Transcript of Steve Hilton & Spencer Pratt: Fixing California, Cheaper Gas, Ballot Fraud & CA Republicans

A candidate for the 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 grand 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? It's not. California means to America what America means to the world.

Please welcome Steve Hilton.

Wake up, wake up, buddy.

Let's go. Hi.

All right.

Wake up, California. We have 7 weeks to save our state.

Are you ready?

Are we going to do it? We 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 applause if you're from Cal. I think that's about half California.

But help explain why California is so important.

California is not just the biggest state, the richest state, and 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, moved here in 2012, neighbors with Chamath. 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, like, century plus that this state has been growing and leading in so many ways, the absolute essence of what we love about America: innovation and energy and ambition and hustle and that kind of rebel spirit that, that create— 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 tech that you're all so familiar with, but also our great ag industry. We have the leading agriculture industry in the world. We've been so many different fields. We have led the world. That's why it's so important 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 and the weather and the energy that you see in our startup communities, the best innovation ecosystem anywhere in the world, 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, the highest cost of living by far. Look at how we have housing costs the highest in the country. That's why people are leaving. They are leaving. Millions of people leaving California, this beautiful place.

You got 2 right here.

And exactly, you've got now 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 that we've been subjected to have just created the worst outcomes, not just bad in comparison to other states, the worst out of every state.

So look, we know how you measure the outcome, but go back a few layers and think about just the root causes. Democrats have run this state for a long time. Democrats used to be sort of like peace and love and permissiveness and openness. So just corral that for us, because I think this is a place now that has become rules on top of rules on top of rules. How did a group of people who basically were just like, 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 a kind of insular, self-regarding elite that just forgets about their responsibility to everyone else and just gets obsessed with their own ideology, their internal motivations, whoever their interest groups are that they represent. And 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, 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, 90% chance you're going to end up in litigation. So it's just a complete mess when you get one-party rule. It's now 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. The state Supreme Court with a 6-1 Democrat-appointed majority. So 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.

Exactly. Productivity going up there. We're going to be doing this year's in Sacramento on Thursday. We printed it all out. I mean, I'm not that tall, but it was twice my height. Okay, 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, and 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 actually, is that we're going to cut the number of regulations in California from where we are today, which is over 420,000, by the end of my first term to under 200,000, which makes us competitive with the rest of the country.

Now, what— but if there's a narrow interest group that 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, which makes it difficult for rational outsiders to have a shot at a true kind of democratic campaign, that they own the ballot harvesting machines, that they own the campaigning machines, that they get everyone in the state behind them, all the unions, all the votes, everything is aligned under one controlled mechanism, and therefore it has at this point gotten so far down the road that it is impenetrable, and we cannot actually break in.

Well, it's definitely the case that we have this very powerful and corruptly funded machine that's running every— 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 in the governor's race, If you add up myself and the other Republican, that's 35%. I got 25%, the other Republican 10%. You add up all the Democrats, 65%. That's a 30-point gap. The first poll came out, it was a 25-point gap. I know a lot of people were discouraged by that, but we were just beginning our campaign. And 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, the latest poll, an 8-point gap. We are showing. That people want change in this state. And I just don't accept that we have to put up with this. And your only choice is to put up with all this nonsense and bloat and tax and cost and all the hassles of living here or trying to work here.

Your only choice is to put up with it or leave. That's, 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 that simple. Steve, why do you think that people feel that it would be almost a betrayal though, even if they want change, to not you know, 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 a Democrat. So they either don't vote, or they just go in and they find the D and check the box. And so all of the insanity sort of compounds. And if that continues to happen, Don't we need to hit rock bottom? Like, isn't there going to be some financial event or otherwise that needs to happen to reset?

I got to tell you, I think it's pretty rock bottom now in terms of what it's actually like to live here. I mean, I traveled this state. I've been to every one of our 58 counties. No candidate's done that in a very long time. I see we've done hundreds of events, town halls up and down the state. Every single day I see this. There's just the pain and the struggle. in people's eyes to live here. I mean, look, we— house— you try and own a home here. We used to have the highest rate of home ownership 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, $65,000. I mean, it's just completely broken. And 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, and whether they come up to me in the airport or the street, wherever we are at my events, it's not good luck, hope you do well. There's an intensity this year. The number one, it's 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, that'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, I give— Friday, 9/11, I was at the 9/11 memorial event in Sacramento, not there participating. I was just there to show my respects. I took my seat in the back. People came up to me, take pictures and so on, as they often do. Just there, just randomly in a pretty small event, I had a number of people, must have been 4 or 5 people, just randomly all almost said the same word-for-word thing. I'm a lifelong Democrat, but I'm voting for you this year. It's just, I think we have reached that point. And I've— that's why I'm saying we got to wake up. 'Cause 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 just serious about this.

