Katie Porter And Xavier Becerra Sit down with Elex Michaelson

And we continue at two five in the afternoon on the John Phillips Show, Mister Randy Wangs in Culver City.

John Time is running out to get your message out for the June primary. So you're seeing a blitz from all different candidates trying to get their message out go on different places, including places they said they weren't going to go. Katie Porter did a whole lot of interviews over the weekend Chicken Dinner, and while we are going to play you her interview with Alex Michaelson, Johnny, can I just play you the first five seconds of her interview with Ashley Zavalla.

Oh my, Katie Porter, thank you so much for making time for us. I'm excited to be in conversation.

Oh my, what voice was that? Perky housewife, Katie.

Katie Porter, thank you so much for making time for us. I'm excited to be in conversation.

Also, maybe I'm just kind of old fashioned. Who says I'm excited to be in conversation. I think she was just happy that no one was in her f and shot.

You're out of my shot, Katie Porter, thank you so much for making time for us. I'm excited to be in conversation.

I'm telling you she has handlers who have told her you cannot look like you're going to hit the person who's interviewing you.

But that was her whole appeal to begin with.

I know, but it blew up in her face like a hill billy's rifle. So then they had to do a course correction. So now they're trying to sell her as being nice. But you can't do it because even Stevie Wonder can see the rage that's bubbling up beneath the surface with her.

Well, and she's already tried this before. That was the Senate campaign where she didn't win. Yeah, no one's buying it.

Katie Porter, thank you so much for making time for us. I'm excited to be in conversation.

Now. There is a thirty minute interview of Zavala sitting down with Porter. I listened to the entire thing while walking up and down the Katie Trail in Dallas yesterday. The Alex interviews a little juicier, but it's only eight minutes, so I think we'll start with the Alex one. Let's do it. Here is Katie Porter giving her final pitch to Alex Michaelson of CNN's The story.

Is The story is the race for California governor. The San Francisco Chronicle has endorsed former Congresswoman Katie Porter, one of several newspapers across the state to back her campaign. In fact, every newspaper with an editorial board that's endorsed has backed her. But a new internal poll from the California Democrat.

That's interesting, they don't like Styer. I guess well, they've all had to talk to Bessara, so I can understand why they're not getting that endorsement.

But a new internal poll from the California Democratic Party shows that Republican Steve Hilton and Democrats Javey are Butsarah and Tom Steyer are the front runners to advance to the general election. Former Congresswoman Katie Porter joins us here live right now in the studio. Congresswoman, welcome back to the story. Is great to have you in person here for the first time.

It's great to be here.

So how do you see the state of the race. We've had this interesting phenomenon where ballots were mailed out a couple weeks ago, and yet people are holding on to their ballots in a way we've never seen before.

They're waiting for a May surprise. How many more surprises do we need? I mean, wasn't the Eric Swallwell surprise enough that practically jumped out?

Okay, and particularly slow among Democrats.

Why don't you wait for him to finish asking the question?

Bellot return is slow, and particularly slow among Democrats. I think that's because a lot of people are still making up their mind. I think there was a lot of concern a few months ago about whether or not two Republicans could get through. That is now not a concern, and I think some Democrats are starting to realize, oh, actually, we should just get to know the Democratic candidates and pick who we think is going to be the best leader.

And somehow they're picking Besarah.

That must kill her the fact that she's losing to the village idiot, like.

I think it's one thing to lose to Stire because he has ungodly amounts of money, But to lose to Besarah, who arguably might be the dumbest candidate on that stage, that's.

Valuably what are you talking about? That guy has the IQ of an ice cube. In August.

And they were having a chance now to do.

That why do you think Javier Bessera has sort of rocketed up after the.

Swallowell dropping out.

I can't really figure someone's trying to astir the pot. I love it.

I can't really figure that out entirely, but I will say that I think.

Well, have you met the average California voter?

No, I don't know enough to give you any good information, but good luck finding someone who does.

Well.

Here's the answer. Tom Steyer oversaturated the market with ads and people are sick of him, and Katie has the personality of an hoa.

