Hilton/Becerra Debate Set (09/08)

0:00This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. We have the Moist line for Friday now and that's only three days away because it's short week eight seven seven moist eighty six eight seven seven moist eighty six. So whenever we talk about today if it gets you fired up and delivered angry all of that you can call that eight seven seven moist eighty six and record a message we might play it back on Friday. We're live on X live on YouTube. Debra's back with us. She was out with her leg injury.

1:00We've had four leg injuries here at the station and who's the common denominator? I mean, I mean, Eric, what are you doing to us? Debra, me even Mark Thompson. Yeah. Rocco. Yes. Yeah. All with serious leg injuries, but you're feeling better. I am feeling better. My back is hurting a little bit, but I can barely walk. I mean, seriously, that's how bad it was. You saw how much pain I was in on Thursday. And you did nothing. I mean, there was no incident. You didn't fall down a flight of stairs. No, no. You didn't have a bad acid trip or no, no, I don't take acid. Well, you didn't think you were a burden tried to fly off the roof. No, not that I know of. All right. Yeah. Well, that's what I said before you're just falling apart. I am falling apart. That's all. Yeah. That's what's happening. I, you know, this, this was, this was disturbing over the weekend. So, Carabasso far has not accepted multiple invitations to come on our program.

2:06Multiple. In case you wonder, we invite everybody all the time. But she never says yes. Most of the time, you just don't get a response. But apparently she's put out a press release and it's found us useful. You remember, I guess it was last, was last Friday we had Tracy Park on. And I don't know why I'm looking at you people. None of you showed up for work that day. I'm Friday we had Tracy Park. She, she, she went on, she was on a tirade against Nithia ramen because Nithia ramen who may be the one of the thickest persons this side of Gavin Newsom actually went to the palisades and started telling everybody how terrible it is. What's going on? And you know, we need people to respond. We need a better response situation with the government, you know, on and on all the

3:06predictable cliches and Tracy, who is the council member for palisades, the whole district came on our show and said, no, you were never here. You never showed up once. This is the first time since the fire you never came. All the other council people actually showed up, not you. Karen Bass's website for immediate release September 6th, 2026. That'd be on Sunday. Council member Tracy Park rips Nithia ramen for never showing up for the palisades and even lifted a quote where the hell have you been? Dateland Los Angeles in an interview on the John Cobalt show. So wait a second. It's only fair then that Karen Bass comes on your show to do an interview with you. That is my point. Very good. We are in sync today. We are. Absolutely in sync.

4:07Yeah, and then goes on to describe what what what Tracy said and looking in an interview on the John Cobalt show and actually provides a helpful link to the podcast hour. Wow. Which is nice. We appreciate that. But you know, she's using arm material. How dare she for her benefit? And what benefit is it to you? I don't know. She needs to come on. I don't know how many people read a Karen Bass press release. I don't know if there was some kind of crazy spike in the downloads for that hour. I don't know. Tracy was on fire though. She was she was she was great and she was right. I promise just such a fraud. But I'd be just a go to use this as a link and a press release in an interview on the John Cobalt show a show that I am afraid to come on is what she should have put after that. I am terrified of coming on John show. He's so mean.

5:08He's going to be a bully to me. That's probably what they think. He's not going to be a bully. He's going to be fair. I am. Well, you always are. I mean, you're going to have your points that you're going to say, but you're not going to be mean and nasty. You know, that's the thing. If you just raise legitimate truth, right, you just ask about what's obvious. They'll turn it into nasty bullying. It's like, no, this is what happened. Well, because people don't like those questions like Katie Porter, right? They don't want they don't want to follow ups. They want these easy, easy interview. That's a good example. But not that. Who's the reporter on that? Was it a woman? Julie Watts. Do you remember the Katie Porter interview? Katie Porter interview. It seems to be the CBS Sacramento reporter. I think it was Julie Watts. Julie Watts. Yeah. We got we actually got another story by Julie Watts that we're going to talk about later on in the show. She's one of the few along with Ashley Savala up there who's covering this stuff.

