The Final Debate of the Primary Season

It is the John Phillipshow. It's Randy Wang here. Johnny's back on Monday. The phone number to join us is eight hundred two two two five two two two one eight hundred two two two five two two two. You can email us at Johnny Don't Like Show at gmail dot com, or my personal email address is Randy Wang

By the way, this is a profile piece.

This is not a gotcha piece, right Tom Steyer.

And you can literally see it, smell it, and feel it.

And Matt Mahon. I don't have a drop for Matt Mahon. It once again was not a very productive debate. I think we are at a point where they did way too many of these things. It's almost like a Tom Steyer commercial. Once you've seen an enough of these things, you can't stand it anymore. But it is the last opportunity for the ninety five percent of Californians that have

Sorry for the noise, I'm cutting carrots, Miss Porter.

For many, like Grace, the California dream can feel completely out of reach. How will you lower costs across the state? You have one minute.

I have four concrete policies to lower costs.

All right, first thing, I will say it is the first question, but she is answering the question that gets you a point.

I have four concrete policies to lower costs. The first is less expensive housing. That takes the biggest bite.

Well, how do you do that?

Like, you know, even though we have not hit our construction goals, there has been building. There has been nearly a million houses built in the last ten years. There's construction going on everywhere. When exactly do we hit this magical milestone where the price of these homes starts coming down. I just don't know when that's going to happen. We have population decline as well. In the County of Los Angeles.

That takes the biggest bite out of most people's paychecks. So it has to be our governor's top priority. If we build faster, the same speed as our competitor states, then housing costs here will be ten to twenty percent cheaper.

Construction costs will be cheaper, but will that translate into to lower purchase prices lower mortgages.

I don't know. It depends on what we're building.

Second, if housing isn't your biggest expense, it might be because you have young children. Free childcare will make our entire economy grow. It's not just something we do for kids, it's something we do for everyone to help our economy boom.

And by the way, I listen to way too many interviews from these candidates, and one thing that I did not know is that part of the reason she likes the idea of everybody gets childcare is apparently that's what they do in Irvine. For Irvine schools. All the teachers at Irvine schools get free childcare. They've got like a dedicated room where you can dump your kids while you teach somebody else's kids.

And you know what seems to be working for Irvine.

Look, I got to imagine that the cost of putting your kids in a daycare is prohitively expensive, to the point where it almost doesn't make sense to even have that second job to have to pay for it. But if we're all paying for it, how do we do that? The state of California is already spending more than it's ever spent, and we are always in some kind of a budget deficit. There's not enough money for everything. How

Third free tuition at our state universities. This is something California used to have. It's putting money right back in the pocket of young families that we want to stay here in our state.

Yeah, but if you're the admissions director at the UC's and the CSUS, and you know, all the homegrown California kids get to go for free, but all the imports from China you can charge thousands and thousands of dollars for.

Which ones are you gonna want?

And last, again, I'm not totally opposed to that idea either, but the question is how you pay for it, and she's not going to get it into this, but what she has talked about is one of the things that she wants to do is change the corporate tax rate for the state of California to be a progressive tax rate, so if you're a smaller business, it would be under the eight point seven percent it is. If you're a bigger business that makes a lot of money, it would

And last an idea that I took from Republican Steve Hilton, because I'll take good ideas even if they come from that guy, is eliminating California state income taxes on those earning less than one hundred thousand dollars.

Yeah.

I don't like that plan.

I don't like that plan from Hilton, and I don't like that plan from Katie Porter. It sounds good, but we'll get into another situation where if you're making ninety nine thousand dollars a year, you're actually making way more than somebody making one hundred and five thousand dollars a year, and everybody should have some skin in the game here in the state of California. But it does sound really attractive.

Thank you, miss Porter, mister Stier, the cost of tariffs are hitting Californians. At the kitchen table, as governor, what would you do to offset the impact of federal tariffs? You have one minute.

So as I said, the biggest problem in California is affordability.

So we're not answering the question.

Even if the is it necessarily something that's the topic you wanted to discuss. For me, a person who has watched a lot of these debates, because everyone likes to go to their stump speech, the one thing that I do look for is who is directly answering questions and who is going back to the talking points.

So as I said, the biggest problem in California is affordability, and it goes to every part of this economy. It goes starting with housing, it goes directly to healthcare, it goes to the cost of gasoline at the pump, the electricity that you pay in your house, And it.

