And we continue at two five in the afternoon on the John Phillips Show, Mister Randy Weggs in Culver City.
John. Governor Gavin Newsom is in DC this week taking a whole lot of different meetings. He just posted this on social media. I had a productive meeting in DC today with the EPA Administrator Lee Zelden, discussing federal lee for wildfire recovery and tackling the pollution crisis in the Tiajuana River.
Who can smell it right here?
You think Lee is his legal name or do you think it's short for Leroy? Well, Gavin and Lee, we're talking the tj River in DC. Has Gavin been down there to observe it himself?
I don't think there is any video of Gavin Newsom in a gas mask saying that you can smell it right here. He cannot allow that image to exist where he's down there in the full hazmat suit looking like he's at Trenobyl when he's in San Diego County in California. Well, he didn't do it, and he didn't have to do it in his campaigns, but every single candidate for governor, as a rite of passage, has to go to the Tijuana River.
And you can literally see it, smell it, and feel it.
But no one's had a campaign rally down there.
Can you blame them?
Eight hundred two two two five two two two is telephone number?
What?
Eight hundred two two two five two two two. Well, now that the election is heating up, two of the top Democratic candidates running for governor are going at it with each other. Tom Steyer and Javier Bessera.
Can you find a different way to describe it?
I didn't say, Katie Porter, but.
There's a little fight going on. When you say going at it with each other, that can mean a few different things. By the way, this is a profile piece.
This is not a gotcha piece?
Right?
All right? How about this? They're in a quarrel with one another.
Perfect The Beserah people are accusing the Stire people of paying a bunch of influencers to promote their campaigns without disclosing that and the Stire people are alleging that the Besera people are doing the same thing.
My guess is they're both right.
For more on this, we go to ABC ten in Sacramento.
Let's turn out with the race for governor New details tonight after a story that Tom Steyer's campaign is under investigation by the California Fair Political Practices Commission.
The accuser, if we truly have a fair Political Practice commission, how is it fair that you could spend one hundred and fifty million dollars of your own money to run for governor?
He's still not going to win.
They're accused of failing to properly disclose payments for campaign related social media content. Now the Styer campaign is making the same accusations against another Democratic candidate. ABC ten State Matters political reporter Jenny hud joins us now with where things stand.
Jenny, I mean you got to think about this. The average age of your TikTok content creator is under thirty. Do you think anybody in California under thirty has any idea who Javierbisera is, who Tom Steyer is.
Did you see the footage of Tom Steyer at one of these I guess music events where he's trying to gain popularity and he decided that he was going to dance to R and B music. Oh no, he looked like he was coming down off a heroin.
Well, it's really a war of words right now, proof that we are deep into election season. But this is also about transparency for voters. Is a campaign paying for what you are seeing online?
So he invited me to ask him some questions. What do you have to say to young people?
I love it?
So it's these social media videos at the center of debate, content by popular creator supporting or opposing candidates for governor.
It is not illegal to expend money to have people promote your message both.
But you need to disclose it.
Okay, But here's the question. How much of an appetite is there for the audience of a wrap podcast to hear Tom Steyer talk about the Tiawana River.
I don't know if there's much at all, but the consultants say it is. And that's another place where they can do a big buy. And that's another place where I'm sure they get a big, fat commish.
But none of this is going to result in votes. You're preaching a message to an audience that doesn't want to hear it. If they were interested in California politics, they'd be listening to different podcasts. They're interested in rap music or whatever it is that they talk about on the podcast. And then all of a sudden Tom Steyer shows up.
You think the book talk crowd is going to get their head out of the sand and pay attention to politics. No, no, no, no, no, no no. They're going to continue to read ten thousand romanzity books about fairy sleeping with dragons, and they're gonna love it.
Most candidates advertise online.
We've see more and more social media content relating to candidates, relating to ballot measures, and that that is.
This is this generation's rock the vote.
I'll tell you, though, the podcast world is so fragmented. Listen in my free time to podcasts about cruise ships. I'm a massive ship nerd, so I spend my free time listening to cruise ship podcasts. And I do listen to Todd Grisly too.