If we think that it's bad now, I think that the exodus of business 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, it's going to turn into a stampede for the exits. It really is. I think this is a now-or-never election for California.

Let's Let's talk about the metrics and the path to victory here. Polly Market has you at 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, 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. You have one debate, September 30th versus Becerra. What do you have to do in that debate to change the narrative and to 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, which is we wanted to see what is the pathway to victory for real. So 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's clear that it was myself and Javier Becerra, and these are the numbers: 33% solidly with me, 41% solidly with Becerra, 26% up for grabs. Now, most of that 26% have voted Democrat before, but they are not committed Democrats. They are open to persuasion. And then you ask, well, who are those people and what are they focused on? Overwhelmingly, non-college-educated, regular working people in California who are at breaking point financially, and their overwhelming interest is practical things to help with the cost of living. And that's what our campaign's been all about, not just Well, you have a very specific— But since the beginning of the campaign, and 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 save, many other things, stop the funding of these nonprofits. that are making homelessness worse. And that all adds up to enough money for us to cut state income tax. Your first $150 grand tax-free, no state income tax. That puts thousands of dollars in the pockets of regular working people. Secondly, we can have a sensible energy policy instead of shipping oil halfway around the world 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 that means— 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 towards $3 gas in California like you have in other states right now.

By getting rid of the emissions premium?

No.

Or getting rid of the cleaning of the gasoline?

No, it's not that at all. It's the hidden taxes, the low-carbon, all these things. The low-carbon fuel standard, the cap-and-invest program, that's about $1.50 on the gas price right there. Guess where that money goes? The cap-and-invest program, that's what's funding high-speed rail. I mean, you dig into all these things in California, they are gouging you on every single possible thing they can. The announcement we made last week, it's going to help regular working people. To register your car or truck in California, hundreds of dollars, many people paying $800, $900, over $1,000. In most other states, it's under $100. It's another hidden tax. Well, we are going to cap vehicle registration at the flat registration rate of $73 per vehicle per year by abolishing the DMV, which is a symbol of the— A symbol of this absolutely ridiculous, bloated nanny state bureaucracy that is driving everyone crazy and driving up everyone's costs. You just need to say send an outsider to Sacramento that wants to shake up this system that's clearly broken.

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

Well, I mean, 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. Yeah, he's a 36-year career politician. Let's look at the verdict, not of other Republicans, but Democrats who worked with him. Susan Rice, President Biden's head of domestic policy was President Obama's national security, um, head of national security advisor. She worked with him for 4 years. Her description, Becerra is a, quote, idiot.

Okay, so the reason not to vote for him is he's an idiot.

By the way, she also said, and I don't know quite what she meant by this, he's a bitch-ass. So make of that what you will.

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

Exactly.

Maybe it's just—

He's a bitch-ass idiot.

A bitch-ass idiot.

Give him the keys. Another one, right, from the Biden cabinet said, but the thing about Xavier you need to know is running a large executive agency is not exactly his skill set. I mean, this is just— if you don't think it can get worse after Gavin Newsom, I have 2 words for you: Xavier Becerra. He is exactly what the machine, to your point, wants. A puppet who will do the bidding of the unions and the trial lawyers and all these activists that have ruined the business climate in California, made everything more expensive. He'll just go along with it. He's even worse than Newsom.

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

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

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 shot. If you put this energy into the debate, maybe you take this guy out.

How gone is California, sir?

California, I mean, look, what we need is for this election to be about the state, not about national politics.

Exactly.