Sounds like he's running out the clock with a whole bunch of platitudes. What are you going to do if you are wasting your sixty seconds telling us that it's expensive to live here, We already know it.

And it very much goes to food. And in every one of those there is a special interest that is killing it by driving up costs for Californians. And in every one of those, we're not going to get an answer unless we make structural change and we take on those special interests. And I am the person on this stage in every one of those areas who is taking them on. I am the person who will tax the billionaires like me.

Somebody has a god complex. And once again it goes to my long running theory that there is no such thing as a normal billionaire. When you make that much money, it makes you crazy.

We're at a big ass crisis.

Show me the normal billionaire, anybody, I don't think it's a thing.

And the big corporations, so we can afford to make the changes, so we can pay for healthcare, so we can pay for great education. We need structural changes we need to do.

We're spending twenty eight thousand dollars a year on the kids. We need to spend more.

We need structural changes. We need to break the monopolies and get lower costs across the board for Californians.

Thank Tom Steyer drives me crazy. But the one thing I do like about his campaign, even though I don't see it actually happening, I'm not against breaking up PG and E and so cal Edison and SGG and E. I'm not against breaking up the private utility monopolies that our investor owned that get a guaranteed rate of return.

But that's the only.

Thing, thank you, mister mister Mahon.

Let's not forget one of the things that Tom Steyer says is the way we're going to pay for all my plans is by gutting Prop thirteen. And I'm going to call a special election on day one to do that. What happens then, mister Stier, if that doesn't pass.

As miss Porter stated, childcare costs have risen dramatically around the state, and many Californians pay more for childcare than they do for housing. What steps would you take as governor to lower childcare costs?

You have one minute, Thanks go to. The answer is to lower costs across the board.

Starting with Okay, so not really answered. The question was specifically about childcare. But we're going to go to our typical diatribe on how everything else is expensive.

Okay, mayheen, let's see what you got.

Thanks go to. The answer is to lower costs across the board, starting with the issues we have the most control over. I've called for suspending the gas tax and reforming.

It so that emil Okay, there's something that's a little different there, though. If you're talking about how expensive it is to keep your kids in daycare, and for some of these daycares it is as much as tuition. To call it, that is a little different than wiping off sixty cents a gallon on the gasoline.

It's just a little difference.

Ev owners pay their fair share.

Oh he wants me to pay more. I already pay more in car registration fees.

From maintaining our roads in San Jose. We've removed at one time fees that make housing more expensive than it should be in reform permitting, which has gotten thousands of homes under construction. So the answer is to put more money in people's pockets by bringing down costs. Tom Stier's structural change sounds to me.

Mayheon has been kind of floundering in the between five to eight percent, so he will be the role of attack dog number one. Every single answer for Mayheon, he will have to go after another candidate because well, maybe, just maybe, then people will pay attention to the mayor of San Jose.

Tom Stier's structural change sounds to me more like socialism. His plans literally would double the size of state government. That's not going to drive affordability. Steve Milton is touting his Donald Trump endorsements. You've got tariffs and wars driving up costs. Nobody's talking about how they're going to pay for anything. Let's bring down costs by building housing, making energy more.

And again, to go back to the question that I ask when Katie Porter was giving this answer at what point have we built enough housing that the cost for all of it comes down.

I just don't know when we get to.

That point making energy more.

I mean, it's not like there are no homes for sale right now and there are no homes for rent right now. Just you know, pull up whatever you use to search for houses when you're looking to move out of your neighborhood, and let's just look at Los Angeles County homes on Zillow, and let's see how many homes

Making energy more abundant, reforming the gas tax, pulling down the unnecessary costs that we've imposed through failed policies, that's the fundamental answer.

Good mister Styer, you have thirty seconds and I will come to you, mister helpman.

So let me say, if he thinks that the oil companies are the good guys, that's news to me. I've been fighting the oil companies and they are taking advantage and ripping us off at the pump.

Well, I feel like I've heard that before. He's doing Gavin Newsom's act from two years ago.

I'm sick and tired of being screwed.

And here's the thing.

Gavin Newsom made a whole big deal about the oil companies ripping us off. He held two different special sessions to hold the oil companies accountable.

I don't know why we're so damned sheepish.

And he, through those special sessions, created another bureaucracy, another commission that's just supposed to look at the cost of oil, in the cost of gasoline, and that commission did not find that the oil companies were ripping us off. They saw the cost of our regulations, the gas tax, but also capin invest formerly known as cap and trade, and the environmental regulations, the having to use ethanol, the low

As a result of this war in Iran, and that it's a buck fifty a gallon that they are costs even go off a penny if you think the electric.

