Ever More Democrat Fraud + Can LA Be Saved?

00:00:03 Speaker 1: My name is Charlie kirk I run the largest pro American student organization in the country, fighting for the future of our republic. My call is to fight evil and to proclaim truth. If the most important thing for you is just feeling good, you're gonna end up miserable. But if the most important thing is doing good, you'll end up purposeful. College is a scam, everybody. You got to stop sending your kids to college. You should get married as young as possible and have as many kids as possible. 00:00:31 Speaker 2: Go start at turning point. 00:00:32 Speaker 1: You would say college chapter. Go start at turning point, yould say high school chapter. 00:00:35 Speaker 2: Go find out how your church can get involved. Sign up and become an activist. 00:00:39 Speaker 1: I gave my life to the Lord in fifth grade, most important decision I ever made in my life, and I encourage you to do the same. Here I am Lord, Use me. Buckle up, everybody, Here we go. Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of the Charlie Kirkshaw, a company that specializes in gold iras and physical delivery of precious metals. Learn how you could protect your wealth with Noble Gold Investments at noblegold investments dot Com. That is Noblegoldinvestments dot Com. 00:01:17 Speaker 2: All right, welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show. It's Thursday, May seventh. I'm on location here at the Real America's Voice DC studio. So thank you to Robin Parker, siing the whole team here for making me feel so welcome. Appreciate it. It's technically the remote, the mobile y Refi Studios. Blake's holding it down in Phoenix, Arizona, the y Refi Permanent studios. Our friends over at y Refi check them out. How are we doing, Blake, We're doing great. 00:01:45 Speaker 3: If you're really on the road, Like if you're only using your webcam in your in your laptop, is that the y Refied laptop or the y Refi It would have to be, Yeah, it would have to the y Refi mobile microphone. 00:01:59 Speaker 2: Uh. Listen, We've got a pack show and lots to get to. An amazing debate actually for La Mayor with Spencer Pratt, who has really taken the nation and social media by storm. We're going to get to that as well in our two with Steve Hilton, who is going to be joining us, who to go over his gubernatorial debate from just a couple of days ago, Blake is, I wouldn't say you're the most positive about the prospects in California, but nevertheless, I think it's a very important case study and just how insane left wing politics have gotten, how corrupt, how dysfunctional, how inept, how poorly run Democrat jurisdictions are, and people are voting with their feet. There's a few people willing to stay and fight, and we want to support those people certainly, But because Blake, I think it highlights just how corrupt Democrat politics have become, especially when they get this grip on power. Case in point is Virginia. We wanted to lead the story, lead the show today with a story out of Virginia. We mentioned it briefly on the show yesterday, and that is about, you know, an FBI raid over a state senator, Luis and Lucas, who is a state senate in Virginia who led the redistricting fight and then lo and behold, all of a sudden, her cannabis dispensary, yes she has a cannabis dispensary, gets raided by the FBI, along with some other properties that she owned, offices that she controlled. Blake, you highlighted this wonderful article breaking it all down for us. So please do that start us off. 00:03:38 Speaker 4: Blake exactly. So, like you said, it's Louis Lucas. 00:03:40 Speaker 3: She's been in the Virginia State Senate for about thirty years and so one of those well entrenched lawmakers that you'll see often Democrats at the state level. They've been there a very very long time, have a lot of institutional power. So she's not the majority leader, but she was perceived as playing a very central role in redrawing the state's maps, ramming that through. And now just a few days after their vote and she's raided by the FBI. 00:04:10 Speaker 4: That they came in. It was almost like it was a j sixth raye. 00:04:13 Speaker 3: They had swat teams busting in to her dispensary and several other buildings. She has a whole network of different entities and companies that are linked to her or her family. They almost all have Lucas in the name, Lucas Lodge, LLC, which runs group homes, the Cannabis Outlet, Lucas Professional Center, Lucas Hospitality, Lucas Medical Transportation. 00:04:33 Speaker 4: We know that is a very fraught business. 00:04:37 Speaker 3: We don't know no charges have been dropped yet, but it's a lot of connections to companies where we know political corruption is a big opportunity. 00:04:45 Speaker 4: For example, her cannabis business. 00:04:47 Speaker 3: Virginia is one of those states where you can run a license cabinist, cannabis dispensary excuse me, uh, And it's easier to get if you have some sort of you know, it's one of those ways things you can get more easily if you have political connections. 00:05:02 Speaker 4: It's one of those things. 00:05:03 Speaker 2: Where yeah, yeah, can you pause right there. So I know this from stories out of the state of Nevada when they legalized which was my home state. When they legalized it, there was a massive push at the political level, the local level it to basically get their hands on it because they only give out so many permits for cannabis dispensaries. That's sort of the handshake deal here, right, We're gonna legalize it, but we're gonna we're gonna control it, contain it in certain ways, one of which is they give only a certain number of permits for facilities that maybe are like indoor greenhouses that could grow it and uh, storefronts. So you if you want to sell cannabis to the public weed you have to get a permit. Well, guess who tends to get those permits, Blake. Not guys like you and me, because we probably will. Although it is a lucrative business, it tends to be the politically well healed and well connected, which is exactly Luis Lucas who this person is. By the way, a shout out out to the channel VA change agent who published this very detailed document on x VA change Agent. Check it out if you want to follow along. But this is what's revealed in it, Blake, is that this is a sitting state senator out of Virginia that has consolidated power over the years. This is not collection of random businesses. It's a vertically integrated operation. I'm reading direct from the article real estate ownership via the trust group homes by the way, which are funded by Medicaid. Another one of those little tie ins real estate ownership of transportation, day support and direct care, all feeding off Medicaid dollars while her political entities launder influence and campaign cash back into the system. So that's right, her owned businesses are funneling money back into her campaign pack. And get this, the same person, this is Luis Lucas, who's chairing the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee, which funds Medicaid in the state of Virginia. She personally owns all these buildings, so she on the committee that disperses the funds. She's she owns the business that benefits benefits off the medicaids dollars that are flowing through, and she might just happen to have been involved in a corruption scandal giving her access to the cannabis dispensary that approximately correct. 00:07:21 Speaker 3: She received Tolcas Lucas Lodge, LLC received in Portsmouth, received two different to Lucas Lodge, and she received a total of about six hundred thousand dollars in PPP loans in twenty twenty, which may have been repaid, but they may also have just been forgiven. It says paid in full or forgiven, So no easy way to tell there, but we can take a guess. 