The Ricochet Podcast - Bringing the Golden State Back into the Fold

Episode Date: July 3, 2026

For a special edition of the Ricochet Podcast, Peter Robinson sits down with Steve Hilton, California's Republican candidate for governor. The duo discusses Hilton's uphill fight with the machine-backed Xavier Beccera, the corrupt alliance between unions, activists, and elected officials that's behind the Golden State's muted shine, and Steve's plan to deliver results for California's American dreamers. With the 250th celebrations here, Hilton reminds us that the revolutionary spirit springs eternal. Consider donating to his campaign here.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-ricochet-podcast--5817275/support.

Welcome to a special episode of the Rickuschae podcast. I'm Peter Robinson. With me today is my old friend, soon to be the next governor of California, or so I and some millions of other Californians hope. Steve Hilton is a former political advisor, commentator, and now, as I say, candidate for governor of the state of California. Please listen. This is important for the country. No matter where you live, whether you're a Californian or a Texan, or if a Marylander, this is important. Steve Hilton now. Joining me now for the special edition of Rickusay, the next governor of California,

my old friend, I disclose that right up front, my old friend, Steve Hilton, Steve, how are you? I'm very well. I love that introduction. Of course, that's the plan. There's a lot of work to do between now and then. So you and I have known each other for a long time now. So here are a couple of threshold questions.

Here's the first one. Are you out of your mind? Why are you? Why are you doing this? I know you, Steve. You could right now be in an extremely lucrative position, consulting to companies on politics. You could be a big deal consultant making serious money, and instead you have been working. Now you're visible to the public, but you've been at this for two years now, and most of it was essentially invisible. Just hard work.

Why? Why? Well, I love this state so much. I've had an amazing opportunity to live the California dream. You know, when we say that phrase, I think we all know roughly what that is. We'll interpret it in different ways. But it's that sense that California is the land of opportunity better than anywhere else on the planet. I always say this thing. You know, California means to America, what America means to the world. Right. in the best of what are, you know, it's the 250th anniversary of America. There's nowhere better.

There's nowhere better within America than California. So it starts with this deep, deep love of California, which is you could, maybe another analogy is like, the zeal of the convert. You know, I'm an immigrant here, moved here 2012. I just can't tell you how much, you know, I love and appreciate this incredible place. And so I feel as if we've got to do something to,

turn it around because we can also go off the track. The next question is, but why should I do that? I think I'm a pretty pragmatic, practical sort of person and I think the actual answer to your question

is not some big, deep thing, it's just a series of practical steps. For example, as you know, we met when we first moved here, I think in the Hoover, Yes.

2012. And I taught at Stanford for a little bit, and I started a business here in California. And then I had this career in the media, very unexpected on Fox News, hosting a show, The Next Revolution. As the years of that went on, much as I loved that, and it was an incredible opportunity, I really appreciate it.

I wouldn't be able to do this without having had that platform and that opportunity. However, most of my career, I've been doing things. I've been running businesses or starting, business, working in business, working inside the government back in the day in the UK, trying to implement change in a policy that's actually doing things, not just talking about things. And so I did have this feeling, much as I loved my time in the media, that I just wanted to get, I had a sort of hankering to do things again, something tangible and practical.

And so the first step in that direction was this policy, I grandly say, organization. It was really like me and another guy, golden together. I set that up, maybe three years ago. And I started thinking about California policy going a little bit back to that world of policymaking that I was in for a while. And then there was one particular thing, which is that the very first thing I tried to do, the first big issue I worked on was housing. Yes. Because housing costs, the number one reason people are leaving the state is the biggest driver of the cost of living crisis in the sense that it consumes so much of people's budgets, whether that's more. or rent or whatever. So I started looking at that, had great conversations to people who really

understand the issue, developed a plan for a ballot initiative that would have addressed two of the big drivers of high housing costs. We didn't succeed in that, didn't raise the money, couldn't get it on the ballot. Then I thought, well, let's try and make it happen a different way. Maybe we can get the original concept of the ballot initiative was the political system is so broken in Sacramento, it's never going to happen these changes that I want to make because the interests are standing in the way of it. So that was the thought behind the ballot initiative, go outside of the system.

That didn't work. So then I try within the system, I start going to Sacramento and start having meetings with actual legislators in Sacramento. And I was so horrified. I mean, I'm not being like literally every meeting, you go there and it's almost the same pattern. It's, well, you're right, this would be amazing.

