There's no secret that states like California have turned into left wing dystopia's So why not leave? Why are Republicans or even independents staying. They have to deal with crime, they have to deal with wope, nonsense, they have to deal with homelessness, a variety of issues that they're facing as a result of left wing policies driven by Governor Gavin Newsom.
So why not leave?
We'll talk to one man who wrote a book about trying to save California. He's out with a new book called Asgo's California, My Mission to Rescue the Golden State and save the nation. He also decided to challenge Gavin Newsom in the twenty twenty one recall. His name is Larry Elder.
You know him.
He's a radio host, best selling author, and commentator. We're going to talk to him about his decision to stay in California, Why he's doing it, Does he really think there's even the potential of change there. We'll also get into a whole host of other issues. He's also decided to throw his name in the hat for the twenty twenty four presidential race. We'll get into that and a bunch of other issues that are just plaguing the nation. Don't miss this interview with Larry Elder. Larry Elder, It's
an honor to have you on the show. I've not had you on I don't think. I don't even know have we met. I don't know if we've met in person. I've followed your work. I obviously know who you are. I follow you on Twitter. It's an honor to have you on the show.
We've not met in person, but you know I followed you as well. Thank you very much for having me. I appreciate it.
Yeah, we'll have to change that. I hope to meet you in person someday.
Really pretty charming, Lisa. It'll be a treat.
That's you know what, Larry, That is what I've heard. So I've only heard great things about you. So, you know, Larry, we look at you know. I left New York right. I was in New York for three years and left during COVID. Just saw the direction things were going in and said, you know what, I might still have to go up for work unfortunately, but I live in Florida. Now you're still in California. You know, why not just leave?
Well, this is my hometown. I was born here. My father came here right before the war World War two, and then when the war was over, he was in the military, he was in the Marines. He came out here because he thought it was less racist in the South, which is where he's from. So all my roots are here, my pastor is here, my friends are here, and I'm one of those who feels Lisa at some point like a drug addict. The voters are going to hit rock
bottom and begin to rethink how they've been voting. Democrats have controlled this state forever. We've got supermajorities of Democrats in the Assembly and in the Senate, the two chambers of our legislature, and they passed one job killing bill after another, one brain dead bill after another, and then we have a left wing governor who signs them. We've got crime, we've got a homelessness problem. Our schools are
right near the bottom of all fifty states. People are leaving the state for the first time in one hundred and seventy years. The average price of a home in California is one hundred and seventy five percent above the national average. We have poor fire management, poor water management. At some point, you think that the voters are going to say uncle, but they don't. But sooner or later
they've got to. We've got a we've gone from one hundred billion dollar budget surplus that gavinknews and bragged about now to about a thirty billion dollar government deficit and we have, wait for it, a one point five trillion dollar underfunded pension liability. So sooner or later, the voters are going to have to rethink their assumptions. And I hope, I hope, I still I hope I'm around when that happens.
You know, I mean laying that all out, I mean, it's bad, you know, I mean, you see you know videos, it just looks like a dystopia. You've got, you know, homeless people walking around doing drugs in the middle of the streets, pooping in the middle of the streets.
So it's like, what does rock Bottom look like?
Well, that's a good question. I was just reading today in the La Times had a front page article about what the new mayor is doing to solve the homelessness problem. And what she's done is she's offered them somewhere to go, and if they don't go, you can't force them. So until and unless voters have come to the point where you are not going to be on the streets. Either you're going to jail, or you're going to go to a bed that we have somewhere, or are you going
to go to rehab one of the three. But you will not be allowed to remain on the streets until the voters are ready to do that, and until the courts are ready to enforce those laws that require them to do one of those three things. We're going to have these problems. And again, sooner or later, it's going to get so bad that I believe the voters are going to begin to rethink their assumptions.
When did you start seeing the state take a nose dive? But I imagine COVID the state's response to COVID know led to a lot of the downturn that we're seeing now.