No, I can't really figure that out entirely, but I will say that I think the way that we've conducted this campaign, focusing on what we would actually do to lower costs for families, has been a real contrast to what he's talked about. There's a lot of all get or done.

A lot of that is besserah be Sarah has no specifics to anything. What are you going to do to build? We are you going to build? And don't forget he's going to scrub it too, Oh, scrub a dub dub.

There's a lot of all get or done, a lot of all have a meeting and I think what we've really tried to say is look at your paycheck. Look how much is coming out for California's state income taxes. If you're earning less than a one hundred thousand dollars, when I'm governor, you won't have that money gone from your paycheck. Talking about saying to people, look at what college is going to cost, Imagine being able to raise a family here, knowing that you could have free college,

And yeah, but the average California voter doesn't care about any of that. They like Baker Rhea.

And by the way, if you chase out all of the wealthy people, which is what Gavid Dusom has been telling people that she would do if elected, and all of a sudden, everyone making under one hundred grand a year doesn't have to pay taxes anymore. How are you going to afford all of these things?

And it's interesting that you and Steve Hilton, the Republican and the race are both for this tax cut for people under one hundred thousand dollars.

I think it reflects the fact that both of us are really focused on not doing the same things that Democrats have been doing. I'm a Democrat, Steve's a Republican. We are very different on so many issues, including the environment and obviously on Donald Trump. But I think what we're seeing from a lot of politicians is describing the problem of unaffordability. You hear this from Tom Steyr all the time. He says, you know, I've heard that California is unaffordable.

She hates him so much, She's not alone.

Do you think she has one of those voodoo dolls of Tom Steyer in her house?

Well, we do know that when this moment happened.

Sorry for the noise, I'm cutting carrots.

That's when she did that Instagram live video where she was talking about all the money that Tom Steyer was putting into his own campaign. What do you think she's going to do after she loses?

Because I could see her, I could see her doing a political podcast where it's the filthiest thing you've ever heard before in your entire life. Like a dirty club comic from the nineteen eighties without the jokes, where it's just her raging on other candidates for office in the most vulgar terms, imaginable.

Uncensored with Katie Porter.

Oh well, we would have to hear it because it's not unaffordable for Tom.

But I think it's a billionaire.

He's a billionaire and almost two hundred million dollars on the camp.

Making this now the most expensive goodnatorial race in the nation's history. But I think what I'm focusing on.

We didn't get a dime of that money. What the hell. I don't think we got any on KSFO either. What the hell could have made budgets tire.

But I think what I'm focusing on is what do we do about that problem. I don't need as a single mama three kids. I know it's expensive here. I'm the one who pushes a shopping.

Cart there it is.

Yep, you knew we were going to hear about food. And by the way, you live in taxpayer subsidized housing.

I'm pulling in to the bakery. I don't need as a single mama, three kids. I know it's expensive here. I'm the one who pushes a shopping cart. I'm focused on and what could we change. What are the levers, what are the tools that the governor has to actually bring down costs and quickly, because we need to keep growing our population, We need to keep adding people to our state.

One of the.

Biggest costs for do you think when she's pushing that grocery cart, I'm assuming it a Ralph's or a Trader Joe's in the Irvine area. Do you think she's eating grapes while she's pushing the cart and doing the shopping so when they weigh them, she has to pay less. How about the rotisserie chicken? You think there's any meat left on the bones or do you think it's pick clean by the time she checks out.

Winter winter chicking dinner.

One of the biggest costs for families is healthcare. And you have been very clear that you believe in single payer healthcare in California. Javier Bessera has not been as clear in terms of what he's going to do. That's something we got into during the debate on CNN. But let's drill down on what single payer healthcare costs, because an estimate by UCLA said it would cost over seven hundred million dollars, which would make it billion dollars, seven hundred billion dollars.

For a second, I'm like, wait, that's a pretty good deal.

Yeah, I thought, Oh boy, if it was seven hundred million, Gavinan had done it.

Which would make it three times more expensive than the entire state budget right now.

Actually, the budget got so big, it's only double the size of the state budget.

