Steve Hilton 与 Spencer Pratt：重振加州、降低油价、选票舞弊与加州共和党人

A candidate for governor of California who is extremely unique in a number of ways. First of all, he's a Republican. And second, he's a Brit. Welcome to the program, Steve Hilton.

It's a joke. I mean, what are these Democrats doing? We already have the highest taxes in the country. Your first $100,000 is tax-free. Even Katie Porter agrees with that.

Prior to that, he was in Silicon Valley as a tech entrepreneur. People are so sick of the nonsense. Is everything twice as good when they've doubled the budget? Of course not. California means to America what America means to the world. Please welcome Steve Hilton.

Wake up, California. We have 7 weeks to save our state. Are you ready? Are we going to do it? We've got 7 weeks. That's all, but we can do it.

7 weeks. There's a lot of people here who aren't from California.

Well, actually, who's from California? Raise your hand. Some of you are from California. Yeah.

Help explain why California is so important.

California is not just the biggest state and the richest state in the richest, most important country on Earth. It's—as I said just then, and you saw—California means to America what America means to the world.

I'm an immigrant. I moved here in 2012, neighbors with Chamath, so how about that? I picked a good spot. I was inspired by this state. It represents, for me and for so many people over the century-plus that this state has been growing and leading in so many ways, the absolute essence of what we love about America: innovation, energy, ambition, hustle, and that kind of rebel spirit.

That's why we've created so many industries here that have completely transformed the world, starting right here in Los Angeles over a century ago. The entertainment industry, obviously, and tech, which you're all so familiar with. But also our great agriculture industry—we have the leading agricultural industry in the world. In so many different fields, we have led the world. That's why it's so important that we don't let California go down any further.

What is the state of the state, then?

This state, I'm afraid, despite all our incredible advantages—and, of course, we still have them—the things that the people in charge haven't managed yet to ruin: our incredible natural beauty, the weather, the energy that you see in our startup communities, the best innovation ecosystem anywhere in the world, and great universities.

But look at the facts. We've had 16 years of one party in control. Today in California, we have the highest poverty rate in the country, the highest unemployment rate, and the highest cost of living by far. Look at our housing costs—the highest in the country. That's why people are leaving. Millions of people are leaving California, this beautiful place.

You got 2 right here.

Exactly. Chief Executive magazine has ranked California in its annual survey of business leaders, for more than a decade, 50th out of 50 for business climate. It's just incredible when you look at the range of issues where the policies we've been subjected to have created the worst outcomes.

Not just bad in comparison to other states—the worst out of every state.

1. How one-party rule broke the state, regulatory bloat & who really writes the laws

We know how you measure the outcome, but go back a few layers and think about the root causes. Democrats have run this state for a long time. Democrats used to be sort of about peace and love, permissiveness, and openness. Corral that for us, because I think this is a place that has now become rules on top of rules on top of rules.

How did a group of people who were basically about peace and love and “leave us alone” become the rule police?

It's exactly right. This is what happens with one-party rule, actually, and you see that in history. Whether it's from the right or the left, it always ends up with an insular, self-regarding elite that just forgets about its responsibility to everyone else and gets obsessed with its own ideology, its internal motivations, and whoever its interest groups are that it represents.

By the way, in Sacramento, we have one of the most corrupt systems anywhere in the country in terms of the power of the donors to the politicians who make the decisions: the unions and the trial lawyers. That's why we have the worst litigation risk anywhere in the country. You run a business in California, you start a business in California, and there's a 90% chance you're going to end up in litigation.

It's just a complete mess when you get one-party rule. For 16 years, the Democrats have run everything: all 8 statewide elected positions, the state legislature with a two-thirds majority, every big county, every big city, and the state Supreme Court with a 6-to-1 Democrat-appointed majority.

This is what happens. The rules get piled up because every year they pass legislation that just adds to the burden and the bloat. Last year, the Sacramento legislature passed 1,118 bills, so we printed them out.

Very productive. We've got some very exact productivity going up there.

We're going to be doing this year's in Sacramento on Thursday. We printed it all out. I'm not that tall, but it was twice my height. Nobody's reading this. You think Gavin Newsom is reading all this before signing it? No.

It's written in the interests of the narrow groups that control that process. It benefits them but hurts everybody else. That's why we have, by far, the highest regulatory bloat. That's why one of the things I'm announcing today is that we're going to cut the number of regulations in California from where we are today—over 420,000—to under 200,000 by the end of my first term, which makes us competitive with the rest of the country.

But if a narrow interest group controls the legislature, is it not also the case that that narrow interest group controls the machinery that—I would argue—doesn't necessarily elect people, but appoints people? That makes it difficult for rational outsiders to have a shot at a truly democratic campaign.

They own the ballot-harvesting machines. They own the campaigning machines. They get everyone in the state behind them—all the unions, all the votes. Everything is aligned under one controlled mechanism. Therefore, it has gotten so far down the road that it's impenetrable, and we cannot actually break in.

It's definitely the case that we have this very powerful and corruptly funded machine that's running everything. I agree with that. In fact, one of the ways that we're telling the story of this campaign is “the people versus the machine.” That's what this is.