It accelerated it, certainly, but no, it's been bad for a long time. We spend half of our budget goes to the schools K through twelve, and again, as I mentioned, they're near the bottom. Seventy five percent of black boys in California can neither read nor do math at grade level. And then, of course COVID can along and Gavin Newsom shut down the state in a more severe way than did any of the other forty nine governors. A third of all restaurants, many of them are owned by mom
and poppers who are black and brown. The very people that people on the left claim that they care about are now gone forever. We have rising crime in La rising crime in the Bay Area, rising crime in San Diego, all because of the soft on crime das, all of whom Gavin Newsom is either publicly supported or, in the case of George Gasco in the soft on crime DA of La County. He appointed him to the DA's job in the Bay Area, and then Gascon comes down here
and runs to get selected. So things are getting worse and worse and worse. In my opinion, we've lost about five hundred thousand people in California in the last three or four years, and Gavin Newsom is running around the country thinking that someday he's going to become president. It's outrageous. Again. I think that sooner or later the voters have to begin to rethink their assumptions. I just hope i'm around when they begin to do so.
I really don't think enough can be said about just the damage these Sorow supported das have done in so many places around the country. I mean, it really is just devastating how much wreckage one man has done in America.
Well, that's right, and that's one of my campaign issues when I decided to run for president. That's one of the things I'm going to be talking about. One of the first things I'm going to do when I get to the White House. Lisa assigned an executive order that cuts off the money to these counties where the soft on crime das exists, federal money because the number one responsibility of government is to protect people in property and
they're not doing it. One of the things I'm proposing in Iowa, Iowa was the first contest the caucus is going to be late January early February, is I'm proposing to the Iowa legislature that they set up a commission, as they've done in Georgia, mostly of judges, so that when you have these soft on crime das, and they've got one in de Wine, Iowa who's not doing the job,
that DA can be recalled. Again. This is just and again, the people that are most hurt by all police are the very black and brown people that people on the left purport to care about. This lie that the police are engaging in systemic racism is causing the police to pull back. It's called the Ferguson effect or the George Floyd effect. And there are hundreds, if not thousands, of what one researcher calls excess deaths, in other words, people who are dead who wouldn't be dead if the police
were doing their normal proactive policing. And again, the majority of these people who are now dead are the black and brown people that people on the left claim that they care about.
Well, it has just been distorted into such a lie or just the racial dynamics play such a strong role in the narrative of these things. I mean, you look at the Jordan Neely Daniel Penny situation. I mean, honestly, if Daniel Penny wasn't white, I really don't think it would have gotten the kind of attention it has, or he wouldn't be getting the kind of criticism he's gotten.
To be honest, well.
I agree, and that's what the left, the media of the Democrats to do. They push this argument that America is systemically racist. The reason they do it is because they want black voters to be angry, they'll vote ninety ninety five percent for the Democratic Party. That's one of the reasons I'm running to refute this lie that America
is systemically racist. The other reason I'm running is because we don't talk about the ten thousand pound elephant in the room, Lisa, and that is the epidemic of fatherlessness. Seventy percent of black kids into the world without a father in the home, married to the mother, and the odds are that when you are raised without a father, a much higher chance of being poor, of dropping out
of school, of ending up in jail. And we don't talk enough about the fact that the welfare state has over the last fifty to sixty years, incentivized women to marry the government and incentivize men to abandon their financial and more responsibility. And that's one of the reasons I'm running and asking people to go to Elder for President dot com throw something in the tip jar so I get on that debate stage in Milwaukee, Lisa, and say some of the things to the country that I've said
to you. I've got to raise forty I've got to get donation from forty thousand individuals and two hundred out of each of twenty states in order to qualify that first debate. And once I get up there, as far as I'm concerned, it's game on. Hold my beer, Hold my beer.