00:07:44 Speaker 5: One of the. 00:07:44 Speaker 3: Funny things about this is she's she's fighting back by claiming this is a political retaliation from the Trump administration. The awkward thing is, as reported by Bill Malusion on Fox and some other outlets, is that this investigation apparently originates in the Biden administry. I feel like maybe she would have had better odds if she just we know a few Democrats have had success with that where she says I was about to expose the Democrat Biden machine, and that's worked occasionally on President Trump with a few other Democrats, she might have better shot with that. 00:08:17 Speaker 2: We're talking not just six hundred thousand PPE loans. We're talking forty two point three million dollars in Medicaid taxpayer dollars funnel to Senator Luis Lucas's operation between two thousand and six and twenty twenty five. So that's what we're talking about over twenty years. Full capacity could be as high as forty eight point five million as well. There's a massive expansion. This is lucrative stuff. And what's wild is that she gets her cannabis dispensary rated. And that seems to be where maybe the corruption scandal that is the smoking gun, if you will, but is exposing one little Virginia State senator that none of us had ever heard about. It's exposing the depth to which corruption takes root when political power like this gets entrenched. This is why I think this story is emblematic. We started this week, we're talking with Luke Rosiak at The Daily Wire about the fraud in Ohio and about how all these safeguards had been taken off the Medicaid programs and a billion dollar billion dollars goes out the doors to some Mollie's doing fraudulent daycare for their family members doing companionship. And now you see another example in Barely Blue Virginia where the same thing has happened to a woman that's been able to remain in power for a very long time in a very lucrative sense. 00:09:38 Speaker 3: Andrew I found something pretty amazing because she's been around a long time and a lot of people who are lifers in Virginia are saying she's absolute garbage. Has been involved in everything, and a really amazing story. This is from summer twenty twenty, the summer of Floyd when they were having a lot of left wing riots demonstrations, left wingers, what were they doing at the very beginning of that. They were going after statues, They were spray painting statues, ripping them down, And there was an incident where she gets caught on a police body camera telling police this is a direct quote from the body camera footage. I'm Senator Luis Lucas. I know I'm in disguise, but they are going to put some paint on this thing, this thing being one of the statues they were targeting. You cannot arrest them. You need to call doctor Patten because they are going to do it. You can't stop them. So she's going around undercover ordering police not to arrest vandals who are defacing or destroying public property in the summer of Floyd. 00:10:39 Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a corrupt woman. And I again I'm we're highlighting this. Yes, it's a breaking news story out of yesterday, but it is endemic to our system, the corruption, especially in deep blue areas where the power gets in trench. We're seeing it across the country and we're gonna highlight it even more so. We talked about Los Angeles the mayor's race of Hilton with the governor's race. But this, I'm gonna show you this clip and it to me, it blew me away. But it didn't surprise me. But it's just it's a reflection of just how out of touch or how about this, how tribal people are in these areas where people like Luis Lucas get their stranglehold on power seventeen because she did more good than bad, no matter what they say. 00:11:27 Speaker 6: They tried to bother her because she's a strong opinionated person. You know, she looks out for her state, for her people. And I don't understand what all this is about. And I feel it's all political. 00:11:43 Speaker 5: It's character assassination. 00:11:45 Speaker 4: They've been doing this for years for people who are in power. 00:11:49 Speaker 2: Who represent our community. This is not the first time character assassination, and we hope that it's not nothing. But at the same time, the community lewis, I'll must dig with him. Those are her constituents that put her into office, and they say she's done more good than bad. This character assassination, she's We're sticking with her, whatever the case may be. 00:12:13 Speaker 3: I have even more compelling information about the summer of twenty twenty. So she's in disguise telling police, don't block these demonstrators from vandalizing this statue, and then the demonstrators proceed to illegally rip the statue down and it fell on one of their heads and turned him into a vegetable. Like actually serious brain damage and he's in a wheelchair, nonverbal. 00:12:38 Speaker 4: I believe to this probably one of her homes possibly might be. 00:12:42 Speaker 3: And then and then they blamed her for this, and she tried to soothe the city saying that they had basically aligned against her. And then this body camera footage actually surfaced as a result of that. 00:12:53 Speaker 4: If I'm reading this correctly, which I'm finding. 00:12:54 Speaker 2: There's even more that I found. Blake. There's even more that I found. She was the the co sponsor of the cannabis legislation that and then she opened the cannabis outlet the same year the legislation passed, which is now the subject of an active FBI corruption bribery investigation. So she cosponds to that legislation and then immediately profited off of it. Here's one other thing that we should talk about the Luis's. Lucas's facilities have one of the worst safety and compliance records of any of such facilities in the state of Virginia. They found two hundred and seventeen citations since twenty twenty one, among the highest violation counts of any they call intellectual developmental disabilities provider in Virginia. They've had nine individuals die while in care, so that's across multiple years. Serious incidents they've had one hundred and forty three serious incidents involving injuries since twenty nineteen. They had one hundred and two before two twenty twenty two, or yeah, the one hundred and two, and yeah, I think I got the numbers right there. Corrective action failures forty six citations for failing to implement required corrective action plans over five year period, and virtually zero Blake. You talk about the way she her attitude with the bodycam footage, virtually zero enforcement actions because she probably is making sure that there are zero enforcement actions. So this is I just think this story is remarkable and such a picture into corrupt blue deep blue politics. And you listen to her constituents, and what do they say? We got her back no matter what, doesn't matter how corrupt she is. We like her because that's the way this works. 00:14:49 Speaker 3: This is how politics works. Let's be blunting us how politics works in a lot of the Third world. That's how politics works in countries that are divided in to let's just say it, ethnic and racial little clusters. 00:15:04 Speaker 4: That's what this encourages. 00:15:06 Speaker 3: You need, you need a kind of unified body politic for politics to actually become a competition for providing the best services, providing the best moral conduct, providing good things for the whole society. And America had that for a long time and we achieved a lot of great things. But we have through immigration, through DEI, through just the rhetoric of the left, we've been racing towards an alternative way of doing politics. And if you want to see how it works out, well, we'll be talking about the Pope himself in a few minutes. The Pope himself has told us to look at Lebanon. You can see how Lebanon works out. You can see how politics in the UK is working out. Where they've got there all the little one country after another, and. 00:15:48 Speaker 4: It's not good. 00:15:49 Speaker 3: But a lot of people will say, I stand behind our person, no matter how corrupt they are, stand behind our wrong. 00:15:56 Speaker 2: Diversity is our strength, Blake, Diversity is our strength. If sing it loud, sing it proud, it is our mantra. I want to talk to you about an issue so many Americans face, and that's health insurance. There's an organization I really really appreciate called Christian Healthcare Ministries CHM is a faith based alternative to health insurance. And this is real stuff. Folks like you gotta listen in With CHM, You're not paying into a company's profit margin. You're investing in a community with less overhead than the competition. You get reliable support through the giving and prayer of fellow members. Members contribute every month to help pay for each other's medical bills, allowing believers to afford the care they need. Because they're not insurance, you get access to your preferred doctor or hospital without network restrictions. You heard that right. If you want to see massive savings in your healthcare budget, HM has four low cost programs for every stage of life, starting at just one hundred and fifteen dollars a month plus. You can enroll or switch your program at any time. See why so many believers are taking a leap of faith. Start today by visiting Cchministries dot org slash Charlie and use promo code Charlie for a fifty percent credit towards your first month that Schministries dot org slash Charlie and use promo code Charlie. So much to get into with breaking news out of Iran. Here to help us do it is Mike Brest, Defense reporter from the Washington Examiner. Welcome to the show, Mike, Thanks for having me. Yes, absolutely, So there's so much to go through, but I want to start with there was an NBC report that says, this story behind the story here with the abrupt U turn on Project Freedom, right where they were going to escort some of these groups that have been trapped in the strait for now weeks and weeks and weeks. There's twenty two thousand crewmen or something like that that are just trapped behind there. Then rockets start getting shot, missile start getting shot, and then there was an abrupt pause. What is your reporting showing that's actually going on and why that may have happened. 