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. Steve is right, the state's really broken. We have all these budget deficits for no reason. We're gifted with so many unbelievable assets. We have Silicon Valley. By the way, one observation Peter Thiel made years ago was that Silicon Valley was like a resource for the state of California because it generates so much wealth and taxes that they don't need a good government here. That's how 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, the host said, look, we got some problems here, homelessness, highest poverty rate, highest unemployment rate, terrible cost of living. What do you think really would you have done differently? What needs to change from a policy point of view? He literally said, well, you know, we're the 4th biggest economy in the world, and many people still love coming to Disneyland and our beaches, so things must be going right. And 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 that number is the GDP number. It 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.

By the way, if Prop 40 passes, I think that'll no longer be true.

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.

Steve, you've obviously, I think, been running a great campaign. Someone else ran a great campaign. here in LA, and we were hoping you'd be okay to have 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.

Play the video.

All right, let's have a look.

He's trying to make the campaign a reality show. No, no, my, 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 Bassett and I are definitely not working together. I blame this person for burning my house and my parents' house and my town and all my neighbors down. I'm only running for mayor to do one last Hail Mary.

Please welcome Spencer Pratt. Wow, you're popular. Popular with this crowd.

All right, welcome.

Steve, Spencer. Spencer, Steve.

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. You know, machine is when you're a candidate, you have to call it a machine. These are criminals. That's simple. They launder all of our tax money to increase people dying on our streets. And 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. So no, those are criminals, actually. Spencer, the criminal machine.

Spencer, you did something worthy of a round of applause. Spencer, you did something extraordinary. In terms of an independent candidate getting massive earned media with these videos, AI-generated, but they were incredibly deft at communicating messages.

Who made them?

Did you direct them? Was this like a covert group chat with a not— and then how can we get Steve to do these?

I am.

We've got the same team.

Okay.

Tell us what's going on.

Yeah.

And the impact it had, because we saw them.

Initially, what kicked off was just the truth. That's all I did. I went out on as many platforms and I just started saying the truth. And what that created was a grassroots movement. And to reference a machine, it became a machine that creative people across the country could throw their genius or their ideas into it. I wouldn't say it was the AI that worked. I think it was a piece of a lot of things that were working. 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, 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, my neighbors burned down. I just wanted somebody speaking the truth, and that wasn't political to me. And so that's why most of the people that voted for me were Democrats.

I would've won 100% and beat all the super meth addicts that voted for Nithya Raman and Bass if the 200 1,000 Republicans that are registered in Los Angeles actually voted. And that's what we need people to do for Steve. People need to vote. We've got to 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 did say was the too big to rig. And not only is that work, you know, I've talked to a lot of people behind the scenes. You can beat these margins of cheating with voting.

Can you, Steve, can you, I mean, Spencer, can you actually explain what happened in your election? Because for the casual observer, it seemed like there was a period you were winning and then something happened and then a lot of votes showed up at the end. And then there was a— so for those of us that were not steeped in what happened in LA, can you just give us a summary of what happened?

Yeah, I was at Don Antonio's celebrating while my opponent, Nithya Raman from the commie DSA, was crying. Crying on camera because she was losing by 10%, and then mathematically the most impossible thing in the history of politics happened. The third place candidate started slowly each day winning, but of course they'll say, "Oh yes, but Democrats they they vote by mail-in ballots." But this Democrat was against the current mayor who's also a Democrat, and the third place candidate somehow. bypass not just me, but the first-place Democratic candidate to get just enough votes to beat me. And 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 LA in this area? 43,000. There's 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.

You know, wait, no, but hold on a second. You just did say they cheated.

Okay.

The system is designed so what we think is cheating is not cheating. Because ready for this? Mail-in ballots, the witness can sign with a smiley face, 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 2 are only here because Steve's got to go to another thing, but I want to see if Spencer and Steve, maybe, have you guys met or talked much about his campaign, and is there anything you can share about the experience here that you just went through? Can I?

I just want to say one thing to underline what Spencer said at the beginning, which is the deep thing that's going on here about what's happening with our money, for everyone who put their hand up and said, I'm here in California. So you'll know this story. You've seen it. You've been there. You told the story. I was with— at Langer's the other week, Langer's Deli, right by MacArthur Park, and we crossed the— nearly 80 years in business. A couple of years ago, Norm Langer wanted to shut it down because the chaos all around in LA. The customers rallied around, it's still in business, and the chaos is back even though you've got a DA now in LA that's cracking down on the drugs and the crime, and you've got a US Attorney, Bill Asayly, good friend of Ours, who's doing a great job trying to go after the criminal gangs and the cartels. But what's actually happening? This was a Tuesday morning last week, about 10:30, mid-morning. He said, come and see what's happening. It's like whack-a-mole because you go out into MacArthur Park, 10:30 on a Tuesday morning, every single place you look, you've got the people you described.