By the way, Gavin Newsom yesterday at his May Revise presser, he starts talking about gas prices and with a straight face, Gavin Newsom says, well, you need to understand is gas prices have actually gone up faster in other states than they have in California, and that very well may be true, but ours were already higher. We are hitting seven dollars a gas for premium penny.

If you think the electricity of the electric monopolies are doing us a favor and we should be nice to him, let me say this, they're charging us twice as much as everybody else in the United States of America.

Those are that and some of that could be PG and he ripping us off, and some of it could also be our regulations.

Those are the people who I'm going to be taking on, the people who are using their market power to rip off Californians and make our costs go through the roof.

Thank you, mister Syrah, Mister Hilton, you have thirty seven.

I wonder how many people's electric bills. Tom Steyer could have paid with the one hundred and seventy million dollars he spent on this campaign, By the way, that would be a way better use of his money, Like instead of buying NonStop ads over and over and over again, why don't you just you know, pay for someone's outstanding electric bill, pay for someone's outstanding you know, be the philanthropist you claim that you are. But no, no, no, no no, it's all about an ego trip and the

Hello, Hello, Randie. Yeah, I just called it because something that's bothered me. Yeah. I'm one of the lucky ones. I was born and raised in southern California. Well, well people have they never talk about it. Don't have to realize not everybody gets to live at the beach. I would love to live on the shoreline of Big Bear Lake. I can't afford it. There isn't really any available. And as far as affordable housing with the government, I'm surprised

It said something that Steve Hilton talks about only six percent of the state of California is developed. Only six percent. It is a massive state, and whenever you drive up the five freeway, you sure see a whole lot of nothing here between Button Willow and San Mateo.

Yeah. I mean that's the thing is, Like I said, it's not everybody gets to live at the beach. I understand you're tired of being up to your hips and snow. If you live in Minnesota, you want to go where it's warm. Well, there's a certain saturation point, and I think we've reached it.

Thanks so much for the call, Kirk aparitiate it. Let's go to Kathy and Coasta Mesa. Kathy, Hello, Hi.

I wanted to comment that it would have been nice for somebody to ask these candidates how they feel or do they support the meth Head Teeth Project, future fraud, and you know, maybe you follow up questions that are always telling.

You know, it's one of the things when you've got one of another one of these debates with seven candidates on the stage, it's sixty seconds for every question and then everyone attacks Besarah. We only got to like four or five different topics, and there's so many more important things.

Thanks so much for the call. I appreciate it.

Let me just tell you if you're a look, if you're really curious about who you want to vote for and you feel like you haven't learned enough from these candidates, the long form interviews really do such a much better job. And I'll give a perfect shout out. Ashley Zavala on KCRA three has interviewed every single one of these candidates for a half hour, like ten minutes of it goes on her show on California Politics three sixty, which airs on kra KTVU and five eleven but on the YouTube

Thank you, mister Styra, mister Hilton, you have thirty seconds.

Let's hear what Hilton has to say about affordability, but they forgot to turn his mic on.

Thank you.

I love the way Matt talks about how he's going to lower cost when his city was recently rated the most expensive, the least affordable for housing in the world.

That is true, That's why we're fixing it.

While we're building.

That's why we're building housing. Steve, That's how it works.

He's not fixing it because he's not fixing it because they're building.

Housing are as high.

This year as they ever were.

All the plans he see.

That's why I go back to my original question, at what point do you build enough housing that the costs come down?

Like, when do we get to that point?

All the plans he talks about have not actually reduced the cost.

And the way that we are currently building is demolishing a lot of old buildings and replacing them with new buildings. You know, we want to demolish single family homes with SB seventy nine and turn them into apartment buildings. So in essence, we're actually taking away a lot of housing to build new housing.

All the plans he talks about have not actually reduced the cost of housing because fundamentally, he supports the policies that have made housing and gas the most expensive in the country. We need to change from those policies, not more of the same.

I mean, Steve, you came to San Jose to see our success on interim housing. Now you're against it because I'm in the race. I mean, come on, they're talking about.

Thank you, mister Mayhem.

Everyone has their canned lines, their canned attack lines. I'm just I'm so over the seven person debate format.

Mister viber Goosa. People who are leaving California.

Our population has been dropping over the course of the last several years.

