The Eric Metaxas Show - Steve Hilton is Running for Governor of California (Encore)

Episode Date: August 20, 2025

Steve Hilton joins the show to discuss his campaign for Governor of California.

Welcome to the Eric Metaxus show. I shouldn't tell you this, but Eric hired someone who sounds just like him to host today's show. But since I'm the announcer, they told me, so I'm telling you, don't be foe. The real Eric's in jail. Hey there, folks. At Socrates in the city, we're doing a new thing. It's called The Question of where we interview somebody. I'm not talking.

We just let them talk on an important question. and we've got a number of those. They're all like nine, ten minutes long. We're going to play one of those for you right now. Here it is. What is Scientism? Scientism is a claim that the only way we have access or knowledge of the world is through science. And that really science is the only way that we can know what's true in the world.

So that means other things like religion or philosophy. That doesn't give us access to the real world. Only modern science and its methods give us access to the real world. Scientism as a worldview is alluring to many people because modern science, everyone can see, is a good thing. And whether you use your microwave or your iPhone or something in between, you know, we all can see the benefits of science all around us and we use it every day.

We use it in modern medicine. And so there are all these great benefits from science. People have gone to the moon and now we're trying to go to Mars. And so when you see that, the cultural prestige of science is huge. And so it can be easy to be lulled to think, well, if science is successful in some things, then, well, that means it's really the sum of all knowledge. That's how we can get knowledge about everything, and we should trust it for everything. But here's the problem. If you try to think that science provides all the answers to everything, you are sadly mistaken.

C.S. Lewis once made a very interesting statement in a book that he wrote called The Abolition of Man, where he basically said that science and magic are twins. On the one hand, it might seem, well, this is insane. Science and magic, how they could be twins. Magic is about magical thinking. It's subjective. It's not based on evidence. Science is based on evidence, cool and rational. But I think Lewis is right that, in fact, there are a lot of similarities. One similarity is actually that both magic and science can function as a religion for many people and actually can lead to a lack of skepticism. If a magician says,

oh, I can do this magical thing and trust me, you should just believe it, it sort of lends to you not being so skeptical. Well, similarly, when someone says, science says, you can be just very unskeptical. But one big way that magic and science are similar is the quest for power. So if you're the great magician,

you want power over the world. You think of Fantasia with the Sorcerer's Apprentice, with Mickey and the Great Wizard, is able to control all sorts of things about the natural world, and that ends up getting Mickey in trouble. Magic has always been partly about the quest for control, the control over nature. Well, science is pretty much the same thing.

A lot of modern science, from atom bombs to fighting disease, to creating new technologies that surmount our limitations, creating airplanes that fly, a lot of science is about exerting power over the world. And that can be good if what you're trying to do is good. If you're trying to heal a disease, that's a great thing. But power can also be directed at some goals that aren't good, that dehumanize people, or that try to basically eradicate one group of people over another.

And so this makes science both useful but also dangerous. When scientists or people claiming to speak in the name of science make moral claims, say that we should have eugenic abortions, that we should call handicapped kids, because that would be better for society. They're making a claim that goes way beyond science. They're actually making a claim about human value and morality, and how do they test that in the lab? I mean, how do they use their scientific method to come up with that?

They don't. They actually are smuggling in their own moral and philosophical beliefs through those claims. They're insulating them from your own criticism of them by claiming that they're science. Let's think about the whole debate over climate change. There are people claiming in the name of science that we have to have certain particular public policies, like maybe zero net emissions, or you name the policy.

Maybe that policy is good, maybe it's not. But the point I want to make is that that's not just a scientific claim. And it's not just scientists who have the right to weigh in on that. Climate change is a great example because when many people say, well, the science says this, they're actually covering up for the idea that there are multiple different questions that they try to fuse together to sort of support. So if they're going to say, we have to be net neutral, and the science commands that, or science says that. Or if you're against climate change, you are, you know, against science.

But again, if you actually look at what's being debated, there are multiple different questions. One is, okay, are we warming? That's one question. Science says something about that. And then what actually is causing the warming? Well, then that's another science question. Another question is, well, what are the potential things we can actually do about it? And then finally, given the alternatives and how expensive certain things might be

and the side effects of various policies, what would be the best thing to do about it? Those are multiple different questions, and to claim that science with a capital S gives a declaration about all of them in a simple sandblight is preposterous. And I think the most dangerous thing about people who claim science says, therefore you must do, is that they're usually covering up that there are multiple different competing questions, and the science may say different things on different questions, and that the final questions is, well, what should we do about it, isn't just a science question. You might think the science is overwhelming that we are in a warming period, and I think there's pretty good evidence that we are in a warming period.