You've got crack pipes, people smoking crack, injecting drugs. folded over with fentanyl in the middle of a beautiful sunny day in the center of LA. 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 are paying for these people.

What do you mean we're paying for drugs?

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

So what drugs are we talking about?

Fentanyl. They hand out fentanyl needles, a black Jeep.

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

No, they buy the needles. And interestingly enough, one of these people from the NGOs that was handing out the needles, Bill Isaias also caught him selling the drugs too. So technically, you're not buying the drugs, but the people that were paying for the needles, happened to also be selling the drugs on the side.

Can I just tell— I'm going to be—

It's called a side quest in our industry.

I just want to tell one other story that really captured—

Side hustle.

Side quest.

I just want to tell this other story that captured— this story that we've just had experience of and one other that actually captures for me in a deeper way what this election is all about. Just a couple of days before that experience in MacArthur Park, there's this Latino couple wanting me to come and see their business. In South Central LA, it's you know 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, this beautiful little store—they run a store; it's a shoe store—and they've been running it 14 years. Latino couple—we went in, we were talking. 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, etc. He said, but that's not why we wanted you to come here. Come with me. They took me outside. You walk along, we went for a walk, 2 city blocks, could have gone even further. Every single part of the sidewalk, street vendors.

You think illegal street vendors. What are they selling? Shoes and apparel and t-shirts. Just the entire sidewalk. This 14-year business, a lovely little local business, everything spotless, everything clean, exactly what we would want to see, is going out of business because you've got people there that are not paying tax, not paying electric, not paying rent, not complying with any licensing. And then 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, 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— and 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. What does it tell you when you take that into account and then what you see in MacArthur Park with the drugs and the crime?

You know what you guys should do?

Can I just tell you what this lesson is from this? That 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 your political persuasion. 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's 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. Because 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 as accurate as you said, Steve, it's insane.

The craziest part about this, so there's, they say there's 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 greenlit, 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 to have— a lot of these people are not taxpaying citizens. They have the money to give them $500,000 for food cards, but they can't get the Pacific Palisades is paying most of the taxes for the whole city. They can't get the reservoir covered.

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. I would say they're less dumb than picking this socialist communist alleged terrorist supporter, uh, 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 one town every 4 years.

Right.

How many does Nithya Raman burn down?

We'll find out.

Yeah. So, no, it's— I hate to say this, let's hope we don't.

What can I say? It's not a complete joke, right? What you just said. So we launched our general election campaign after the primary in Boyle Heights, East LA. 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.

Wow.

And you had— it was a warehouse. You had £85 million of rotting meat that was left there for 5 weeks. This is a working-class Latino neighborhood in LA. It's just— we launched our campaign that the press wasn't very happy because you have flies everywhere, the whole place stinks. You have rats, medieval diseases. This is in the second city of America. I mean, it's just 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 is common sense. And the message is, you know, for the people that are like, I'm voting for Basara. What does Biden call him?

I think we say Basura. We're going to take Basura from Karen Bass and apply it there.

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 one 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, and he wants kids being able to go back to parks. These aren't a Republican or Democrat, it's just a non-communist message.

So Spencer, you're gonna stay with us for a bit. Steve, I know you gotta run. Any last words? Anything you want to say before you head out?

I just want to tell everyone that actually 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.

Thanks for being here. Thank you.

What's your favorite viral Spencer Pratt video? I know mine. It's, um, we have the money, it's just being stolen. You remember that one?

I do. I mean, what I loved about running so much is it was finally a way to channel all of my anger, and it was It was so therapeutic. It was just like, this feels so good. But yeah, Steve's incredible. I pray for him. I obviously— everybody who I thought was a genius involved in my campaign, I connected these people. So he's got—

Spencer, what's going to happen in this election now?

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

You think that— 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 just got to be— we got to try. People need to vote, and I don't think the machine and the idea that we can't win should stop from trying.

Yeah.

If I had thought that way, I mean, I had my plan. I would have 100% 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 offstage, I can tell you, you know, I can't give the details.