This would be transformational. Yeah. Oh, it never going to happen. Oh, well, that won't have. out. Oh, the unions will never allow that. Oh, the climate lobby won't allow that. Oh, this group. And it's just this extraordinary sense of this. And these were from legislators on our side, so to speak. No, mostly, yes, and both, both. Both. All right, all right, right, right. Right. Almost the single defining moment was actually a Democrat legislators. We had this great

conversation. They said, this is transformational. Your plan would be transformation. That was the word. I said, oh, great. Let's do it together. I'm Republican, your Democrat. Let's advocate. Oh, I could never support you publicly. Why not? The unions would hate it. I remember we were sitting in their office.

It was above the state capital. You could see the state capital out of the window. This person said, I'll never forget it. Wave their arm around like this. If people are watching, they can see me waving, moving my arm around above their head. So, well, the unions run this place. All right. And I just thought, what?

You're an elected legislator. and it's just so pathetic and I just thought this is obviously so broken I'm not saying that was that moment you know I walked out of the room I'm going to run for government but it really was that process

of encountering the actual government in Sacramento that made me think you know what this I really think I can do something here to shake things up and that was the beginning of the process one thing when you were describing this I was reminded of my old friend Mitch

Daniels, who was a two-term governor of Indiana, very effective governor. And Mitch, Mitch looked into running for the, he was recruited by various people to run for the Senate. And the way he put it to me was that he decided he wanted a doing job, not a talking job. And that's, that's you. That's you. You could have saved us three or four minutes there. All right. So that's exactly right. That's absolutely right. What if political disagreement didn't have to become political warfare? That's the idea behind the Future Freedom podcast. Each week, two liberty-minded thinkers tackle a major issue from different perspectives.

One conversation, two viewpoints, but no yelling, no dunking, no debate stage theatrics. Just thoughtful arguments presented in good faith, giving listeners the chance to weigh the evidence and reach their own conclusions. In a media environment built for outrage, future of freedom is built for curiosity. Listen to Future of Freedom, wherever you get your podcasts. I've been in California for about 10 or 12 years longer than you have. I'm an immigrant from the East Coast. When I arrived, this state was still competitive. Pete Wilson was still governor when I moved here.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican became governor. Schwarzenegger stepped down in 2012. you turned up in 2013. What happened? What went, in other words, if you're going to fix things, we need some rough idea of what went, what slid in the wrong direction? Why have we had this trouble for all these years? Yeah, I think the foundational, so it's 2012 that I got here. Sorry, 2012.

But that does coincide with the, the sort of top line answer to that question, one party rule. And one party control of every. thing. And I make this point now actually, I'm in the general election and I, you know, you, I mean, you've done this long time. And I thought, well, I can't make the same stump speech I've been doing. Let's have something fresh. And so interesting, the way I've put it is we're celebrating America's 250th birthday very soon. And why is America still top after all these years? Right, right. Because among many things, but, but, you know, it goes back to. to the genius of the founders and the system

and the fact that we've created this platform and infrastructure for incredible things to happen, created by the genius of people. And there's always new ones coming along, whether that's Elon Musk or whatever. There's always something, America just creates the opportunity for these people. And why is one of the foundation,

if you ask anyone, what's the most famous phrase about the Constitution and the Constitutional's, you know, settlement. Checks and balances is probably going to come up very high on the list, right? You know, even in England, we learned about checks and balances in America. And we've had no checks and balances in California. Checks and balances are important because it means that you can't get carried away with an ideology that puts theory over practice, as we've seen in other parts of the world,

where the socialism runs rampant and gets extreme, as you saw in the UK in the 1970s, or communism, the extreme, on the right-wing side, just things where things are taken to the extreme, it ends badly. And the brilliance of America's, because of checks and balances, it doesn't happen. And then the other part of, of course, is the federalism,

so that if it's going wrong somewhere, it can be corrected somewhere else. And so that, I think, is the foundation because what you've seen in California is the absence of that. You've had since 2012, actually, you've had one party controlling all the statewide elected offices,

both chambers of the legislature with a two-thirds majority, so they can pass any budget, pass anything without any check or balance, all the big counties, all the big cities, the state Supreme Court, which is often overlooked, with a 6-1 Democrat majority, total control. And that's what's gone wrong, and it's gone extreme, and it's put ideology over practicality, and you see the results.

