- But you're also saying you're friends with all, everybody in the cabinet or half the cabinet.

I mean, you'd have a responsibility too, as governor, wouldn't you?

- Absolutely.

And, and, and my role would be to say, let's work together.

Let's not have things escalating out of control where there's violence and the threat of violence on any side of the situation.

Let's just try to enforce the law, which the, the majority of people, the large majority of people agree.

We should enforce the law.

- Hey, everyone from KQED in San Francisco.

This is Political Breakdown.

I'm Marisa Lagos.

- And I'm Scott Shafer.

Today on The Breakdown, we begin our series of interviews with the many candidates vying to be California's next governor.

First up, businessman, author, podcaster, and TV host Steve Hilton - Hilton's, a Republican who says California has been broken by one party Democratic rule.

He's trying to buck the numbers and trends in California and become the first GOP candidate to win statewide in 20 years.

Steve Hilton, welcome to Political Breakdown.

- It's so fantastic to be here.

I gotta tell you, I live in the Bay Area.

I'm, I'm a supporter of KQED, so how about that?

- Excellent.

- I dunno if the other candidates are gonna, - We'll be asking them.

That's a good question I'll add that to the list.

- Hey, do they pay?

And the real truth is, it's an honor to be here.

I've been listening to this show for years.

- Well, thank you.

- And it's a real thrill, honestly, - Well, we've been watching you as well, so it's nice to finally sit down together.

You have embarked on this very ambitious campaign.

Before we get into your background in bio, who are you politically, like, what is your vision for California?

- So, I think the first way I'd answer that question is I'm a pragmatist.

So I'm running as a Republican.

And I think we, it's, we need change in California.

We've had one party rules now 16 years as, as, as I keep pointing out.

And I don't think people are happy with the way things are going.

When I'm on stage sometimes at these forums with other, the other Democrats, my, my colleagues in the race, they all make the same point that it's time for change.

So I think that I'm coming from a political position, which is we need a change of political leadership in Sacramento and some balance.

Because even when I'm elected governor, you're still most likely gonna have Democrats controlling the state legislature, pretty much all the big cities, the counties and so on.

So it's just a question of balance in our system.

I don't think it's one, one party rule is healthy, but, but I'm not an ideologue.

I think that's the, that's what I'm really understanding.

I suppose as I'm on the road and talking to people, I'm really interested in the very basic details of daily life, how policy affects daily life and what, what we can do in a pragmatic way just to make life less of a struggle in California for regular working families, for small businesses.

As I used to be a small business owner.

I think I, I'd like to, I'd, I think of myself as a pragmatist.

- So you have been a political advisor to David Cameron when he was Prime Minister of Great Britain.

You've been a strategist, you're a talk show host.

What qualifications do you have to be governor of a state with a budget as large as $350 billion?

- Well, I think it's a combination of some of those things.

There's business experience.

Most of my career actually, I I, I sort of added up the years of the different things I've been doing.

And the majority has been in business, either working for other companies, including working all around the world and starting my own businesses both in the UK before moving here with my wife and my two sons in 2012 started a company here as well.

I've run restaurants.

That is a very tough business.

So I think I see that it's not just that you see things from that perspective, but also it gives you that problem solving practical focus and also lots of experience in some of the skills that are really important for a governor.

For example, building a team, focusing on results and outcomes.

I think that that business mindset is very important.

I honestly think as I'm talking about this more and more and people are asking me questions like that and I'm reflecting on that exact question, one thing I go back to is my first real job, which was project manager for a construction company.

And actually in that role you have to work with all sorts of different, different people.

You have to get on with different kinds of people.

You have to focus on results and outcomes and and, and just move things forward as a team.

And I think that is very much a part of what being governor is.

And I think when you see some of these machine politicians who are running for office, that's not really their experience.

It's all about, you know, saying things and rather than doing things.

But the other aspect of my career that I think is really important here is the time I spent working in government in the uk as you mentioned, our senior advisor to a prime minister, David Cameron.

I worked in 10 Downing Street.

I had a little office there right next to the cabinet room.

But the interesting thing about that experience was not just the proximity to, to the, the heart of power and trying to make change happen.

In particular, what it's like and how hard it is to make change happen and fight bureaucracy and all those things.

It was a coalition government who's a conservative prime minister, but we are in office as a coalition with another party, the liberal Democrats.

I literally shared an office with my opposite number from another party.

