Steve Hilton is riding high in the days after securing President Trump’s endorsement in the primary election for California’s highest office. The endorsement was controversial, as it likely deals a fatal blow to the possibility of a Democratic lock-out. Hilton tells NBC 7 Political Reporter Joey Safchik that a Republican versus Republican general election was a pipe dream to begin with, and that he is more focused on the issues, including affordability, energy and homelessness.
A transcript of that conversation is below.
Safchik: Later this week, Republicans from across the state will convene right here in San Diego to decide whether to endorse a candidate in the governor’s primary. You might recall California Democrats did not make an endorsement, and it was entirely possible Republicans would have followed suit. But then President Trump endorsed Steve Hilton, the Fox News contributor and his longtime ally. That could very well change the party’s calculus, even if it was a somewhat controversial move, because it makes it less likely that the two GOP candidates will split the vote and advance to the general. Steve Hilton is joining me now to talk about all that color and the issues at the heart of the campaign. Thank you so much for being here.
Hilton: Of course. Great to be with you.
Safchik: Let’s start: why are you the man for this job?
Hilton: So California obviously needs change. We have the highest cost of living in the country. Gas prices. Housing costs. Insurance. Everything. It’s so expensive. It’s impossible to run a business. We have the highest unemployment rate in America. The highest poverty rate. We’ve had 16 years of one party rule. The system obviously isn’t working. And so I think it’s time for an outsider to come and shake things up. I’ve never run for office before. Most of my career has been in business. I’ve worked in business all over the world. I’ve started my own businesses, including restaurants, which, as anyone who’s in that business knows, it’s very difficult. I’ve been there with the struggles of small business owners. And I know what that’s like. But I’ve got the business mindset. But also, I worked for a while back in the day before moving here to California with my wife and my two sons in 2012. I was the senior advisor to the Prime Minister in the U.K., and I worked right there in the heart of the government trying to make reform happen. Trying to shake up the bureaucracy, that it didn’t always work. But I learned how hard it is to make change happen in government. And I’m going to bring all those lessons and apply it to saving our beautiful state of California and making it what I think we all feel it should be the best place anywhere in America to start and raise a family, to start and run a business. That’s what I mean by making California golden again.
Safchik: Look, obviously it sounds like you perceive it as a good thing that you’ve never held public elected office. But what gives you the confidence that you have, the political acumen to run the fourth biggest economy in the world?
Hilton: Well, I’m leading in the polls, having never run for office before. As I said, I think I’ve done the things that prepare you properly for this job. I’ve got executive experience. I’ve got government reform experience. I’ve got media experience. That’s a big part of the job. But more to the point, I’ve spent the last three years traveling California, listening to Californians, learning about the issues and developing solutions. That’s what I’ve been working on through my policy organization, Golden Together plans to fix our housing crisis, to make the business climate better, to have affordable, reliable energy, abundant water for our farmers in the Central Valley. All of these things and more ending our homelessness crisis. I’ve been doing the work, getting ready, and I am built for this, honestly. I’ve got the relevant experience. I’ve got the energy and the enthusiasm, and I can’t wait to get to work. We got the small matter of winning the election first, of course.
Safchik: Look, San Diegans often feel left behind during statewide elections. Have you succeeded in introducing yourself to the second biggest city in the state?
Hilton: Oh, I’ve spent. I love San Diego. I really do. I’ve been there so many times. Just at the end of last week, I had a couple events down there. We’ve been. We did some town halls, with hundreds of people coming out. And over the last three years, I’ve spent a lot of time in San Diego. And I agree with you. We’ve got to make sure that just because you got that long drive down the coast from Orange County, and, San Diego feels, to a certain extent to some people, like it’s just an island at the end of the five, just on the border with Mexico. That’s not how I see it. As you say, it’s an incredibly vibrant and important part of our state. The incredible businesses and entrepreneurs that have come out of San Diego. The culture, of course. It’s just a great place to be. I love being there and I’m really looking forward to being there this weekend.
Safchik: There has been a lot of noise in this race. Have the issues been obscured by that?
