Campaigning for California Governor

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It's everything your business needs in one place, saving you time, headaches, and serious money Paying for missing pieces Go to odoo. com That's OdWo. com to learn more self directed investing trrading Full service wealth management, automated investing, financial planning, thematic investing, retirement planning. few and to think That's just a small taste of what Swab offers The Geschwab knows that when it comes to your finances Choice matters No matter your goals, investing style, life stage, or experience, Schwab has everything you need, all in one place So you can invest your way Visit Schwab d. com to learn more Hello and welcome to pololitical Thinking. My guest on political thinking this week has been on an extraordinary political journey. It's Taton Steve Hilton from Downing Street, where he was Prime Minister David Cameron's key adviser to California, where he has just become the Republican candidate in this November's election to be the next governor of the state Hilton was credited with coming up with something called compompassionate Cervativism, which urged people you might remember Hga hoodie. to vote blue to go green to embrace what he called B society But he's now endorsed by Donald Trump and Trump's MAGA movement, having made his name as a Fox News host The radical left. and argued for what he called positive populism. Steve Hilton Thank you for joining us from California. Thank you very much. There will be people listening to you watching you in the UK. There may be still some in the United States in California as well saying Hold on a second this guy Sounds like a brit He's got a cup of tea in front of him on his Zoom line. He's a pretty. He useds to work in D extreme. O earth does he think he can be governor of the golden state? Well, two point three million or so people just voted for me. so there there must be something there're seeing I think that on the brick point, look, the beauty of America And it's a really unique thing, I would say about this country is that anybody can come here. Anyone from anywhere can do anything. That's the idea of America. That central idea of becoming an American puts you on exactly the same level field in terms of citizenship and belonging as anyone else is truly unique. I often make this point that you could go to the UK and become a citizen and never really be British. My parents are Hungarian. Both my parents and my stepfather. you could live in Hungary for forty years to comply with all the requirements of citizenship, whatever, but you're never going to be Hungarian. There's something very special about America. that welcomes people here and gives people the opportunity. And I'm a proud American. I became a citizen in twenty twenty one I feel at home here in America and actually in California veryery proud Californian obviously and I feel at home here in a way I actually have never felt before feel like this is where I'm meant to be And I couldn't be more honored that people now putting their faith in me to turn the state around. There are other reasons that Brits in particular may be a bit puzzled by this journey that you've been on, those who remember you, those who read about you heard about you When David Cameron was Prime Minister in twenty ten Well remember that you were the guy that told him to go and accompany a pack of huskies to the Arctic who told him to put a windmill on his house to prove that he was committed to clean energy, who at one news conference arranged for journalists to be handed Splings, silver birch saplings to plant at home And now you're a representative of Trump's MGa movement. What earth happened? Well first of all, I didn't tell him to do anything. So that's just u just to make sure that everyone understands that. Secondly, I'm an environmentalist. I always have been But that specific contrast that you draw there, I think it's worth digging into. I mean, environmentalism, let's just start with the big picture, to me never has just meant. I think it's actually a failing of the environmental movement that it's become very ideological and very focused on just one aspect of environmentalism, which is climate change, albeit a very important one. But there's more to it than that, consonservation, protecting our beautiful parks and public spaces here in California, environmentalism is very deeply felt. in a way, California invented the modern environmental movement And I feel very much part of that, specifically on climate change I think that, you know, when you actually look at the policies, I'm just tal about California now We've got a set of energy policies that are being pursued in the name of fighting climate change, but which are actually increasing carbon emissions. For example, importing now most of the oil that we use from halfway around the world on giant super tankers instead of producing it here in California. So're say you're still a green but you have an argument about the way that green policies are pursued. Do you believe in man made climate change? Yeah, and I think we need to have common sense policies on that. Just to go back to the oil example, we are literally increasing carbon emissions in the name of climate change policy because the tankers, there's no oil pipeline into