But there's a majority of Californians who want change. That's clear from every single poll. When we started the general-election part of this campaign, if you look at the primary results on primary night in California's governor's race, if you add up myself and the other Republican, that's 35%. I got 25%; the other Republican got 10%. You add up all the Democrats, and it's 65%. That's a 30-point gap.

The first poll came out, and it was a 25-point gap. I know a lot of people were discouraged by that, but we were just beginning our campaign. Look what's happened just in the last couple of months: from a 30-point gap on primary night to 25 points, 18 points, 14 points, and the latest poll, an 8-point gap.

We are showing that people want change in this state. I don't accept that we have to put up with this. Your only choice is to put up with all this nonsense and bloat and taxes and costs and all the hassles of living here or trying to work here, or leave. If I may say so, as a new American citizen, that's a very un-American attitude—that it can't be done, that we can't make change happen.

We've got to fight for it. There are plenty of people who believe that the state needs change. We just have to show in the next 7 weeks that change really is possible. If we get more votes, we'll win. It's quite simple.

Steve, why do you think people feel that it would be almost a betrayal, even if they want change, not to vote Democrat? Why is that?

There seems to be, in California, at least as I've lived it, a lot of very rational people who feel sort of out of place. They're not quite sure whether they should be a Republican. They're made to feel guilty for not being completely Democrat, so they either don't vote or they just go in, find the “D,” and check the box.

All of the insanity compounds. If that continues to happen, don't we need to hit rock bottom? Isn't there going to be some financial event or otherwise that needs to happen to reset?

I have to tell you, I think it's pretty rock bottom now in terms of what it's actually like to live here. I've traveled this state. I've been to every one of our 58 counties. No candidate has done that in a very long time. I've seen—we've done hundreds of events and town halls up and down the state. Every single day, I see the pain and the struggle in people's eyes to live here.

Try and own a home here. We used to have the highest rate of homeownership in the country in California and the most affordable housing. Now the median house price in California is nearly $1 million. The median salary in California for an individual is $65,000. It's just completely broken.

People are broken by this, and they are desperate for change. The number-one thing that people say to me when I'm out and about, when they come up to me at the airport or on the street, wherever we are, at my events, is not “Good luck” or “Hope you do well.” There's an intensity this year.

2. The city up close: the parks, small business & who the rules actually reward

The number one thing people say to me is almost word for word. This is what everyone says to me. I've heard it even here backstage: “You have to win.” There's an intensity about it this year, and I think that this is the year we can really do that.

Just to your point about Democrats, it's true that you've had this habit of voting Democrat even though the results have been increasingly disappointing. But I think that's changing. I'm just—I don't know. On Friday, 9/11, I was at the 9/11 memorial event in Sacramento. I wasn't there participating; I was just there to show my respects.

I took my seat in the back. People came up to me, took pictures, and so on, as they often do. I was just there randomly at a pretty small event. I had a number of people—there must have been 4 or 5 people—randomly say almost the same word-for-word thing: “I'm a lifelong Democrat, but I'm voting for you this year.”

I think we have reached that point, and that's why I'm saying we have to wake up. The other thing I hear all the time from business leaders or business owners every single day is, “If you don't make it in November, we're out.” And I'm serious about this. If we think that it's bad now, I think the exodus of businesses that we've seen from California in the last couple of years, if we don't show some change here and some balance in our system, is going to turn into a stampede for the exits. It really is. I think this is a now-or-never election for California.

3. The path to victory: the persuadable voter, the cost-of-living pitch & the case against Becerra

Let's talk about the metrics and the path to victory here. Polymarket has you at a 5% chance of winning. The actual polls have you as close as 8% to 20%, and it's incredibly polarized. You have 90% or 89% of Republican voters—okay, mission accomplished. You've only got 30% of independents; there's work to do. And then, if you look at Democrats, you've got less than 10%.

So you've captured the Republicans, making some headway with independents, but you're not making, aside from the anecdotal stories you're telling us, massive headway with these Democrats yet. But you have 1 debate, September 30, versus Becerra. What do you have to do in that debate to change the narrative and shake this up?

What's the plan?

No, it's a great question. It's the question in many ways.

I'll just give you our metric and our numbers. We wanted to see what the pathway to victory was for real. This is not us cooking the numbers at all. This is a poll that we took right at the beginning of the campaign, when it was clear that it was myself and Javier Becerra. These are the numbers: 33% solidly with me, 41% solidly with Becerra, and 26% up for grabs.

Most of that 26% have voted Democrat before, but they are not committed Democrats. They are open to persuasion. Then you ask, well, who are those people and what are they focused on? Overwhelmingly, they're non-college-educated, regular working people in California who are at a breaking point financially. Their overwhelming interest is practical things to help with the cost of living. That's what our campaign has been all about, not just in specific, but since the beginning of the campaign.

I can tell you what it is, very simply: to reduce the bloat and the waste in our budget. They've doubled the budget of the state of California in the last 10 years, with 2 million people having left the state. Everything's gotten worse. We're going to cancel high-speed rail. We're going to have a 10% headcount reduction in the government, 5% efficiency, and many other things. We're going to stop the funding of these nonprofits that are making homelessness worse.

That all adds up to enough money for us to cut state income tax: your first $150,000 tax-free, with no state income tax. That puts thousands of dollars in the pockets of regular working people.