But then you might say, well, but the science isn't so clear as to, what parts of the warming come from human action, what parts come from the sun, what parts come from natural cycles or other things. There's a question of, well, even if we're warming, even, say, if it's all human interaction, what can actually be done about it, then that's still another answer to the question that science may say something different about. And then finally, well, okay, maybe we can do something about it. Maybe it will only do something marginal, but it'll cost a trillion dollars and put loads of people out of work and make people hungry. well, then you have to reconcile, well, what's the best to do under the circumstances given these competing interests? It can be really hard to deal constructively with someone who is in the grip of scientism. One thing that I found useful, but even this is challenging, is to talk about some cases from history

because things today are so polarized. So if you bring up something that's today, people already have chosen their view on it, And so they can't really, they don't want to budge. But if you bring up something like a misuse of science in the past, like eugenics, was this effort by the scientific community to leverage what they thought Darwinian biology was teaching that we were going to destroy our race if we counteracted the law of natural selection. So therefore, we had to basically control breeding, if you want, from people who were considered inferior by law. And they thought this was scientific.

I think most people today recognize that that was an abuse of science. And so bringing up a case like that and explaining that the leading scientists at Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Yale, the National Academy of Sciences all supported eugenics and supported laws basically mandating eugenics, and that now we realize it's wrong, that that's an example of why you should want open debate and discussion. So I think that bringing some historical examples where people now recognize that something wrong was done can maybe get them to think, well, then isn't that still true today? And a more recent example, the whole COVID pandemic was very in real time and interesting case study because for two or three years, if anyone raised any questions like, well, did this start with a lab leak, for example, you were shut down as anti-scientific, beyond science, shouldn't even be allowed legally to say what you were saying. Now, in just the last couple of years, the situation has opened up where people have recognized that many of those things that were considered, well, conspiracy serious just to even question. Now, actually, many people think might actually be true. So maybe, you know, COVID, I don't know how it started, but maybe a lab leak was involved in it. But you can actually question that.

And so in real time, we've actually seen in our own life where so many questions were declared closed. And your anti-science were even raising the question. And now people recognize that that's not true. And so I think if you're interlocutor, if you will, who's in the grip of scientism, you can bring up even some more recent examples where you could say, well, you know, do you think it was wrong that people should have been able to debate the evidence about whether COVID began with the lab leak or debate the evidence of lockdown policies and how good those were or not?

And I think that many people might be able to see that there is some benefit to that. And so questioning them about some examples from history where it's shown that there was sort of groupthink for a while, even in the scientific community, and it would have been helpful to have a more open, robust discussion. I believe with John Milton, let error and truth grapple, and you hope that out of that you'll have a clearer idea of the truth. I think you'll certainly have a clearer idea than if you just close up and can never question anything. A major retail chain just canceled a massive order, leaving My Pillar with an overstock of the classic My Pillo, and this is your gain because for a limited time, My Pillow is offering their entire classic collection at true wholesale prices.

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$100 in free digital gifts, no strings attached. That's right. Premium pillows at unbeatable prices and bonus gifts to top it off. Don't wait. Head to mypillow.com today or call 800-978 3057. Now, don't forget to use promo code Eric to grab your standard, MyPillow, for only 1798, only while supplies last. Hey there, folks. Welcome back. It is a real privilege to get on the program for the first time Steve Hilton. Many of you already know him from his innumerable appearances on Fox and other places, but now you need to know him, I hope, as the next governor of the great state of California. Steve Hilton, welcome. Great to be with you, Eric. It's a very big deal to run for governor in California. You, you know, you've established your conservative bona fides over the years. What made you decide,

to take this great leap because I really can't. The idea of somebody like you as Governor California, you know, gives a lot of us hope, frankly, but what was it that led you to say, I actually want to run for office? It was a gradual process, actually. And I think that the sort of starting point is that I love California so much. We moved here in 2012, my wife and my two sons,

became an American in 2021. This is my home. I've taught at Stanford and started a business here, raised my family here. But it's not just literally my home. I feel at home in California in a way that I haven't anywhere else I've ever been. I just completely love everything that I think California should represent. As far as I'm concerned, the best of America. So the starting point.