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

What I've learned is it's not stealing, it's legal.

Right.

I got my own plan.

Talent harvesting, they call it.

Yeah. I got something up my sleeve.

Well, no, no, in seriousness, Spencer.

He is being serious.

I am dead serious.

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, Freeberg's making these claims, you're piling on.

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 finish my question.

That's not a claim I made. That was a joke about the—

Okay, fine. But in our private chat—

We're allowed to interrupt?

In our private chat, you say all the time— no, go ahead.

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.

Okay, but hold on.

Hold on. Let me— let me— I know where this is going. Everyone says, well, why didn't you Why didn't you investigate? Da, da, da, da. So obviously I got the top law firms. I'm like, yeah, we're gonna get them. And then you ready for this? The second those mail-in ballots get to where they count the votes, 'cause they say, come down here, check this out. The second they get there, you know what they do with the ballots? They separate 'em 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 'cause 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.

So the certification signature is on the envelope, to be clear. It's like right there.

So you— so I know, let's say I know this DSA terrorist commie person signed all these. I know that it'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 is basically what you're saying.

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.

Okay, so 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 one side of the aisle.

So 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 do 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.

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

Okay.

What he's really saying is he can't collect evidence.

If I had the evidence, I would tell you I would be the mayor right now.

Okay. 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 out.

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

No, I'm not saying fake. This is what this is.

Again, it's not fraud, Jason. It's that they're following the law that was created to let them do what they're doing. It's legal.

But why is voter ID illegal?

All right, so watch this. Watch this. Watch this.

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

Watch this. The crime— go ahead.

Ready for this? I'm awake now.

All right, here we go. So if I go up to you when you go to like a basketball court to vote, you know, with the nice people, and they say in California, they say, don't show us your ID. You, that's illegal. Those people, if I go up to you and I'm wearing like Mayor Pratt hat and I say, who's on your ballot? You, 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 to go into your apartment building, knock on your door, say, hey, this is your ballot. You got to vote for Nithya Raman. She's going to make everything cheap, give you free money, a cell phone. She's going to pay for your Netflix, all these things. 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 soldiers, these are true believers— do They do it in New York. They're doing it all over. They go around, thousands of them, and they go get these ballots. So they're not fake ballots.

It's ballot harvesting. And they can— people pay these people. I did legal ballot harvesting.

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

Now the claim is—

8 years ago.

So I understand. I just want to make sure I understand the claim. The claim now is that DSA soldiers went gave money to people and convinced them to place their vote and then brought their—

No, I didn't document it.

They're not giving anyone money. You let him answer, Friedberg.

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, so my campaign— I'd like you to vote.

Legal door knockers.

Yes.

Half a million dollars. They knock and they say, Spencer's so great. And they say, no, I don't want to vote. And the door shuts and they walk away. These people continue. You go on the DSA website, they'll tell you a whole— there'll be a whole breakdown on ballot harvesting, and they'll say, go back 3 times. It becomes harassment. Finally, somebody's gonna be like, here, yeah, take this, get out of my—

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

No, what I'm saying, it's illegal to harass people into who they vote. That's illegal. What the DSA does.

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

Do you know where they're going? These people don't. You can't file.

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's many reasons to not win and lose in games. also politics.

Do you think, do you think that the other side, that Republicans are going to start to employ the ballot harvesting tactic?

It won't work. I did it. Unless you are nefarious, it doesn't work. If you are just like a genuine, like, hello, knock knock, like, you like to vote? Like, that doesn't work. These people— so tell me this, talk about claims. Why won't California clear their voter rolls?

What does that mean? Just to define.

Yeah. Right now, the voter rolls, if you moved out of California, if you are dead, these are all ballots.

There's an empty parking lot downtown LA that gets hundreds of ballots mailed to it. An empty parking lot. So people have registered to this address. Hundreds of ballots show up there.

So back to your thing of these are fake ballots. They're not fake ballots. There could be potentially 1 million ballots out and about that now a DSA person could harvest, get these ballots, fill in a circle, and then do a smiley face as the witness and mail that in. So we can call it a claim, or we could 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.

So, yeah, no, I mean, you're the person who made these claims, so I'm just asking you the questions. And for the record, I think if those— Hold on, let me finish.