6:10But yeah, Katie Porter freaked out on Julie Watts over simple ordinary political questions in a campaign, which she asked of the nine other candidates. And the thing is Karen Bass is, time is mayor has been eventful. There's been some really unusually impactful things that have happened. The homeless situation is still widely out of control. And that's what she ran on. The fire response. Well, we know how abysmal that was. She should respond to this and not just, you know, Nambi, Pambi, Paddy cake, kind of interviews. Because, you know, nobody wants to make her feel bad. It's got to be. It's got to be real world. It's not even like hard ball. It's real world. She's the one working for us. She's taking our money. She gets paid with our money. All the decisions she makes is with our money. It affects our day to day life.

7:10And we know what that's like. And she can't be asked about it in a direct manner. Or that's bullying. Well, yeah, that's that. It's not the world I live in. That's not the world most normal people live in. All right. So anyway, that's just, that's just the trochess that she's using us for marketing purposes. And we'll come on the program. Now, when we come back, we're not the only ones getting stiffed by Karen Bass. She's stiffing the, that congressional committee, which asked her to come and testify next week. And she said she's not available. Because again, she'd have to have to ask a lot of, she would be asked a lot of very direct, important questions. And she's just afraid to answer. We'll talk about this pattern of behavior when we come back. You're listening to John Cobalt on demand from KFI AM640.

8:13KFI AM640 live everywhere on the I heart radio app. John Cobalt show Ron from three to six after six. John Cobalt show on demand. That's the podcast. And then the livestream we fixed whatever was wrong. So you can go back if you wandered away. We're live on YouTube live on X. And we're going to have Steve Hilton coming up in just about 10 minutes. Right after Deborah's news, 335 Steve Hilton coming on. He's running for governor against the invisible Javier Bissera, who supposedly is running as the Democratic candidate, except nobody ever sees him. He doesn't actually campaign. It's very weird. They have agreed to a debate. We'll talk with Steve about that. And the headline today is Steve would wants to abolish the current form of the DMV, which sounds like a great idea. But the political did a story about Bissera and they call him the missing man.

9:16He has not participated in a campaign this year because he thinks people are going to vote for him, no matter what, at least his voters. No matter how bad it is in California, no matter how bad, that's what they say behind the scenes. Believe me. So we'll talk to Steve Hilton about that. Now returning to Karen Bass, who is using our podcast in her press releases, because Tracy Park came on last Friday and correctly said that Nithia Rahman never showed up for a year and a half to the Palisades until last week where the hell was she was the quote. And Bass enjoyed that so much. She's running our podcast now in a press release, but she won't come on here. She's afraid. She will not, well, if you remember when she was asked to testify in a federal trial

10:17about where the money went for homelessness, she was afraid to testify. And she got 15 lawyers to protect her. No exaggeration. So she's afraid of testifying before a judge. She's afraid of coming on our show. And she's afraid of the subcommittee on delivering government efficiency. That is chair by Tim Barchett, who's a Republican congressman in Tennessee. We're going to have him on later this week. And they requested that Karen Bass show up on September 15th to testify as to where the billions of dollars have gone. They also want six years worth of records submitted. And she just says, or staff says she's not available. She's not available because she doesn't, she's never ever going to explain. This is also why they're settling the lawsuit

11:21with the Palisades homeowners in the fire. They've been doing mediation. The city wants to settle because otherwise then Karen Bass would have to testify. So she's afraid of testifying in that case. She was afraid of testifying in the civil trial where the homeless money went. She's afraid of coming on our show. She's afraid of testifying before Tim Barchett subcommittee. She never ever wants to explain any of this. The way I said, Basera, never ever seems to campaign. They all figure they've got the world locked up because people in this state will vote for an incumbent vote for a Democrat no matter how bad it gets. I actually saw today, political person writing that they've been to focus groups. And it is true that some people in the focus groups, and I don't know what percentage,

12:24who give the government an F, still say they refuse to switch sides when it comes to their vote for governor. Or any other office, they give the government an F, but won't choose another government. Won't choose another candidate. Won't choose another party. What the hell are you going to do with that? So it doesn't matter how bad it gets even though they'll admit that the government has completely failed the public. Now that's a kind of sickness. I don't know how you address that. These people ought to be deported. How can you, how can you rate it a failure and then refuse to try and alternative? What kind of thinking is that? I mean, I mean farm animals are more rational than that. We'll talk more about this later in the show. Steve Hilton coming on next right after Deborah's news running for governor.