Secondly, we're going to have a sensible energy policy. Instead of shipping oil halfway around the world and pretending that we're doing something about climate change, even though we're actually increasing emissions by doing that, we're going to use California energy resources and get rid of the ridiculous, outdated regulations and the hidden taxes on gas so we can deal with the number one thing that's hurting working people every day, which is gas prices.

Instead of $6 gas, we can get toward $3 gas in California, like you have in other states right now.

By getting rid of the emissions premium, or getting rid of the cleaning of the gasoline?

No, it's not that at all. It's the hidden taxes, all these things: the Low Carbon Fuel Standard and the cap-and-invest program. That's about $150 on the gas price right there. Guess where that money goes? The cap-and-trade program. That's what's funding high-speed rail.

You dig into all these things in California, and they are gouging you on every single possible thing they can. The announcement we made last week is going to help regular working people. To register your car or truck in California costs hundreds of dollars, with many people paying $800, $900, or over $1,000. In most other states, it's under $100. It's another hidden tax.

We are going to cap vehicle registration at a flat registration rate of $73 per vehicle per year by abolishing the DMV, which is a symbol of this absolutely ridiculous, bloated nanny-state bureaucracy that's driving everyone crazy and driving up everyone's costs. You just need to send an outsider to Sacramento who wants to shake up this system that's clearly broken.

Why shouldn't people vote for Becerra? What is the flaw in this person?

The short answer is I'm going to quote the people who worked with him. He touts the fact that he's got so much experience. He's a 36-year career politician. Let's look at the verdict not of other Republicans, but Democrats who work with him.

Susan Rice, President Biden's head of domestic policy, was President Obama's national security adviser. She worked with him for 4 years. Her description: Becerra is, quote, “an idiot.”

Okay, so the reason not to vote for him is—by the way, she also said, and I don't know quite what she meant by this, “He's an ass.” So make of that what you will.

Sounds like he's pretty qualified for a role running California.

Exactly. Maybe it's just, “He's an ass idiot.”

An ass idiot. An ass. So give him the keys.

I want to get you in, Sacks, here. Why haven't the Republicans invested in California more? Because you're coming in, Steve, I think, with a lack of infrastructure, correct? And you obviously speak for all Republicans. So why haven't—

Well—

On this podcast—

We haven't had a candidate as good as Steve, so we needed the right candidate. Right.

So can you get some more money from President Trump? He just called in, but when he calls in this afternoon, can we get him some more funds here? He seems like he's got a puncher's shot. If you put this energy into the debate, maybe you take this guy out.

Look, I think about how gone California is. What we need is for this election to be about the state, not about national politics, right? Steve is focused on the problems here. Let's not bring in the rest of the country because we have to appeal to the independents. And Steve is right. The state's really broken.

You know, it's like one of the reasons you get a one-party state.

Can I just pick up on that, if I may? There was a brilliant moment—I mean, a depressing moment—with Becerra just before the primary, where he was on CNN and he was asked that question. To be fair to the host, the host said, “Look, we've got some problems here: homelessness, the highest poverty rate, the highest unemployment rate, and a terrible cost of living. What do you think? Really, what would you have done differently? What needs to change from a policy point of view?”

He literally said, “Well, with the 4th-biggest economy in the world, and many people still love coming to Disneyland and our beaches, things must be going right.”

The point about the resource curse is exactly right. This is what you hear from Gavin Newsom the whole time: “4th-biggest economy in the world.” That's mainly driven by the fact that we have this incredibly successful sector that's generating a lot of revenue but not creating a lot of jobs. It's a very imbalanced economy.

The other reason that we have the 4th-biggest economy in the world is that the GDP number includes the size of the government. They've doubled the size of the government in the last 10 years. The figure for net private-sector job creation since the pandemic in California is basically zero. It's a disaster economically, but we're kept afloat by that one sector.

A lot of it home.

And by the way, if Prop 40 passes, I think that'll no longer be the case—

It's going. Exactly. That's why, honestly, wake up, everybody. This is a really serious moment.

Hey, Friedberg, we had an idea.

You have another guest here who might be great to join, Steve.

Yeah.

So, Steve, you’ve obviously been running a great campaign. Someone else ran a great campaign here in L.A., and we were hoping you’d be okay with having him come out early and maybe join you for a little bit.

Yeah. I don’t know who you could be thinking of.

Let’s find out. Let’s have a look.

He’s trying to make the campaign a reality show. No, no, my dear, you made my life a show when you burned my town down.

You know his face. You know his name. His name is Spencer Pratt. A media entrepreneur.

To be clear, I never wanted to run for any political office or have anything to do with politicians.

I’d like to see him do well. He’s a character.

Mayor Bass and I are definitely not working together. I blame this person for burning my house, my parents’ house, my town, and all my neighbors down. I’m only running for mayor to do one last Hail Mary.

Please welcome Spencer Pratt.

4. Spencer Pratt joins: the message that cut through & the LA race that flipped

Wow, you’re popular. Popular with this crowd. All right. Nice to see you. Welcome.

Steve. Buddy, how are you?

You guys have some things in common. I mean, how hard is it to break the machine in California? Spencer, he keeps calling it a machine.

I like to call it a corrupt criminal mafia cartel. When you’re a candidate, you have to call it a machine. These are criminals. That’s that simple. They launder all of our tax money to increase the number of people dying on our streets. Then they say, “Oh, he’s a Republican candidate. You can’t vote for him. Let’s let people keep dying on our sidewalks because we have compassion.”