California. We're an island in that sense. but we have abundant oil and gas reserves here in California. We used to produce most of the oil we use right here in our state By some measure, we have the second largest oil reserves in the world. But in the name of climate change, oil production has been shut down in California to the point we're now importing nearly eighty percent of what we use. look, there are obviously some echoes in the policy debate that's being had in the UK. Let's get to policy in a little while though. What I want to understand to start with is whether you accept you've been on a political journey that there is a big difference in the Steve Hilton running as the Trump back candidate in California with the David Cameron advisor Or in reality, do you think that's a superficial view? that you're still you, you always were, you always will be. And I do actually think it's It's a bit superficial. but I would totally accept that there's been a person on a professional journey, which has been great in the sense of giving opportunities I never would have dreamed of. back in the UK, to teach at Stanford University, start a business here in California, have a whole new career in the media, which I never would have expected All those things definitely would represent a journey, of course. Did you come to a view that some of the things that you stood for that you're associated with back in the UK were actually the wrong analysis and that you and conservatives whether in the US or in the UK needed to shift. way answer that is to The thing that comes to mind is moment. It really was a very specific moment in twenty fifteen and I'd Just published a book in the UK, we probably talked about it at the time. more human, designing a world where people come first and the argument in the book was that Everything's become too big and bureaucratic and centralized and distant from the human scale. We need to decentralize power and so on. The UK book came out in twenty fifteen and then in twenty sixteen The US version was published and during twenty fifteen, I was working on updating the UK version with American case studies and statistics and so on. And at that point, I think in the chapter on inequality or poverty, or whatever, I came across this chart, a data, which really struck me. And it's become quite well known now, but it plotted on a chart the earnings After inflation, of the majority of American workers, I think the term is non managerial non supervisory workers In that eighty percent of the workforce. The earnings plotted on a chart and basically it showed that after inflation, those earnings have been flat, like totally flat Since nineteen seventy four, I believe So you've had decades wildly differing economic policy you know, left, right, globalization, so on. And at the end of all of that, the economic position of most people was flat Whereas On the same chart, they plotted the earnings of the top twenty percent corporate earnings and they went up like a hobby stick And to me, that captured something that really was the underlying driver of what I came to call. positive populism, which is something's not working here And the economic policies that have been pursued know on an ideological basis by both sides are not delivering for most regular people. So that toorought you on a journey on a journey to backing Brit in the UK and to backing Donald Trump in the US. Yes. And the specifics on both were with Trump you could see that Even going right back to the start of his campaign in twenty fifteen talalking about that. in a way that Hillary Clinton and no other candidates were. And now these themes are actually quite familiar. in our politics, but when Trump started talking about it in twenty fifteen, it was very unusual the role of China manufacturing being driven offshore, immigration in terms of lowering labour costs. importing low skilled sry low wage workers and so on. and Th those arguments were new. and I thought he was the only one Talking about that in a way that made sense having seen that data about the position of most people. And I thought the same argument applied in relation to Brexit, although with Brexit. There was a deeper sense of frustration because of course, I was very familiar with the role of the EU that went back a long way. I don't want to rehash the whole Brexit conversation, but that wasn't just about the economic impact on working people. It was a deeper conviction about centralization of power and democracy actually People will be hearing you kind of very rationally calmly going through the arguments as you saw them. I think they'll still think those who remember. Hold on Husky hugger this hugger hoodie hugger, that was the name of a speech or it was the slogan, a speech by Davean when he was leader of the Conservative Party got noed by. The guy who said political correctness is just courtesy That's what the guy who was your leader thought You have changed. Wh Why are you saying you haven't? I don't think so I mean to be specific, the hu what wass the hug of Hoodi thing? That was actually a headline written by I believe it was the News of the World, Andy Clson, who then went on to be my colleague in the team, which was a description of a speech that was arguing for understanding the causes of juvenile crime as well as holding young