13:25You're listening to John Cobalt on demand from KFI AM640. Live everywhere on the I heart radio app. It's the John Cobalt show we're on from three to six after six o'clock the podcast for what you miss. Miss John Cobalt show on demand. We're live on YouTube live on X. And if you want to subscribe to become a member on YouTube go to youtube.com slash at John Cobalt show youtube.com slash at John Cobalt show. We are waiting. Telephonic connection with Steve Hilton. Any minute now, Hilton is running for governor against Javier Bessera and Steve Hilton is here. Welcome. How are you? Great. Good to be with you. It's been a while. Yes. Good to have you on. Let's get right to it. First of all, Javier Bessera's finally agreed to a debate with you

14:26on September 30th on CNN. Yeah. Is it smoked him out finally? He's been hiding running away from it, running away from the press. Look, I don't, I don't really understand why he agreed to do that one. Why he agreed to do anything after all these weeks. I mean, this has not been going on for two months. We've had eight separate media organizations. CNN was just one of eight that proposed a debate at specific times on specific dates and specific places. And he just ignored all of them. We accepted all of them. Here he is. Finally, he's agreed to one of them, but the point, which is good. So no question that's good news. But the point I also make is about a month ago when he was finally made an appearance in front of the press. It wasn't even a press conference about his own campaign. He was joining something else. And he was asked about this. Remember, that's when he ran away literally ran away from reporters.

15:29And he just snatched a response to a question said, Oh, there will be debates. Polaro with an S on the end. So I'm happy he's agreed to one, but we're not giving up on that. There needs to be more than one for goodness sake. Well, it's clear he thinks that he's going to win automatically, no matter what, because many Democrats vote for Democrats. And there's no way you can catch up and overcome that. That's his theory. So he's not campaigning. He's not doing interviews. He's not doing debates. He's not doing anything but sitting at home. Exactly right. I mean, I've lost track of the number of times that I've been at an event or a media outlet or podcast or whatever it may be. And I say, and I say, look, well, great to be here. And they say, well, you know, on this sort of somewhat formula like where some of them have to do, we did invite heavy adversaries to participate in whatever it may be, but he had a scheduling conflict. I said, my God, what the schedule?

16:30Has there ever anything in it? And yet he's got these conflicts. And also it's things that you expect, you know, these are sort of left wing outlets, things like the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce statewide convention. You know, there's no excuse for it. It's totally disrespectful. I agree with your analysis, Sean, that he's doing it because he assumes he's going to win. But I think that that's a very dangerous assumption. I think you can see the polls are moving. Look, we're still behind. I don't want to sugarcoat it. But, you know, we're really closing the gap on him. If you go right back to the primary and the result of the primary, that was a, if you've, I got 25%, the other Republican Chad Bianca got 10%, that's 35. If you add up all the Democrats, it's 65. So that's a big gap, 65, 35. That was the actual vote in the primary, a 30 point gap. The first poll that came out, it was a 25 point gap. Then we started our campaign in particular, pointing out the Sarah's horrific role with the missing migrant children, sending thousands of kids into the hands of child sex and labor traffickers.

17:31We've been hammering him on that. And you can see it's shifting. You know, the next poll from 25 points, it was 18 points, the next on 14. And then last week we had a poll where the gap was eight points, single digits, under 10th. Look, we're still behind. So we got a long way to go. But it shows you that this race is not quite the massive Democrat walk over that people expect. Well, the state is in horrific shape. You 12 different ways. We've talked about it many times and anyone paying attention knows this. I read something today that somebody who's been to some political focus group says there are people voters who give the government, the California government and F. But they're still not switching sides when it comes to their vote. What the hell? I mean, people who even consider looking at you, even though they agree, yeah, this is a big failure from top to bottom in important ways. Well, I think that that's just the way it is in politics.