Now, when we can get into the results of, you know, the specifics, but I think there's an intermediary step. You've said, look, the first answer to the question is one-party rule, which always ends badly, and then you can see specifics like two high taxes, too high regulation, whatever. But there's an intermediary layer of structural problems that have been created by this one-party rule. And to me, it's three things that have really driven the problems in California. Number one is the union power, the dominance of the union. Yes, yes, yes.

There's the public schools or building anything or whatever it may be, just complete control because they own the politicians who are in charge with one party or the Democrats. Secondly, the climate agenda, as they call it, the climate extremism. It's a huge driver of all the cost and hassle, whether that's in obvious ways, gas prices, is the highest in the nation. Electric bills, the highest ever except for Hawaii, that feeds into the costs of everything else.

Housing, the housing crisis, mainly driven, look, big part of it by the climate agenda. You can't build anything. You can't do the regulations. Then the third structural point that is not nearly discussed enough, which is litigation. The fact that if you start a business in California today,

90% will end up with facing some kind of lawsuit. It's a massive, small, medium, whatever business you're in, endless litigation, costs, hassle, delay, just bloat, you know, and those are the three things. On top of just the growth of the, you know, they've doubled the budget in the last 10 years, everything's worse. That's created all this regulatory bloat, high taxes. You know, it's just unconstrained ideological extremism.

That's what's happened. So I had written a question one way, and here's the way I'd written it, in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans and where your opponent, Javier Biserra, is clearly a machine politician. I mean, I'll just grant you this much. I suppose I should be a little bit more adversarial, but you and I are friends and we're on the same side. So I'll just, there's nothing to that man, except the machine that he has behind him. So it's the machine versus Steve Hilton, and Steve Hilton is the first candidate. I don't know. And how, in decades, who has the opportunity to build a real movement. I've been following you on X, Twitter, as it used to be called, and in one meeting after another, you go out on the campaign trail, and you're filling halls, and there's genuine enthusiasm. But that's not the way I'm going to ask the question now.

You will have against you. You just named these three structural problems. You will have against you the unions who will spend anything to defeat you. Because of climate, you will have against you, all the bien-pinsant, the progressives, the liberals, and a lot of these people have tech money. That's a serious layer of opposition. And then you'll have the litigation bar against you. There are a lot of lawyers in this state who make a lot of money off the state.

What's the path to victory, Steve? So you're absolutely right about all of that. I think let's just look at the numbers. Yes, there's one way of looking at it, which is, This is hopeless. The race is over. It's going to be Becerra, the next governor. The same old story.

The last 20 years, 60, 40, Democrat, Republican, that's how it goes. Here's why I think it's different. Number one, even compared to the last governor's race, if you look at the, well, let's start with this, the best indicator of whether an election ends up being a change election, where they kick out the incumbent, is that polling question, is the state or the country, or whatever is on the right track or the wrong track. Right. They call it the wrong track number.

In California, even at the last governor's race, 2022, the wrong track number was mid to high 40s. Today, it's mid to high 50s. It goes up and down in various polls. The last one I saw 57% wrong track. Now, you know, we may say, who are the 43% who think that's going, whatever. We don't need that. The simple point is there's a majority who want change. There's a majority.

Got it. So that's the starting point. And the next point is, well, you've got you. got to, you know, show that majority that change is real and possible. It's the kind of change you like. And then I want to move to, and that's the whole point in my campaign, which is very pragmatic, positive, practical, it's not ideological, it's not divisive, it's deliberately engineered in order, it reflects me, because that's who I am, in a very practical way, to have a broad appeal. What am I talking about on the campaign trail? All those events you

describe, there's a banner at the back. It says, Cal Affordable. It's very practical. Call, let's make our sake, Cal affordable. $3 gas, cut your electric bills in half, your first 150 grand tax-free, a home you can afford to buy. That's it. That's the plan. Now, behind each of them. That will do.

That will do. Right. Behind each of them is a serious detailed policy reform plan, which we can get into. But what I'm saying is the one. So that's, it's a campaign that's designed with a broad appeal. Then you look at actual voters, like numbers of votes. Yes. This isn't the whole story, but it just gives an indication why this isn't hope.