I like that, you know, I do think the fatherlessness is a huge issue. I'm glad that you know you brought that up, and it is just so important. But I mean, if you really think about the Left wants women to be married to the government, right, they don't want fathers. I really don't believe the left one's fathers involved, because they want people who are beholden to the government. And so they're trying to dismantle you know, family, dismantle faith,
dismantle anything that gives you roots. They want you susceptible to needing the government, and you know, being dependent on the government.
Whether that's their intent or whether it's the effect, it really doesn't matter. The effect is to make people more dependent upon government. The La Times, I think was in the mid eighties, did a poll of people who were poor and ask them whether welfare was an intermediate step to get you to a state of independence or whether it was a crutch that made you dependent on the government more of them, Lisa, it was a crutch that made you dependent, than said it was an intermediary, a
step to get you to become independent. So people who are on welfare are aware that it's a trap. Even FDR who launched the New Deal, even he referred to welfare as a quote subtle, narcotic, close quote that makes people dependent. So it's not a good idea, and we
need to be rethinking that. And one of the things I'm proposing is that the money that we spend for welfare, individuals should be able to on their tax returns donate where they want that money to go, more likely churches and other nonprofits in their own area, where they're more likely to be able to help the people and be able to change people's behavior and habits so they become independent. Again, this is a really, really big issue that our side
does not talk enough about. You know, at least I know that the polls show that most Republicans and those who are leaning Republican support Donald Trump in the primary. And he did a great job as president against huge, huge headwinds from his own party often and I love what he did as president, but I fear that he cannot win in the general not for reasons that are fair to him. There's something called Trump arrangement syndrome, and
maybe someday they'll develop a vaccine for it. But until then, if you've lost friends because of Donald Trump, if you can't talk to coworkers because of Donald Trump, if you have a strained relationship with your family members because of Donald Trump, Houston, We've got a problem. And that problem is that there are a lot of people in this country, swing voters, particularly suburban women, who would not vote for forty five if he walked on water. In fact, if
he did, they say he can't swim. So, if that's your analysis, and that's my analysis, you need somebody who's got the America First agenda on borders, on judges, school choice, on the economy, but for whom a sufficient number of swing voters can pull that lever for that person. And if that's your analysis and that's my analysis, then I'm your man.
What did you learn about Gavin Newsome running against him in the recall?
I learned that he does not want a debate. There was a lot of pressure on need to debate my fellow Republicans. I did not because I figured we'd be in a circular firing squad and all they would do is use the audio and the sound and hit ads. And every time I was asked to debate my fellow Republicans, I said, the person I wanted to debate is Gavin Newsom. Gavin Newsom is not the problem. The fellow Republicans are not the problem. We pretty much all know what the
problems are. The problem is Gavin Newsom. And what I learned is that he was too cowardly to debate me. I got out, spent about eight to one. In came the unions, in came Hollywood, in came big Tech, and they all said the same thing, Lisa. They said, stop the Republican takeover. Nobody said, Gavin Newsom is doing a great job on schools, doing a great job on crime, doing a great job on the budget, on the cost of living, on the fact that people are leaving. They
all said the same thing, stop Republican takeover. And they showed a picture that I once took with Donald Trump with both our thumbs up. A million times. I could count the ridges on my fingers. They showed it so often. Even though Donald Trump did not endorse me, I did not seek his endorsement because I wanted it to be a California race, but they turned it into a national referendum on Donald Trump because that's how they believe they can win.
Is it effective.
It's effective in California. They tried it in Virginia with Terry mccalliff versus Glenn Younkin, and it blew up in their faces for a couple of reasons. The first is that Terry mccaulliff had a debate his opponent, Gavin Newsom, was able to get away without debating me. And secondly, the media in Virginia are a lot more fair than the media here in California. I was called by the La Times wait for it, the black face of white supremacy.