00:18:07 Speaker 7: So it's hard to tell definitively why or what prompted the president's pretty dramatic reversal. I mean, it was only earlier that day that both Secretary hegg Seth and Secretary of Rubio were out in front of the media pretty proudly talking about Project's freedom. And so one thing that seems to have been a factor was the US response to how Iran retaliated, and so you mentioned that there were some skirmishes between Iranian naval vessels and the US Navy vessels, and they also attacked commercial shipping. But the other thing that Iran did was they carried out or launched drones and missiles towards the UAE, which did impact an oil refinery there. And so that seemed to be a big moment because it was the first time since President Trump announced the ceasefire that Iran attacked another Gulf country. And then the US went to say that that attack, as well as the attacks on the US navy vessels, did not amount to a breach of the ceasefire or that the ceasefire was still in effect, and so it seems like various consent. There was consternation among golf countries that there was concern that the US essentially brushed off the fact that Iran launched drums and missiles specifically targeting the Uaight. 00:19:24 Speaker 2: Yeah, so they basically there's almost like a tale of two wars here, right. The Americans and the Israelis were super aggressive, bombing the crap out of just about anything they could find for weeks, and Trump wants this deal, He wants this to be behind him. I have a sense, I mean, this is just a personal feeling that Trump is probably just ready to put this behind him, wants to chalk it up as a w and move on. Meanwhile, when a skirmish breaks out with this Project Freedom, missiles start flying at golf partners, who have been broadly supportive of the US led efforts in Iran, They're like, what the heck we're getting We're taking shots here on our infrastructure, rol refineries, and we're not going to retaliate. What's the story? So it's almost like they felt let down by this according to the reporting, is that essentially what this is. So Trump is kind of stuck between an Iranian rock and a allies in the region hard place. 00:20:20 Speaker 7: I think you're onto something with the fact that it does seem like the signs are pointing towards the President wanting a deal as opposed to restarting aggressive offensive military operations like we saw in the first six weeks of this war. And the fact that they didn't consider it a violation of the ceasefire is a demonstration of the fact that they don't want to necessarily restart offensive operations. And to take it back to the April seventh announcement from President Trump about the ceasefire, he said in that initial message that it was all contingent upon the Iran reopening the Straight of Hormos. That message was sent or the president's announcement was a month ago today, and over the course of the month, Iran hasn't opened the Straight or four moods. So by the president's own terms, Iran hasn't lived up to the one main component of the ceasefire agreement. And yet the US hasn't carried out military operations or considered the ceasefire Nolan void even though that very basic initial principle has not been met. 00:21:22 Speaker 2: Yeah, and why do you think that is? Is that what would have to happen for the US to, you know, essentially acknowledge that the ceasefire has been violated and that we're going to resume kinetic activities strikes on Iran have is your reporting any of your sources kind of indicated what that red line might be. As we're kind of hunting down this now one page memorandum before we're going to send our negotiators back over to it, probably to Pakistan to negotiate an actual permanent piece. 00:21:53 Speaker 7: It's hard to tell exactly what the President is thinking as it relates to what would constitute breaking up a red line, and part of that is because it does seem like the President has made a decision that he wants to see this wrapped up, especially as the situation where the global economy continues to fight some turmoil, and so while the President seems to want to end the war that all knowing that also gives Iran some leverage, and they've, as they've done several times in the past, continue to drag out these negotiations. And it's unclear exactly what would have to happen for the President to try to essentially throw away these negotiations for a resumption of military operations. But it should also be noted that the US and Iran were negotiating around this time last year prior to the Israeli ran twelve Day war, and they were negotiating or at least having talks in January before the start of this conflict. And so the most recent iterations of US Rani negotiations have not gone well and have led to significant military conflicts. The question is now is the president willing to restart those conflicts, especially as we get closer to the midterms and there is little reprieve for the economy, Whether that could happen. 00:23:13 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there was some good earnings reports today from Wall Street, which has I think been well received. So, you know, the economy is a mixed back. Certainly, energy prices spiking has been bad, but we're also now exporting I think we're the leading export of oil all of a sudden in the world. Maybe I'm wrong, but it's we're right up there, you know. So the question that I have here is again you're you're spending your days reporting, working your sources, getting the into here, Mike, how effective has the US blockade been? You know, basically you talk about leverage. How much leverage has that actually given us? 00:23:54 Speaker 7: So I think the US blockade has been in fact, it has been impactful. The problem is when it comes to try and trying to impose economic gratifications on any economy or any country, it doesn't happen overnight. 00:24:08 Speaker 5: And so. 00:24:10 Speaker 7: While the blockade has worked, and it does, there are signs of Iran's already troubled economy struggling even further. It's unclear exactly that they're feeling already the effects of this blockade as opposed to the effects they would feel if the US were to continue this for several months. 00:24:30 Speaker 2: So so basically, the the calculation that has to be made is how long is Iron willing to stomach the economic fallout from this. Everybody seems to report and maybe you would agree that they have a high threshold for pain, So that could just be the stalemate for the for the for the near intermediate future. 00:24:53 Speaker 7: That's exactly right, and it feels like that's the point we've come to over the last couple of weeks where the Iranians are particularly set up to handle this type of pain. And part of it is the fact that they are not a country that is seeking to benefit better the lives of the civilians in their country, and so they have been able to stand a tremendous amount of both military and economic pressure to this point, and at this point don't seem ready to crack to us demands either, leading many to believe that they are holding out and can for quite some time. 00:25:33 Speaker 4: So, Mike, one thing that's making it very difficult here. 00:25:36 Speaker 3: So obviously we've seen the claims that it was airspace issues that brought an end to this Operation Freedom, but bigger picture is what's the overall level of support of our regional allies for the operations against Iran, because I constantly am seeing claims where one day it's, oh, they don't they want to deny their airspace. 00:25:58 Speaker 4: They think it's too much escalation. 