Of course you do.
If all of a sudden, I tune in to my favorite cruise ship podcast expecting to hear a review of the latest Royal Caribbean ship, and instead of hearing that, I hear some politician in a state I don't even live in. What am I going to do with.
That product of frankly, a society that is hooked on and tied to social media?
What is required by state law. Is payment disclosure, both by the campaign and the content creator. That's why the Styr campaign and influencer Isaiah Washington, to whom he paid ten thousand dollars are under investigation by the FPPC.
I think that's Taeizon day.
Oh? Is that so?
Steyer says his campaig how's been transparent in disclosing payments. Washington has not responded to requests for comment.
This is how this generation we are and right now, Tom Steyer puts out on social media a four page letter explaining how he works with influencers and to most of us, that was a TLDR too long, didn't read.
Well, you know what's gonna happen is these podcasters are all gonna turn on them because they don't pay attention to politics. They certainly don't pay attention to state politics. They don't know any of the rules. They expect that the campaigns are gonna understand the rules and let them know what they need to know. And if the campaign doesn't tell them to disclose that they're being paid and then they get in trouble for it, they're gonna feel like the campaign burned them.
Stier says his campaign how's been transparent in disclosing payments. Washington has not responded to requests for comment, but those who filed the complaint also content creators argue Styr needs to ensure the influencers disclose it too.
Engaging in these partnerships is not problematic that they need.
To disclose for the benefit of the public to understand where the payment is coming from.
Caitlin Hennessey and Beatrice Gomberg also accused numerous other creators of not disclosing payments despite posting near identical pro st Diyar content.
They all, Oh, yeah, have you seen it goes around social media of all these random people who are tweeting out like the same paragraph about why they like Tom Steyer. I'll tell you that campaign, if you look under the hood, I'm sure they would get in trouble all over the place. Remember when we played sound of him on a morning radio program in Los Angeles? Oh you mean when he went on Real ninety two to three on the Jay Cruz Show. How do I remember these things?
And that's an FM morning show.
Correct, We're a big ass crisis. He talked about his kicks, were they typically play music, yes, and they chat a little bit in between the songs so they can promote whatever big events coming up.
I'm not making any allegations here, but what do you think the odds are the producer of that show would reach out to Tom Steyer to book him as a guest out of the blue. Oh.
I don't think it's that nefarious. I think he was going to do a big buye with iHeartRadio and as a little prebe They're like, why don't you go on the Jay Cruz Show. Yeah, I think it's I'm not alleging that anything illegal happened, but I think that's how Tom Steyer does business. I think he throws his wallet around, and when he throws his wallet around, he gets exposure. We're in a big ass crisis. Oh we heard about that one. How many votes do you think that interview got him?
Zero?
They also flagged this job posting, which the Styer campaign confirmed the validity of offering creators one thousand dollars a month plus bonuses depending on views to post prost diar content one to three times a day.
This is a situation that we're at right now. Look, the broadcast business of radio and television when it comes to elections, is highly regulated. The internet world in social media is not. So it is very possible that whoever you're following that talks about politics what have you, are being paid directly by the candidate they're promoting.
Let's address that issue here for a second. Because we get emails on this on a regular basis. The rates that the radio station can charge a political candidate for office are regulated by the government. Correct, yes, and I also believe that the radio station has limited control in terms of who they choose to sell to and who they can prevent from buying ad time. Correct.
If it's a political ad and we're in the political window, we can reject an ad.
Right. So people get mad at us at times if someone's buying time on the radio station that they don't like, and they go, why are you selling them time?
Well, we got to make budget somehow. But the answer is we don't really have a choice. It just is what it is, because, as you said, correctly, we're in a highly regulated industry. For the podcast world, it's anything goes. However, if you're part of the audience of a particular podcast where you understand it's totally out of character to book someone like Tom Steyer, or to promote Tom Steyer. I would imagine that everyone in that audience knows what's going on.
That it's paid a play.
Offering creators one thousand dollars a month plus bonuses depending on views, to post pro Styer content one to three times a day.