18:32These days, people can be very tribal. We hear a lot that there's a big Trump factor, big Republican factor. And my point is always, look, whatever your views on on the president, obviously, I support him and he's endorse me. I'm proud of that. But you know, whatever you can be anti-Trump and still vote for me because so many of the things that are making life impossible for Californians is homegrown. It's self-destructive. It's things that we do here in California that I will to be able to change as governor, especially things like gas prices, electric bills, the taxes we pay, the insane regulations that make it impossible to do anything in California, we're on a business, build a house. Whatever all of that is self-imposed pain and cruelty and cost and hassle. And so I think it's very important we get that argument across, but of course, it's a really big state. You've got many different places where people consume their media these days. It's very expensive to reach people.

19:34A lot of people still, frankly, haven't heard of me or what I'm offering. And so that's what a campaign is for. That's why we've got to get attention. You know, the other point I'd make is that we're up against this very well-funded, corruptly funded machine in California. The government unions give them all the money that they need. They'll have whatever resources he needs. That's not true of us. We've got to start from scratch. It's a start-up situation. So the odds are against us. No question. But I'm very happy to see the progress we're making, but we've got to keep fighting even harder. Yeah. The political, which is, you know, a pretty left-wing political site, headlined a piece on Bacera called him the incredible missing man. Quote. Yeah. Somebody from an activist group. And he is. It almost seems like you're running by yourself. And I wonder is that frustrating for you or is it liberating it away? I mean, you really not ever having to deal with him, criticizing you or charging you with anything.

20:35You just get to say what you want to say. You never have to react to him. Yeah. I mean, look, the thing about it is that I... There's only one... Often you can start worrying about this or that aspect of life or what you're doing. And I just... I'm very practical. This is all I can do. It's fight incredibly hard. And that's what I've been doing. I've been traveling the state. I've now been to every county. No candidate has done that. I mean, as far as I can tell, ever. And raising money, getting the message out today. And getting attention, you know, with common sense practical things that people will appreciate. Just today, in NLA, I made my announcement that we will have vehicle registration capped at the flat rate, the current basic registration fee of $73. $73. Think about how much you paid to register your vehicle. Oh, 100. 500 and hundreds.

21:36Many people over a thousand. We're going to cap it at $73 per vehicle per year. By the way, which is what it's like in most states. It's under $100. And secondly, as part of that process, we are going to abolish the DMV. There's no reason to have a self-standing DMV. If there's one organization that symbolizes the bloated, nanny state bureaucracy that treats citizens and voters and taxpayers with complete contempt is the DMV. Making you show up in the middle of the day, wait for hours. Just the rudeness, the how slow it is. I mean, it's now been globally mocked. It was in Zootopia. Most states don't have a DMV. Most states do not have a self-standing department for that. So we took a look at it. It cost nearly, it's got one and a half billion dollars a year. There's no need for that. Much of it could be done online. What can't be done online can be done at existing county offices and that's what's going to happen. We save a ton of money and save people a lot of a hassle.

22:39Yeah, the DMV I used to end discussions whenever I'm talking to somebody and they want the state government to take over health care or anything else. I go, oh, you mean like the way they run the DMV? Everybody shuts up and walks away. That's quite funny. I think abolish the DMV is a good example. abolish the DMV and $73 vehicle registration. That is a winning message. I don't care whether you're a Democrat, Republican, independent. Everyone wants that. Now we just got to make sure I've on nose that that's what they'll get if I'm the governor. You had an interesting quote today. Newsom got shut down. He was trying to get a pill pass through the legislature about preventing insurance companies from suing the power companies for the wildfires. And but what you said is, well, the real problem is all the mandates

23:41that these power companies have to adhere to all the climate change nonsense. That and that's what's costing them a lot of money. And exactly right. Yes, sorry. No, but nobody talks about that. I mean, that's one of the root causes of the dysfunction is how much how many billions of dollars have to be rooted towards climate change investments when it should be used for repairs and maintenance so that the equipment doesn't start these wildfires. Exactly. It's a really important point. And so they've been told by Newsom and the regulators and the legislation, the kind of machine that runs California, but the basically the only priority is climate change. And you've got to focus on that. And that both in terms of the type of places they're generating electricity. That's why they're upset with wind mills and solar, even though we have natural gas, fire power stations that could do the job of all the wind mills and solar. We currently have far more affordably and reliably.