00:26:00 Speaker 3: But then you also see reports where supposedly the Crown prints of Saudi Arabia is egging President Trump on to be tough. Are some of these reports just lies or what is the overall posture of all these Middle countries in the Middle East? 00:26:14 Speaker 7: I think a lot of the countries in the Middle East, just like the presidents, sometimes their opinions fluctuate based on how operations are carried out or the results of them. And so there could have been countries that were open to the idea of Project Freedom but were then turned off to it because they saw the Iranians not only attack commercial and US Navy vessels, but also attack the UAE. And I don't think the golf countries want to see Iran resume their attacks against them and their infrastructure. That being said, the Iranians have demonstrated the capability and the willingness and the persistence to be able to carry out attacks on golf countries. 00:26:56 Speaker 2: So while they their position. 00:26:59 Speaker 7: On specific aspects that the conflict may vacillate from week to week. They are now even more even more clearly than it was pre February twenty eighth when the war began. They have now seen and experienced the threat that Iran poses to not just then, but the entire region. 00:27:19 Speaker 2: Well, this is I mean, it seems like Trump has actually done a fairly good job of consolidated port regionally, and Iran has done a fairly poor job of winning any sympathies by you know, firing missiles at everybody. So, Mike, I wanted to I want to talk about this piece deal. What what are the demands of the Trump administration. Obviously no uranium, I would assume a way to extract it, a way to monitor it. So we'll start there. What is the broad outline of what they're going for right now? 00:27:52 Speaker 7: So the Trump administrations as it relates to the nuclear front, the Trump administration wants to see Iran agree to effectively end its nuclear program. Wants to figure out a way to extract the highly enriched uranium, which is very deep underground because of the US strikes last year in Operation mid Nighthammer, it's unclear exactly where the uranium is, what shape it's in and so the idea of trying to extract it from deep within Iran is not something that could happen really or easily if the conflict were still ongoing. So that's something that is of a significant priority for the administration. And so they also want to get Iran to agree for some time period that they will refuse or explicitly say they will not pursue uranium enrichment. And so there are reports out there that the Trump administration is seeking a twenty year moratorium. There is also reporting that Iran is not willing to agree to that and would be potentially open to a much smaller moratorium, say five years. All that being said, the Trump administration, and this is why this deal is really hard to see how it gets across the finish line. The Trump administration hasn't changed their position on almost anything, and at the same time, the Iranians have not really, at least publicly demonstrated a willingness to do that either. So at this exact moment, it seems like neither side has really changed their tune, so to speak. Is specifically about the nuclear program. The administration, over the course of the war has talked about aspects unrelated to their nuclear program that they also want to see address, like Iran's support for proxies in the region like Hamas has Bola and the Hutis, And the US also wants to see limits put on Iran's mistic capacity and the number of missiles are allowed to keep at any given time. The hard thing is those are things that the Obama administration determined would be would make their attempt at a deal too broad and hard to agree upon. And it seems like the administration is figuring out some of those challenges now as they're trying to parse through each individual aspect of the deal that they're hoping to achieve. 00:30:21 Speaker 3: So, Mike, one question that does come to mind with this framework is, even as you say, there's a lot of obstacles to it, but if it was agreed to, I'm seeing, you know, these long term agreements to stop enriching uranium with some form of monitoring for it. What would set this deal apart? What would be the key differences between this proposed deal and the nuclear deal that we got rid of when President Trump was in office the first time. 00:30:46 Speaker 7: So, if the administration has their way, and it's not clear that they will they do want to see aspects like the missile capacity funding for proxies to be included in this deal, and so that would be a big part of it. The President at times just said he does not want to see Iran and rich uranium at any to any percenter, at any in any way. And so that's going to be a really hard obstacle to tackle because obviously Iran wants to continue their nuclear program, which they say is a civil nuclear program, and so if the US makes the stance that they don't want to see Iran in rich uranium to any level, it's hard to see exactly how they get a deal agreed upon. But that would be one area in which a deal would be different than the Obama era Iran deal. 00:31:36 Speaker 2: All Right, So there was a brief mention by President Trump about because all of this really hinges on the fact that we have not seen the regime toppled, right, they've remained in power, their grip on power remains. He made mention that they're gonna get guns, referring to the Iranian people, that they're gonna get armed soon. Is there any indication that the Iranian people are ready to take up arms against the regime. 00:32:03 Speaker 7: It's hard to tell exactly, especially because there is the ongoing internet blackout throughout Iran, so it's hard to grasp exactly what's going on in the country as it relates to the protests that we saw in late December and early January, which really was the opening chapter of this now conflict or now war, And so it's not exactly clear even who would get the guns or how they would be provided to them, and so it's unclear exactly how this will play out or if we will really see a dramatic domestic uprising. 00:32:35 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you've got to imagine with the threats of more murder by the regime against any protests, everything remains in flux. But then you have the economic turmoil that's going to be roiling the country increasingly as the blockade continues. It does feel like this is a bubbling cauldron that is eventually going to overflow one way or the other. And I just it does seem like the Iranian regime has any sort of rational economic interests. They don't, like you mentioned, they don't seem to put the concerns of their people at the forefront. They just want to hold on to power. And they want to play their leverage against the Trump administration to whatever ends that might come. Final thirty seconds to you, Mike, big picture, what do you predict what's going to happen? Are they going to get a piece meeting? Do you think that's actually going to get that far where we see another Islamabad negotiation? 00:33:30 Speaker 7: It's hard to tell exactly at this moment. The things that I'm watching for are how the President approaches this, because ending Project Freedom was essentially a concession to the Iranians without getting anything in return, or at least anything that we can see. And so that was a concession from the Trump administration. And so will there be a alternative concession from the Iranians that we just haven't seen yet, or will we see the President agree to make potentially additional concessions if it means getting a deal. 00:34:09 Speaker 2: How much are life liberty in the pursuit of happiness worth to you? This is the question America's founders had to answer. You see, for more than one hundred and fifty years, America's thirteen colonies governed themselves until Britain declared they had no right to self rule, So ordinary people had to make extraordinary choices and risk their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to fight for independence, and against all odds they won, and in victory they built one of the most stable and lasting republics in human history. Now experience the American polution like never before, thanks to our friends at Hillsdale College. 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Hillsdale dot Edu slash Revolution to locate a theater near you and buy tickets for Revolutionary American one more time. That's Hillsdale dot Edu slash Revolution joined here on set in DC. Oh my gosh, Oh my goodness. That is Jack Epacobic, host of Human Events Daily. I'm not I'm not going to look at him. I'm just gonna look straight at the camera here because we don't have a wide shot. 00:36:07 Speaker 8: We're actually sitting next We're actually sitting next to each other. 00:36:10 Speaker 5: I can get my fists. 