criminals accountable for their behavior I think that's something that most normal commommon sense people would agree with and the role of family and parenting and so on So I think, you know, some of these things have become myths and That's fair enough. that happens in politics. But if on each individual one I think that once you dig into it, actually there's not nearly as much contradiction. For example, if you want to just take that specific issue, it was President Trump in the first administration, who actually made a lot of headway on criminal justice reform, particularly something called the First Step Act, which is all about rehabilitation and giving prisonons a second chance, reducing the prison population and so on. So I think that once you get below the headlines, the picture is not quite the one that a lot of I understand completely why people want to paint that picture. truly don't see any real change in terms of ideas or beliefs, certain policy areas. yeah. but in a deep sense, no, I think I'm exactly the same person with the same set of values and beliefs. That couldn't be clearer. So let's explore where those values and beliefs came from. You released a video for your campaign to become California goovernment. You said it all began with freedom What did he mean? So the image that then follows that is the Soviet tanks rolling into Hungary. My parents are Hungarian and that's referring to the nineteen fifty six revolution, the uprising, which was crushed by a Soviet invasion. And when I was a kid born in England My parents are Hungarian, my stepfath's hungarian My my parent split up when I was young. my stepfather's also Hungarian. We would go back to Hungary all the time and you just saw the contrast between a free country. and one where people didn't have freedom. And Hungary was not nearly the worst of the oppression that you saw in the Soviet bloc, but it just became very striking to me the difference between the lives that my cousins lived and and so on. and did make you suspicious of the state, suspicious of the left. Yes. All of those things, but also a sense of, I think it's a very powerful driver of hating arbitrary authority bureaucratic control. over people I think that's a very, very deep belief in me. And I think that's what, you know, one of my sort of main critiques of what's happened in California. We've ended up after sixteen years now of one party control with this extraordinarily intrusive bloated nanny state bureaucracy. It reallyist not just to be clear commommunist hungary, but we'll come to that. Let's carry on with your life story Let's come carry on with your life. Not at all. but if you look I mean if you read something like, you know, the Road to Surfdom, HX book, you know once you start down that road, you know, it does end in a very bad place. When your parents come to the UK as refugees from communist Hungary, you have as a young boy quite a tough life, don't you?our parents get divorced You end up in a damp basement flat in Brighton This is a pretty tough start. Also quite normal. I wouldn't want to overstate it. It wasn't destitute poverty, but it was Yeah. I mean That's true, what you just said. But soon after that, if I trying to recall the sequence, my mum my stepfather is also Hungarian and you know he was a regular I'd say a regular kind of working class immigrant folk And I very much absorbed that sensit of a work ethic and that was a time when Mrs. Thatcher had just been elected and that sense of, you know, striving upward mobility, working hard, you know, that was that was what I really remembember from those years. And they sent you to a very smart boarding school, presumably with a scholarship, which is believed to have the oldest and maybe the oddest school uniform in the world It's an amazing school. It's called Christ Hospital. It's in the countryside in Sussex near near the town called Horsham. It's an amazing place because Most of the kids there from less advantaged backgrounds. I think sound like eighty five percent of the kids don't pay any fe, parents don't pay any fees The word unique is overususe. it's a genuinely unique Institut But who's the uniform? tellell us about this uniform? Yeah, it's weird. So you wear this big thick, very dark blue coat with silver buttons down the front and then you wear what what's it called breeches down to your knees and very bright thick yellow socks and bands like priest bands.s yeah, it's very different to anywhere else And do you believe took you from poverty to privilege because you then go to Oxford University. you go on to work for the Conservative partarty. You work for old Eonian, the oldest, richest school in the UK produces multiple prime ministers, including the man who's your friend and you become an advisor to David Cameron. For sure, that's exactly what happens It's a springboard opportunity. actuallyctually I remember thinking years later, you know, I was in a position to discuss influence policy like is there something we can do to create more institutions like this? becausecause it had a profound impact on me a game changer completely as was Oxford University, in fact. And so I look back on that with huge appreciation and gratitude. You help reshape the Conservative Party in opposition They win an election in twenty ten, thatough they have to share