If you see anybody tweeting positively about Tom Steyer that is not from the tom HQ Twitter account, what have you? You know what's going on there? They are getting paid to do it. They don't believe it, and I wouldn't be surprised if almost every campaign is doing the same damn thing.
He just has more money to throw around than the rest of them.
A Sorry spokesperson says creators are notified of their legal obligation to disclose payments. This part of my interview with Steyer Monday.
What do you pay them for?
Absolutely not we pay them for their time, but what Jane, we are completely that means that we pay them for doing work. They choose what to do.
You have what they choose what to do? Even though they all post the exact same paragraph. Does he think this is a this is a good look he's a billionaire. He thinks if he just spends enough money, everything's gonna work out.
Okay, he's a billionaire who's out there buying his friends and buying his supporter and he's trying to appeal to the crowd that thinks it should be illegal to be a billionaire.
Yes, well, he paid them too. I mean, who's to say that the voting members of the Bernie crowd at our Revolution weren't paid by Stier to nudge that endorsement.
Dude, you have no way in on the content.
They are independent businesses, independent small businesses. We pay them for their time. They do whatever they want to do.
Tuesday, the Starr campaign filed an FPPC complaint against the Javier Bassara campaign over the same allegations. The complaint to Lodge's content creators, Jay Gonzalez and Maggie Reid were paid to post Probiserra content, but that both parties failed to disclose that the Basara.
Can you know what this is. I'll tell you what this is. In the last election, one of the things that Donald Trump did that really made a difference was he made himself a vail as a guest to go on the Joe Rogan podcast, and he went on I think THEO Vaughn and he went on with The Undertaker, and he went on with a lot of these popular podcasts, and he just made himself available and it worked and he got young people, young men in particular, to go
out and vote for him. He was able to expose himself to the social networks of all of these podcasts that wouldn't be watching Fox News or Newsmax or listening to talk radio or reading newspapers or the normal places that politicians would go, and it really produced great results for him. However, political science is a science of one time occurrences. People forget this. Before Donald Trump became a politician, Donald Trump was a public person who had a huge personality.
He used to go on The Tonight Show. He used to go on with Letterman, he used to go on The View, he used to go on Howard Stern. He used to go on all of these shows. And he knows how to be a great guest. He knows how to bring the content that listeners respond well to. That's the reason why it worked out for him. It was those shows with those audiences, with that candidate, with that personality, and because it worked out for him, everyone's trying to
find their own angle to copy him. It was Gavin Newsom who decided, Okay, podcasts produced results, Let's do my own podcast with Marshawn Lynch. And then that didn't work out, and then it is okay, I'm gonna be the Democrat who can talk to Red America. Let's have Charlie kirk On and Michael Savage and the rest of them. And then that didn't work out. And now Tom Steyer, who's running for governor, is trying to just buy the affection
of all of these hosts. And what these politicians and these consultants don't understand is the reason that it worked out for Trump was because it was natural. It wasn't forced or contrived. It was someone who knows how to talk talking to podcasts that had an audience that responded well to it. It's literally as simple as that.
The Bassara camp says they have never paid a single creator for content, and that Gonzalez is a paid digital strategist for the campaign, and a statement Maggie Reid said in part quote.
I think we didn't pay for any of this content, but of course our team is full of content creators that are getting paid by the campaign, how convenient.
And a statement Maggie Reid said in part quote, I have never accepted, nor have I been offered money from Javier Bassero's campaign. Now, Hennessy and Gomberg, the two creators that filed the complaint against Steyer, are Basara supporters, though they say they have no affiliation to Bessara's campaign. And I want to REAMPERI.
Who is just will nilly posting about how great Javier Bessera is or Tom Steyer is unless they are getting paid makes sense to me.
And I want to reemphasize the Styr campaign is under investigation by the FPPC, but it's unclear right now if they will be investigating the Bassara campaign. Jenny Huh, ABC ten.
So that's what's going on on the Democrat side. Is it possible this is also going on on the Republican side. Maybe, but what is going on is that fight is getting real ugly.