00:36:11 Speaker 2: Yeah I can't. No, you can't. You can't sit So Jack, you're Catholic. Blake is Catholic. 00:36:19 Speaker 5: He is. 00:36:19 Speaker 2: I was. I went to Catholic high school. I'm a cradle Catholic. Uh and I love the Catholics. But we've got an interesting story and there's a lot of tentacles to it, and that is that Marco Rubio is going to be holding a face to face meeting with Pope Leo at the Vatican. So add that to his jobs list. 00:36:38 Speaker 4: I think. 00:36:38 Speaker 8: I think technically, because of the time change, they already had it. 00:36:41 Speaker 2: They already had it. Yeah, Okay, well they already had it. Okay. So I want to play this clip because Rubio has been going viral a lot lately, just because he's an articulate defender of the president's policies. Might be one of the top two UH communicators in the admin. I would put JD. Van also is one of the top two. No disrespect to the president, of course, it's just when he's got surrogates out there. He's an impressive communicator. So he gave this speech in advance of the meeting with the Pope twelve. 00:37:12 Speaker 5: The Catholic faith has. 00:37:14 Speaker 9: Always been part of the American story. The first Christian service on our soil was a Catholic mass. The oldest permanent settlement in the United States is the town of Saint Augustine, planted by Spanish Catholics on the coastal sands of my home state of Florida. Catholic saints were martyred on American soil well over a century before the Revolution began. In missions and settlements, wilderness forts, and trading posts stretching from the first colonies to the distant frontier. Catholic explorers, soldiers, priests, and pioneers consecrated this new world to their ancient faith and christened its land with Catholic names Maryland, Saint Louis, San Francisco, Santa Fe. Almost every region of what is now the United United States was first explored and mapped by Catholics. 00:38:04 Speaker 2: So actually that was a speech I guess he delivered about a month ago. But nevertheless, it's relevant. I wonder if it plays a role in the fact that he's going to meet with the pope instead of because here's what's interesting. So Rubio is I believe evangelical. I don't believe he's Catholic? Am I mistaken? There? 00:38:22 Speaker 3: He goes back and forth. It seems like he's attended evangelical services. I think he'll I think he says he's he's Catholic now, but he's he's got that American tendency in the church hop. 00:38:33 Speaker 2: A bit all right, fair enough. I've spoken with the secretary before he was Secretary of State during the campaign about his faith, and he sort of sounds like an evangelic when you're talking to But that's great. The point is it's interesting that Vice President Vance is not going well. 00:38:48 Speaker 8: I think that you know, JD not going as the VP. That's you know, may come as an event that you were at actually where he was discussing this sort of between the President and Pope Leo, where the VP made some comments when you actually asked him the question, and there were you know, he was saying, well, there's different lanes, and he was basically saying that that's a theological lane, a religious lane, this is a political lane we're operating in that. I think that was blown out of proportion big time by the way. I think that's all that he was saying. He wasn't saying that the Pope shouldn't talk at all about those things. He was talking more about the response to it. But I do think that because of that perception, that may be one of the reasons that Rubio's coming in. Look, he's the head of our foreign diplomacy, he is the Secretary of State. It makes sense for him to be meeting. 00:39:41 Speaker 5: A world leader. 00:39:43 Speaker 2: So I got clarity on his faith description. He describes himself as evangelical capital that's super clear. 00:39:52 Speaker 3: So he even attended to Mormon services for a while as a child that looks. 00:39:56 Speaker 2: Like as a child, Yeah, as a child, and then he was attended Southern Baptist Church. He returned to his Catholic roots to describing himself as evangelical Catholic. All right, no, no, wonder. I was a bit confused there, so I think that's right. Okay, So what are the what are the goals in him? You think about foreign diplomacy being about the heads of states meeting or meeting with his counterpart in you know, foreign powers, but the Vatican is essentially a very small plot of land in Italy, and you know, so what are the goals here? They're trying to thaw this kind of tension, Blake, what do you think are the goals here? 00:40:37 Speaker 3: Well, I think there would be some desire to thought because in general in American politics we haven't really had the Pope as a big player. But when he has been there was a little bit of friction with Pote Francis, But generally, you know, the Catholics have devout Catholics in America have been towards the right. When the Church has played a role, it's been on stuff like the lifeish, gay marriage, euthanasia, and we've never really had this almost feels vaguely medieval bit where you have the pope sort of frequently saying stuff that is directly at odds with a conservative president, and it is the first American pope. 00:41:17 Speaker 4: There's so many different layers to it. I think it's a conflict. 00:41:20 Speaker 3: They have enough disputes here in the United States, they don't need another one. 00:41:23 Speaker 4: I think that's how the ADMIN feels. 00:41:25 Speaker 3: Who knows how the president feels, because the President is a guy who likes his arguments. 00:41:29 Speaker 4: His fights, his WWE style mashups. 00:41:33 Speaker 3: But I think they would desire to have a friendlier relationship or at least not a hostile one. 00:41:39 Speaker 8: One angle i'd love to throw in, though, is let's not forget that this is politics too, that we are in a mid term election. And I just pulled up a quick list in Grock. Here you look at states that have Senate races, that have governor's races that are competitive, that also have high Catholic percentages in terms of the population. And we know from twenty twenty four that the Catholic vote was a huge swing vote, many of which overlaps with the Hispanic Hispanic voting block, which is now growing in the Southern states. You look at places of the rust Belt, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, which has a Senate and governor's race high twenty percent, twenty five percent catholic population, Ohio, which has a senate governor's race. Maine has a very high Catholic percentage, which of course has a huge senate race that's going on. That's Planter and Collins, New Hampshire twenty five percent, Nevada, Texas twenty percent, So Minnesota again, like there's just a ton of states, and then North Carolina, which doesn't have as high as a catholic state, but in a state where it's going to be so competitive. Look, every vote counts, and so why make an enemy of the pope when you're in this huge fight. 00:42:43 Speaker 2: Well, so I want to get your guys thoughts on the Rubyo vance thing. Right, there's been a lot of inkspilled, a lot of reporting commentary about who is going to be the heir apparent going into twenty twenty eight. For a while there JD was running away with it clear as day. But Rubio's performance and his skill, his you know, even at the White House press briefing room when he we took on that new job for a day. I mean, he did a great job. Rubio is incredibly effective, like I said, as a communicator. Are is it too early to play into this, But I'm hearing other reports to say the President himself is polling audiences in private about who they want. So you know the President's thinking about this question. I'll go to you, Jay, Yeah, I think that. 00:43:32 Speaker 8: I think, Look, we all know the President loves the you know the Willie won'ty question. He loves running The Apprentice, which of course I think is in his like twenty fourth, twenty fifth season or something. It's gonna be the last season. So when you look at the polls, JD vance is by and far still the lead. 00:43:48 Speaker 5: But there's no question that Rubio has. 00:43:49 Speaker 8: Had a slew of headlines in recent days talking about, you know, some of his successes. He's obviously on a high profile trip right now. The real question is if whether or not he won too, because Rubio has said that if JD runs, he won't. 00:44:04 Speaker 2: I wonder if things can change. You know, President Trump is a very material man. He will adapt to change tuations. I wonder, I wonder if Rubio shares the same pench it all right, So I have to do this because it's just too much fun. There was a mayoral debate in Los Angeles, a world away from us here on the East coast. Jack, but Spencer Pratt is getting a lot of headlines here, and I just have to play this because I think I want to hear. 00:44:34 Speaker 5: Your right way. 00:44:35 Speaker 4: This was not a debate, all right. 