phone.

Oh, you have a flip phone. Wow. I know. You've really made it upwards. It's an up. This is real technological progress for me. Yeah, okay. You're right.

For a long time, I had no phone. You'll just go right to the glasses. AI in particular, the backlash is real, though. We just did an episode about data centers that were a flashpoint across the country in the midterms. And a recent Gallup poll found Americans are becoming more skeptical of AI, not less, as they become more familiar with it. And it's especially true of young people.

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? Because there's all these, as you and I know, amazing things that could be done with AI. But the AI leadership feels villainous at this point, talking about babies being more energy than AI, which is not a particularly good argument. or we're all going to die, that was a nice message, or get used to it, too bad if you lose your jobs.

Where do you blame the enthusiasm, because it's a real thing. And data centers, to me, is the proxy for it of the anger. It's a proxy. I think that... And abuses, like actual abuses by, say, Elon in Memphis. Those are real abuses of local areas and local citizens. But go ahead. So overwhelmingly, I think the blame is with,

Probably two people, actually. The kind of, you know, double A boy, whatever we want to call them, Altman and Amadee, 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 going to destroy humanity, going to end the human race, destroy Jock, 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 taken hold. And it was the first narrative about this, really. I remember, as you finally off, got in More Human in 2015, it was just emerging.

The technology was really good. And I wrote about it, and I said, look, I don't know, it's just emerging. I'm not an expert. It's laughable now in retrospect. This is what I wrote. I'm not quoting, but something like this. Well, I'm not the ex-I don't know where this technology is going.

It's certainly going to 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 Open AI, which will make sure that AI is developed in a way that benefits humanity and Elon and all these. So look what happened there. I think that they bear the greatest responsibility. I think that on data centers, remember the data. Data centers, 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 obviously now 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 simple practical ways that you can turn the data center thing around. And we're seeing some of that actually coming from the federal administration in terms of electricity usage. The Times had a great story about that recently.

I think that's all sensible stuff that you can do. And also in terms of where you'd. locate them and the noise. I think everything that people are concerned about in terms of a data centers can and should be mitigated and if the companies aren't doing it voluntarily, absolutely the government should make them do it because it's an essential infrastructure. I interviewed the mayor of Lansing, Michigan and he did one of these good data centers and the citizens still didn't want it because of the anger. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, it will see whether one of the biggest issues going forward. Yeah. I mean, I think on the generally on a, I mean,

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 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 because suddenly it becomes affordable to make things in California again. And AI could be a real part of that. Except you might not need people as much, right? That's, I mean, you're talking about your... Yeah, but you need people to, you need some people.

I mean, you know, and the scale of it could be really... big. We'll be back in a minute. Support for this show comes from Fodzim. Feeling stressed about what you're eating doesn't let you enjoy the meal. Neither does consistently worrying about how you're going to feel after you eat. With Fodzim, you can enjoy your favorite foods without the stress or the pain. Fodzim 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 Fodzim apart. Every customer gets access to a free product consultation with a registered dietitian. We're excited to partner with Fodzim and offer you 30% off your first order when you go to I can eat again.com slash Kara.

That's I Can Eat Again.com slash Kara for 30% off your first order. Finally, you can enjoy your favorite foods without the pain. Just go to I can eat again.com slash Kara. Going on vacation? We're here for it. With kids, who turned the backseat into a courtroom drama over whose tabla is louder, whose charger is faster, and while watching the same cartoon for the hundredth time is a human right?