Hilton: Yeah, I think that is right. I think that there’s so much focus on the actual mechanics and the top two. And is it going to be two Republicans and how’s that all going to work? The issues are very clear, and really, it’s the theme of my campaign, and it’s on the banners that we use for our town halls.It’s one word that captures it for me. California bill making our state California. And my plan is very simple: $3 gas. Cut your electric bills in half. Your first hundred grand tax free a home you can afford to buy.
Safchik: $3 gas. Is that realistic?
Hilton: It is. If we end the climate dogma that’s been driving us in the wrong direction in California. We’ve got abundant oil and gas reserves right here in our state. But because of the Democrats climate dogma, we are now importing nearly 80% of the oil and gas that we use. That’s insane. We’re shipping oil halfway across the world in giant supertankers. Instead of getting the oil and gas that we have right here in California.
Safchik: So you want to expand drilling in California?
Hilton: Absolutely. And why are we importing the oil that we use instead of using what we have here? As long as we’re using oil and gas? It doesn’t make sense to be shipping it in from Iraq, which is where our number one provider is now, or the Amazon. Drilling in the why is it better to drill in the Amazon rainforest than to do it here in California? Creating jobs and opportunity in places like Kern County, where our energy industry is centered, and also making sure that we can get gas prices down. It’s just common sense.
Safchik: You have said that you want to enforce a 100% homeless encampment ban, and that you want to get people into treatment. What about people who refuse?
Hilton: Well, I’m sorry, but we can’t allow people to live in those conditions. We would never allow someone we love to live like that. So why do we accept it for people we don’t know? We have to get people into treatment, whether that’s for alcohol or drug addiction, or many people who have severe mental health problems. It cannot be a choice. We just can’t go on with this homelessness crisis that really shames our state in the eyes of the world. We’ve got to do something about it. And for too long, we’ve had this passive attitude of just let it all go. And it’s not okay. It’s not okay for the people living on the streets. It’s not okay for the rest of us who have to experience it on a daily basis. It’s going to end. And when I’m governor, we will enforce the law. It’s illegal to live in camps on the streets. Those homeless encampments will be removed if local politicians don’t do it. I will use state law enforcement resources to do it. But then, most importantly, we’re going to get people into the treatment that they need to get their lives back on track.
Safchik: You have acknowledged that that requires expanding that mental health treatment. How do you square that with your plans to cut spending or your hopes not to increase revenue?
Hilton: Well, it’s not a question of money. You know, in California, the Democrats have nearly doubled the state budget in the last ten years. In the last five years, it’s gone up by 75%. There’s plenty of money. It’s just going to the wrong places. It’s going to fraud and waste and abuse. I’ve been finding that out just through the investigations I’ve carried out in my campaign. And when you look at mental health specifically, there’s something really crazy going on, which is a rule that is imposed by the fed. By the, by Medicaid at the federal level, which means that you don’t get reimbursement for any mental health care that is carried out in a facility with more than 16 beds. Imagine how inefficient it would be if our hospitals were limited to 16 beds. That’s what’s going on with mental health. Now, the first Trump administration actually created a waiver program so states can apply to exempt themselves from that limit. Other states have done that. California hasn’t. As governor, I would. So we can provide modern, efficient mental health care actually at a lower cost than we’re doing now.
Safchik: Let’s talk about immigration. There are some 2.5 million people without papers in California. You have admitted that the immigration system, the pathways to legal immigration in this country, is broken. But would you work in tandem with the Trump administration to see those people deported?