Some people might not know that, although as you mentioned, I've been a familiar face on Fox News and elsewhere in the last few years. really that's not not been my main experience in my career. I've mainly been in business and working in politics and government directly. In fact, just before moving to California, my job was in 10 Downing Street. I was senior advisor to the UK Prime Minister, really leading the implementation of our domestic policy reform programs. I'm very familiar with government and politics and policymaking and actually trying to make change happen in government. So I've got that background, started and run companies, including here in California. And as the years went on, it just dawned on me that I was

getting increasingly frustrated with just talking about the problems in California, of which, you know, I don't know when I start. There are so many. Of course, everything is such a disaster because of this 15 years now of one party rule. But I was getting frustrated just talking about it, complaining about it. And I started to get into, in a way, going back to what I used to do before thinking about policy solutions. I started a policy organization called Golden Together about three years ago, started developing policy solutions to many of these problems, starting with our housing crisis, which is the number one reason actually people are leaving California. It's just so impossible to afford the California dream. And so gradually, as I started

working on the issues, engaging with the political system here in California, going to Sacramento, seeing how it worked or more precisely how it doesn't work. I just got to the point where I thought, I don't just want to talk about it. I want to actually do something about it. And really, that would have been probably sometime in the last year or so. That's the downside of being a talking head is that people would assume that's all you've ever done.

I think that many people thought Pete Higgseth, that's all he did. You know, he's on Fox TV talking. But of course, that's not true in his case and it's dramatically less true in your case. I was unaware that you worked at 10 Downing Street. Which prime minister did you work with? So it was David Cameron elected in 2010. Before that, I'd actually work for him.

I left the company that I started in about 2006 for four years worked on developing when he was leader. I helped run his campaign to become leader of the opposition leader of the conservative party in the UK. And then develop the plan, the policy platform that we went into the election with. and then started to implement. I have to tell you, I'm not holding that up as some great example of success. In many ways, I found it a very disappointing experience, but I learned the tricks of the bureaucracy

and how they work and how you can make change happen and what you need in order to make change happen because frankly, I saw it not happen the way that I wanted to. One of the things that we really tried to do, and I led the work on, was very similar to what we were. would now think of here in America as Doge, because just as here in the UK, there's a massive with government bureaucracy, ridiculous regulations, holding everything back, bloated, nanny state government, centralized government that takes power away from people and families,

local communities. And that was the agenda that I developed with others, obviously, as a team, going into the election. That's what we campaigned on. But honestly, once we got there, I found that there was very little political support for actually trying to make it happen. So I was in many ways battling the bureaucracy almost on my own there. And I learned a lot of lessons from that. And now that I'm leading the charge, I'm really excited about bringing that whole agenda to Sacramento. Because when we think about the bureaucracy in Washington

and how the federal government is, of course, in Washington, over the years, at least we've had some injection of an alternative worldview, because you've had Republican presidents alternating with Democrat one. So it's not just been a one-way street. In Sacramento, in California, that's exactly what we've had. For decades now, basically, you've had this one-party mindset in operation. So the whole system is infected with this bureaucratic leftism, which is the reason why everything is such a disaster in California, but I'm really excited about taking that on because I've tried to do it before. I learned the lessons and I'm raring to go.

Well, it's fascinating to hear of your experience in England, in the UK, because it's hard for those of us who love England to see how far it's drifted. And I was really, I found it very entertaining to see President Trump hosting Prime Minister Starrmer at his Donald Trump's glorious residents in Scotland. It really was interesting because he's become such a world leader, and he seems to be, I guess, giving people all around the world hope, that there are people, even in the UK, who think whatever he's doing, we'd like some of that here. And I just, I guess I wonder about the future of the UK, well, since you have that kind of experience there, do you suppose, that there is, that there could be enough of a groundswell, that there could be real reform there?