No, those are criminals.

Spencer, you did something worthy of a round of applause, for sure.

You did something extraordinary in terms of an independent candidate getting massive earned media with these AI-generated videos. They were incredibly deft at communicating messages. Who made them? Did you direct them? Was this a covert group chat with a bot? How can we get Steve to do these?

I did. We got the same team.

Okay, tell us what’s going on and the impact it had, because we saw them.

Initially, what kicked it off was just the truth. That’s all I did. I went out on as many platforms as I could, and I just started saying the truth. What that created was a grassroots movement.

To reference a machine, it became a machine that creative people across the country could throw their genius or their ideas into. I wouldn’t say it was the AI that worked. I think it was one piece of a lot of things that were working.

It’s the same with Steve. AI is a piece of it. People just expect these things now. But for me, it’s the message that was cutting through. It wasn’t the AI; it was what was in these videos. I was saying in real life, just as Steve is saying in real life, that people are tired of being lied to. People want the truth.

I didn’t set out to be, as the president would call me, a big MAGA guy or the guy with the mojo for the Republicans. I set out as a guy whose town burned down and whose neighbors’ homes burned down. I just wanted somebody speaking the truth. That wasn’t political to me.

That’s why most of the people who voted for me were Democrats. I would have won 100% and beaten all the super meth addicts who voted for Nithya Raman and Bass if the 200,000 Republicans who are registered in Los Angeles had actually voted.

That’s what we need people to do for Steve. People need to vote. We’ve got this idea, with the mail-in ballots and all the alleged voter fraud—and the non-alleged voter fraud—that we can’t beat this system. But people just need to show up.

One of the great things the president said was, “Too big to rig.” Not only does that work, but I’ve talked to a lot of people behind the scenes, and you can beat these margins of cheating with voting.

Spencer, can you actually explain what happened in your election? For the casual observer, it seemed like there was a period when you were winning, then something happened, a lot of votes showed up at the end, and then there was a—

For those of us who weren’t steeped in what happened in L.A., can you give us a summary?

I was at Don Antonio’s celebrating while my opponent, Nithya Raman from the DSA, was crying on camera because she was losing by 10%. Then, mathematically, the most impossible thing in the history of politics happened: The third-place candidate started slowly winning each day.

Of course, they’ll say, “Yes, but Democrats vote by mail.” But this Democrat was against the current mayor, who’s also a Democrat. The third-place candidate somehow bypassed not just me but the first-place Democratic candidate to get just enough votes to beat me.

Here’s my favorite part: Of the 43,000 votes she got in those mail-in ballots, how many naked drug-addict zombies are there in downtown L.A., in this area? Forty-three thousand. There are really about 100,000, but they say 43,000.

So again, I'm not saying they cheated because the system—

I think you just did, guys. Wait, no. Hold on a second. You just did say they cheated.

Okay. The system is designed so that what we think is cheating is not cheating. Ready for this: For mail-in ballots, the witness can sign with a smiley face or an X. This witness can be a witness to—

They’re not allowed to check.

This witness can be a witness to 43,000 ballots.

All right, guys. Listen, these two are only here because Steve has to go to another thing. I want to see if Spencer and Steve have met or talked much about his campaign. Is there anything you can share about the experience you’ve just gone through?

Can I just say one thing to underline what Spencer said at the beginning? The deep thing that’s going on here is what’s happening with our money, for everyone who put their hand up and said, “I’m here in California.” You’ll know this story. You’ve seen it, you’ve been there, and you’ve told the story.

I was at Langer’s Deli the other week, right by MacArthur Park, which has been in business for nearly 80 years. A couple of years ago, Norm Langer wanted to shut it down because of all the chaos around L.A. The customers rallied around, so it’s still in business. But the chaos is back.

Even though you’ve got a D.A. now in L.A. who’s cracking down on the drugs and the crime, and you’ve got a U.S. attorney, Bill Essayli, a good friend of ours, doing a great job trying to go after the criminal gangs and the cartels, what’s actually happening?

This was a Tuesday morning last week, about 10:30 in the morning. He said, “Come and see what’s happening.” It’s like whack-a-mole, because you go out into MacArthur Park at 10:30 on a Tuesday morning, and every single place you look, you’ve got the people you described. You’ve got crack pipes, people smoking crack, people injecting drugs, folded over with fentanyl in the middle of a beautiful, sunny day in the center of L.A. Dozens and dozens of people.

Why? Because every single day, 4 nonprofits show up handing out crack pipes, handing out needles, handing out drugs. Who’s paying for that? You are. We are. We’re paying for these people.

What do you mean we’re paying for drugs?

Because the taxpayers are funding the nonprofits that are handing out the crack pipes, the needles, and the drugs.

No. What drugs are we talking about?

Fentanyl. They hand out fentanyl needles.

A Black guy?

I pay taxes. They take the taxes, they buy fentanyl, and then they give it to—

Oh, they buy the needles.

Interestingly enough, one of these people from the nonprofits who was handing out the needles was also caught by Bill Essayli selling the drugs. So technically, you’re not buying the drugs, but the people who were paying for the needles happened to also be selling the drugs on the side.

It’s called the side quest in our industry.