Imagine though, if going to the doctor was like going to the DMV.

Kind of already is, how do we afford well?

So let's remember healthcare today isn't free. Employers are paying for it. Employees are paying for it, people are paying the military is paying for it, medical is paying for it.

And it's still ungodly expensive.

This is not doable, by the way, not even close to being doable. But it's something that she thinks will separate her from the others, doesn't let us.

Deliver care more effectively. Look, Medicare spends only two percent of its healthcare money on administrative costs. Private health insurance spends seventeen or eighteen percent. So the question is people hear that price tag, they're forgetting to add up all of what we spend on healthcare right now, it's a big reason that employers are struggling. They're spending more and more of their budget. Families are spending more of their budgets,

By the way, this is one thing that AI is going to fix in part because a lot of these tasks, a lot of these administrative tasks, these repetitive tasks that have to be done, pushing paper, entering information, that sort of thing that's going to be taken over by the computers and the robots.

Well, we're already seeing that they have robot AI decision makers who are denying your coverage.

At some point in the not too distant future, it's going to be robots are going to be the ones performing the surgeries.

The total cost of care and put more of our healthcare dollars toward making people healthy and curing illness rather than toward pushing paper and denying claim.

If we do that here away, Wait a minute, Wait a minute, Wait a minute, wait a minute. Are you trying to tell me that she's trying to sell herself as the paragon of health.

She did lose like eighty pounds.

Uh?

Yeah.

Do you think that happened naturally or do you think that was pharmaceutically induced?

Do you think she's injecting herself in the tummy with an eel every night? Oh, her stomach probably looks like a pincushion.

You can smell it right here.

Are you kidding me? She did say she got a peloton. Yeah, she says she has it in the kitchen too.

Curing illness rather than toward pushing paper and denying claim.

If we do that here in California, but other states.

Now, I will say, the other candidate who's pushing single payer is Tom Steinle. And for all his billions and billions of dollars, have you ever seen a man, and we saw him up front in person of that debate, who looks more sickly no, he looked like he was ready to roll a seven right there in front of us. And by the way, let's just say that they move forward with us and bankrupt everything to provide single payer healthcare.

If we do that here in California but other states don't do that. What's to stop people from coming to California taking advantage of our healthcare not necessarily paying into the system, and then you know, us all having to pay for that.

And by the way, some of that's already happening. Part of the way that we've got into this mess with homelessness is that Covered California automatically qualifies you for thirty days of rehab the second you step on California soil, no matter where you're from. So all these crooked rehab centers that operate in Malibu and Orange County, they're advertising in Ohio to come out in pet horses and will

But this is another one of these things where if you're taking the position that it's the high cost of housing that is causing people to live on the streets. You're not being honest about us taking all the losers from Ohio and Vermont and Massachusetts and everywhere else, which is exactly what's happening.

Well, look, everyone will in a single payer system. You would have employers making a contribution to it, and you would likely have employees making some contribution. The money isn't going to fall from the sky elex. It would be funded in the same way with Medicare. People pay for Medicare. Medicare is not free our seniors. Medicare is a single payer system.

The government, well it's free if you're in the country illegally.

The government is the payer. But people chip in, they have copays, they have deductibles, they have supplements, so it would be the same kind of thing.

Then they have that whole scam they call Medicare advantage, so it.

Would be the same kind of system here. People who would come to California will be part of our society would be contributing to that single payer system in the same way that we have seniors contributing to Medicare, both while they're working, but then also when they're seniors using that care.

What do you see as sort of the most important thing as we head towards the finish line of this race for voters that are now looking at that ballot, they haven't been able to decide.

Which, according to today's numbers is ninety percent of the electorate.

Especially Democrats, because in twenty twenty two, Democrats turn their ballots in at a much higher rate than Republicans, and now the opposite is true.

We're at about fourteen percent of Republicans right now, nine percent of Democrats and seven percent of my people the end, what's your message to them?

So? I think voters need to really focus on what kind of future do they want California to have. And I think that if they want California to just keep ongoing exactly the way it has been going, then I think that Javier Bessara is that candidate.