Well, look, I hope so. I mean, it's a pretty desperate and sad situation, and we can all see it. And the decline has been so strong. I mean, remember, I left in 2012 to move here to California. Then in 2016, the UK had the Brexit referendum. Now, I went back to the UK to campaign in favor of Brexit. because I'd always been on that side of that argument. And in fact, in 10 Downing Street, and in fact, is one of the reasons that I felt so frustrated. Many of the things that we were trying to do, we were blocked from doing by the European Union

and by bureaucrats in the European Union that nobody ever elected, whereas we were elected as a government to deliver a certain set of things, and we were blocked by these bureaucrats in Brussels. So I was always very much in favor of Brexit. That went through, real tragedy, I think, is that it has not really been implemented. The promise of Brexit was never really achieved. What was the central thing in a way? It wasn't the only argument, but the driving argument that really, I think, resulted in the Brexit vote being successful was about immigration

and controlling the UK's borders. Immigration has gone up since Brexit. It's got more chaotic since Brexit. You've got, you know, their equivalent of what we saw at the southern border. under Biden, with the people just, you know, walking across the border and, you know, through the Rio Grande and all those scenes that we remember Eagle Pass, all of that nightmare it seems so long ago because it's been so incredibly effective at putting an end to it. But the UK has that with these boats, you know, small boats coming across laden with illegal immigrants that are just welcomed into the UK by the Coast Guard, ushered into a new life in the UK, totally illegal.

That was happening after Brexit and under a conservative government, which is why they lost so massively, because it seemed to me it was a conservative government that completely lost its way and wasn't conservative at all, didn't cut taxes, didn't cut regulations, didn't control immigration, all the things that were supposed to happen after Brexit, the conservative governments failed to deliver. It seems that you don't, it's almost as though you don't have,

it's the same in blue states here. It's almost as though we don't have genuine representative government. You have elites not doing what the people want, which is bizarre, and at some point the people have to rise up. Well, that's why you see, I mean, and you see right now

that is happening. I mean, look, it's, there's obviously, you know, there's a difference between an opinion poll and an actual election, but you look what's happening right now in the UK. You've got Kea Stama, that's a polling prime minister, as far as I'm concerned, pretty much to the left. I mean, look, President Trump has established a good working relationship with him. That's his job.

And it's delivered a great result in terms of a trade deal, UK-US trade deal, which is good for us here in America. So I'm happy to see President Trump working well with him on that front. But in terms of the domestic policy of the key Estabwe government is a complete disaster. They've got a massive parliamentary majority because the conservatives were such a disaster. They were pretty much wiped out in the last election about a year ago in the UK. but despite the fact that Stama's got this huge parliamentary majority, he's basically doing nothing to solve the problems. They all seem to be getting worse.

So guess who's in the lead now in the UK? Top of the opinion polls in the UK, Nigel Farage. I was going to say, I hope you'll bring up Nigel Farage eventually. We're going to go to a break. When we come back, folks, I'm talking to Steve Hilton. He is running for governor of California. Very exciting. We'll be right back.

Welcome back talking to Steve Hilton, who is running. For governor of California, very exciting, Steve. We're talking about your former home, the UK, and you said that Nigel Farage, who was very much behind Brexit, in the polls, is in the lead. That gives me hope, I have to say. Well, look, people want change, and they keep voting for change one way or another,

and it's not delivered. So you saw Brexit, nothing happened, basically. then they've just voted for change of a different kind. One I don't agree with, the Labor government, nothing's happening. So they just get increasingly frustrated. It doesn't matter what you do, who you vote for, however you express yourself through the normal process, the system always seems to win out. And that's why I think Nigel's message, which is just very similar in many ways to the Trump message here.

And also he has the same kind of characteristics. I mean, very different people. I know Nigel, and he's a really engaging character, really charismatic, speaks very plainly, talks in that language of common sense, just like President Trump. Look, he doesn't have the business background that President Trump has, nothing like, or anything in terms of the personal career that they've had. But there's a lot of similarity there in how they speak in practical, plain English about the problems that are in front of them and don't really have an ideological approach. That's what I love about President Trump, by the way. The fact that he's just a problem solver. He's completely thrown out past ideological obsessions and just says, look, I want to fix the problem,

I want to get fair trade, I want to enter the war, I want to bring back manufacturing jobs, win the AI race, close the border, whatever it is, he's just, okay, here's the problem, how do I fix it? I'm going to get it done. That kind of problem-solving, pragmatic approach is, by the way, exactly what I'm planning to bring to the campaign. And then when I've won to being governor of California, because that's what people want. They don't want all this endless ideology.