I just want to tell this other story that captures, for me, in a deeper way what this election is all about. Just a couple of days before that experience in MacArthur Park, a Latino couple wanted me to come see their business in South Central L.A.

It’s not Skid Row, but it’s pretty rough, and it’s the usual squalor that I’m afraid we’re used to in this city because they don’t know how to run the place. But in the middle of all that squalor, there’s this beautiful little store. They run a shoe store, and they’ve been running it for 14 years.

They gave me all the usual things that I’m very familiar with: the taxes, the ridiculous bureaucracy, the permits that get more complicated and costly every year, the electric bill, and so on. They said, “But that’s not why we wanted you to come here. Come with me.”

They took me outside. We went for a walk—2 city blocks, and we could have gone even farther. Every single part of the sidewalk had street vendors. You think illegal street vendors—what are they selling? Shoes, apparel, and T-shirts. The entire sidewalk was filled with them.

This 14-year-old business, a lovely little local business, everything spotless and everything clean—exactly what we would want to see—is going out of business because you’ve got people there who aren’t paying tax, aren’t paying electric, aren’t paying rent, and aren’t complying with any licensing.

I said to the guy, “When did all this happen? When did it start? Has this been here all the time you’ve been here?”

“No,” he said. “It’s the last 6 or 7 years.”

I said, “Is it something to do with the pandemic?” “No. I looked into it 8 years ago, in 2018. They passed a bill in Sacramento to legalize street vending in California across the state. Cities can’t do anything about it. Counties can’t do anything about it. You've got Langer's, you've got food stands there that are pouring their grease into the drain right in front of their store. You’ve got rats; you’ve got all of it legalized. And what does it tell you when you take that into account and then what you see in MacArthur Park with the drugs? You know what you guys should do?”

Can I just tell you what the lesson is from this? We’ve become a state where, if you do the right thing, you’re punished, and if you do the wrong thing, you’re rewarded. That is upside down. But that’s the story beneath everything, and that’s what we need to turn around. That’s what this election is actually about.

No, I really think it’s important for you guys to be able to tell the stories of these specific laws because it doesn’t matter what your political persuasion is when you hear that. If it is as accurate as you say, it’s functionally one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard. And if there are 20 or 30 of these examples, it’s important for people to know this because that’s the only thing that cracks this entrenched system.

I do think that these belief systems are very difficult to turn over, and you have to just hit them with facts over and over. But these things are insane. If it’s as accurate as you said, Steve, it’s insane.

The craziest part about this is that they say there are 50,000 food vendors. 50,000. And they made it more affordable, so most of them don’t even have the permit that costs $21. But our City Council green-lit this, and they already did this. They gave these food vendors $500,000 to give them an actual cart.

My town burned down because Mayor Bass and the LADWP didn’t repair the reservoir cover that was $200,000. So they have money—a lot of these people are not city-taxpaying citizens. They have the money to give them $500,000 for food carts, but they can’t get the reservoir cover for the Pacific Palisades fixed. The Pacific Palisades is paying most of the taxes for the whole city.

What does it say, Spencer, if this city elects Karen Bass again? And what does it say in terms of lessons about your campaign that you can’t beat somebody that incompetent?

I mean, we’re up against Dumb and Dumber, and they’re less dumb than picking this socialist, communist, alleged terrorist supporter, Nithya Raman. So we’re in a position where it’s either worse or worse. And at least with Mayor Bass, we know, oh, she only burns down 1 town every 4 years—

Right? How many does Nithya Raman burn down?

We’ll find out.

Yeah. I hate to say this. Let’s hope we don’t. What can I say? That’s not a complete joke, right? What you just said.

So, we launched our general-election campaign after the primary in Boyle Heights, East L.A. Why? Because that was the site of another fire where Karen Bass was out of town. Incredible. The warehouse fire that burned for a week—she was out of town for that one as well.

And you had 85 million pounds of rotting meat that was left there for 5 weeks. This is a working-class Latino neighborhood in L.A. We launched our campaign there, and the press wasn’t very happy because you had flies everywhere. The whole place stinks. You have rats, medieval diseases. This is in the second city of America.

I mean, what these people have done is actually unforgivable. We’ve got to kick these people out this year. We really do.

Spencer, before Steve leaves, any advice for him?

I feel like Steve doesn’t need my advice. He’s doing incredible. What he just needs to continue doing—and he does it—is appealing, because you’re never going to win as a Republican in California. But what he’s running on is common sense.

And the message is, for the people that are like, “I’m voting for Basura B.” What does Biden call him? Back? I think we say Bass. We’re going to take basura from Karen Bass and apply it.

You know—

These people think they’re voting because he says, “I’m going to fight the president.” The president is gone in 2 years. So then what? You’re just going to have another entrenched, terrible person running the state.

And don’t worry, the whole entire state is run by Democrats. If there’s 1 registered Republican, it’s okay. So I would say the message is Steve is about common sense, and he just wants our tax money to stop being stolen. He wants kids to be able to go back to parks. These aren’t Republican or Democrat. It’s just a non-communist message.

You’re going to stay with us for a bit. Steve, I know you’ve got to run. Any last words? Anything you want to say before you head out?

I just want to tell everyone that it’s not just about stopping the crazy stuff that we’ve been talking about. There’s so much we can do in this amazing state. I’ve got a plan here that we’re publishing today: 10 new cities for California.