00:44:37 Speaker 8: This was a slobber knocker as they call it, a slobber knockers, as our good friend Foz would say. 00:44:43 Speaker 2: Yeah, he so, Spencer Pratt is running against city council woman nyth Yah Ramen Nith. Yeah, I think I sang it right. Yeah, sounds right, Ramen. And anyways, this great moment happened and it's going viral, so let's go ahead and play it. Eight. 00:45:01 Speaker 3: I'm not sure how to respond to that vision of Los Angeles. 00:45:04 Speaker 5: This is a maga republican's idea of what Los Angeles looks like. 00:45:09 Speaker 2: This is this is really. 00:45:10 Speaker 8: Not That's not okay, dude, say that the head bob a Los Angeles where where drugs aren't all over the street and there because they were just in MacArthur Park and they got you know, the raid and they were like dozens of people just selling drugs in a children's park like out in the open. 00:45:32 Speaker 2: Well, he gets into that check it out top five treatment first. 00:45:35 Speaker 10: I will go below the Harbor Freeway tomorrow with her and we can find some of these people she's gonna offer treatment for. 00:45:41 Speaker 5: She's gonna get stabbed in the neck. 00:45:43 Speaker 10: These people do not want a bed, They want Fennol or super med. These ideas cost us over four hundred million dollars to house for sixty seventy What do you say, three thousand people for four hundred million is absolute failure for both of them. 00:45:58 Speaker 5: They're a team. 00:45:59 Speaker 2: I mean, he he. So you had to take Jack that you found it fascinated just to see this entrenched liberal Democrats stronghold actually have a voice that's challenging some of their orthodoxy. 00:46:11 Speaker 4: It's really amazing. 00:46:12 Speaker 8: And I remember when we were on I guess it was last year and we were on Thought Crime and we did that video of it was like the live stream, and we were talking about the debate in New York and it was Mandami and Curtis Leewa was the candidate. But you just didn't see and I said at the time, Curtis just didn't go all the way in like this with facts, with just complete, full on disrespect for what they've done to their own cities and what they were continuing to try to push. Where you listen to Spencer Pratt, he's just saying basic things. He's saying, this is what's going to happen. If you go for a walk in downtown Los Angeles, You're going to get killed. You're going to get literally sat in the neck. That's what maga Republican really. Then why don't you go on down there? Why you go on down there and see if it's Maga Republicans that we're worried about there. In fact, I remember I remember tweeting about this when when we were talking about Charlotte on not to bring this up, but on like one of the last conversations I had with Charlie was when we do you remember the Van Jones right? Van Jones was saying like, oh, these uh, you know, it's people like Charlie Kirk or riling stuff up. And I had actually tweeted that, you know, when I'm going on public transit or anyone's going on public transit, they're not looking for looking out for Charlie Kirk's over their shoulder, all right, Like, no, that's not what they're looking for. So it just reminds me Maga Republicans like like. 00:47:42 Speaker 4: We're the problem. 00:47:43 Speaker 8: No, we're the ones telling you about the problem. 00:47:45 Speaker 2: We're trying to fix the press. 00:47:47 Speaker 3: Yes, well it's and it's a return to a style of we can remember we had that period where you could elect Republicans in big cities again. 00:47:56 Speaker 4: That's how we got Juliani in New York. 00:47:58 Speaker 3: And it's unfortunate because we got a huge amount of urban rebirth. The US cities got way better in the late nineties early two thousands than they were in the seventies and the eighties, and they made the cities great. 00:48:10 Speaker 4: People could move back into them. 00:48:11 Speaker 3: You got gentrification, and they got promptly nice enough to elect deranged Democrats again. 00:48:17 Speaker 4: And there's something to be said. 00:48:18 Speaker 3: Might the worm might be turning again where we're making cities like La bad enough that they could elect Republicans again, and we might we might save our cities yet again. 00:48:28 Speaker 2: Blake, what you just outlined is something I've thought so much about. You had this urban blight through the sixties, seventies, eighties, early nineties. It got so bad you look at the murder rates. They got so bad that you've got Mayor Richard Reardon in Los Angeles who massively increased the police force, gets safe, gets gentrified, investment comes in all these like young upward you know, these young college educated folks come pouring into the cities. They get really nice, and then they forget what happened, and then they reversed the trend. It's our memories are so short and the lessons that we had to learn, and we think we're not bound by the lessons of history. The same thing, of course, famously happened with Mayor Giuliani in New York. Right, you get the broken windows theory. They actually start policing, you get stopping frisk and then they turn their back on the very policies that made those cities so successful for really a blip in time, unfortunately. And one of the underlying themes here though Blake and we talked about it earlierhen we're talking about the Virginia State Senator Luisa Locke. The is this idea that these entrenched communities they want to almost allow people that don't agree with us, that that shouldn't be voting to vote. This came up. Should illegals be voting or immigrants? Let me let me see how the moderator asked the question. But st six, this is a yes or no question and answer. 00:49:52 Speaker 8: So there's an LA council member he wants voters to decide. 00:49:56 Speaker 2: He is saying that don't stated sense. Should they be allowed to vote in law elections? Is this a yes or no? 00:50:02 Speaker 4: Mister Pratt? No, mayb It depends. 00:50:05 Speaker 11: It's not a yes or no. 00:50:07 Speaker 5: Depends on what. 00:50:08 Speaker 11: Well, first of all, when you say non citizens, it doesn't mean they're here illegal. It doesn't mean they're undocumented. They could have green cards, they could be here perfectly legal. And there's a lot of states and cities that do that on very very local elections. We have to see what the councilman is proposed. 00:50:23 Speaker 2: Councilmber Bremen, Yeah, say again, it does depend. In other places school boards have non citizens, Blake. How dangerous is this? 00:50:36 Speaker 3: I mean, well, it's you really can see the future in the deepest blue cities of what they want to bring to America. 00:50:42 Speaker 4: They can't. 00:50:43 Speaker 3: They can't see the most basic facts about like having a functional citizenry. Should the political franchise be limited to people who are actually American? Should it be limited to people who are not criminal? Remember when they were saying felons, murderers in prison, should be able to vote, should abolish the police. It's just the suicide of a country. And Los Angeles has a choice, and we'll see what they pick in a month because and it's not good that it's going to be that close. 00:51:11 Speaker 2: All right, everybody, I'm so excited about telling you about our friends at Alliance Defending Freedom EIGHTYF is dedicated to advancing free speech, religious freedom, and sanctity of life, parental rights and God's designed for marriage and family. They've scored huge legal victories like helping to topple Roe v. Wade and securing a landmark free speech when at the Supreme Court just a few weeks ago on behalf of Christian Counselor Kaylee Chiles. And they're fighting for some of our culture's most pressing issues, from the protection of women's sports to defending onboard babies. ADF are amazing people. I will tell you. They rely on your generous support from people like you in this audience to protect freedom in the courtroom and in our culture. For a limited time, every dollar you gived eightyf will be matched. 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I just I'm still like absolutely blown away that Javier Besera claimed that there were no missing kids after the New York Time might verified it that there's hundreds of thousands of them, and this guy is surg in the pulse. What is happening, Steve. 