Another La Time colonists referred to my views as white supremacists. When the race was over, I go back to radio to finish out my contract and I invited the woman they called me the blackface of white supremacy on my show to explain why I'm the black face of white supremacy. Not too surprisingly, she refused to come on. So the media were very unfair. Many of virtually all the newspapers in California both opposed the recall, called it anti democratic,
even though it's in our constitution. And they endorsed and reindorsed Gavin Newsom, having endorsed him the first time. So that's what I had to run against. And Republicans are out numbered in California. Registered Republicans are out numbered by non registered Republicans three to one. And again I got out spin as I said, and there were campaign finance limitations on me. There were no finance limitations at spending
limitations on Gavin Newsom. So he spent and spent and spent, had to spend, by the way, fifty percent more per voter to keep his job than he did to get his job.
Do you think he ends up being the twenty twenty four nominee or who do you think is gonna end up being the Democrat nominee?
No, Lisa, If Joe Biden can fog up a mirror, he will be the nominee. If he cannot do it, then it will be Kamala Harris. Why because blacks are the most loyal part of the Democrat base, and black females are even more loyal. I saw poll nearly times a few months ago that showed among blacks, Harris had his seventy percent approval. It wasn't broken down by gender, but I assure you black females like her even more.
And she is perceived to be as having been dropkicked in favor of somebody else, especially in favor of a white male like Gavin Newsom or mayor Pete. Black women won't vote Republican, but they'll be so angry they won't vote at all. Thereby ensuring whoever it is we nominate will win, so they can't afford to run that risk. And they can put Gavin Newsom on the ticket with her, because even he's more radical than she is. I mean, this is a guy who signed that law that set
up that reparations panel. He's the guy that is mandating an ethnic studies course for everybody who graduates from high school, outlawing the sale of new gas powered cars. By twenty thirty five, he supported two propositions that reduced a whole bunch of crimes to non violent offenses, so that now if you assault the police officer, that's a non violent offense. Cyrial arson is a non violent offense. Rape of an entire cicated a person is a non violent offense, all
because of measures that Gavin Newsom backed. He's the one that mandates if you are a large toy retail store owner, you have to have a gender neutral toy section. In case your girl wants to buy a soldier or your boy wants to buy a doll. They need to have a safe space where they can do that. People have no idea how radical this guy is, and once they do, he'll be rejected. So I don't believe he'll ever be the party's nominee, but he thinks he will be.
I've heard Michelle Obama's name be floated.
Zero chance. Michelle Obama wants to be liked. As you know, once you decide to run for office, forty percent of the American people are going to hate your guts, no matter what party you are. She doesn't want that any more than Oprah fret Winfrey wants that. No, and remember how many times Michelle Obama complained about being first Lady. Can you imagine her being president and being slammed after she takes an issue here or there and being attacked personally.
She doesn't want that. So the only way you can drop kick Kamala Harris is for another popular black female who's a Democrat named somebody. We already named the only two that could fit those shoes. So no, they're stuck with her, and that's why they're trying to rehabilitate her. I read the New York Times so you don't have to, and I watch a lot of cn in MSNBCA hawk, msnb HE hawks, which is what I call it, so
you don't have to. And all of a sudden, there are all these positive stories about Kamala Harris because they've got to rehabilitate her. Because even if you vote for Joe Biden, you know that you're voting for Kamala Harris because he's going to hand over the baton as soon as he gets crossed the finishing line. It's just the question of when he does so. And depending upon when he does so, she could finish out his term and then run two more times. So we could almost get
ten years of Kamala Harris. So that's what's at stake, and that's why I'm running.
You don't think that Michelle would want the power?
No, No, I mean she you know what. Orthra Clonkite, the long term anchor for CBS, once said, I'd love to be a senator. I hate to have to run. So if you could figure out some sort of way of appointing her, I'm sure she loved the job, but she wouldn't want to go through what I'm going through, being called all sorts of names, having to raise money, having to defend yourself, having to debate, have people distort
your views. She doesn't want that. Politics is a rough, tough, ugly business, and being first lady was one thing, and that was hard enough. She complained about being first lady all the time. I can't imagine that she has a personality and the stomach and the requisite thickness of skin to be president, to run for presidents.