We’ve got so much opportunity here. If we just have some common sense, we get rid of these insane regulations and lawsuits and fees and taxes. The talent is here. The energy is here. We can once again be the place where people are coming to build amazing businesses and companies and houses, and the great things we built in the heyday of California.

We can be all that again, and very, very quickly, because we’ve got everything we need to be truly magnificent again except a good governor. But very soon we’ll have that as well. Thank you very much.

5. Ballot harvesting, voter ID & whether the system is rigged or just legal

Thanks for being here. Thank you. What’s your favorite viral Spencer Pratt video? I know mine—

“We have the money. It’s just being stolen.”

You remember that one?

I do. What I loved about running so much is it was finally a way to channel all of my anger, and it was so therapeutic. It was just like, “This feels so good.”

But yeah, Steve’s incredible. I pray for him. Obviously, everybody who I thought was a genius involved in my campaign connected these people, so he’s got—

Spencer, what’s going to happen in this election?

If people vote, Steve wins, but people need to vote. It’s like—

So you think there’s still an opportunity to vote in the state versus having the machine fill it out for me?

Correct. I’m so optimistic. Psych.

No, I mean, you’ve got to—we’ve got to try. People need to vote, and I don’t think the machine and the idea that we can’t win should stop us from trying. If I had thought that way, I mean, I had my plan. I would 100% have been the mayor. I didn’t know they were going to pull what they pulled that soon. I thought they were going to wait till November.

So I had the plan to win, but I’m going to save it for my next election. So, you know—

What does that mean exactly?

Well, I mean, behind the scenes, I can tell you, but I can’t give you the details.

Basically, you need a better vote-stealing operation than they have, right? I mean—

What I’ve learned is it’s not stealing; it’s legal. So I’ve got my own harvesting—they call it. Yeah. You know, I’ve got something up my sleeve.

Well, no, no, no. In seriousness, Spencer, he is being serious.

I’m dead.

Okay. So you have legal recourse. Voter fraud is a very significant crime. People have been prosecuted very regularly for committing voter fraud. You’re making these claims. Friedberg’s making these claims. You’re piling—

Hold on. What claims did I make?

You just said, if you can actually win, or that somebody automatically signs it for you. You’re insinuating that the system is corrupt. Let me address the claim you made that was a joke about the—

Okay, fine. But in our private chat, in our private chat, you say all the time, “No—”

I’ll totally insinuate it. I’ll assert it.

Anyway, the point is the system is corrupt. It’s statistically impossible. We all saw the lines—

Here, here. I’ll hold—let me. I know where this is going.

Everyone says, “Well, why didn’t you investigate this?” So, obviously, I got the top law firms. I’m like, “Yeah, we’re going to get them.” And then, you ready for this? The second those mail-in ballots get to where they count the votes—because they say, “Come down here. Check this out”—the second they get there, you know what they do with the ballots? They separate them from the envelope.

So, let’s say I know 42,000 of these were cooked with the NGO, drug addicts, and the people that are paying them billions of dollars because they want that money to keep. I know it’s all from there. “Oh, well, we can’t connect those ballots to those envelopes. We separated the chain of custody from those.”

The certification signature is on the envelope, to be clear. It’s right there.

So, let’s say I know this DSA terrorist-commie person signed all these. I know that’s this one. They go, and this is where they’re from. “Oh, we don’t have that person’s signature to connect those ballots.” So you can’t—I could have definitely said, “I want a recount.”

You can’t audit. It’s basically like—

And they would have recounted the same ballots. So I’m not alleging anything. This is just a fact in California.

This is what I mean. I didn’t get to ask my question because this is legal, and the way it’s set up legally is what makes it impossible to intervene unless you are willing to go play that game where you’re now going to go collect all the ballots from the apartment buildings and fill them all out and get someone to put a happy, smiley face on it and be like, “Here you go.”

That’s the mechanism that ultimately I think the other side is going to end up having to employ if they actually want to get people elected in a state that’s 2/3 on one side of the—

President Trump did 60 of these lawsuits when he lost last time and claimed the same thing.

All 60 he lost. You're not even willing to file a lawsuit. But is your contention that you lost because of fraud, yes or no?

It's a trick question.

Well, no. It's a simple question.

That's a trick question. Without evidence, I would say no.

Okay.

But he can't—the thing is, he can't collect on it. So, if I had the evidence, I would tell you. I would be the mayor right now.

Okay. So—

What I would say is that on election night, you were the clear number 2, and then a week later you had been narrowly displaced by a bunch of ballots that were counted late.

Yeah. It seems like there would have to be, in this case—correct me if I'm wrong—tens of thousands of fake ballots.

No, I'm not saying fake ballots. This is what this is. Again, it's not fraud. It's that they're following the law that was created to let them do what they're doing. It's legal.

Why is voter ID illegal?

Watch this. The crime harvest. Go ahead.

I'm in favor of voter ID, be clear, but you still haven't explained where the crime occurred here.

Ready for this? I'm awake now.

All right, here we go. If I go up to you when you go to a basketball court to vote, with the nice people, and they say, in California, “Don't show us your ID. You—that's illegal,” and I go up to you wearing a Mayor Pratt hat and say, “Who's on your ballot? This is why you should vote for Spencer Pratt,” this is electioneering. This is illegal.