Burn Yeah, she doesn't hate him as much as she hates Tom Steyer, but he's getting there. Haadirbasara is the status quo candidate for sure, though well he would be worse than Newsome because Newsom has presidential aspirations. So even though he is buying into a lot of the crazy policy proposals that come out of Sacramento. There are still limits that he has because he has to get elected in places like Pennsylvania and Michigan and Nevada and Arizona.

He's been pretty clear.

I think he's the most like Gavin Newsom No.

I think he's the most like Sacramento. The most he's been a politician for thirty seven years. He's been doing this since he was elected. I think the first time when I was in high school or.

College, Accurate started out in the Assembly and.

I'm as my kids were my me and unk and so I think the question is, like, do we want to actually tackle some of the biggest challenges we're facing. Housing costs is not going to come down and we're not going to grow our economy if we don't elect

That's why Gavin says she going to chase all the businesses out and he's right. Katie Partter only got about a week left to you. Are you gonna miss her? Well, of course, what I'm gonna miss is the light of the smile on your face. And I tell you we have new Katie Porter sound Hello. Eight hundred two two two five two two two is cellphone number one eight hundred two to two five two two two. If you'd like to email the show, you can do so at Johnny don't Like show at gmail dot com. That's Johnny

And on Monday Show, we're going to open up the phone lines at two o'clock for candidates who are running for office and they want to pitch themselves in front of the voters one last time.

If you are running for a low office that doesn't get a lot of coverage, we will have the phones open the entire two o'clock hour on Monday Show where you could call in make a quick pitch for why people should vote for you. The ballot has a lot of races and we certainly don't have time to cover them all because a lot of races don't have any candidates named Katie Porter in them.

And on election night, we'll be coming back for two more additional hours. We're going to be here live in statewide from seven to nine pm on KABC in Los Angeles, KSFO in the Bay, and KMJ in Fresno. John and I are going to be here from seven to nine pm. Will be joined by our buddy Frank Motech on KABC

This guy, yep, that not that guy. This guy scrub it well.

If he was naked in the San Fernando Valley, that would be quite a scandal.

Let's hear what Bessarah had to say to Alex Michaelson.

Javier Besera joins me live right here in Los Angeles, mister secretary, welcome back to the story has good to see you.

Good to see you.

So poles seem to indicate you and Steve Hilton in one or two depending on the poll also shows Tom Steyer potentially within striking distance. He spent more than two hundred million dollars on this campaign.

How do you see by the way, this is what's great. So this interview I think came out Thursday or Friday, and the Katie Porter interview came out the day before. And in the Katie Porter interview, Alex said that Tom Steyer is all almost spent two hundred million dollars. This is the next day. Tom Steyer has spent over two hundred million dollars, not surprising.

More than two hundred million dollars on this campaign. How do you see the state of this race? And do you see it as most likely to be a Republican and Democrat in the top two or two Democrats?

Californias are paying attention.

No, what evidence is there of that it's a ten percent turnout right now six days before the election's over ten percent?

Californias are paying attention.

And if you if you believe that and believe the polls, then I've got the momentum.

I'm the one that's climbed.

Most of the other candidates have remained pretty stagnant, even Steve Hilton, And so what we're seeing is that now I've caught up to Steve Hilton, and if this sticks over the next two weeks, it's Steve Hilton versus me into the November runoff, which.

Would be a Republican versus a Democrat. And I'm sure Steve Hilton would talk a lot about democratic rule, as he talks about over and over again, the Democrats have basically run this entire state for the last sixteen years. Katie Porter was on with us last night talking about who would be the candidate of change.

Here's what she said about you.

I think he's the most like Sacramento, the most. He's been a politician for thirty seven years. He's been doing this since he was elected, I think the first time when I was in high school or college.

So California right now has the look in little elk stir in the pot.

I love it.

So California right now has the highest poverty rate in the country, highest gas prices in the country, the most homeless people in the country, and among.

The we're number one at least in some categories. Well in that one we're number two.