That's right. The population is in decline. Los Angeles County lost fifty thousand people. But still we need to build a whole bunch more housing. I'm so confused.

And many of the people who are leaving are making north of two hundred thousand dollars a year.

How do you reverse that trend?

You have one minute.

Speak clear. Sacramento is too expensive.

This is the toughest state to do business in the United States.

I think, I mean Sacramento makes it too expensive. Sacramento actually is that Sacramento area cheaper than the Bay area and a lot of people move there during COVID.

Sacramento is too expensive. This is the toughest state to do business in the.

United States of America, including for small business that we have.

This is that lane of a centrist candidate appeals to both sides, that is currently polling at two percent.

That we have the highest gas prices on average two dollars a gallon more.

And the fact is it's not a ran.

That's the only reason, because that's picked it up another dollar.

The fact and that's not ending anytime soon.

The fact is it's Sacramento policies.

You know, we've made it impossible for refineries to exist. Some of you know Valero just down the way, they're closing.

Now.

I swear that I remember this, but i've yet I've never been able to find the sound because it was in the pre everything's on YouTube era. But Antonio Viragosa is totally right. Valera and Benetia just closed. But Antonio Viragosa when he was mayor of Los Angeles, and I swear this was twenty twelve, maybe twenty thirteen. At one point he was making some big speech about the environment and told Valero to get out of the state of California.

Right now, some of.

You know Valero just down the way, they're closing. They're all closing, A dozen of them have closed. They produce the cleanest fuel in the United States of America. The fact is we've got to address this affordability issue and look in the mirror and say, what have we done wrong? What do we need to do to address that affordability?

Thank you, mistervered Not a lot of specifics, but he did diagnose part of the problem. All right, Tony, gold star for you.

Thank you.

Misterverer goes to mister Bianco. Cuts in Washington have resulted in healthcare premiums for programs they covered California to skyrocket. Many people are dropping their plans and are just uninsured. What will you do to bring people back into insurance plans and how will you lower premium costs to help keep Californians covered? You have one minute.

Yeah, I'll get into that with the first thing that we have to realize.

Okay, So not answering the question, I'm just saying, as as a person who consumes this kind of content a lot, one thing that I look for is are you directly answering a question or are you going to your talking points about how all of this is their fall. I'll get in Look, there's one thing that's been pretty evident by the last five debates. When the state of California actually watches Chad Bianco ranting and raving, his poll numbers

I'll get into that with the first thing that we have to realize, and we've seen from the last three debates, and this is I can already see this is going to be the fourth. When you're three year old rights on the wall with a marker, you don't give him a gallon of paint and let him fix it.

Who wrote that one? Senator Joe Kennedy from Louisiana.

We are in this position because every single person up here and the decisions and the policy decisions and the policy directions that they have supported through out their careers that have put us here. And you're listening to the same things. You're listening to thirty years of more tax regulation and free stuff. And you think that the cost of living is going to go down, You think the cost of health insurance is going to go down. That is why all of these costs are going up.

Bianc goes a little light on the specifics.

So when you eliminate the regulation, you eliminate the excessive business taxes that are forcing people out of this state. Then you can fix government. You do not fix government with the same tired old policies of bribing you with free things for an election, and then four years later we're going through the same conversation because nothing changes.

You've got to vote for something different.

And the biggest difference that I see, if you know this is what appeals to you, is that Chad Bianco will say that as the answer to every single question. Steve Hilton will also say that, but will also prescribe what the policy fixes that he thinks would solve that problem. It's a minor little difference in presentation style.

Mister Bianco, could you explain how you would keep people on their insurance plans? With healthcare premiums going up?

The number one we wouldn't have to worry about health care insurance is going up because of Washington. If California managed its finances, we are we want to blame everything about California. Donald Trump was named ten times in the opening statements. We want to blame one year of Donald Trump on thirty years people. We are going to fix the financial problem in California.

I don't think he has a plan for this.

We are going to fix the financial problem in California caused by all of these the waste, the fraud, the abuse.

There you go, Why didn't you just say that. You could have said that a minute and a half ago.

The fraud, the abuse, the excessive fraud, embezzlement, and abuse in our medical system that allows that to happen in the first place.

You've had a sixty percent were sent your budget since you've been sheriff.

That's a weird one.

The whole state of California's budget is fifty percent higher than it.

Was eight years ago.

Thank you for Viera.

So it's starting to get off the rails kids, right.

Mister comment mister Bessera.