It's possible, but they don't have the money that Styer has, and Bassarah only recently has been able to raise money, so he has the ability to do something like this. If you're gonna throw that kind of money around when you know that the odds of it paying off are relatively low. You have to have a ton of money at your disposal, and I just don't think the Republicans do.
I think there are certain influencers who are attracted to each one of the candidates, and they're certainly going at each other's throats on x and other social media platforms, and I've taken some of that incoming fire recently, thank you very much. However, I don't think there's a paycheck that's associated with it. Maybe I'm wrong. We certainly have seen social media influencers for sale in Washington, DC at
the federal level on both sides of the aisle. But I don't know if Bianco and Hilton are playing in that sandbox as of now. Maybe they are. Eight hundred two two two five two two two is telephone number one. Eight hundred two two 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 don't like show at gmail dot com. And Randy.
Now that we're about twenty five minutes away from the end of the show, if you want to continue listening after we say off at three. That's easy to do, and.
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Don't bust the trust.
Did you see the story that happened about him when you were out of town?
Didn't he get into more legal trouble?
Clue who was the guy running for governor before he dropped out and endorsed Swallwell, who dropped out for being
an accused rapist. Klubec was apparently intimidating witnesses in his girlfriend's trial about her theft because he's been dating an Only Fans model who's been stealing from people, and apparently he was going after the people that were going to testify in the trial, intimidating them not to testify against his girlfriend, Mia Ventura, the Only Fans model who was caught stealing from other rich, old creepy guys.
With that much drama, they should be on Bravo, Don't Bust the Trust.
Stephen Klubec is a weird, weird dude, once again proving my theory that there's no such thing as a normal billionaire.
I think he'd be fun to hang out with, though, don't you.
Oh, I don't know. He might be into some things that I'm not ready for.
He seems like the kind of guy that would go to a steakhouse and start out with the seafood tower and get one of those steaks. It that's so big it has to be carved at the table. No, well, with all that time share money. He can buy as many steaks as he wants, except he might be going to prison for a very long time because witness intimidation is a very serious charge. Yeah, you're not supposed to do that. Let's go to Chris in San Francisco. Chris, Hello, Hello, John, Hi there, Hi.
I just wanted to get your opinion. I was listening to Armstrong and Gety this morning, hearing on KSFO in San Francisco and Steve Hilton as a guest, and he was telling them that he was going to try to get Chad Bianco to drop out so they could coalesce around him since he's got double his rate his voters. And then I thought to myself, well, that's going to blow John's whole theory up if that happens.
Yeah, Chad Bianco is not going to be dropping out of the race, nor should he. Two strong Republican candidates who make the November runoff is the best case scenario for Republicans, and I would argue is the only scenario where a Republican ends up winning that office if you look historically at the vote chair that Republican candidates get on the November ballot in California, it fluctuates between thirty eight percent and forty one percent. That's the high water
mark in the last two elections, forty one percent. Now it's possible in this election that Republicans will do better. Republicans certainly have been making gains when it comes to voter registration, and certainly, if you look at ballots that have been returned already this primary, they're doing better than they did last time around in twenty twenty two. But it's still not enough to get you over fifty percent.
So if you can't get over fifty percent, you have to figure out how to win with less than fifty percent, and to my eye, the only way to make that happen is to get two Republicans on the November ballot, which means they should split the vote as close to fifty to fifty as humanly possible. Now, if you're a candidate who's running for office, you're obviously not going to tell voters vote for the other guy. You're in it to win it. You want all the votes, and I
understand that. So what Steve Hilton is doing is per rational from the point of view of a candidate. That being said, if your goal is to have a Republican governor. The goal should be to get two Republicans on the November ballot and lock the Democrats off, because I think that's the only way to win.
Yeah, that's why I wanted to call in, because I know Steve probably listens to your show. He's been on, and I'm hoping he'll get your message and your theory and uh, and we can do that and get two Republicans on the ticket.