And I think that experience of actually, you know, right from the beginning trying to put together our coalition program, negotiating two different parties coming together to agree a program and then working day by day trying to, you know, make something that works for both sides and then implement it.

I think that's very useful experience.

- Yeah.

Well, before we get too far into your career, I wanna talk a little bit about your childhood.

You were born to Hungarian refugees and I believe raised by your mom and stepfather.

- Yes.

How did, who was also Hungarian?

Yeah.

- Who was also Hungarian.

Okay.

We were curious about that.

How did that family background them, you know, fleeing hungry, sort of affect your childhood and, and your worldview growing up?

- So it was a very regular, you know, working class story, I think.

And I think that, you know, one, one of the most important things was, was that sense of being really lucky to have been born in a free country.

Mm.

In the uk We'd go back to Hungary pretty much every year, usually in the summertime when I was a kid, often twice a year for Christmas.

'cause everyone else in the family was back in Hungary and it was then a communist country.

We were going behind the iron curtain and you could just see the difference.

And as I got older and older, you real realized the difference in the freedom that we had and the life that they were stuck with in communism.

And there's so many different aspects to that.

But I think it really gave me a sense of, and actually probably my mom, you know, had a very strong part in this as well.

Like, we didn't leave and go through all of that.

And it was difficult to escape.

And and my stepfather in particular had a, you know, a really dramatic escape from communism.

He, he and his brother and their school friends from a small village on the west side of Hungary, they literally ran for the border when they heard the Russians.

They, they, - It was like the mid fifties, - 56, 56, the Soviet invasion took crush the Hungarian revolution climbing barbed wire fences.

Half, half their friends were shot and killed.

And so that sense of don't squander this opportunity.

And I think that's that classic aspirational immigrant, you know, climbing the ladder of opportunity to try and make the most of this, this kind of twist of fate that landed me in a free country when everyone else in my family was still in a communist regime.

- We don't usually ask candidates for governor what they think of the leader of another country.

Right.

But you're from Hungary, Viktor Orbán is the leader there in Hungary.

He's become a favorite of conservatives and republicans.

Donald Trump calls him out regularly as one of his favorite leaders.

He's also been repressive with the media Yes.

With LGBT people.

What's your take on what's happening there now, especially as the son of, you know, people who fled a repressive - Government?

Yeah, it's interesting.

I mean the, first of all, he's very popular in Hungary.

And I hear that from, from people I speak to.

The thing that I find very disconcerting about that is the way there's a little bit of animal farm to it.

Honestly.

The Orwell, the classic Orwell tale there where the, and and remember he, I met him years and years ago when he was liberal.

He, yes, he, he started a party called Fidesz, which was the youth party.

In fact, you couldn't be a member if you were over 30 years old.

I remember my grandmother telling me she voted for Fidesz, it's interesting story, the first free elections.

And he was the, the, a little bit like had the sort of vats love har vibes to a certain extent, the kind of cool student leader in a leather jacket.

You know?

So it's quite an interesting journey.

I think for me, the most upsetting part of it.

There's some of the things you mentioned, but particularly the corruption.

I mean it's, it's, it's undeniable.

And I do think that even though you might say, look, I agree with the immigration policy as someone who supported Brexit, I, I kinda like the fact that he's standing up to the bureaucracy of the EU in Brussels and that's one of the things that he's constantly butting heads with them on and and so on.

So there are aspects that I find that I could get behind, but the corruption is off the charts.

And also the other thing that's interesting to me about republicans, conservatives who praise him at the same time as lamenting censorship and the quashing of free speech here in America.

That's what he's doing big time.

I mean, really clamping down on any kind of independent media in Hungary.

And that's not what either the 56 revolution or the 1989 throwing off the shackles of communism was all about.

Hmm.

- Alright, so just to move forward in time, 'cause we only have a half an hour with you and we wanna talk some policy, but you end up working for Prime Minister Cameron, as we mentioned, you also, I think, worked in the private sector.

You can create a consulting firm and then you and your wife moved here in 2012, I believe, because of her job in tech.

Exactly.

- Yeah.

- Is that why, what, what sort of was your impression of California coming here?

What were you imagining you would be doing here?

- Well, it goes back a little bit further.

I've, I, I've always been in love with California.

Honestly, there was a, there was a cover story for one of the political magazines in England.

Must've been about 2008 or oh nine.

It was before the 2010 election when David Cameron became Prime Minister.

And the, the focus was on me actually.