Most affordability issues and it comes to homes in the country. Do you think that the Democrats in this state who have been in charge of it and the super majority are doing a good job.

We could do better, no doubt, But we are the fourth largest economy in the world. We are the place where the new economy engines, the industries are coming, tech and so forth. We still are the place where people want to come visit, whether it's Disneyland or the beaches.

And what we have to do is.

Just this answer is embarrassing.

He went through all the problems facing the state and he goes, yeah, we could do better, but we have Disneyland, so people are coming here.

He has no specifics for anything. And this has been true since the day he launched his campaign, where all he said over and over and over again to then Fox eleven's Alex Michaelson was scrub it.

You know, the more I hear from him, and the dumber he is, I'm now starting to believe that it's possible that all of those people who work for him were just robbing him blind, and he was too dumb to realize that he was being rob blind.

And what we have to do is just make it more affordable.

But people want to come to California, people would like to stay in California. We have to make it so they can afford it. And that's a big task, but we'll work on it.

We're gonna do it. See he's Katie Potter is right, he's the getter done candidate. I'll just do it. How are you gonna do it? I just will. He has no answers for anything, nothing. This is the front runner and.

That's a big task, but we'll work on it.

She's making the argument that essentially things stay status quo with you, that you're the Sacramento guy. What changes from a policy perspective, what's different with you than what we've seen.

Over the last four years with Governor Newsom? And we'll get things done?

Oh, come on, it's very possible he's the next governor. Well, Democratic voters, is this really acceptable to you? I mean, it's not like there aren't some very common sense choices out there. Even if you don't want to vote for a Steve Hilton, Matt Mayhean is a very common sense guy, and he's down at four percent.

Now you have him, you have Vira Gosa, who are answering these questions. Honestly, you have at least two choices Democrats where they're willing to be honest about reality. This guy doesn't know what reality is.

We'll get things done. I think you're suggesting he hasn't. No, he's done quite a few things.

But we'll get more things done, and we'll get them done a lot faster because the crisis is upon us and it takes someone who's actually.

Had to deal with crises to know how to get us out of them.

And that's one area where whether it was the COVID pandemic, whether it's trying to finally decrease prices.

I love how he tries to shine a light on COVID like he was a big success.

Did you see that Joe Biden was asked if he would endorse Javier Bessera and he refused.

Well, in Joe Biden's defense, he still doesn't know who Javier Bessera is.

For Secretary of Health and Educations, are I nominated Javier Bakaria.

What's also interesting is that Jerry Brown, who appointed him to be attorney general in California, also refused to endorse him.

They all know how bad this guy is.

Whether it's trying to finally decrease prices for prescription drugs, which I did for the first time by negotiating against some of the largest pharmaceutical companies, or whether it was taking on the biggest menace that we face in California, Donald Trump.

There we go, of course, Okay, now, now I understand why he's surging in the polls.

I did it as attorney general. It helps to have someone who has experienced. Katie Porter can say a lot of things, but one thing, I won't need our training wills when I walk into the governor's office.

Flight in terms of a Pacific policy for the state going.

For Yes, the question was what do you do differently good for Elex for bringing him back to.

It Flight in terms of a Pacific policy for the state going forward. You didn't mention any is there a specific policy that you would change.

It's got to be frustrating when you know Elex does play it very middle of the road, and he's talked to every single candidate. You ask Hilton a question like this, you get very specific answers. You asked may Hin a question like this or via gos, you get very specific answers. You asked this guy, and he has no real answer for anything.

No, because he doesn't have a clue light In terms of a Pacific policy for the state going forward, you didn't mention any is there. I think he's also too dumb to realize that he just got burned.

Is there a specific policy that you would change that we've seen over the last four years or something that needs to be done better?

Better?

I mean, we are we are one of fifty states, but we are the fourth largest economy in the world.

So you've already said that we're back to that. He's got nothing. He is an empty suit.

The fourth largest economy in the world.

He has failed up for a very long time, and nobody really understands it. He was anonymously in the Congress for a very long time, gets plucked to be Attorney General even though he did not have an active law degree, even though he did not actively practice law in California, and then gets plucked into the Biden administration. Nobody can understand why.