Yeah, that's the goal, and I believe that's the only way to fix the state. The best Democrat in the field is Matt Mahon, and he's in single digits. That's not going to happen at this point. He is not going to be the next governor of California. Voting is going on right now and he's stuck in single digits and I don't see him really moving beyond that, and if he does, it's going to be in the low
low teens. So if you want a change of course in California, you got to vote for a Republican for governor. That's your only option. And there's two of them, and I don't even particularly care which one you vote for. I voted for Bianco simply because he's the second performing Republican and I want to lift him up to get him into the runoff. Now, the odds of my theory working out are relatively small. I think the Paul Mitchell model had it as high as twenty seven or twenty
eight percent. Okay, fine, that's a low percentage. The odds are far greater that we will have a Republican and a Democrat on the November ballot, to the tune of seventy something percent. Okay, but at least you have a chance. If it's one Republican and one Democrat, you have less than a one percent chance of getting the desired result the way I see it, and I like to gamble. I love to play cards, I love to bet on sports. Any thing that you put in front of me that
has a handle on it, I'm pulling it. I love it. All gamblers know that you don't control what card is next. You don't. If you could, they wouldn't let you play. All you can do is put yourself in position to give yourself the best chance at winning. That's all you can do. If you're playing blackjack and the dealers showing a six and you have a seventeen, you stand and you're not gonna win. Every time you do that, you're not. Sometimes the dealer is gonna make it eighteen, nineteen and
twenty and twenty one and they're gonna beat you. That doesn't mean that you should have hit on that seventeen, because staying on that seventeen gives you the best chance at winning. And that's what you have to do. If you're playing the game, you have to put yourself in position to give yourself the best chance at winning. Sometimes you have a really bad hand of cards. Sometimes you
have the sixteen and the dealer's showing a ten. Well, I hit that because even though it's likely it's not gonna give me the desired result, it's better than just standing on it and letting the dealer beat you with a twenty. Every so often they're gonna throw you at five and you're gonna win. And that's what we have to do. Is it something that is likely to produce the desired result? No, but it gives you the best
chance at winning. And if you're a California Republican and you're used to losing, don't accept the fact that losing is inevitable. Do what you need to do. To put yourself in position to win if the cards break your way.
Yeah, so I think I think the Bianco in the primary and then Eve in the general is the theory.
Sounds like a good idea to me. Thank you for the call, sir. Let's go to John and Santa Clara. John.
Hello, Hi John, thanks for all your great California election coverage. I think that the polls are understating the voter support for Sheriff Bianco because law and order conservatives like myself are very much worried about telescammeras much more than the Dems are. Four years ago, I did participate in phone surveys and was happy to do so, but now not anymore because of especially because of AI and you know
how they repeat your voice and all that. So I think that being that we're conscious about crime and whatnot, we are resting client to respond to surveys, and therefore Sheriff Bianco is being underreported.
It's possible. I mean, that happened to Donald Trump. You look at That's why he stood in the polls. I think in one election they had him losing Wisconsin. The New York Times pulled in by seventeen or eighteen points or something like that, and it ended up being a nail bier. And that was certainly the case in that particular poll where Trump's support was understated. Kamala Harris went into election day believing she was going to win the
election because that's what her pollsters were telling her. So whatever it was that they were doing certainly undercounted Donald Trump support. Maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong. I don't know. He's never run statewide before. He's certainly been successful in Riverside County, but running statewide is an entirely a different proposition. Thank you for the call, Sir, eight hundred two two two five two two two is a telephone number one
eight hundred two two 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 Don't Like Show at gmail dot com. Here with an update on the proposed CEO TEX in the City and County of San Francisco. Mister Randy Wang.
It's called Prop D and Daniel Lurry says don't vote for it. For more, here's kpix in the Bay.
Yeah, battle brun over a pushing the tax on San Francisco businesses with big checks going to their bosses. Welcome back on Ryan immotorlive outside of a voting center in Putrero Hill, where we've seen several people dropping off their ballots at this ballot box right behind me. The city of San Francisco is facing though a massive budget deficit, and now voters are being asked to side whether the city's largest companies should pay more or.