If you look at the average, if you take the average of the last two midterm elections in California, 2018 and 2022, to try and get a sense of how many people will be voting in the general election, the number you get as an, if you average those out, is 11.7 million. Right. That's the total. It's probably going to be a bit higher. This primary election was higher than the average of the last two midterms. But let's just go with this for a moment, for the sake of my mouth. 11.7 million.

So to win, you need just over half of that. 5.9 million votes to win. That is an estimate based on the last two midterms. President Trump in California in 2024, without campaigning here, without spending money on ads, without anything in terms of targeting, got 6.1 million votes. In other words, when people say they just aren't enough Republicans to win in California, that's not true. They are, they just tend not to, you know, if you get them all to vote, that's a big if, but that's the starting point, which, which is maximum turnout among existing Republicans. And you're not going to get 100% of that turnout.

That's unrealistic, a presidential year and a midterm year. However, there's a very big, again, unusual factor this year, which hasn't been there in previous elections, that I think should give us optimism, which is there's a ballot initiative that's on the ballot in November, which really will drive Republican turnout. Voter ID. Voter ID is going to be a huge part of getting a big turnout in November.

So that's a now, it's not going to get us all the way, but it's going to really help. So I think that you've got the components here of a victory, but I never believed it's going to be easy. It's going to be very difficult. And on the money front, there's a final point I'd make, which is to write about being blown, you know, past Republican candidates blown away by the unions. We've already raised a lot more money in this campaign. I mean, the last governor candidate, Brian Darlie, raised about $2.5 million in the whole campaign. We raised about $16 million just for the primary. So, you know, we're doing better than pre- Now, that's nothing compared to, you know,

Javier Becerra, even though he popped up at the last minute. We actually did a little calculation of cost per vote in the primary. Cost Steve Hilton, $2 per vote. Havier Becerra, $8 per vote. Matt Mayhan, the hapless mayor of San Jose, $140 per vote. Tom Steyer. $142 per vote. We were $2.

Anyway, so my point is, this is, this is the president. the big point, partly because things have gotten so bad for big, you know, especially for there's some big people in, on the entrepreneurial innovation side of business, not just tech, but, you know, I was, you know, in LA, there's a lot of people in the Bay Area, a lot of, a lot of serious business people who've had enough. And he said, this is, we don't want to leave California, but we really might have to. Then that was happening last year. Then you had added into that mix.

the proposed billionaire tax. That's woken up a lot of very big players in politics, and they're engaged in California politics in a way that they haven't been. They've been absent from the field, left it all to the unions. I'm very confident that we have the ability, it's not there yet, but we have the ability to put together the financing for a campaign that will match the unions this year. We haven't seen that for a long time. So you're just older. enough, in the old days back in Britain, there was still an active press in the traditional sense. You had to worry about how the Beeb covered you, how the independent television, you had to worry about three or four major television stations or channels, and you had to worry about, what,

half a dozen newspapers. That's gone. It's just gone. The newspapers, as they still exist, the L.A. Times is scarcely even a newspaper. Well, I don't need to elaborate on this with you. We have the rise of the California Post. Three cheers for that, Lord knows. But what do you spend the money on?

In the old days, you worry about reporters because it matters a great deal, how they cover you in the newspapers and on television. These days, you have to produce your own channel, in effect. Tell me how you, what's the media outlet? How do you reach people? It is fragmented, but that's, you know, there's a whole ecosystem there of marketing and media and advertising,

and so you've got streaming platforms you advertise on. We've already been doing a little bit. bit of that, you know, nothing like Tom Steyer, but you've got the opportunity to advertise in this fragmented media landscape. Right. And actually, you can do very effective targeting that way. But the other big part of it, other than, you know, paying for the ongoing operations of a campaign, you know, putting me up in whatever Hampton in, I happen to be in that night.

We're not, we're very frugal here. That's why it's such a low cost. the basic functionality. And I'm very busy, and you know, we're traveling the state, we're doing a lot. But there's also the big one, which is you could call it ground game, get out the vote, whatever. That's what the Democrat machine has been building all these years. And it's a very important part of this conversation about what happened in the primary and Spencer Pratt in L.A. and whatever. and this conversation about cheating,

and that's not how I see it. They've legalized all of this. And so you've seen on the Democrat side, and we've been exposing some of this through, you know, we called it Caldose, you know, the last few months where we've been going through and doing these fraud reports. It's one of the things that we've been looking at.