But it's not illegal for DSA commies to ride around on their bikes and go into your apartment building, knock on your door, and say, “Hey, this is your ballot. You have to vote for Nithya Raman. She's going to make everything cheap, give you free money and a cell phone, and pay for your Netflix. Fill it out. We'll take it in.” This would be illegal at the gym, but it's not in California with ballot harvesting.

So what these DSA soldiers—these are true believers—do is go around, by the thousands, and get these ballots. They're not fake ballots; it's ballot harvesting, and they can pay these people. I did legal ballot harvesting.

You just can't pay them per ballot. This became legal in California how many years ago? Like a decade ago?

Now, the claim is—so, I understand. I just want to make sure I understand the claim. The claim now is that DSA soldiers gave money to people, convinced them to cast their votes, and then brought the ballots in.

They're not giving anyone—

Can you let him answer?

The DSA operatives are being paid.

Got it.

And some do it for free because they are true believers.

Like people who knock on doors and say—

My campaign's legal door knockers pay half a million dollars. They knock and say, “Spencer's so great,” and the person says, “No, I don't want to vote,” and the door shuts and they walk away. These people continue.

You go on the DSA website, and there will be a whole breakdown on ballot harvesting. They'll say, “Go back 3 times.” It becomes harassment. Finally, somebody is going to be like, “Here, take this. Get out of my—”

So now the claim is that the DSA is persistent and you weren't. You go 1 time; they go 3 times. Just so I'm clear.

No, what I'm saying is that it's illegal to harass people about who they vote for.

Has any of those people ever filed a complaint about being harassed?

Do you know where they're going?

I'm asking you. You're the one making this claim that you lost because of fraud.

No, I also didn't. I said I don't have the evidence.

You literally tweeted that the fraudsters stole the election from you.

I said, “No, I said 200,000 Republicans didn't show up and vote.”

Okay, so that's why you lost.

There are many reasons not to win and lose in games, also. Do you think the other side—that Republicans—are going to start employing ballot-harvesting tactics?

It won't work. I did it. Unless you are nefarious, it doesn't work.

If you're just genuine—“Hello,” knock, “Would you like to vote?”—that doesn't work.

So tell me this. Talk about claims. Why won't California clear its voter rolls?

What does that mean?

The voter rolls—if you moved out of California, if you're dead, these are all ballots.

There's an empty parking lot in downtown Los Angeles that gets hundreds of ballots mailed to it. It's an empty parking lot, and people have registered to this address. Hundreds of ballots show up there.

So, back to your point: these are fake ballots?

They're not fake ballots. There could potentially be 1 million ballots out and about that a DSA person could harvest, fill in a circle, put a smiley face as the witness, and mail in. So we can call it a claim, or we can call it who knows. It's like, who knows what's going on?

The point is, we need voter ID. People need to get that on the ballot.

Yeah. No, I mean, you're the person who made these claims, so I'm just asking you the questions. For the record, I think if you have to show an ID to get on a plane, it's quite reasonable that you should show one to vote. So, I'm for voter ID, but—

You also need an ID.

You also need an ID to shop at Mamdani's new markets.

What are you doing next? Let's move on past—

This is it. This is the—

You're joining the show. Fifth bestie. You know, I have Zoom. You know, so—

You have Zoom and you have time.

I do love premium tequila.

This could work. This could work. Fifth bestie.

Brad Gerstner is very popular, but I think you have a—he, we might need to move him to sixth bestie.

What I will continue doing, because I only ever ran for mayor to increase my message of fighting these people who have destroyed my beautiful state, my beautiful city—

And your home.

My home, my parents' home, all my neighbors.

6. The Palisades: the empty reservoirs, suing the state & what Spencer does next

Let me ask you a question about the incompetence of these idiots. They burn your home down because they can't keep water in the reservoir. Have you been able to rebuild? What's the state of the Palisades right now?

Here's the best part: that empty reservoir is still empty. The reservoir across the street from my house—the one I was convinced my house was never going to burn because they didn't even talk about it—is still empty. They have a hose that comes all the way from Tujunga through all the overgrown dead brush. This is the hose now supplying the Palisades.

But back to rebuilding. We all had Farmers and all this great insurance, but I don't blame the insurance companies because it was Gavin Newsom and our state parks that allowed 60 years of dead fuels and dead brush to surround our communities, knowing that there's no firebreak. All they would have had to do—I talked to the top guy who does all the cutting of this brush, and I said, “How much would this have cost to cut a whole firebreak 300 yards around the Palisades?” He said, “Under $500,000,” to save billions of dollars.

So, back to rebuilding: insurance dropped everybody because they were smart. They saw all this dead brush, and it's illegal if I go cut it. If my backyard has Gavin Newsom State Park dead brush coming into it, and I cut it, those are protected milk-vetch plants.

You're going to get a fine. LADWP got fined $1 million for cutting some dead brush around a downed pole in these state parks.

Cal Fire, who's in charge of this—the people who care more about plants—they're also ruining the federal Forest Service right now, and they're fighting the federal government to protect these plants again over people.

So, back to building: no, I won't be able to build until we win the lawsuit against Gavin Newsom and his state parks, the city, and LADWP, which we are.

What is the lawsuit that you filed?

It's a mass tort. There are 10,000 victims of the negligence they let happen.