power with the liberal Democrats back then coalition There was a sense once you got into Downy Street for people like me who were reporting on it day to day, that you were always uncomfortable in that building at the heart of power. You're always Angry is that the right word with Those in charge, frustrated, perhaps definitely frustrated. I think we should go back to what the idea was. So there was something you may recall that was very different about the manifesto that we ran on in twenty ten, which. along with others, you know, people at O of E Lt within and my friend Rohan said it was a whole bunch of us obvious worked on that. It had a very unusual name title. Normally these documents are called the You know, conservative manifest of twenty ten or whatever This one was called invvitation to join the Government of Britain The reason for that was that there really was an idea at the heart of it that we all felt very strongly about which is that going back to twenty ten, that Britain had become too centralized, too bureaucratic too much of an overbearing, bloated government. You were seeing that in all sorts of different ways, not least in taxes that were too high and spending that was too high, but also restriction on innovation and opportunity. And the mission of the incoming government, if elected, would be to radically decentralize power power and people's heads in education and healthcare and control of local services, budget, the whole thing. There was a real kind of very bold reform idea at the heart of it. Then you have the coalition agreement. together. And one of the things that was I'm trying to remember these I mean it's long time ago now this is like at twenty ten. So But if I recall, there was actually an energy and excitement about those conversations once we got into it with the Liberal Democrats, which was about the Overlap of some of those ideas. Yeah. was there then disappointment though? I'm trying to understand why you were frustrated. D you leave you leave in twenty twelve? you go to the United States. That's what I'm getting at which is promise, I think, of that partnership in terms of a real change in how Britain is governed was something that I've very deeply believed in and found that once you encounter the reality of government, there was just not the energy to push that forward And I think you see the results of that still in a country that is way too over bureaucratized and centralized and so on. And it's the same argument funy enough that now applies here in California. But just to go back to your question about leaving, that was actually nothing to do with that That was entirely for family reasons. Having moved to the United States your first big move a little while later. into US politics, certainly into the awareness that people had of you was as a host of the Fox News show the next revolution. One reason you upset quite a lot of people is on that Fox News program that you presented, you appeared to go along with suggestions that the twenty twenty election had been staled And you said one points You said at one point It'll be resistance all the way everyvery day as you were angry with what the Democrats were saying about that election you accept now? you should have said Biden won it. I did. It's a very interesting example of how misinformation takes hold whichich is that I never said any of any of that in terms of twenty twenty In fact, just to be really precise about it, there was a lawsuit around all of that. At the time There's that whole process of discovery And my team I have to go and see the lawyers and They emered saying well, we've got nothing to worry about because I apparently sent an email to the team around that time saying, I don't want to go near any of this stuff. However, what happened was I remember at the time, Everybody across the political spectrum, including President Elect Biden himself, was saying, let's have investigation of all these allegations. But what did you mean? Wh it'll be resistance all the way every day? Well because that's job of that's the job of I can't remember the whole context of it, but what I'm assuming I meant is resistance to the policies that I disagreed with. I thought you meant resistance to those who said there wasn't a problem with the election. So you think you were misunderstood? No deliberately distortu. That's more than misunderstood. It's very important because it's a deliberate distortion of what I said. And actually if you really want to go into the anatomy of it Nick, I think it's very interesting example of how misinformation Thads which is that During that period The president posted Clips from my show which actually said nothing about any of this. But The independent newspaper in England, saw the clips being posted without comment wrote a story without seemingly watching the actual clips saying that I had endorsed these theories, which I didn't But they assumed it, I think, from just the fact that the president was posting these clips. I guess what the cres would say is should you been clearear about it? Let's not get bogged into the interterasies of who should youve just gone on your show, you're an influential guy and said, look Mr. President, look Donald Trump just except you're lost. I remember having an interview with him around that time when that's basically what