And three of the five fraud reports that we published, it's part of my campaign, were directly on this. For example, the first one, we found $350 million from, the cannabis tax. Proposition 64 that legalized cannabis. It was set up a cannabis tax. The money was supposed to go towards substance abuse prevention. We found $350 million actually went to a network of Democrat left-leaning activist groups, large, 500 of them. When you look at their websites,

what do they spend the money on? Voter registration, ballot harvesting, etc. Another example, $1 billion, $100 million every year since 2015, was supposed to be spent in a program to put solar panels on low-income apartment buildings. We looked into it. Turns out 72 million was spent on that. 928 million, most of it, went to Democrat political organizations

doing all this kind of work, etc. Churla, the immigrant rights extremist organization that supports Heavier Becerra, they were involved in, you know, ginning up the riots in Los Angeles about a year ago with ICE, 82% funded by the taxpayer. Then you look at what they do. Unbelievable.

82% of their income is from the tax pick. Us, we are paying for it. Then you look at what they're doing their political arm. They proudly say, we're supporting, have you a person of these candidates. What are they doing? They have got a manual describing their political activity includes ballot harvesting, paid ballot harvesting,

Who are they paying? It says on their own document. We pay and it lists their undocumented population. In other words, taxpayer money is funding a non-profit to pay illegal immigrants to do ballot harvesting. So these are just small examples. So that's what has been built over the years. When we talk about the Democrat machine, that's what this is. And so, and it's all legal.

And that's what you see in these elections. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. Right. So what we have to do is build our own, or at least fund that kind of ground game operation. The president had a very good operation on that in 2024 in the swing states. Probably one of the main reasons you want all the swing states. So it's possible to do this.

And so that's going to be a major part of what we need to do as a campaign, to counter that organized machine that's been built. A lot of it with taxpayer money. Right. Are you going to be able to persuade Javier Bessera to debate you? Are there debates on the schedule already? We are actually absolutely in the process of green dates with the broadcaster. So on our side, yes.

Oh, that's okay. So he will, poor man. Nothing to announce yet. No, I don't know if he'll agree, but we're talking to them about dates. You're on it. Okay, terrific. Yeah, I want to do as many as possible. I have two last questions for you, because I know you've got to go run for governor, although when this is all over, I hope you'll let me buy you a drink.

A couple drinks, and you choose the booze. When you win, you choose the bottle of champagne, Bollinger, whatever you care for. Sounds good. So in recent years, it didn't used to be, when I first moved to California three and some decades ago, it wasn't, didn't feel this way, but it became, this, it has become this way. Identity politics. Yeah. That the notion was that Republicans were this constantly shrinking rump of white voters, mostly located in very far southern part of the state, San Diego and in the Central Valley, and they're shrinking as a proportion of the population all the time. And Hispanics vote Democratic and the Asians do too. And I am thinking, as we all

were at some level, this is horrifying because we're not running elections. We're running censuses. We're finding out how all the Asians vote one way, all the Hispanics vote another way, so forth. Then Little Robinson's heart begins to fill with a little bit of a breeze of hopefulness when I see what happens in Florida, first under Jeb Bush and then quite decisively in Rhonda Sanders' re-election campaign, people were not voting identity politics. Then in Donald Trump's reelection or second election, we saw in particular down in Texas some of his strongest support took place right there in the Rio Grande Valley, which is overwhelmingly Hispanic. What are you seeing on the campaign trail? I mean, just you spoke very persuasively, compellingly

about the math of the thing. You are going to need some Hispanic voters to win. What are you seeing? I'm seeing something I spoke about actually for many, many years on my Fox show and elsewhere. I'm seeing a multi-racial working class coalition. It's really happening. It's really happening. And you say, funny enough, and I'm just saying this. If you go to the New York Times and look at the California governor race page where they have the results in, and they've got all these various analysis, they've got the headline vote numbers at the top. Then they break it down by county. There's the New York Times website. And then they have this very interesting graphic where they have the map of the state by area, and they break it down by different definitions, different categories.

places that voted for Harris, places that voted for Trump, urban, big urban areas, smaller towns and cities. There are about nine categories like that. All right. And above each one it has the number, you know, Bacera plus five, Hilton plus 11, whatever. And then it goes, then you see it goes to white, Hilton plus 11, whatever.