People don't realize, because they're not in the weeds—or, we should say, in the milk-vetch—on this, that on New Year's Eve there was a fire in the Pacific Palisades. It was 8 acres, and they put it out. The state park did not monitor that fire, which is in their state park manual, and they let it smolder leading into a known wind event that was coming on January 6 and January 7.

I've now had firefighter whistleblowers tell me that there were clearly smoldering coals on the side of this hill. In the depositions with the state park employees, we have their photos. They took photos of the hillside just smoking. When asked, “Why didn't you do anything?” they say, “Oh, we're not firefighters.”

So, the state park is liable for allowing a dangerous condition to burn down the community. LADWP is liable for leaving the reservoirs empty and having no water. The city is liable.

So basically, you're just trying to set the record straight, hopefully get some recompense for you and these other families, but is most of this first part just about making the record public—all of this incompetence—and hoping that people realize it doesn't need to be this way?

That was initially why I was out making my videos and creating content: to help my community.

And then when I saw Mayor Bass was just automatically going to be the mayor again, I was like, “Oh, no way.” Then I called Rick Caruso. I said, “Are you going to run or what?” He was like, “No.” I was like, “Oh, it’s on.”

So then I ran with the intention to just try to stop her from becoming mayor, if that meant me being mayor. Honestly, people are like, “Oh, you have no experience.” Oh, to enforce the law? What LA needs is a mayor that enforces the law. Neither Mayor Bass nor Nithya Raman have any intention of enforcing the laws because it doesn’t look good.

It doesn’t look good if you tell the illegal food vendors that they can’t ruin a small business that’s been paying taxes for 40 years. “Oh, you’re messing with this community, this at-risk community.” No, this is illegal. They’re destroying this family’s business. These are simple things that I would have been able to do as mayor.

It’s unfortunate that it’s going to take 4 years of pure destruction for those people to call me up in 4 years like, “Let’s go,” and I’ll be ready. So, you know—

Spencer, are you still doing content? What are you doing right now with your time?

So there are 3 opportunities that are in play, and yes, I do content. What I realized when I got out of this is the media—and this sounds very Pollyanna-ish—there are so many lies that I witnessed all day long firsthand in my city that I was like, “I need to be out here making content with the truth.”

It’s not a side; it’s in the center. I keep saying, people are like, “Oh, he’s a Republican.” No, the truth doesn’t have a side. It’s that simple. And these people across the country now are trying to destroy it. They truly are.

And when you start living this all day long, like me, it’s not just LA now. I’m like, “Damn, I’ve got to fight for America.” I’m like Jason Bourne. This is crazy. So, yeah. Now I’m flying to New York and meeting with people in New York, trying to help them, because I don’t want New York to go down even worse than—

I have a suggestion for you. So, what were the other 2 things? You said there were 3 things. Is that all 3?

No, there are 3 plays. I was going to be the big guy in AI as mayor because I was going to turn Skid Row into all data centers.

I mean, you’re weaving; you’re speaking our language. I actually had a call trying to get information about data centers with a guy who knows data centers. He said, “Spencer, do you understand this is the time for a city like LA, whose infrastructure is collapsing into the ground, to take private business and billions of dollars and be like, ‘Hey, yes, you can put this data center where we have naked drug-addict zombies and no actual human being can go for 50 blocks. We’re going to put that here. But you need to redo our water pipes. You need to redo our—’”

We can retrain the fentanyl addicts to be electricians. Meta’s got a program for that.

You know, as I drove over here, I solved two problems at once.

I was going to solve a lot of problems. So that’s—

But Spencer, in all seriousness, you’re incredibly quick-witted and entertaining on camera. You should consider doing reality TV.

You know why I don’t like reality TV? It’s the only thing worse than people in politics. There’s too much image-crafting.

And that’s what makes a bad reality show.

Now everyone is image-crafting, trying to create a persona. What’s going to be in the comment section? What are people going to say on the blogs? You can’t be real. The last reality show I was on was when they rebooted The Hills.

You were on a reality show?

A couple. A couple. You know, I am the reality candidate. That’s a reality check. But everybody was just faking their actual identity. And now what’s so funny is, if you watch any politician, they’re just a bad TikTok influencer. You look at Abdul El-Sayed; he thinks he’s Alix Earle. It’s like, “What are you? What?”

Honestly, I’ve just got to tell you, I love you. And what a mistake, because not only would you have gotten some great stuff done, this would have been the most entertaining mayorship in history.

Well, you’ve got time. You’ve got to run again.

Yeah, I know. What’s funny is I actually am way more of a threat to these people now because I have—

You’re dangerous.

I suggest you torture Karen Bass for the next two years.

—2 years to really get into these communities.

You know, Karen Bass is not our worst nightmare. And I will never say anything positive about Nithya Raman and the DSA people. My Democrat friends do not understand what the DSA is. I keep telling them, “Go on their website. It’s not a conspiracy. Read their website, and you tell me—”

Abolish the police. Yes.

I mean, the list goes on and on, and this is what they stand by. And then I used to call them commies, and everyone was like, “Oh, you can’t call them commies.” Now I’m like, “That sounds nice.”

It’s a compliment to them. They’re anarchists.

Like, gassing them up like crazy.

Wow. Thanks, bro.

All right. Great stuff.