Yep, we totally have vehicles to handle that, because whether it's a road trip or a business trip, where your flight's delayed, your phone's at 2% and your dinner is whatever is open, yeah, here for that too. Enterprise, we're here for it. Hi, everybody, it's Megan Rapino. I've been thinking a lot about this one question

I've been asked over and over. A question about the choices I've made, the colors of my hair, the things in the world I've spoken about, and the things that I haven't. I've heard this question asked so many different ways, but it always came down to, why are you like this? And as you know, there's no simple answer

because people are not simple. We're messy and complicated and contradictory and layered. So on my new show, I'm sitting down with the ultimate disruptors, the athletes, the artists, the activists, and the architects of our culture who looked at the way things were and asked, why do we do it like this and can we do it differently? My hope is to give us a little more space to that question

and to the person on the other side of the mic, not to tell us their answer or read from their script, but to take us on their journey. Check out my new show, Why Are You Like This, on YouTube or listen in your favorite podcast app. New episodes drop every Thursday. Speaking of people, immigration is a huge issue. In diverse states like California,

every episode we get an expert question from outside. Here's yours. 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. That's a good question. All right. Very good. I think Sarah's question is exactly, you know, I appreciate it. And it's actually how I feel. And I'm so proud to be an American. And, you know, I've renounced my UK citizenship.

And 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 illegal. I think that in terms of influence, let's just get straight to the kind of key part of this, which is immigration enforcement. The way I think about it is obviously, you never want to see. anything like we saw, like we have seen, you know, earlier in the year in Minnesota and more recently. And also don't want to see anything like we saw last summer in Los Angeles 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 in great detail about it. I think my approach would be to actually have the kind of of immigration enforcement that, to be honest, we saw on the Obama years, which is a sort of common sense cooperative relationship between state and local law enforcement and federal immigration enforcer. Which wasn't there. The state law enforcement did not.

Right. So there's a sanctuary law in California, SB 54. It was passed in 2017. And a lot of people say, oh, that means that you can't cooperate with federal law. That's not true. In fact, it was criticized at the time. Kevin DeLeon, one of the authors, I believe, was criticized by the left from. making it too federal immigration enforcement friendly, as it were.

There's a whole set of things, specific offenses and conditions that allow for cooperation between state and local law enforcement and federal law enforcement in California. 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. So how would you have handled the ICE race as governor? Would you have sued the Trump administration like Newsom did when he tried to deploy them? They wouldn't have happened. They wouldn't have happened because you would have had cooperation at the

local level to say, where you say, yes, you can work with them to find the people they're looking for. And then they don't have to go into the community. Well, I think Stephen Miller has some other ideas. You know, you could hear all their rhetoric. They said the city was controlled by gangs. They narrative as if they had to come in, which wasn't, none of which is true. And, you know, you just, I don't know if you saw that Elon interview with the economist editor. She's like, it's nothing like what you're saying is happening here. So what won't you do to help the Trump administration if they get what, if they do what? And I know you don't like hypothetical. I don't know. I don't think, no, I'm just curious. I'm thinking about what that looks like. I want to see.

How do you get it to be peaceful when, I would say probably Stephen Miller doesn't want peaceful? is not his, I've not heard that out of his mouth yet. He's not running it directly. Tom Homer is running it directly. Yes, I get that. And I know Tom and I think, I don't think they want to see this. I mean, I really don't. I don't think Don't know.

He doesn't. Christy Noam kind of did. But yes, and so did the little tiny guy who looks like Chad Bianco, that whole genre of American. Oh, I know who you mean. Bovino. I just, I don't think we'll get to that point. 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 beyond just entering illegally. Sure, but they've gone beyond that. Would you acknowledge they've gone beyond that? Yes, but I think they're dialing it back. That is my sense. So you pointed out your own story as an example of doing it the right way and your wife moved to the U.S. in 2012 for her job, and she was a top executive 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 status. Others come under Biden-year programs. You may not have liked those programs, but they were legal programs. What makes your immigrant, like my son was asking, why is your immigration is very 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 just four years. I have many friends on green cards. that came in here legally, very nervous.