We could, you know, cut the nonprofits that are passing out math pipes? Yeah, how much waste, fraud and abuse do you think actually exists? After we've been exposed to what's going on with Oh, I don't know that one building in the San Fernando Valley and everything in the state of Minnesota.
But as supporters push Proposition D as a way to save services, new concerns of out e merging about its potential economic impact. As attack ads against the measure now ramp up. Brad Hamilton lays out what's at stake with the proposed CEO tax.
Outside of San Francisco General Hospital, Jason Hagron Gonzales says he's fighting for vital work that happens inside. For him, this isn't political, it's personal.
So for me, probably is an effective, focused solution where we can actually try to counteract some of these cuts and protect essential services at San Francisco, and that feels really crucial.
Gonzales, an er nurse, is part of the grassroots effort supporting the so called CEO tax.
Liz, lass roots effort. Yeah right, what do you think the odds are The union is putting him out there in favor of this thing because the money would be going to the union.
Oh, that's exactly what happened. Here.
Listed as Proposition D on the June tewond direct primary ballot, the tax would target San Francisco executives a companies making over one billion dollars and earning at least one hundred times more than their average worker salary. The group behind the Yes to Prop D push estimates that two hundred and fifty company And.
By the way, they call it the overpaid CEO tax, But they're not taxing the CEO. They're taxing the business, which will then pass on the cost to you or will say screw you, I'm going to San Jose.
It's almost as if they don't understand the fact that these businesses can move their headquarters.
The group behind the Yes to Prop D push, estimates that two hundred and fifty companies would be impacted.
If property passes. That would contribute about three hundred million a year to protect services, which would be huge. Without that money, we're looking at significant cuts that were already seeing health clinic ex closed in San Francisco.
But a new report from the city's chief economist is raising red flags. Tedy Agan warning that Proposition D could cost San Francisco nearly one thousand jobs and shrink the local economy by more than two hundred million dollars a year over the next two decades.
So it would shrink almost as much as they say it's going to race.
Remember what Gavin Newsom said about Katie Porter in that CNN article where he said, if she were to be elected governor of California, she would chase everyone out of the state. Why is it that he thinks that because she supports policies exactly like this. Even Gavin Newsom understands that if you go down this road, what you're going to end up with are no job creators and no wealth.
He also says rolling back recent business tax changes could push more companies to leave, and at a small business meet and great supervisor Matt Dorsey was shaking hands and sounding the alarm over those concerns.
Businesses in a situation where an easy fix for them is just to leave San Francisco, and that's not something that's hoping in anybody, certainly nobody in San Francisco.
Dorsey opposes Proposition D, warning that the tax could have unintended consequences for businesses still trying to recover.
Here's why Mayor Luriy and the San Francisco Democratic Party urge you to vote no on Prop D.
And now, with the June second election approaching, attack ads on both sides are flooding the airwaves as the fight over how to.
At least it's a nice break from the Tom Steyer ads.
I'm sure they're getting a healthy dose of those two.
As the fight over how to tax big business intensifies, both sides making their final push as San Franciscans will decide what they're willing to pay and what they can't afford to lose.
So there you go. That's the explainer on what Prop D is on the ballots that are out right now in the city and County of San Francisco.
It'll be interesting to see what voters do with that, because if that passes, my guess is the SEIU will see the wind at their back with the initiative that they want to put on the November ballot, which is a wealth confiscation tax on billionaires.
This will really be the bulwark here. This will decide. This will show if there is an appetite for these taxes in the state of California, and if there is, there's going to be a lot of them in November, and there's going to be even more of them in twenty twenty eight.
Well, what motivation would you have if you're the SCIU, of pulling your initiative, because you would then have documented proof that the public is willing to sign on to this even when all of the stakeholders come out against it, which is what happened in San Francisco, led by Mayor Louri, who was elected by the people of the city in
the County of San Francisco. If this passes in San Francisco, it is going to be bad news for the rest of US statewide because it's going to embolden all of the groups who want a jack taxes up and that's the last thing the state of California needs right now.