00:53:03 Speaker 5: So the thing about him you've got to understand is that he's like a dream come true for the corrupt, failing Democrat machine in California, because he's exactly like Biden, like Kamala Harris, like all these people, just a total career politician. He's been doing nothing but thirty six years now. He's just a class He's like Biden. And so he's the perfect puppet for the machine. He has no thoughts of his own. He'll just do what he's told by the unions, by the activists. This is what they've been waiting for. They thought they would have Kamala Harris, then she decided not to run. Then they were onto this guy, Alex Padea, who's the current US Senator, one of the two senators for California. They were really hoping for him. They thought he decided not to run. And then there was in this terrible scramble where they had all these incredibly weak and embarrassing can this and Swolwell was moving to the top. Then he blew up and then suddenly Besarah just you know, started rising in the polls, and you could just feel this sigh of relief from the machine. Finally we got our useless puppet candidate that we wanted all along, and so they're shoving money behind him, the unions are getting behind him. But he's exactly what we don't need, because he's exactly what's driven California into the situation where where the worst run state in America with the worst results on everything. 00:54:32 Speaker 2: So I got two polls here for you. This one is from Survey America. It's got you at top, at the top, if you could throw this up there, guys at twenty percent, Tom Steyer at eighteen, Chad Bianco at twelve, and Basara at ten. Right. And then I've got another one here from Impact Research poll and it got Besarah at twenty three at plus sixteen. It was released May fourth, and he's tied with you, Steve, and then as Tom Steyer at fourteen, Chad beyoncle at eleven. Do you have an approximation of which pole is more accurate based on your internals? 00:55:10 Speaker 5: Yes, that Passera pole, by the way, was put out by a super pack supporting Bissera, the one that had him leading. But there's no doubt. There's no doubt that he's moving up. And it seems to me what we've what we're seeing happening, We just had a pole actually, which is that you've basically got a very clear top three emerging, which is myself usually at the top, Bisserah and Tom Steyer and everyone else. Is there's a big gap now between those, the three of us and everybody else. Now, on the one hand, you could say that it's good news that I'm leading. I'm happy that I'm leading. But if we're not careful because of this ridiculous top two primary system in California, you could eat Because Tom styr remember the billionaire climate fanatic, He's already spent one hundred and sixty million dollars on his campaign, is by far the most expensive in the country. He's already spent that. He's got plenty more where that came from. So you could imagine him, you know, pumping up his numbers a little bit, moving up. You've got Bassera now really seriously getting the machine, the unions and all of that, and so there's a real possibility that you end up with two Democrats in the top two. Staia and Bisera, which of course is a total disaster for the states. So it's very important people in California actually vote. The ballots are out, voting has begun, and it's you know that a pole lead like I have doesn't turn into an election win on its own. People actually have to vote, and so everyone watching and listening California, you gotta vote, and you've got to vote for me to guarantee that we get a Republican in the top two. 00:56:51 Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, I mean you you mentioned it on another interview I saw you doing, Steve, that there's more and more that's coming out about just how incompetent Bisara was. You guys challenged him on some of these criminal allegations about his chief of staff where they were patting his salary. I thought it was a really important moment. I'm gonna play the clip here now and get your reaction. It's not twenty seven. 00:57:17 Speaker 5: My view is that it's a bit rich for Havier to talk about following the law when he is mind personally in a corruption scandal. 00:57:25 Speaker 12: Steve, I hope you speak as ferociously about Donald Trump's violation of the law every time you're sitting in the Governor's office trying to protect the people of California, because the last thing we need is to have an executive who continues to violate the rights of Californians and have a governor who just sits back and agrees with that executive named Donald Trump. 00:57:44 Speaker 3: All right, I feel like that really, that really gets it in a nutshell. 00:57:48 Speaker 4: Just you guys are a disaster. You're doing terrible. 00:57:50 Speaker 3: Oh well, I hope Donald Trump. Donald Trump is bad. I know, is he running for God? 00:57:55 Speaker 5: Is Trump? I mean, it's unbelievable. It's very funny in these debates. Literally, it's all they have because the record is indefensible. Literally, highest poverty rate in the country, highest unemployment rate in the country, highest cost of living by far worse than all these measures that matter. They have nothing new to offer, none of them is offering any kind of change, and so literally all they have is Trump. But I just and that's what you hear from Trump, Trump, Trump, maga, maga makes it's hilarious. But just to be really clear about what Bursarah did here, I think this is very serious and it could get worse for him. When he was hired by Biden as his health secretary, he wanted to take his chief of staff, a guy called Sean McCluskey, with him to Washington. The salary paid by the federal government wasn't enough for him. He wanted more money, but that the federal salary is what it is. So that what they did was take money from Javier Bessera's state California state campaign account. They created a payment of ten thousand dollars a month to this consulting firm, one of these lobbying firms in Sacramento, who then passed the money straight on, ten thousand, straight out the bank account to this guy's wife, Sean mcclusky's wife, the chief of staff's wife, clearly payment to him. That breaks too. That's a violation of state campaign finance law because that money was only supposed to be used for Javier Bassa's campaigns. It's also a violation of federal employment law because as a federal government employee, you can't have sources of income from anything other than the federal government. It's a strict ethics rule. So he's in real trouble here. There's already that whole case is already the subject of a federal criminal indictment for the people in the middle of it. But Basserah is absolutely vulnerable on this because it's his chief of staff. And the idea that he didn't know about this or didn't sign off on it, which is what he's claiming, I just think is ridiculous. This has got much further to go, and you could very well see Bessarah himself prosecuted for his role in this. 01:00:05 Speaker 2: Well, I'm just going to say it. I think Besserah and Alejandro Majorc has deserved to be prosecuted for what they did, the crimes against humanity, the treasonous way that the border was dealt with, the migrant children were dealt with. I find it all so dispa in the fact that we're not actually criminally prosecuting both of I agree with them at this point, and one is now apparently the leading Democrat candidate for governor. Is just the irony is too rich to really put into words. But that's Can I just give you one of the Yeah. 01:00:37 Speaker 5: Could I just give you one other thing. This is a story that we we we uncovered and published yesterday through cal DOGE part of my campaign, the California Department of Government Efficiency. We've been publishing a number of fraud reports this year. The one yes say get directly involving Besserah on April the thirteenth this year. But this organization which became notorious during the La Anti Ice riots last year Churler c Hrlach Turler. They are an organization immigrant rights organization. They do legal defense for some of the worst criminals that are being deported, amongst other things. It's an entirely nearly entirely taxpayer funded, but eighty percent of its budget comes from California taxpayers. This is what's been happening. On April the thirteenth, they endorsed Javier Besserra, so they'd be working hard to get him elected. We found documents from within Churler that lay out their political operation and how they support candidates. And on one of these documents, it explicitly says that they use paid canvasses to do political campaigning, including undocumented in their words, undocumented people. In other words, you have California taxpayers funding illegal immigrants to campaign for Javier Bessera. Again, total violation of the law. And so this just shows you the corruption of this machine in California. 