Take a quick commercial break more with Larry Elder. You talked about some of the things that people said about you when you ran. What did you think when you read a column that said you are the black face of white supremacy? I imagine that that was one a little confusing.
Then two, what the heck?
You're laughing, Lisa, And that's what I did. I laughed at it. I mean, how do you take that seriously? Because I'm pro life, because I support strong borders, because I support choice in education, because I think America is over taxed and overregulated. I'm the black face of white supremacy because I denied the lie that America is systemically racist. It is not systemically racist. The only majority of white country in the world is ever elected a black person
for president. There's a Harvard sociologist. He's a left wing guy, as all sociologists are voted twice for Obama. In the nineties, he wrote, Black Americans are the best fed, best house, best educated, most prosperous blacks in all of the countries of the world, including all of those of Africa. Why these posed people as we speak, Lisa, Haitians are lining up to get a lottery, to get a shot and
coming too America because America is systemically racist. Nonsense. The three largest cities in America today, New York, La, Chicago all have black mayors. How does that happen in a country that systemically racists? And in twenty sixteen, the city of over one hundred that most voted for Donald tr Trump was Abilene, Texas. Eighty five percent voted for Donald Trump.
The city is one hundred and forty years old. Guess which city of one hundred and forty years of age after the election of Donald Trump, voted for its first
black mayor, Abilene, Texas. How does that happen? It's a lie that America is systemically racist, and all it's doing is putting Americans against Americans and causing young black people not to work as hard as they should work, because, after all, what's the point am I putting in all these man hours on math and on reading when sooner or later some white races are going to stop me
from being successful. It is a lie. It's a lie that's putting Americans against each other, and it's hurting the very people that people on the left again purport to care about, primarily black people.
Well in the Atlantic recently, Lara, I don't know if you saw this. The Atlantic recently written an article about how Latinos can be white supremacists as well. Now, so we're really expanding. I guess the category is of white supremacy in America.
But it bags the question why do they want to push this narrative though?
Like, why are they intentionally trying to hit people against each other on racial lines?
What's beneath it?
I think some percentage of them actually believe it they've been taught that, they've been spoon fitted by the media, by Hollywood, by academia. But I think on the part of politicians, people like Nancy Pelosi, like Chuck Schumer, oh, they know it's a lie. And again they're doing it because they want black people not to focus on crime, not to focus on schools, not to focus on being sufficiently competitive so they can compete in our digital age.
They want black people to focus on social justice and equity, however you define that. And they've been able to successfully convince black people that they wear the white at in the fight for social justice, and these dastardly Republicans over there, they wear the black at. So go in there and pull that lever for us. That's why they do it. They do it for power.
Claire, what concerns you?
I mean, obviously there are a whole host of issues that we're facing as a country. But what concerns you the most about where we are right now is a nation the spending.
You know, this deal that McCarthy thought he reached with Schumer would have put a little band aid, it would have slowed down a little bit of the spending. But even he concedes in the two years right back to where we are in nineteen hundred, Lisa, at all three levels, federal, state, and local government took less than nine percent from the
American people. Today, government at all three levels takes about thirty two percent, and if you put a price on mandates, government takes almost half of what the American people produce. The only way to stop this is through an amendment to the Constitution that fixes spending to a certain percentage of the GDP, with exceptions for war and for a natural disaster. Other than that, both parties spind my favorite president of my lifetime, Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan ran to
eliminate the Department of Education. When he left, the department was bigger than ever and government was around thirty percent larger. Both parties spin you don't get elected by saying I'm going to take this away from you. I'm going to end this program, and I'll use the word to describe the so called entitlement's Lisa, and that word is unsustainable. Barack Obama once use that word in describing the entitlements programs,
as did Bill Clinton. But any Republican who mentions it, then they do the commercial and they'll show you with Granny in a wheelchair, throwing her over the cliff. So the only way to truly reform these programs is to force people to reform them, and the only way to do that is to pass a law that requires you
to reform them. So that you're put in a room, you lock the door, and Democrats Republicans don't come out until the budget is balanced and it has been limited to that percentage that the law now requires them to limit it to, and then they can say, the devil made me do it. Please still elect me because I
want to get reelected. Otherwise we're going to kick this problem down the road, and younger people are going to have to have their taxes raised to pay for the unsustainable Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and now Obamacare that they're going to be responsible for down the road. Yeah.