These are all people that come in the way you say they should come in, correct? How should we treat these immigrants? They sound like it. I mean, I think the temporary thing is different because of the name, temporary. I mean, I think it was legally established to be temporary when the conditions of emergency are no longer present, then that's different. Student visas, I bought green cards. I mean, I totally disagree.

agree with taking that away. I mean, if you go through a process, you can't retroactively change the process, I think. The temporary protected standard, I think that is different because the establishing law was at, I don't know the exact time limit, honestly, but I think it was supposed to be temporary. Yeah, but 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 et cetera. There's going to be a lot of issues. Would you stand up for someone from El Salvador, for example, there's a big Salvadoran population in LA who came here legally, maybe on TPS, some of them not, but now we'll have their legal status stripped. Did they do it the right way?

Well, I mean, you've got to look at the individual case. I mean, the temporary, as I say, that is a federal program 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 legal immigration status. the law that set that up, I don't know what the right term is, whether it's expired or the conditions that gave rise to it are no longer there, then you've got to, I think there needs to be processed to get you onto another track. Maybe that's the right way of thinking about it. Okay. And for the dreamers? Yeah, I think that's honestly unarguable. He's going for the dreamers now, so. Well, I disagree with that very strongly. And I don't know

if that's true. I mean, I haven't heard that. I haven't seen any evidence of that. I know that They're looking at PhD candidates. Don't we want to keep those candidates here? Yes, for sure. Don't we want people come to this country to go to, say, a UC school? Don't we want them to stay? If you're born here, yeah. If you're brought across as a child, yeah, I think that's exactly right.

I've always been strong. I've been very, I mean, I used to talk about that on my Fox show all the time. I'm going to end with talking about Hollywood very quickly about what's going, because there's so much going on. Hollywood has been bleeding jobs in California. It's especially true in the year. since the pandemic and the strikes, the state is trying to lure those jobs back with more tax incentives. You want to make those incentives even bigger. But incentives can also be a race to the bottom, as you know. What can the state do more to lure those jobs back?

You've got to start with the tax incentive, because that's the main reason that you've seen places like, well, actually the UK. I mean, when I was the UK government, my friend and colleague George Osborne was the Treasury Secretary, Chancellor, the Extrachrist, called, and he devised the UK tax incentive that's been incredibly successful for the UK. But now you've got other places. You've got Hungary and other countries in Eastern Europe within the States. You've got New Mexico. You've got Georgia's longstanding.

Now, New Jersey has a really strong incentive. So it's just highly competitive. And you can take a philosophical position and say, I don't like the kind of tax incentive raised to the bottom, etc. But on the other hand, my job is not to pontificate on what I think about that. say, right, we got a crisis, we got to do something about it. What can you do? And I think my attitude to this is we have to have a kind of wake up moment where anyone who's making these decisions, like sees a real change, a big change, and notices, well, that's number one. And it's

not just the size, it's the, 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 you have now is because there's a certain amount allocated. That means that 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 going to get it. That puts people off. If it's uncapped, you know you're going to get it.

It's automatic almost. But on top of that, you've got to make the process of production easier. 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. estate and local bureaucracies in terms of permits 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 because 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. So California is 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 the journey to get to the approval from the Department of Justice felt a little political too. So why is it in Hollywood and California's best interest for this merger to go through? Well, look, I think one of the, one of the strongest reasons is that you've got a real commitment to theatrical release, which is a lot of the industries really wants to see. And by the way, I do. I love going to the

movies. I saw The Odyssey in the movie theater. You know, like, I love, of course, you can, I know, I understand, but you know what I'm saying. I enjoy the, you know, it's an exciting thing. I love the fact that that's getting, the films like that and getting people back into movie theaters. So I think that they've made a strong commitment to that, to a specific number of releases per year that are going to be in the movie theaters. That's new. I think also you've got to see it in the overall competitive landscape. I think they sort of Rob Bond to the California Attorney General really can't defend this. I mean, I saw. saw his interview on the town, 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 bit concerned about what would happen to CNN. Honestly, I think that is the main drive. Except he never mentioned it. He didn't mention it. Yeah, but like it comes out in all the interviews. No, he did, you know, people, no, I've been following this rather closely. He actually, they bring it up to him. And that's a different thing, I think. Now, the judge seems to be agreeing with Rob Bontah, because he's one pretty, he got the TRO. He was going to get the preliminary injunction, and now the trial's not till March. So someone agrees with him. The judge certainly