I did say, a phone interview. I think it Soon after january the sixth So I think there's all the way that this has been reported is not just wrong, it's the opposite of the truth. Okay Well, let's move on then Because some people wonder Whether giving your closeness to Trump and giving your closeness to the MAGA movement, whether the guy who boasts of standing up for the little guy, which is a lot of your pitch, would really stand up to the powerful people. Let's start with Trump. wouldould you stand up to him? Yeah, of course my job as governor will be to stand up for California. That is the case, regardless of who's the president, It it happens to be the case that on a whole set of policy issues Unsurprisingly, because I'm a Republican candidate, I happen to agree with the Republican administration at the federal level. One example is gas prices. We talked about that earlier. The president and his team wants to expand energy production across America and especially in California. I agree with that. The current governor' blocking that. It's an example of how actually Having a governor with a good working relationship with the president and his cabinet, I think will provide concrete benefits to Californians. But then we go to the environment where he calls it a climate hoax Do you call it climate hoax? No. So I've got a but however, let's just be clear. right now in California We have The highest gas prices in country, the highest, even though we have abundant oil reserves, the highest electric bills everywhere except for Hawaii, the highest cost of living overall driven in large part by energy, the highest poverty rate any state, we're tied with Louisiana for that The highest unemployment rate of all fifty states, the highest cost of living. It's a real economic disaster going on right now in California, which is masked by the fact that we are the fourth biggest economy in the world so actually What we've got to get to is a point where we can take care of environmental concerns and climate change in a way that doesn't crush working people and small business in particular. So my approach to that, for example, going back to where we started the conversation about environmentalism, is a much less punitive one, which is about planting trees. I've got a plan. We can get to the net zero twenty forty five goal that California has set, which to me is somewhat arbitrary, but still, if you buy into that goal At the moment, the current path to getting that is a disaster for California because it'll just drive business away and make people poorer. There's a much better way of doing that, which is to for example, protect wetlands, plant trees, We've got a whole plan around that a more practical and positive way of meeting the goals. So it's a question about how you get there. So you say you'll stand up to Donald Trump in certain circumstances. What about bigig tech? You're in the big tech state. Your wife, as you say has had jobs at Google and Uber and now at Netflix. Sergei Brryinn, the co founder of Google was one of your big backers Here in Europe People increasingly think big tech is too big, too powerful, causing social problems Have they got a point or even a fight for tech against European government. Y I'm going to fight for people and that includes supporting California businesses. So my job as governor will be to make sure we do everything increase jobs and wealth and opportunity here in California. is one of our biggest and most industries. I'm incredibly proud that we've led so far is part of the spirit of California, that innovation, that rebel spirit, where you have people deciding that they're going to change the way things work and invent new ways of doing things. veryery proud of that So what would you do if governments around the world ban Under six are going on social media as the British Gvernment now says it will. So I raised that issue before almost anyone In that book I refer to twenty fifteen and' all human where I wrote extensively about that, but my focus then, as it is now is on not that and the specific platforms, it's the screens. that I think are the problems. becausecause that's why I don't think any of these policies make much sense. The UK one or the Australia one it seems to be pned up. I think it's all you know, missing the point. which is what you really want to be careful about is unsupervised access to the internet for people under sixteen for children And so I think that then missing the target completely And so I think we need a completely different approach. eleven years ago I was arguing that Now in that book that you've referred to a couple of times, You said that part of the problem with the world was that what you described as mostly national corporations that had a sense of connection to and responsibility for their local communities, have given way, and I'm quoting you now to rootless global entities Private sector bureaucracies, many of which have lost all sense of community perspective Sounds to me like you're describing those big tech firms in California. They're the rutless ones aren't they? Theyaybe the one who haven't got a sense of community or perspective. Well, I think that you know it's not a sort of general point. I think I was more referring to businesses that, for example, of offshore manufacturing, devastating