I mean, it's like both parties spend a ton of money. It seems to be more of the argument about what we spend an enormous amount of money on is really where the argument comes down.
And that's right. When it's Democrats spending, we call it port and we spend it we call it investments in infrastructure. When Ronald Reagan came in, you know, he promised to reduce the science of government, and a whole bunch of young turks started working for him, one of whom was
a guy named David Stockman. He was his head of office and management and budget, and he was there for a few years, and he wrote a book and described program after program after program on the chopping block income whoever it was who were going to be hurt by that, and then the administration backed away. He wrote a book called The Triumph of American Politics where he outlined all these programs that should have been slash, that were not only slash, but when he left they were bigger than before.
And that's because, as I said earlier, you don't run for office. You don't win by taking things away from people. Ronald Reagan says, once you have a program, if it breathes, tax it, if it still breaths, regulate it, if it still breaths, subsidize it, and you cannot kill the program with a stick once it's been started. I can't think of very many programs at all that have been started and that have been eliminated down the road, even though we don't longer need them. Take a look at Amtrak.
Take a look at PBS. When I was a kid, there were handful of stations. Now we have five hundred stations. We still have PBS. Why Tennessee Valley Authority was set up in order to provide electricity to the poor rural South. Well, the South is not poor anymore. We still have the TVA that's still run by government.
Why.
I can think of a whole bunch of programs that ought not exist that will not exist if you force both politicians to limit spending to a fixed percentage of the GDP.
I agree with that, but you would have to get it done through Congress. Right, So how would that.
Either that or convention of states so that you can then propose amendments to the Constitution. Look, it's a long process, and that's one of the things that you enjoy as president. You have the bully pulpit. That's probably the most powerful part of being president that a nuclear bomb, and get up there and talk about what I've just talked to you about constantly, and so that the voters are motivated
to put pressure on their local politicians. So either Congress does some sort of amendment or you do a convention of state. So that they do the amendment. But either way, the American people are going to have to be educated enough to know that this has to happen. I remember when Ross Prow for a while was talking about Debton deficit. I remember him buying time on one of the major networks to show up these little graphs where he pointed
out the problem we're having with our Debton deficit. The next day after he did one of these programs, Lisa, I'm in the office building where I work, and I saw two janitors talking about the Debton deficit. So you educate people to explain to people so that they recognize it's in their best interests and they will put pressure on their local politicians and lo and behold. You can then move the needle.
Quick break more with Larry. You'd mentioned some of the stuff Gavin Newsomone's doing with kids and on the transgender issue. Why is the left so dead set to push this on young people.
Well, that's their latest way of showing how heartless and cold and insensitive Republicans are. It's their new climate change. How many transgendered people are there? Zero points zero five percent something like that. So now you're defining me by how are we are how I react to zero points, zero five percent of the population. It's their new way of you say the wrong thing, you say something in
sensitive and low and behold, you're a biggit. They can put you into category and that's what they do for power.
Our Republicans astute enough to make the case that it is actually evil and wrong to do this to kids, to chop a young girl's breast off or a young boy's penis off, or to put them on puberty blockers that are going to lead them to infertility and a lifelong of care and complications from surgeries.
I mean, that shouldn't be a hard argument to sell.