And it was about the plans that I was working on as you know, the policy direction and strategy that we were developing.

And the headline was California Dreaming.

And the theme of the piece was Steve Hilton, David Cameron's policy guru, the agenda that he's, he's working on developing for the, for the UK is modeled on making the UK more like California.

And it's a whole long list of ways in which I guess they talk to people around me now.

Steve Hilton loves and admires California and that ideal of California as representing the very best of America.

That's one thing I say all the time is, and I wrote it in my book that I published recently about California.

California means to America, what America means to the world.

Oh wow.

That sense of California being this absolutely inspirational place that captures all the great things we love about America.

So obviously freedom and opportunity and enterprise, but also that kind of rebel spirit.

I think that often is let left off the list that we, we are the place where people just follow your dream and do your own thing and Buckley establishment.

Yeah.

That really is, I feel such a kind of soul connection to that.

It's not just policy and - Right.

- The fact that I've raised my family here and started a business here and all those things just in a deep emotional way.

I love this state so much.

- All right, let's hold it there.

We're gonna take a short break.

When we come back, we'll continue our conversation with Republican candidate for governor Steve Hilton.

You're listening to Political Breakdown from KQED news.

Welcome back to Political Breakdown.

I'm Marisa Lagos here with Scott Shafer.

Today we have in studio Steve Hilton.

He is running for California governor as a Republican.

All right, well let's get down to brass tax - Here.

Yeah.

- You are running to, you know, wanna run the biggest state in the nation.

One of the biggest jobs of governors, obviously crafting a budget.

We have a pretty progressive tax system, and I know that you're calling for some big changes including no income tax under a hundred thousand dollars and a flat 7.5% rate for those over that mark, that would amount to a big tax break for the wealthiest earners over $360,000 who pay several percentage points more.

So talk about why, like yeah, why that's your vision and and wouldn't that really curb our state revenue - Ultimately?

Well, the, the yes, it, it would, and we have to because it's out of control.

If you look at the actual budget numbers, the budget that the governor just announced is basic is nearly double what it was five years ago.

Five years ago.

Just before the, the start of the pandemic.

What's actually happened is a lot of that pandemic spending has got baked into the budget as part of the baseline, and it is just unaffordable and unsustainable.

But the real reason why I think we've gotta make these dramatic changes is because the dramatic problems we have, if you look at the data right now, California has the highest poverty rate in the country tied with Louisiana on the supplemental poverty measure from the Census Bureau, the highest poverty rate government used to, - I mean, a lot of the spending we use is to help those people.

- Yeah.

But look, why, why do we have the highest poverty rate?

Because of all these combination of the spending and the policies that are making it so difficult to start and grow businesses.

And that brings us to the second really shocking piece of data, which is we have the highest unemployment rate in America right now of all 50 states.

District of Columbus, slightly higher, but of of the states, we are the worst on poverty and unemployment.

And then you look at affordability, all these things we are just piling on the cost.

The cost means that it's harder to start businesses here.

Businesses that are either leaving or they're not being started in the first place.

The jobs aren't being created.

Our private sector job creation rate is absolutely la lamentable.

And so, as a result of all of that, I think we're in this, I mean, people used to use the word, the phrase doom loop to describe San Francisco.

And thankfully that seems to be, you know, we're coming out of that.

But I think we're in a real doom loop as a state when what we're doing is making it more and more expensive to live here, harder and harder to do anything here.

Whether that's build homes, start businesses, whatever it may be, as a result of that, costs go up as a result of that, we increase welfare payments because people are struggling.

That means go higher.

That means it becomes even more expensive.

And we gotta get out of that cycle.

So if you - Shrink the budget, of course most of the money, the biggest share of the budget goes to healthcare and K through 12 educ - Education.

I, yeah.

- Right.

So what's gonna happen to those things, - Especially short term?

Like what's - Your vision?

I think if you just look at the outcomes, we, we, we are seeing half the kids in, in public schools in the K through 12 system can't read properly.

Two thirds don't meet basic standards in math.

- But less funding isn't gonna help that is - It?

Well, funding obviously isn't the answer because our funding levels are pretty high.

They're not the highest in the country per pupil.

I think New York is a bit right.

Can - You talk about specifically what is governor you would do?

Because a lot of education, responsibility and power lies at the local level.

- It very, it does.

And there's a couple of things.

So first of all, we, we need to get back, we need the focus to get back to academic results in schools and holding schools and teachers accountable for their performance.