They just want the problem solved, government to do its job, deal with the problems, and get out the way so people can live their lives with their families and their community. I think there are many people maybe who listen to this program who have written California off. I live in New York City, and I love New York City, and I have not written off New York City. or California. My wife and I love California. Every time I visit California, I think, you know, if I were forced to leave New York, where would I go? And I have to say, California is close to the top of the list. It's just one of these fabulous places. And anybody

who knows California, who remembers the California, it's such a fabled place. I mean, all you have to do is think of the Beach Boys and the 60s and what it represented. symbolically. In so many ways, the governorship, of course, of the great Ronald Reagan, to think that Arnold Schwarzenegger rather recently was the governor, it's obviously fallen on very, very hard times. So in your campaign, what are you proposing? In other words, do you suppose that people have had enough of the horror of Gavin Newsom and his policies to turn to a common sense? solution like Steve Hilton? Well, that's the point of the campaign.

The first part of it doesn't need to, they don't need convincing that we need change, if I can put it like that. Every poll for the last three or four years has a very clear majority of people saying California is going in the wrong direction. There's a majority for change

in California. What we haven't had is that desire for change matched with a really strong energetic, positive Republican alternative. being laid out. So that's the whole point of what I'm doing in the campaign. And the theme of the campaign absolutely captures what you were just talking about, which is golden again with a golden state. Everyone knows what that means in one way or another. In many ways, the American drawing,

people thought of the American dream. They used to think of the California dream. That very simple thing of a beautiful neighborhood where you can, you know, you've got a job where you can make enough to raise your family, a home of your own, nice yard for the kids to play, enjoy the weather, a safe neighborhood, a good school. All those things were taken for granted. It was the best place in America to raise a family, to start and run a business. That's what we were known for. And that's really what I want to get us back to. And the answers to that are actually not that complicated. It really is common sense. We've got a massively bloated government infected by this left-wing ideology. That's why we have the highest taxes in the country. We have the highest housing costs in

the country because of the climate extremism that makes it impossible to build anything anywhere and an affordable rate. We have the highest cost for gas, electricity, water, everything. It's the most expensive in America. So it's just for regular working class, middle class people. It's just impossible to live here. I'm on the road the whole time in California. and we see thousands of people over the couple of months now I've been running this campaign. And the number one thing I take away from those meetings, whether it's just regular people coming to our town halls

or sitting down with business owners, small businesses, large businesses, everything is such a struggle in California. That's the word that I get from it. It's just so hard. And it doesn't have to be hard. We just got to stop doing these crazy things. And so the components of my plan to make California Golden again, And it's very simple things.

Instead of where we are now, which is $5 gas, the most expensive in the country, heading to $6 gas or even higher, we're going to get rid of the climate regulations that cause that. So we can have $3 gas. Instead of the highest taxes in the country, your first $100,000 of income, free of state income tax, a flat tax of 7.5% above that. We do that by cutting back the state budget,

which has doubled in the last 10 years, even as everything's got worse. We've got the worst homelessness crisis. We've got the pretty much the worst results in many stages of education. We've got the worst poverty rate, the highest rate of poverty in the country. Right now, the highest unemployment rate. I mean, it's a disaster on every front. And so we just got to stop this war on business.

It gives me hope that it's such a disaster that people are maybe waking up. We'll be right back. Final segment. Hilton running for Governor of California. Welcome back. We're speaking with Steve Hilton. I'm using the Royal Wee. I should really say I'm speaking with Steve Hilton. But we on the program are speaking with Steve Hilton, who's running for Governor of California. Steve, let me ask you just the simplest question. When is the election? Is it this November and is Gavin Newsom standing for re-election? So there's two stages. The primary is next June, and the general is next November, November 26, same time as the midterms. Gavin Newsom is termed out. He's not running. We have this ridiculous top two system in California, so there's no Republican primary or Democrat primary. Everyone's on the same ballot in June. I was very encouraged to see the first poll that was taken with me in it as a candidate. I'm actually leading all the declared candidates. So I'm top right behind me is Katie Porter. She's the leading Democrat right now, all the other candidates, including a couple of other Republicans away behind. And then when they take, they take. They take it. contested Carmel Harris, because of course there's speculation that Kamala Harris might run for governor.