It isn't hard argument to sell. And I close to me show the majority of people feel the way you feel and the way I feel about this issue. It's just a matter of explaining it and explaining why it is that Democrats push this. They're pushing it again to define you as a bigot, as transphobic, as anti trans people. You're just a Republican bigot. I saw a poll a few years ago, Lisa, sixty one percent of Democrats believe Republicans are racist, slash bigoted, slash sexist over eighty percent
believe that Donald Trump is a racist. And this is what they do. They put you in a category because they don't want to have a conversation. The former executive editor of The New York Times, his name was Dean Backay. He once said this in one of these unguarded candid moments. The left, as a general rule, does not want to hear thoughtful disagreement. I repeat, the left, as a general rule,
does not want to hear thoughtful disagreement. This is what the executive editor of The New York Times admitted about left wing people. And that's where we are in this country. Rather than have a conversation along the lines of what you just now did about the downside of allowing kids to change their sex, they're just call you a name, call you a bigot, and they move on. That's what the left does in this in this country. And that's one of the reasons why I believe I can effectively
deal with this. My mother was a lifelong Democrat, my dad a lifelong Republican, and they used to argue across the kitchen table about all sorts of issues. Nobody called anybody a fascist, Nobody called anybody a racist. Nobody called anybody a Nazi. Nobody said you only care about the rich, you don't care about the poor. They debated issues with passion, but they did it civilly. I don't know why we cannot do that in this country.
Well I wish we could.
You know, definitely doesn't seem like that's the direction we're heading in, but you know, I wish that was the case. You know, I'm always interested in how people get into their careers. So you practice law for a little bit after going to the University of Michigan law school, why switch to media? You know what was sort of I mean, obviously you've been tremendously successful, but kind of what shifted gears in the sense of, you know what.
The heck with the law, I don't want to do something else.
Well, I practiced law for a little less than three years, and I started a little business placing lawyers with law firms and corporations. I was a legal headhunter. And one day I'm watching a television and I'm watching an interview and I thought the interviewer was doing a bad job, and I started yelling at the television set. And my girlfriend said, if you think he can do a better job. Why don't you do it? I said, okay, fine, I
picked up the phone, Lisa. I taught myself into getting a job at a PBS station where I co hosted the show, and they liked me so much. I ended up hosting that show, and then I got another show for the local Fox affiliate called the Larry olda show. How I got into radio. I began writing op ed pieces for the newspaper. They published one this is about almost forty years ago, where I said racism was no longer a major factor in American life. I get a phone call from producer of a radio show. He said,
I've read your article today. Are you black? And I said I've been told? And he said, you don't believe racism is a major problem in America. I said, no, I do. He said, when you come on my guys show tonight and talk about it. I said sure. I was on the show for an hour, and Cleveland is almost fifty percent black. So most of the callers were black, and they were not having it. They were calling me and Uncle Tom and a foot shuffling Uncle Tom, and
a bug eyed Uncle Tom. One of them even called me the Antichrist, and one even call me the name that you call a black person when you really want to hurt his feelings, Republican. So I did that for an hour, and I said to myself, I'll never do that again. I get back home and back to my office brother, and the phone is ringing and it's the station manager of that radio station. He said, you were amazing. I said I was. He said, oh my god, you
have a good speaking voice. You took difficult position, you defended them without losing your temper or your sense of humor. Have you ever thought about doing talk radio? And I said no. He said, I've got a guy you go on vacation. Will you sit in for him? And I said no. He said why. I said, I don't like it, but don't you like I don't like yelling at people. I don't like being yelled at. He said, are you married at the time. I was. He said, do me a favor. Go home tonight, talk it over with your
wife and call me tomorrow. I said, I'll do that, but I doubt that I'll change my mind. So I was married at the time Lisa. I went home. I mentioned it to my wife and she said, well, what do you know about talk radio? I said, I know nothing about it other than it scene shallow, glib and stupid. She said it is, you'd be good at it, and so I did it for that week and I loved it. And it took me about two years to meet the
right people. I met Dennis Prager ultimately, and then it's recommended me to KBC in LA and they gave me a two day audition. After one day, they made me an offer. And I've been doing radio ever since then, been syndicated nationally in about three hundred markets. Before I ran for governor, I was in as I mentioned, three hundred markets, one point five million people heard me every day. And I had a long career in radio. And then I had two nationally syndicated TV shows in my life.