I have evidence.

For the record, 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.

I'm for voter ID. You also need an ID to shop at Commie Mom Dami's new markets. If you want commie food, you need an ID.

Spencer, what are you doing next? Let's move on past LA.

This is it.

You're joining the show, 5th bestie?

I have Zoom.

You have Zoom and you have time.

premium tequila.

This could work. This could work. 5th bestie.

There's a lot of—

I mean, Brad Gerstner is very popular, but I think you have a— we might need to move him to 6th 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 then—

And your home.

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

So 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. And then have you been able to rebuild? What's the state of the Palisades right now?

So here's the best part. That empty reservoir is still empty. And the reservoir across the street from my house that I was convinced I was— my house was never going to burn, the one they didn't talk about, that one's still empty. They have a hose. I just posted a video about this. They have a hose that comes all the way from Topanga through all the regrown dead brush. This is the hose now supplying the Palisades. But back to rebuilding. What happened is we all had farmers and all these great insurance, but— and I don't blame the insurance companies because it's our Gavin Newsom and our state parks that allowed the 60 years of dead fuels, dead brush. to surround our communities knowing that there's no firebreak. All they would've had to do— I talked to the top guy that 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 Palaces? 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 into every— It's illegal if I go cut.

So if I'm— my backyard has Gavin Newsom State Park dead brush coming into it. If I cut it, those are protected milk vetch.

You're going to get a fine.

I can— the LADWP got fined $1 million for cutting some dead brush around a downed pole in these state parks. So the CARB, who's in charge of this, these people that care more about plants, they're also ruining the federal fire service right now. And they're fighting, literal, the federal government right now 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 and the city and the LADWP, which we are—

What is the lawsuit that you filed?

It's a mass tort. It's 10,000 victims for the negligence they let. So, but people don't realize, 'cause they're not in the weeds, or should we say in the milk vetch on this, On New Year's Eve, there was a fire in the Pacific Palisades, 8 acres. 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 6th, January 7th. I've now had firefighter whistleblowers tell me that there was clearly smoldering coals on the side of this hill. And now in the depositions with the state park employees, we have their photos. They took photos of the hillside just smoking. And 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. The LADWP is liable for leaving the reservoirs empty and having no water, and the city is liable.

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

That was initially why I was out making my videos and doing the content to like 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. And then I called Rick Caruso. I said, are you going to run or what? He's 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. It 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 on 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. So these simple things that I would've been able to do as mayor, that's unfortunate that it's gonna take 4 years of pure destruction for them 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? Like, what do you doing right now with your time?

So there's 3 opportunities that, you know, are in play. And yes, I'll, you know, content. What I realized when I got out of this is the media, and this sounds very POTUS, but the media just lies. Like there's 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, it's not a, 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 for LA now. And I'm like, damn, I gotta fight for America. Like, I'm like Jason Bourne. This is crazy. So yeah, no, I, you know, 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.

What were the other 2 things? You said there was 3 things. Is that all 3?

No, there's 3 plays.

I see.

But I mean, I was going to be the big guy in AI as mayor because I was going to turn Skid Row into all just data centers.

I mean, you're weaving, you're speaking our language.

I actually had a call trying to get the information about data centers with a guy that knows data centers. He said, Spencer, Do you understand this is the time for like 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 electric—

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

You know, as I drove over here—

You solved 2 problems at once.

You know, I was going to solve a lot of problems.

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, and it's the only thing worse than people in politics, is 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 cannot be on reality— like the last reality show I was on when they rebooted The Hills.

You were on a reality show?

A couple, a couple, you know. You know, I am the reality candidate. 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 Saeed, he thinks he's Alex Earle. It's like, what are you—

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

Well, he's got time.

Yeah, you got to run again.

Got a lot of time.

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.

2 years to really get into these communities.

I suggest you torture them. Torture Karen Bass for the next 2 years.

You know, Karen Bass is not our worst nightmare, and I will never say anything positive. Nithya Raman and the DSA, people like— people do not get— 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 everybody'd be like, oh, you can't call them commie. Now I'm like, that sounds nice.

It's a compliment to them now.

Yeah.

They're anarchists.

Like gassing them up. Crazy.

Ladies and gentlemen, Spencer Pratt.

Wow. Thanks, bro. No problem. All right. Great stuff.