communities in the process. That's what I think that I was really You know, that that' ssort the context for that argument But I think that with business, it's not one thing or other. You want to maximize I started a business, most of my career has actually been in business. Of course people know me for my roles in politics and in the media, but most of my care actually did an analysis of it because when you run for offers, you've got to put you know a ballot description next to your name. You're allowed three words And so I went through my career since nineteen ninety when I left Oxford, thirty six years. The majority of them have been in business. And the majority of those running my own business is including the startup here a couple of restaurants in England. And so actually what I put on the pot was small business owner, that's really been the most what I think of myself as So I think of these companies as primarily the engine of opportunity. And we've got a climate of for business in California that's literally the worst in America, righter, Chief executive magazine ranks California fifiet out of fifty for business climate, which is one of the reasons so many companies are leaving including what I'm really concerned about with tech Nick is that you've got all this amazing innovation going on It's mostly in the Bay Area where I live. all these AI companies, but the investment creating jobs. they generate a huge amount of wealth and revenue But the investment that's building high end manufacturing, the triipps and all of that is going to other states, not California because we make it so expensive difficult do business here to build anything here. Yeah, you've talked about these big companies, big tech companies in particular, being an engine for opportunity Some people think they're an engine for inequality. is your message maybe in this campaign The inequality doesn't really matter. It doesn't matter if Elon Musk becomes a trillionaire, if the guys who you mix with are vastly, vastly richer than anybody you or I have ever known in our lifetime. So that's not really relevant, is that your argument? It's not really That's a very academic conceptual kind of conversation that doesn't really fit with how I approach this. This is very pragmatic and and simple and positive and practical. So what I'm arguing in this campaign sort of is captured in one word, cal affordable. makeake our state cal affordable. What's that about? dollar gas, cut your electric bills in half, your first hundred and fifty grand tax free, a home you can afford to buy start hes for young families. And so I approach this as a pragmatic Pblem solving business minded person rather than a kind of political theorist. You announced your British citizenship. What made you decide you didn't want to be a Brit? or was it simply that you wanted to become an American politician to become a governor and that's what you felt was necessary? Well, it's a combination. I mean, feel I love this country. I love California. I feel deeply at home here in a way I never was in the, just to be honest. I feel that this is where I'm meant to be In so many ways, I really identify with the soul and spirit of California, what we represent, not just obviously the natural beauty and the great weather and all the rest of it, but that kind of rebel spirit. that I think is the foundation of California success in so many areas. You talk about the rebelsirit. I'm reminded of the fact that people used to mock you for how you dressed We're talking today for people who are not watching but listening And you've got a jacket on You've got a pro shirt on. You used to wander around Downing Street in a t shirt and shorts without his shoes on Is it true President Barack Obama's team said Get him to smarten up before the president arrives at the building. I don't think that's a version of the truth I'm not sure if it was the President's team or outi. I think there was definitely a conversation like if you want to meet the president, you have to wear a suit or something like that. Got to wear a suit. And do you regret finally that you might have been talking to me here in Westminster British member of Parliament. You tried to become one. And it was only because a man by the name of Michael Gove, now Lord Gove beat you to the nomination that you're free to run to be Governor of California. Yeah, I think that's a farewell. That was auck lucky escape. U I think there was a very good choice that they made. Michael there. I didn't do very well at all. I didn't even make it to the shortlist if I recall. I think all around, it's worked out well. Clearly There's a lot of people here in California who think Ive got the arguments and the ideas that they arere going to save our beautiful state And I'm very happy and honored to be doing it. And actually just on the cl like people ask me it's we've had a very high energy campaign and that's just going to continue. been on the road for over a year now Like morning till night, traveling this very big state, fourth biggest economy in the world, largest state by population in America, it's hard work But I love it because It's an honour to do it. The only part pretty much the only part I don't like is actually wearing all this, but I think that It's, you know, it's appropriate. It's it's a particular role you're