She said she'd tell us by the end of the summer she's going to make her decision. When they put her into the poll, she basically hoovered up a lot of the Democrat support. So she's just on top. But I'm second. So in any scenario right now, look, it's early days. It's just one poll. But I'm looking like the main challenger, the leading Republican. And that's the name of the game.

Get into the top two and then really make the case for change at a positive alternative. And by the way, everyone says it's impossible for a Republican to be elected in California. I hear that all the time. It's not impossible. It's just very difficult. I'm not saying this is going to be easy. But actually, there's a simple way of thinking about it. The midterm elections next year, it's always a lower turnout than in the presidential race.

But President Trump did very well in California, better than any Republican for a generation. If every single person who voted for President Trump in California last year votes for me next year, I'll become the governor. There are enough Republican votes in California. And even on top of that, there are so many people who just fed up with what's going on. Maybe they're not Democrats. They just haven't been engaged, particularly working class Californians. They're the ones being hammered the most by these policies. Just take the gas prices. It's working class Californians who are driving their trucks, two, three hours a day each way to get to work because it's so expensive to live near where they work. They're sick of all of this, but they haven't had a positive alternative. there. So I think we can put together a winning coalition. It's not going to be easy, but I'm really confident we can do it. Do you think that maybe the days, the stranglehold that Pelosi and Gavin Newsom, her nephew, I guess, have had, is over? I just cannot believe that we're not at a point where people finally see through this and see them as corrupt. Yeah. It's totally completely corrupt. And the whole system is, if you look at the way you've got, I mean, I call it the Democrat

industrial complex, because you've got these machine politicians like Gavin Newsom, like Carmel Harris, Karen Bass in Los Angeles, they don't really believe in anything. They just kind of climb the ladder, whatever's, you know, works for them politically they'll say and do. That's why you see Gavin Newsom now he's running for president, flip-flopping all over the place on every single issue. They don't have any real convictions. It's just whatever works for them politically. And the people really in charge. There are three forces, I think, when you actually look at every issue in California

that are driving us towards the cliff edge of disaster. Number one, it's the unions, in particular the government unions and the teachers' unions are the worst offender. They control the Democrat politicians. They completely fund them. They control their campaigns, and they are in the driving seat.

That's why we have all this. We have the longest school closures, the most destructive in the country during the pandemic. Then you have the trial lawyers, also massive funders of Democrat politicians. It's not discussed enough, but when you look into so much that's going wrong in California, is this endless litigation, the threat of litigation, lawsuits for everything. Other states have reformed all that. California is worse than anywhere else.

And then the third force is this climate extremism. You can't understate that. Everywhere you look is this climate elitism, I also call it, because it's the working-class people who are suffering the most from this climate policy. Those are the three things. And Newsom and Pelosi, they represent all that. But we've just got to defeat it. And we've got to make the case that it's not some natural disaster

that's given us all these terrible outcomes in California. It's the direct result of Democrat policies. Did you say that your slogan is make California golden again? Golden again, exactly. That's a great slogan, just. because as I said earlier, I think a lot of us do think of California as fabled. It's just this beautiful, you know, the coast. It's just, it represents something to Americans.

And I think so many of us have been heartbroken to see what's happened to cities like San Francisco and L.A. And we want to see that turned around. What is your, what would you do, for example, in dealing with the homelessness? that's going on. I mean, drug addicts, the cities have been absolutely devastated. They haven't. What does one do? Well, just before I get into that, I just want to really underline what you just said about

what that phrase, Golden Again, really means. And there's a phrase that I used the whole time to capture the spirit of California, how important it is to our country, which is California means to America, what America means to the world, that representation of energy and ambition. and hustle and the pioneer spirit and the rebel spirit. That's California, or at least it should be. And that's what I'm hoping to reignite when I'm the governor. In terms of homelessness, it's actually pretty simple.

And again, other places don't have this problem. Other places do very simple things. Number one, enforce the law. It is illegal. These street encampments, urban camping, urban squatting, being out on the street. It is against the law. It's always been against the law. But here in California, the people in charge just never enforced the law.