So one of the things that I've done in this race that's hasn't been done before is, is actually announce a ticket.

And, and my running mate for lieutenant governor that we announced last week, Gloria Romero, formerly the, the, the democrat leader of the state Senate.

She, when she was in the state senate, authored a bill called the Parent Trigger Law.

The parent trigger law was incredibly important because it would actually start, it, it gave some teeth from the state to improve standards in the classroom.

For example.

It, it, it provided for data being published about the performance of individual schools and individual teachers.

And if the performance fell below a certain level, parents could trigger various changes, replace the principle, may convert to a charter.

All these things.

Now, over the years, those powers and that transparency over the results has been eroded.

So one thing that we will do is publish really clear information about results per school, per a grade for every school, a grade for every teacher, and restore some of those powers to parents, make it easier to convert to a charter.

The governor can do that, for example, through, through the State Board of Education where the governor appoints those members.

And that I've, I've spoken to the head of the Charter Schools Association about how we can make those small, small but important changes to the process of improving a school, converting to a charter.

There are things that can be done from the state and should be done because we can't go on like with these terrible results.

The other one is phonics.

Very late in the day, the legislature's taken up the issue of how you teach reading.

I mean, this debate was settled around the world decades ago.

Yeah.

And yet most schools in California don't use the method to teach kids to read That actually works.

The governor can play a really important role in that throughout the schools.

- Right.

- Of California.

Every single - One.

Yeah.

A lot of this is gonna require you working with the legislature, as you mentioned.

And I, I gotta say like California's sort of at war right now with an administration that has gone after, well the Attorney General says he's protected some $188 billion in federal funds that the administration has either tried to claw back or stop from coming here.

You know, some of that is based on their opposition to say, our sanctuary state law, which is not a thing the legislature seems interested in changing.

So would you support those lawsuits as governor?

Would you say, fine, take the money.

We don't need it.

Like, how do you view that?

- So I just think we've gotta get out of this adversarial relationship and try and work together for the, for the good of California.

I think that's actually one of the things that would be helpful about having me in, in the, in that, in that office, is that I have relationship.

I, I'm friends with half the cabinet.

I know the president and, and I understand that for a lot of Californians and a lot of people listening, that might be a negative thing.

I totally get that.

But on the other hand, I think it makes sense to have someone there who's, who's constructively engaging with the administration to get good results for our state.

And I think that's gonna be one of the advantages of having me there.

- I mean, I think a lot of people would say, Newsom tried that, you know, Jerry Brown tried that the first time.

And you know, it, it, it seems to end that loop.

You have to just basically do what he asks or tells you to do.

Right.

I mean, how, how would you push back?

What would you push back on as governor a among the things that Trump, you know, wants to do, whether it's tariffs or sanctuary state, whatever.

It's, - Well, I, I think that I'd point to the areas where I think we can actually, where there's a a lot alignment.

For example, yesterday I had a, a meeting with a group of organizations working on wildfire prevention.

And actually the, the administration, Doug Burgum, who I know the interior secretary, you know, actually advancing very sensible ideas on how we can manage forests better revive our timber industry, create jobs there, reduce construction costs.

'cause you're not importing timber.

It's a whole set of positive things we can do if we work more closely with the federal government on that issue.

- Well, they've abdicated that responsibility on forest lands.

I mean, they, they, they own the vast majority of forest - Land.

60%.

Yeah.

I think.

Right.

But I think that actually, I, I, I just think we give, - I'm not saying can't happen, I'm just saying it's, it's not as if this is something California has not, you know, they, they, they have asked for help with that.

I do wanna do a quick reset if you're just joining us.

You're listening to political breakdown from KQED news.

I'm Marisa Lagos here with Scott Shafer, our guest, GOP candidate for Governor Steve Hilton, who has so much deep policy knowledge.

It's hard to get through all these.

I know, I know.

And I love it.

We could do our, but you know, one really big flashpoint we have seen between California and other blue states is around immigration.

Yes.

Would you invite ICE into California the way that they are in Minnesota?

Would you have handed over control of the National Guard to the president in June the way he demanded?

- I, I, I think all of this really horrible confrontational and, and violent incidents that we see can, can be avoided going back to what we were just discussing with, with a more cooperative attitude.

- But you can't change the state's law unilaterally.

- Well, how would - You do that?

- Okay.