Hilton: Well, first of all, I think the numbers are much, much higher than that. If you look at the numbers and the estimates across the country, I think the number is going to be way higher. And as illegal immigrants, you know, in California, I think the number is way higher in California. But I say this as a legal immigrant. As I say, we moved to 2012 on a visa, then applied for a green card. Then I got my citizenship in 2021. One of the proudest days of my life. Becoming an American. All that took nine years. And for people who did it the right way. And I see them all the time. As I say often, I’m the candidate of the legal immigrant community for the legal immigrant community. I want our legal immigrant community to have a shot at the California dream and climb that ladder of opportunity. I know it very well. My parents are Hungarian. They were refugees from communism. So I grew up in a working class household in England. I understand the immigrant aspirational story very well. But it has to be legal. Legal immigrants, above all other people, are really offended when they see illegal immigrants who came here across the border or some other way, broke the law, overstayed their visas shouldn’t be here. And then they’re getting handouts and benefits and empty cards for the grocery store and free cell phones. Free health care. It’s not fair.
Safchik: So would you work with the Trump administration?
Hilton: Yes. Absolutely. Sorry for the crosstalk. Yes. Absolutely. I think we’ve got to have a cooperative working relationship between the federal government and state and local government to make sure that all our laws are peacefully enforced. We can’t pick and choose which laws we like and don’t like. That’s not how it works in America. Congress passed these immigration laws. If we’re going to have laws, they need to be enforced. Otherwise, what’s the point? And when you talk about deportations, remember that this all happened much without any of the conflict. And fighting and violence that we’ve seen so terribly in the last few months in America, not in California, fortunately, but in Minnesota for example. None of that happened under President Obama, who was actually enforcing immigration laws at a much more aggressive pace even than this Trump administration. You didn’t see any of that kind of conflict then. You didn’t see the violence. There was no talk of sanctuary policies under President Obama. I think that’s the kind of attitude we need to get back to, which is just calmly and efficiently and cooperatively making sure that our laws are peacefully enforced. All of them, not just the ones that we happen to like or agree with.
Safchik: Mass deportations could have a dire impact on the economy here in California, though, right?
Hilton: Why?
Safchik: Because millions of people, regardless of that exact number, contribute to the economy here, whether they have papers or not.
Hilton: But we also have the highest unemployment rate in the country. And we have right now in California, a historically low labor force participation rate. That is the proportion of the adult workforce in California that’s actually working. If you put those two numbers together, there’s probably, I mean, it’s hard to be precise, but probably 4 to 5 million adults in California, Californians who could be working but are not working. And in fact, we’re paying them not to work. Taxpayers are funding them not to work through welfare programs. I’m no other. A dairy farm in one of the areas that people talk about in connection with this illegal immigration situation is agriculture. So I was at a dairy in the northern part of the Central Valley. The guys working the dairy, not paid a huge amount. They’re on 50 grand, something like that. They were telling me their girlfriends make more money than they do without working, just through various welfare payments. They were showing me the paperwork.
Safchik: Then why do you think the president walked back his policies targeting the tourism industry and the farm and agriculture industry?
Hilton: Well, I don’t know the latest position on that. Certain statements have been made. So I don’t know exactly where we stand on that. I think the truth is that the strategy that the administration outlined is a very practical one, which is when you’ve got the scale of the illegal immigration that has happened in America over the last five decades, really, but really accelerated under Joe Biden, where you had an additional 10 million or so people come across the border illegally in the Biden years. The scale of that is not something that you can just overnight deal with. That’s obviously ridiculous. And so the strategy that they laid out, which was captured in that simple phrase, the worst go first, I think is exactly right. Let’s start by focusing on the really dangerous violent criminals who, in addition to breaking the law by coming here or overstaying their visas, broke another one of our laws. Let’s start with that.
Safchik: Is that what you think is happening right now?
Hilton: Certainly that is happening. I don’t think we’ve reached the end of that road in terms of making sure that criminals who have, double criminals, if you like, are deported because you’ve got such obstruction from the California state and local government based on a California sanctuary state law. And so that’s completely avoidable. So I think they’re making it harder, which is ridiculous. They’re making it harder to deport people that the vast majority of Californians would agree shouldn’t be here.
Safchik: So you want to do away with the sanctuary policy?