The Trump administration announced just yesterday it will withhold one point three billion in Medicaid payments to California over a hospice fraud. As governor, how would you crack down ones.

Wait till they find out about the taxi cabs of the method on clinics.

As governor, how would you crack down on healthcare fraud in the state?

You have one minute right, in the same way I did it when I was Attorney general. We establish a bureau that dealt with medical fraud working with the federal government. Unfortunately, Trump is a problem because Trump took a trillion.

Yes, whatever you do, if be Sarah's talking, don't play the T word drinking game, because you will gad hammered.

Trump is a problem because Trump took a trillion dollars out of the healthcare system, out of the Medicare or the excuse me, the medicaid and the medical system.

This guy's the front runner Iraq Iran, Medicaid, medical, It doesn't matter.

Trump is now trying to deprive California of another billion dollars in healthcare for medical He doesn't have the right to do that.

You still have to prove that there's been fraud and abuse.

Well, we've proven a lot of it just with the reporting going on from CBS News, who's hosting this debate.

He is in advance taking money even though he hasn't proven in court what he's done. So we should go after him the way I had to do over one hundred and twenty times when I was Attorney general. We will fight to get those taxs.

Now here's the strategy, and maybe this is the strategy that is working in the primary. But Javier Bisera will get attacked by every single candidate on this stage, and Javier Basera will in response, turn every single one of those into an attack on Trump and the federal government. And maybe that's the strategy, maybe to get enough voters

As much as I wish.

We were in those tax subsidies under the Affordable Care Act back for California families.

We will fight to make sure we get the money.

But how are you gonna do that. You're the governor, You're not in Congress.

We will fight to make sure we get the money that we sent to the federal treasury for medical in California, because otherwise three million Californians are in jeopardy of losing their health care. We won't let Trump get in our way. And whether it's the Trump, how.

Are you gonna build houses, We're gonna build them. How are you gonna stop trouble? We're just gonna stop them. But Sarah doesn't have a whole lot of specifics for anything, gas.

Tax because he's reincreased the fight the price by going to war in Iran, or whether it's the tariffs that are attacks We're gonna fight against Trump.

Thank you, mister Sarah.

I don't even know how many times he said that word.

Thank you, mister Pisarah.

On the issue of healthcare, do you believe in single payer healthcare?

I absolutely have said over and over yes I do. Yes.

I let me just be consistent. I have Medical for All is a form of single payer. For more than thirty years.

I have been medical for all. He gets a little confused.

For more than thirty years.

I have been a proponent an author of legislation for Medicare Medicare for All, which is a form of single payer.

And I've done that over and over.

Now, what I will tell you is this Ryan, what we have to do, because people in California don't care what you call it. At the end of the day, what they want is access to a doctor when they need it and a bill that they can afford to pay.

And that's what we don't have either of those.

And that's what we'll do.

And when I was secretary, I advance more coverage from more.

I don't know about you, but ever since my insurance through the Saggrafter Union change certain different kinds of providers. Now, every time I get a blood test, I get like twenty different bills for twelve dollars from lab Corp. And they will send you letter after letter after letter after letter making sure you pay them. And I'm like, wait, why isn't my insurance paying for this?

More coverage for more Americans than ever before, and we lower prices.

Thank you, mister Pissarah.

Mister Hilton, as someone who has lived in UK under a single payer healthcare system, you have been highly critical of it and said, as governor, the only way to bring healthcare costs down is to stop covering illegal immigrants. What do you say to voters who believe healthcare is a right and.

Not a privilege? You have a one minute, all right?

I would love to hear about this. He has some lived experience in a country that had a single payer system. Tell us why this idea doesn't work.

Well.

I don't think it's fair that California taxpayers, who can barely afford their own health coverage should be paying.

So we're not going to answer that question. Come on, Steve, you're supposed to be the policy guy.

For the healthcare of citizens of other countries, and if you look at the record of Havier, it's exactly what Chad was just saying that you cannot believe that any change will come from these people.

He as healths.

Doesn't look like we're going to debate the merits of a single payer system anytime soon. It's going to be attack, attack, attack, attack attack. I'm going to tell you right now, I learned nothing in that one hour and a half debate, and I don't think you did either. If he'd like to email as, you could do so at Johnny don't like show at gmail dot com. That's Johnny, don't like show at gmail dot com. And thank you so much for this listener, Tom, who sent me an article from

Keep it right here. It's Randy Wang on the John Phillips Show.