24:41So it's both in terms of that, but also the equipment. Why aren't they spending the kind of money that needs to be and giving the attention that we need to things like underground lines where we need to or remove increase and branches from close to power lines. These simple basic fixes that that that can be done. If they say, they weren't completely obsessed with climate change. And if just rather that's installing EV charges all over the place or how they generate power. Everything is about climate change. And in the process, tons of money is being diverted from common sense things that would prevent wildfires and bring our bills down. Steve, I hope we can make this a regular thing now over the next two months, even if we record some of the segments and you know to fit in with your schedule. Because I really think the audience needs to hear from you frequently between now and November. Thank you, John. I would really appreciate that. And it's a very important point that I just want to leave you with, which is that it's all it's up to us.

25:43Right. There's so many people. Of course, we need to persuade some Democrats to be independent. But there's enough reput- it just Republicans, the same number who voted in 2024 for President Trump in California show up to vote in this election. Then we'll win. It's the power lot of people say, you know what? I don't vote in a midterm election. I sit it out. I only vote presidential. That's how we lose. But actually, if people show up and vote, then we really can win this election. All right, Steve. Thank you for coming on. Good to be with you, John. See you soon. All right, Steve Hill. You're listening to John Cobalt on demand from KFI AM640. Okay, five AM640 live everywhere on the I heart radio app. Nick Gerda from LAS.com. They're connected with public radio. He has done a number of

26:45homeless stories. He's had exclusive reporting done on the scandals to the point where Congressman Tim Birchett used some of his work in the letter they sent to Karen Bass demanding that she appear and testify before the committee. And she said no over the weekend because she's afraid to testify to anybody. She will not testify to Congress, not testify before judge, not testify here on our show. She's not talking to anybody. Well, Nick Gerda found a lot of the dirt on what's going on with all the wasted homeless money and he'll be on with us in just a couple of minutes. And I only have a minute or two here. You have your choice, Debra. Quickie story here. You want the influencer who died after getting the penis enlargement injection? Or do you want the woman who found a hairless newborn rat squirming in her Chinese take out meal?

27:46The penis story. penis story. Okay. I knew you would a British Nigerian influencer died after a botched penis enlargement procedure. His name is ego. You'd be rebo. His nickname was tiny. I'm not taking that up. Was it because of the small penis? I'm assuming so. He did have a wife, Daniella Allen. And he he's wealthy influencer. And he went to Thailand for this penis enlargement and something went wrong. He started complaining of chest pain, started losing consciousness. He had to take him to the hospital and he became incoherent and died of a blood clot in his lung. All to have a bigger penis. All yes. They found that the hydro lonic, the higher luronic acid and light okay used in the injection caused the blood clot.

28:50That's very sad story. Yeah, but all for a larger penis. I guess that's why he was doing this tiny. They mocked him. Maybe when he was a kid. But how do people know? I mean, you don't show your penis off very many people. Yeah, well normally not, but boy, that's what that's a danger of locker rooms. You know, when you're a guy, you know, I he was rich. He owned a million dollar home here in Crenshaw, $600,000 apartment in London. He had 185,000 Instagram followers. Fortunately, none of them followed his advice by getting a penis enlargement injection. He was buried in a gold coffin. His coffin was worth $745,000. Boy, is that a waste of money? I was going to say that is such a waste money. And a little, little tiny, but it was bigger. Was it a bigger though? He had the enlargement. I guess briefly. Yes.

29:50But when you die, I guess. Yeah. I don't know all that much. I don't either. You know more than I do about that. Deborah Mark has the news coming up and then we're going to talk to Nick Gurley from LAS.com about he's uncovered all kinds of wasteful stories about the homeless and and loss and Karen bass. And Deborah is live in the KFI 24 hour newsroom. You've been listening to the John Cobalt show podcast. You can always hear the show live on KFI AM640 from 3 to 6 p.m. every Monday through Friday. And of course, any time on demand on the I heart radio. KFI AM640. More stimulating talk.