does. Yeah, look, I mean, it's a, it's a third process. And so do many in Hollywood, the Writers Guild, the Screen Actors Guild, and a lot of theater owners, too. Look, I, I mean, fine. I mean, to be honest, it's like some of these other things, from a policy point of view, that's not where my focus is. I can give you opinion about it. But my, from, you know, as governor, that would, right, exactly. The Attorney General gets to do whatever he wants. Yeah. And so what I'm focused on is all the other stuff we've been talking about where you were. And actually, for example, I had a really good meeting with the unions about all of that. And that was part of my 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. There's also, to be fair, a little bit of anti-techness to this because of the Ollisons. And they're, you know, they did suck up to Trump in order to get this through, which, you know, you kind of have to. We haven't talked a lot about housing, but you did mention keeping people in housing is one of the biggest problems. And homelessness is intractable. What is your signature policy to deal with this? Because many people have tried. The big, it sounds really not that new of an idea, but it's enforced the law. And I think that the starting point, of course, is to acknowledge that most of the people,

in terms of street homelessness, have some combination of severe mental health problems and addiction. And in a sense, it doesn't matter whether they became homeless because of those things, or they developed those things once they were homeless. So there's a definitely stress. And also, you're the target for criminal drug dealing gangs, right? you're just an incredibly vulnerable situation. But in a sense, like, that part doesn't matter. You've got to help people.

And you're never going to get people helped if they are on the streets living in those conditions. So the first step... Do we find homeless people? We put them in jail? What's enforcing the law mean for people who are at the end of enforcement? Well, it's illegal to live on the streets. It's against the law.

It's always been against the law. And so you've got to physically take people off the streets. and put them somewhere where they can get better. Well, for example, there's a really interesting proposal from down there San Diego, a disused military base to use as a shelter. 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, the numbers, what is it, 188,000, something like that.

It's large, but it's not impossible to imagine that we can do that. There's another really important aspect of this, which is 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. But the whole Medicare system was set up in the 60s. There was a rule put in place. That states that there is no federal Medicaid reimbursement for any mental health care 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. States can exempt themselves from this. That's a very practical thing. We haven't done that in California, a practical way of getting more money into the system. I don't think it really is intractable. I think you just needs a sort of, you know, practical approach where you work through these problems. So last question. You're saying will a lot when I am governor. And you've argued that California's problems are the result of political choices that 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 Republicans? No, no, no, I love California. I wouldn't want to live anywhere. No, I love California. I'm in love with it still. I get really excited driving around as I do and just seeing all these incredible things that we have. the beauty of everything. It's just amazing.

And it's not just the physical beauty and the weather and all these things. There's a sort of spirit. I call it the rebel spirit. That's why we've created these amazing industries. And that's kind of rebelliousness that is very much, I don't know, I feel in tune with.

I couldn't imagine being anywhere else. All right. You know, they hate us because they ain't us. That's why. Exactly. Anyway, see, thank you so much. I really appreciate it that you coming on. And I hope, I don't think it was too hard to.

I want to illuminate voters rather than just getting bites. No, no, I appreciate it. It was real. It was real. It was a good conversation. I appreciate it. Thank you. Today's show was produced by Nashat Kurwa, Michelle Alloy, Catherine Millsopp, Madeline LaPlante Duvie,

Megan Bernie, and Kaelin Lynch. Special thanks to Aymn Welland, Dave Shaw, Lisa Soap, and Julia Sharp Levine. This episode was engineered by Aaliyah Jackson Perez, and our theme music is by by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, you're living the California dream. If not, you're paying $6 for gas. Go wherever you listen to podcast,

search for On with Carous Swisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On with Carous Swisher from Podian Media, New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Thursday with more.