The law that we're talking about, the sanctuary state law passed in 2017, SB 54.

Yeah, I've read the law.

And in fact, it was criticized at the time Kevin Deleon was criticized because it actually has within it provision for cooperation between federal immigration.

Yeah.

We know - Over thousands of prisoners every year.

Okay.

- And so, actually I think a lot of this is, is performative.

I think that if you just dialed it back a little bit in, in terms of the politics, and actually just work together cooperatively to do what I think the vast majority of Californians want, which is to make sure that dangerous, violent criminals aren't in our communities.

And I think that actually, if you have, if you just lower the temperature and you look - At whose responsibility is that though, - Well, you can, I can only take responsibility for what I do.

And that would be my attitude as governor - Is, but you're also saying you're friends with all, everybody in the cabinet or half the cabinet.

I mean, you'd have a responsibility too, as governor, wouldn't you?

- Absolutely.

And, and, and my role would be to say, let's work together.

Let's not have things take escalating out of control where there's violence and the threat of violence on any side of the situation.

Let's just try to enforce the law, which the, the majority of people, the large majority of people agree we should enforce the law - So that you think that would change the posture of ice, which - Seems to be, I'm very confident that it would, very confident because instead of going into what they might consider to be hostile territory, it would be working with an administration here in California that says, right, let's, let's figure out how we can cooperate to get the job done without provoking the kind of reaction.

I mean, but that then leads to - Violence.

But the vast majority of people that ICE is rounding up and deporting, they have no criminal records.

- Well, they dispute that.

So that, so the, so the ice data that they point to, I mean, look, I'm not there.

I don't know, but the data that they port point to is that over 70% of the people that they are targeting for deportation are in that category.

- But a lot of people are getting caught up as collateral - Data.

Well, because of the sanctuary approach.

That's, that's the argument.

If you listen to Tom Holman, that's his point, which is that, - That's the argument.

But I mean, - The only reason that you get these confrontational situations and the...the enforcement operations in the community is because you don't get the cooperation from local law.

Yeah.

- I mean, we could go on this all day, but to be clear, we do hand over folks from our state prison - Yeah.

Gavin, Gavin day was just making that point - Every day.

Yeah.

And so I, it's not fair to say that we are protecting criminals in California in that way when you do have a lot of exceptions at the state level.

I do wanna get to a couple other areas.

Housing is a huge issue.

Huge.

In California, homelessness, the state's implemented a lot of changes trying to force cities to build more.

Yeah.

I know you've said you support sprawl over infill development.

So why?

- Yeah, lemme just let, so first of all, housing was the first big issue I looked at when I was on this journey of go hosting a TV show where you're just talking and wanting to get back to the, that's - Why you're so good at it.

- Well, yeah, well, you know, trying to get back to, to what, you know, what I've been doing most of my career, which is doing things, the first thing I looked at was housing.

I in fact, tried to get a house, a ballot initiative on the books a number of years ago to try and deal with the housing crisis.

Here's the thing, I understand the argument about infill and density very, very much.

I'm a strong advocate for the abundance agenda that Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson have laid out.

You know, I, I think we agree about that.

We need to build more, we need to have an attitude of, of optimism and abundance, not scarcity, but the actual data don't support this infill only argument.

The, the, the very simple point.

Why is housing so expensive?

Supply and demand, we're not building enough.

So the current approach is we've gotta build more, but we can't expand the development boundary.

Gotta be in inside the current boundary.

That means infill.

That's when you get to two things happening.

First of all, if you're restricting the amount of land that's available to build, the price goes up.

That contributes to the cost.

Secondly, you get into this whole argument with the NIMBYs and the YIMBYs and, and then the, the, the kind of attitude of sacramental gonna force you to build that slows it down.

You get lawsuits, everything becomes slower, more complicated and more costly if you actually had a different approach, which is to end this war on single family homes.

Most people actually in California, that's their dream, is a single family home, especially when they have kids.

And so they say, we can't build out because of that leads to sprawl.

And that's bad for climate.

If you look at the data, we - Already, well, also wildfires.

I mean, - Hang a second.

Well, there's plenty of, here's the, here's the number, the proportion of Californian's land, California's land that's developed is about 5%.

We could increase it.

That's the, the lowest in the country.

If you could increase it to about 6% and you'd have room for 10 million single family homes on quarter acre lots, which is big.

Now, we don't need even need to do that.

There are so many, you look at the, the fantastic project, California forever, Jan Sramek, I think that's great what they're doing there.