Hilton: Totally. It’s a ridiculous policy. It’s actually unconstitutional. There’s a challenge to it. In fact, in the federal courts, it may well be overturned. By the time I take office as governor. But actually, even within the sanctuary state law, A.B. 54 that was passed in 2017, even within that, there’s actually a section and I’ve read the bill very carefully, where there’s a long list of crimes or suspected crimes where there is the ability for state and local law enforcement, at their discretion, to work with federal law enforcement, but they’re not doing it because they they captured by this this idea that in California, we should be constantly fighting anything that Trump does, even when it’s common sense policies that are good for California is. Another example of that is opening up energy production, where Gavin Newsom is constantly trying to stop the president and his team from doing common sense things to open up, to create jobs here by expanding our energy industries and lowering gas prices. For some ridiculous reason, he’s opposing. When I’m governor, that’s all going to end. We can have a constructive relationship where we work together in the best interests of Californians.
Safchik: I want to pivot for the sake of time to yes or no questions. Would you declare a state of emergency over the Tijuana sewage crisis?
Hilton: Yes. And I was there actually really about a year ago. Seeing for myself what has been done there and the state of emergency is necessary to deal with the consequences. Of course, we’ve got to get to the root cause of the problem. And I understand the president and his team are working on that. But. Yes, absolutely. And I said that a year ago, nearly.
Safchik: Do you support peeling back red tape to build more housing across the state?
Hilton: Yes. Very much. That’s part of my plan as part of my Cal Affordable Plan. A home you can afford to buy. We need to build more. And we need to build outwards as well as upwards. It cannot just be forcing apartment buildings into suburban areas. We need to build single family homes. That’s what a lot of people want in California.
Safchik: Okay. Let’s talk– there’s been ample speculation. Not the president’s endorsement of your campaign was a fatal blow, negating any possibility of a Democratic lockout. How do you feel about that endorsement? And are you worried it could make it more difficult for you to win over independent voters?
Hilton: So the idea that you are going to have two Republicans in the top two in California was always a fantasy. It’s ridiculous. Who thinks that the Democrats, after running this state for 16 years, one party rule, this powerful Democrat machine financed by corruptly financed government unions, is just going to hand over California to two Republicans to duke it out. That was never going to happen. The Democrat machine was going to use every trick in the book to make sure that there was a Democrat in the final. That was always the case, actually more likely than two Republicans in the final, I always thought it was two Democrats, because you’ve got the party machine will lift up one of the candidates. It looks like that might be Eric Swalwell. And also you’ve got Tom Steyer, the billionaire climate fanatic who’s trying to buy the election. He’s already spent $100 million. He’ll probably spend another hundred million in the next few weeks. And so you could easily see two Democrats getting in the final. If on the Republican side, we continue to split the vote roughly equally. That’s why I’ve been saying we need to unify on our side behind the strongest candidate. Now, so far this year, that’s been me. I’ve had the edge in nearly all of the polls this year. Now that’s getting bigger. Even before the president’s endorsement, there was a poll out just today which was carried out before the president’s endorsement. That has me at 22%, Eric Swalwell at 18%, Tom Steyer at 13 and the other Republican at 13. So that’s a nine point lead over the other Republicans. So the movement behind me is happening anyway, and I think it will just be accelerated by the president’s endorsement, which I’m most appreciative of. And as I said, it’s an honor to be endorsed by our president. And I think it’s going to be very helpful in mobilizing and enthusing Republican voters to come out and vote, both in the primary and in the general election.
Safchik: Our time is running short. So to end on a lighter note, you would be governor during the Olympics when you picture representing California on a global stage, what do you see?
Hilton: I see this amazing state, the most beautiful and amazing state in our nation, and actually such a symbol of opportunity and freedom and the kind of rebel spirit that California stands for, for the whole world. I often say California means to America what America means to the world. And that’s what I want to capture. Funnily enough, one of the last things I did before moving here from the UK was work with the movie director Danny Boyle on the opening ceremony for the London Olympics in 2012. So it’s going to be wonderful to be able to showcase our incredible state to the world in 2028. I’ll be proud to do it.
Safchik: Mr. Hilton, thank you so much for joining us. We’ll see plenty of you between now and June.
Hilton: Thank you so much. Great to be with you.