One was called Larry olda show. Another one was called Moral Court like a Judge show, like a Judge Judy show. So I've done that. And right before I ran for president, I was doing TV with Epic Times. I had a show online and on cable for Epic Times. And in the unlikely event that I don't become the next president of the United States, I'll probably go back to either TV or radio, or maybe even both.
Isn't it crazy how life can just take you on? You know, you just talked about a couple of different things, like the girlfriend being like, well, why don't you do it better?
Or your wife being like why not try?
You know, it's crazy sometimes how life takes you down these roads that you know originally you rejected the idea and then it ended up being this huge career.
Right, So it's just kind of crazy how life works like that.
Well you've heard the line man makes plan to God laughs exactly. Ever, even two and a half years ago, three years ago, would have thought that I'd run for anything. I ran for third grade class president, and I remember not liking that, even though I won that election. And fast forward, I ran for governor and now I'm running for president. I never in a million year thought I
would do any of that. But little by little I began feeling that I've always thought of politics as a spectator sport, and little by little I began thinking that maybe I had something to contribute. I know, I had something to say. And my dad, as I mentioned, was a World War Two vet. He was a Marine, one of the first Marines to recall the Montford Point Marines. My older brother Kirk was in the Navy. He was a Vietnam era VET. My little brother Dennis was in
the Army. He did go to Vietnam. I'm the only one in my family who didn't serve, and I never felt good about that. Lisa, and I really felt that I had a world and a political and a patriotic obligation to give back to a country that's been so good to my family and to me. And that's why I'm doing this. I would much rather not be spend my winters in Iowa, whether I spend my winters in
New Hampshire. And as I said earlier, if I really thought that Donald Trump could convince enough Twing voters so that he could win in twenty four, you and I wouldn't be having this conversation.
That is a concern I share as well about him just being toxic to independence, turn the key to winning. Before we go, talk about your new book, As Goes California, My Mission to Rescue the Golden State and Save the Nation.
Well, it's available on Amazon or on Born to Noble, and I wrote it in part to talk a little bit about my background, tell a little bit about who and what made me the way I am. I talk about my mom, my dad, my brothers. I talk about why I decided to run for governor in California. I talk about the issues that I tried to address when I ran, and then I talk about what my agenda is when I run for president. So it's all in there, California, the nation, my own background and why I'm doing this.
And I'm doing this, as I said before, for reasons that I think I would not be happy with Larry Elder if I go to my grave knowing that I did not do what I thought I should have done to help my country. And that's what the book is all about.
Well awesome, what sounds interesting, and that's out now. People can go get it correct.
Absolutely, you can go on Amazon or Born to Noble right now.
Larry Elder, it is pleasure and an honor to have you on the show, Stir. I really enjoyed our conversation. Appreciate you entering into the arena to try to change the country, and I appreciate you coming on the show.
Well, Lisa, and again I need contribution with from forty thousand individual donors, and you can help by going to Elder for President dot com at the very least. Don't you want me to get up there on that debate stage and say some of the stuff that you just now heard me talk to Lisa about elderferpresident dot Com.
Thanks so much, Larry appreciate it.
Lisa, thank you for having me. God bless.
Those Larry elder appreciate him taking the time to come on the show addressed to a lot of really important issues that we're facing as a country. I want to thank you guys at home for listening every Monday and Thursday, but you can listen throughout the week, or do to thank John Cass, who my producer, for putting the show together.
Until next time.