400,000 homes here in the Bay Area.

Fantastic.

But we could, my, I said to them directly, my only problem with what you're doing is there's only one, we need 10 of those.

Yeah.

Across the state.

That's how we do - It.

Yeah.

We're getting short on time.

We could talk for an hour about housing.

We have, as a matter of fact.

But, you know, if you were governor, would you do what Gavin Newsom did a week or so ago, which is to reject Louisiana's effort to extradite a physician here for sending abortion pills to a woman who's pregnant in Louisiana.

- No, I, I really believe that this issue was very, it, it's right that it's, it is where it is now, which is decided by the people, not judges.

That was the consequence of the change made by Dobbs.

And so each state has had a different response to that all my life.

- Pretty much.

But would you extradite the doctor?

- No, but no.

Let me explain why.

Because - Because it's two states coming up against other Yeah, exactly.

- But why all my life in one way or another, whether that's the policy I've worked on, the books I've written, businesses I've started, I believe in the decentralization of power.

Power should be closest possible to the people.

And that's what we've got.

Now, if one state has voted for a particular outcome on this or any other issue, I really don't think it's appropriate for another state to say, sorry.

We are gonna impose our view on you.

- So who's doing - That?

Yes, California.

By by.

- So you would extradite the doctor to Louisiana.

- I'm sorry?

- You would extradite the doctor to Louisiana to stand trial.

- Well, if that, that they are enforcing the will.

But - We have voted to protect the doctors in California.

People have in - Ca the doctors in California - Put Yeah.

And we put something in our laws.

- No, I understand that as voters, not the legislature.

- Did - I believe the people have voted on it?

- Yeah, they, they have.

But, but so just to be clear, as governor, you would send that doctor to Louisiana?

- Well, I'd enforce the law, which is that Louisiana is enforcing its law.

Yes, I would, absolutely, because you can't start undermining the Democratic will expressed by other states for their state.

How is that Okay.

Especially, it's, it's striking to me that this argument is being made by Democrats who constantly, and frankly rightly in my view, talk about how important it is to support our democracy and so on.

That's what this is.

Louisiana voted one way, California voted a different way.

That's the beauty of our federalist system.

And I think that's the exactly right.

But you can't have one state imposing its will on another.

- What about, but this is a case of sending something through the mail, so it's a little different.

- Well, I know, and it's an, it's a very tricky issue.

Supreme Court's gonna probably get involved in it.

It's complicated, but at the very least, what you're, what you're, what's going on here is Louisiana is trying to uphold what its people want voted for.

And California is undermining it.

And I don't think that's right.

Just as I wouldn't want to see Louisiana coming in and undermining something that we voted for here in California.

- All right.

Okay.

We're gonna end on a lighter question.

We're gonna ask all the governor candidates this.

You are first.

Where would you take an out-of-state friend to give them a, - Oh my gosh, - Taste of California.

- Oh my goodness.

It's so beautiful.

Everything's so amazing.

I love, okay, first of all, my favorite park.

My fa favorite state park, which is just south of, of, of Carmel, which is just this beautiful park along the coast.

You've got those, those cypresses and it's just absolutely stunning, the coastline there.

I would definitely go there.

I love Death Valley.

It's so amazingly evocative and it shows - It's gonna be a packed day.

- I know, but it shows you the range.

Right.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

You, you can't just, - We got everything.

- That's the point.

You've got the diversity.

I know.

I, you're gonna make me stop and get onto the next question.

That's question.

The next question isn't gonna happen.

I - Like that.

Carmel and Death Valley a real - Maybe stop in Coachella - Way.

Yeah.

- Yes, exactly.

- Have, have a, a drink or a meal in Palm Springs.

Alright.

Steve Hilton, thank you for kicking off our series of gubenatorial interviews.

Of course.

Really love having you in and we'll be talking to you more in the coming months - Later.

Fantastic.

Thanks so much.

- You're gonna be able to find all of these interviews in our podcast feed in the coming weeks.

You can also watch them on KQED News YouTube channel.

We'll be posting lot more content that there this year in general for today, Thursday, February 5th.

That is a wrap.

Political Breakdown is a production of KQED.

- Our engineer today is Jim Bennett.

Our producer is Izzy Bloom.

And our video team includes Matt Morales and Jennifer Ng.

I'm Scott Shafer.

- And I'm Marisa Lagos.

We'll see you next time.