Imagine what would happen if he's the governor and we had a massive earthquake, or we have fires like the one in Paradise and we need someone to be in charge to get us through it.

This is the guy.

We're going to have the fourth largest economy in the world. Something's going on that's not bad. The difficulty is we have too many families who aren't seeing the prosperity reach them, and we have to do a better job of making sure that we keep that engine going, but make sure the engine is humming for everyone.

And so how do we do that?

I mean, third follow up?

How many times could you ask the guy the same question if you know they don't have the answer.

Well, but Sarah's lucky that this is cable TV and they only have eight minutes before a commercial break. What do you think it's life's doing a podcast with him? Oh my?

And so how do we do that?

I mean, in terms of the affordability issue, which you say is issue number one, which voters say is issues number one. The rent is too damn high for a lot of people, and prices are too damn high for a lot of people.

What changes with you?

What do you do differently than what we've seen now, which is why we have all of those challenges.

We build more.

For Heaven's sake, we build more.

We build more housing so we can reduce that demand that causes prices to go up because there aren't enough good places to live, and that means everyone's seeking that one place and they drive up the price. Build more so there's not such a great demand. We also make sure that we don't go anywhere near where Donald.

Trump would like us to go.

When it comes to healthcare, we don't start kicking people off of their healthcare simply because Donald Trump got it a trillion dollars out of the healthcare system.

There is zero policy and zero ideas coming from this lifelong politician.

Eight hundred two two five two two two is telephone number. If you'd like to email the show, you can do so at Johnny Don't like show at gmail dot com. Right now, we're going through the sound of candidate for Governor Javier Besara sit down interview with ends Alex Michaelson.

Well, and some of that is a question of what to do in terms of healthcare for the undocumented. That's been something that Steve Hilton has pointed out. He says he wants to take the undocumented off of healthcare roles, Why do you want to keep them on there?

And how much is that going to cost the state? Clearly a place where we differ. He looks at them as people who don't have documents. I look at them as hard workers.

So now it's offensive to refer to them as undocumented.

I look at them as people like my parents. I am the son of immigrants. To me, I want you to build, help me build California. If you're work at hard, I want you to have healthcare. I guess Steve Hilton doesn't care if they work really hard. He looks at their status, and that's the wait.

Don't we give free health care to people that aren't working at all, including the homeless. We give them needles, we give them tinfoil, we give them crack pipes, we give them all kinds goodies. I guess our system is actually incentivizing people to work the least amount is possible, because the free healthcare that you get when you're destitute is that valuable? Why a third of the states on medical.

I guess Steve Hilton doesn't care if they work really hard. He looks at their status and that's about it.

Well, He says that they broke the law.

He says that he immigrated here legally, and that spending money to give somebody healthcare is incentivizing bad behavior.

He doesn't seem to mind that the price of food is a little lower because these are the folks who are picking the crops.

He doesn't seem to mind.

That the places that you can buy to live in are places that these folks built.

He doesn't see.

So what you're saying is all of the labor in this state when it comes to the construction market, is built on illegal labor deals. I don't think he's thought this through.

No, he doesn't seem to mind that they're.

I mean, you could make an argument that the building trades unions have made buildings so expensive that the only way I contractor can get a project done is by hiring people under the table.

Doesn't he support the policies that require unionization for construction crews for certain projects that drives the cost up so that people do have to hire illegals.

He doesn't seem to mind that they're the folks that are taking care of probably one of his relatives, probably taking.

Care of his his yards.

He seems to mind that they don't have documents, but he doesn't seem to mind that they do so much to the work in California.

What's the price tag for healthcare?

That was the question. Let's get right back to it, mister Alex Michaelson with the follow ups, Everybody.

What's the point this guy working for Joe Biden is a guy who cannot answer a question. The story that we got from the Biden people is that Biden would pepper him with questions when he was Secretary of Health and Human Services, and he pulled the same thing with Biden, where he had answers to literally nothing, talked in circles to the point to where it was obvious to everyone in the room that this guy had no clue what