They're very good at passing laws. Then it seemed to hate actually enforcing them. So that's step number one. And if local leaders won't do it from the state level, I'll make sure we enforce the law. Number two, over 80% of the people who are homeless have either drug addiction problems or mental health problems. But the treatment isn't there. And in California, they passed a law in 2016 called Housing First, which actually makes it illegal to require in exchange for housing. or shelter, any of those things, abstinence, treatment in a drug program or anything like that.

That's ridiculous. We've got to change that and get people the help that they need. And then thirdly, we've got to actually spend the money that voters in California have voted for from ballot initiatives for mental health care. We're way, way under capacity. So many of the people on the streets have mental health problems that either not being treated or worse still, many of them ending up in county jails. I was the sheriff in one of our counties the other day. He was telling me that about 50%, half the people in his jails, have really severe mental health problems,

and they're not being treated. Instead, they end up in our jails. It's completely ridiculous. Common sense solutions we need for that, just like everything else. Forgive me, we're out of time. Just a joy to have you on the program, Steve. We're just grateful that you're putting yourself out there, and we'll have you back, but we're rooting for you.

Thanks for coming on. Eric, thank you very much. Great to be with you. you really appreciate it. Hey there, folks. This is that time of the week where we do an Ask Metaxus segment. It's a weekly recurring segment to submit questions for Ask Metaxus. Please email info at Eric Metaxus, info at Eric Metaxus, or you can simply reply to one of my

newsletters, which you should be getting twice a week. Okay, so here are the questions. Question number one. Eric, what books about Greek history would you recommend, please? I think I've been asked this question before, and I have the same answer now as I had then. I'm embarrassed to say that I am so myself ignorant of Greek history that I can't think of a book to recommend. If anybody listening would like to recommend a book or two, email us at info at ericmetaxis.com, because I'd probably like to read that book myself. Speaking of Greek history, second question.

Eric, I came upon an article about St. Paul's shipwreck, not happening in Malta, but on another Greek island. Okay, I think whoever sent this question and came upon the article that I posted, it's at Ericmetaxis.com. I translated an article, which was written, I think, in 1987 on the subject, and I met the author. So the person asking this question says, can we ever really know? whether Paul was shipwrecked on Malta or on another Greek island. What I know is that the Malta is not an Italian island, but it was under Roman rule at the time. The snakes on modern day Malta are not poisonous. That's correct. That's why I'm pretty sure Paul was not shipwrecked on the island today called Malta, even though everybody in Malta claims that he was. I'm almost certain that he was not.

and if you want to read it, read the article. It's go to Ericmetaxis.com under my writings. You'll find it there. But it's pretty clear that he was not shipwrecked on Malta. Even though a lot of Bibles say Malta, the Greek word is Maliti. And they kind of think, oh, there must be Malta. So they put Malta. Okay, so I'm still reading this question.

It says that the person writing questions says, I'm pretty sure the author of the article was never unlucky enough to be on Malta in one of its winter storms. It has fine weather, but the Saraco wind loves Malta, and I've lived through a February-Soraco storm where you'll think all the windows in the house are going to be blown away and where temperatures at night dipped even to 7 degrees Celsius.

I'm not sure how that follows, but anyway, I do not think Paul was shipwrecked on Malta. I think if you had to guess, you'd say, no way. But it's hard, it's hard to say. But I think he was shipwrecked on the Greek island of Kefal. which happens to be the island where my father grew up where my family are from. And that's how I kind of learned about this. So we'll leave it there. Final question. We thought we'd end with a light one. Eric, what's your reaction to anti-Israel, anti-Semitism among conservatives and Christians?

I'm upset mostly by people who demonize people who disagree with them. Another word, I have been very public. I stand with Israel. I'm in favor of President Trump standing with President Netanyahu to defend Israel. And I could go on and on about that. But I also think it is okay for somebody like Tucker Carlson to ask questions. And I think that that's where I find myself right now. You have to be able to say, I stand with Israel, but I don't agree with all the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu's government. There's a lot of stuff that goes on in any government that you have to be able to say, I don't like that. And it doesn't mean you're unpatriotic or you're anti-Semitic. You have to be able to do that. But there are people who are so hidebound on this that if you

don't agree with them 100%. On either side, by the way, they will attack you. And I find that to be the biggest problem, because I think we really do have to be able to say, I stand with Israel, but we have to be able to say that without being called anti-Semites. On the other hand, there is real anti-Semitism, and we're out of time, but I condemn that with everything in me.