Mostly Hispanic, mostly Latin, I don't know which one, mostly Hispanic. Hilton plus four. Oh, that's huge. That's huge. So I'm just saying that's on the New York Times where I think it's four. Maybe it's gone up or down three or five, but it's Hilton, not Bacera, who won those areas. Huge, just saying. Huge, huge. Huge. Congratulations. And the thing that is true is that the, I want to go back to something we haven't talked about, but my parents are Hungarian.

in. They were immigrants to the UK. I was born there. I was raised in a very regular working class immigrant household. So people may see me now as this kind of fancy guy who lives in a fancy part of the state in the Bay Area. And, you know, I hosted a national TV show and worked in 10 Downings, all these things, started businesses. That's all true. I'm very proud of that. But I started out on a regular working class, home in England, with two, you know, my stepdad is also Hungarian work construction. You know, that was my life. And I really, really understand that. And so when I see a working class Latino, you know, home household in East Los Angeles, that's me. So I totally understand and deeply care about providing that ladder of opportunity that I climbed.

That's what this is all about. And so it's not, I don't need polling or whatever to tell me how to speak to those people, because that is my story. And so everything I'm doing here is completely instinctively, you know, aimed at that because those are the people who need help after these 16 years of one party rule. The fancy, you know, climate warriors in Marin County tapping away their MacBooks, working from home don't need anybody's help. The people that need help is the working class,

Latino family, where the guy is driving his truck five hours a day paying the highest gas prices in the country and it's crippling. And they can't afford the electric bill and they can't afford a vacation anymore because everything's so expensive because of these ideological policies. That's what this is all about.

So to me, this is all totally instinctive because I feel it very, very, deeply. And that's why I think we're going to connect here because that's what needs to happen in California, because we used to offer that ladder of opportunity better than anywhere else in the world, literally better than anywhere else in the world. That's what we mean by the California dream. We used to have the most affordable housing in America. We used to have the best schools in America. We used to have the best quality of life and the lowest cost of living. All of that was produced here because we had an attitude of abundance and energy and optimism and ambition and we can do

things and we've got that amazing rebel spirit of California that has brought people here for over a century and built the most amazing industries that have transformed the world whether it's Hollywood or Silicon Valley or the most magnificent farmland anywhere in the world or life you know sciences and biotech and sandy and wherever it is we've been absolute leaders because we've had that attitude and that's all been crushed by the 16 years of one party rule. They've crushed the soul and spirit of California. So this is endless, bloated, nanny state bureaucracy, bossing us around, telling us what to do, how to live our lives, how to run our businesses, how to raise our kids, what car to drive, we've got a house to live in, how to cook our food. And the cost of all that has just exploded.

And that's why the California dream isn't there anymore. And all we've got to do is stop this and all the amazing qualities we have in this state, the magnificent natural beauty and the weather and the great universities and the energy and hustle of our people, all of that will flourish and it's going to be amazing. Brilliant. Last question. What can our listeners do to help? Website. Oh, thank you very much. That's very important. By the way, and by the way, I would add to all of that, you're talking about the people of California. California has 11% of the population, and it has among the most gifted, talented, energetic aspects of the population, the newest parts of the economy, it cannot be good for the United States of America,

for the rest of the country to write California off permanently. So in my judgment, this is a battle for the future of the nation. And so listeners from wherever they're listening in the country ought to want to do what? Click on your website and give five bucks. Dave Hilton for governor.com. We need the money because we got the machine to eat. So Steve Hilton for governor.com, F-O-R, please give generously. We spend the money very wisely, as I outlined, but also tell everyone, tell everyone not to give up, tell your friend, you've got to get behind Steve Hilton's campaign, vote, register, make sure you're active in it, volunteer. We really can do this. And that's a big part of what I'm trying to do, is like restore that

sense of belief that California can be restored to glory. And I know that we can, but We've got to make it happen. We've only got a few weeks to do it. Ballots go out in 16 weeks. Steve Hilton, governor. I can't wait to start calling you governor-elect. Steve, thank you. Great to be with you, Pete. Thank you so much. See you soon.

My pleasure. Once again, this is Peter Robinson. This podcast was brought to you by the Future of Freedom Podcast and Rikoshae.com. Please support us by joining the best place for civil, center-right conversation. And please take a moment to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcast. Your reviews allow new listeners to discover us, and that helps to keep us going.