01:02:07 Speaker 2: Well, I mean, it's really despicable and it. We're grateful that you're fighting the fight. You know. We have you know, obviously a nationwide audience here, Steve, but our largest audience per share, especially in our past, is California. So I hope that everybody heeds your words and gets out to vote in this jungle primary. Get Steve Hilton across the top two finish line so that he can run in the general. Here. But I want to take us away here with a great moment for you I've felt in the debate Top twenty. 01:02:36 Speaker 13: Eight, mister Hilton. Right now, President Trump is enacting a policy of mass deportation. As you know, roughly half of California, California farm workers, which are in an es central part of this state's economy, are undocumented. As governor, would you push to deport them? 01:02:52 Speaker 5: So I'm the only immigrant on stage. I'm a legal immigrant, and Americans support immigration when it is properly controlled. And what we saw under the Biden administration open borders undermined everybody's support for immigration. And as governor, I've made it very clear, although it is the federal government's responsibility to determine and implement immigration policy, I think it's important that all the laws are peacefully enforced, and as governor, I would make sure that we work with the federal government to enforce our law. 01:03:28 Speaker 2: I mean, I'd go full immigration moratorium. But that's just me, Steve. You got to do you in California. I get it, all right, Steve. We have breaking news on the Palisades fire. The guy who did it, Jonathan Kinderdneck, turns out he's a Luigi Mangione obsessed fan and he's a far leftist that just basically ruined hundreds of thousands of people's lives. And Spencer Pratt is one of them who is running for mayor. He had his debate last night. What is your just assessment your reaction to finding out this news about Jonathan Kindernet. 01:04:02 Speaker 5: Well, it's just so infuriating because, as with so many other things in California, it shows you that these disasters and the massive costs, and these are the most expensive disaster in California history, totally avoidable, totally avoidable. And the specific on this fire everyone needs to remember, which is that it was started on purpose and that it was then it's called the Lockman Fire. It was a week before the Palisades fire and then it was put out, but not fully. And the reason, and we now know this from internal documents from the Fire Department, was that they were specifically asking and wanting to bulldoze the area where the fire had been extinguished in order to make sure it is properly extinguished. But then they didn't do that because there was an endangered plant that they were supposed to protect and they didn't want to bulldoze the area. That left the fire smoldering, which meant which reignited and created the Palisades Fire. So it's just outrageous. And it's another point, which is most of the fires in southern California, there's a very big difference between the kind of wildfires you get in southern California and the ones that you get in the Sierra Nevada, in the big forests in the in the northern parts of the state. In southern California, most of the fires are started by humans, either by arsonists or by homeless encampments, so they're totally avoidable. And one of the things I think we need is a classic example. Arson is a really big cause of fires. What is there any deterrent? Is there any real effort by law enforcement, by the politicians to really clamp down and think about the damage that it does, and yet it's never really discussed by the politicians. Are something we need to really fight against classic California. We've got to be much tougher on all this. 01:05:58 Speaker 2: Stuff, Steve, Isn't there a story right now at the one ten Freeway there was there's a fire that's been smoldering from a homeless encampment there. That's going to be exactly it's shut down a major thoroughfare in the city. 01:06:11 Speaker 5: Yes, exactly, that's exactly right. I'm in laid right now. And it's just but it happens all the time, and you go to some parts of the of the city and it's just it's I mean, it's it's hard to describe. I did put out a video a couple of weeks ago about one of the things we saw. We just went there actually was to do a col Doge press conference on fraud because one of the organizations was there. Just like randomly, this is not skid row. This is not a famous part of the dystopian scene in Los Angeles. It's just as if it was a set for a movie capturing some dystopian future, some horrific scene. And that's just a block after block of total chaos. And you know that one time I was there walking through there was a porter party that was clearly being used the you know, the main sort of toilet there just suddenly burst into flames while I was there. Just the chaos and lawlessness. And in America's second city, we're about to host the Olympics, it is just so totally unacceptable. That's why Spencer is doing really well and getting a lot of bars and energy and attention. In La. He was completely dismissed, but he's getting all the energy because people are sick of it in LA in particular, especially Democrats, not just Republicans. You have Democrats who're saying, yeah, whatever, but we can't go on like this. I'm not a Republican, but we need a change. 01:07:38 Speaker 3: Well, and there's another there's another story that I've been recently reading about that I think really also captures the profound decay along with arson, along with the homelessness, there's metal theft. 01:07:50 Speaker 4: So you need copper wiring. 01:07:52 Speaker 3: Scrap metal is used in every city they're doing this, and LA recently they disbanded their metal Theft Tax Task Force at the LAPD. 01:08:02 Speaker 4: They got rid of it. 01:08:03 Speaker 3: And what's going on is you have criminals are stripping copper wiring from street lights, they're stripping it from major bridges, and this is a really destructive crime because they'll get ten dollars. You know, if they get one hundred dollars of scrap metal, it costs ten thousand or fifty thousand dollars to replace it, and then they can still go steal it again. And it's known how we could stop these things. You just have to you have to make really severe penalties. You can use cameras, you can do stuff to keep this from happening. And instead they're getting rid of the units. They're just they're refusing to maintain civilization. And so yeah, when the Olympics show up, when the World Cup shows up, the lights will not be on. They literally can't keep them on because they're stealing the wires. It's something out of South Africa. 01:08:47 Speaker 5: One hundred percent, and it's it's it's it's total collapse of civilization. It's exactly the right term. And they won't do they won't clamp down on it. Another one catalytic converters massive spree of thefts some cars, and funnily enough, Nitty A Rahman, the third person running for mayor, was even more to you know, the left of Karen bass As. She's a member of the La City Council. She was when the catalytic convertered thefts really started accelerating a couple of years ago. She starts blaming the car companies for not making them more secure, and then you look at the street lights. There's another reason they're not fixing the street lights because they passed this law about what they call street diets where if you try and fix, if you try and upgrade or improve or do anything to street, you're now required to convert it into you make the streets narrower, to slow down traffic, put speed bumps in there, all this stuff to get because they hate cars, they hate people driving. Put in bike lanes. So their own law that they put in to make street diets mandatory is now stopping them from fixing the street lights. It's just so crazy. 01:09:59 Speaker 2: Steve Hill, we have your back, one hundred percent. Steve Hilton for governor. Dot com get out and vote. You gotta vote. The early voting has started. We got to actually get the ballots in the box. Get him as a top two so you can actually run in the general. Steve Hilton, you're doing a great job. You and Spencer Pratt are shifting the narrative in California. I pray for success. It is God bless you, sir. 01:10:22 Speaker 5: We'll see you soon, See soon. Thanks guys. 01:10:29 Speaker 8: For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to Charliekirk dot com.