California or Canada: What's Worse?

Okay, everybody, the Charlie Kirk Show.

Oh, Canada, what is going on? Ezra Levant from Canada joins us as we talk California and Canada, two messed up liberal places, and we talk about solutions for both. Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com, and get involved with the most important organization in the country, Turning Point USA at tpusa.com.
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We were the first guest on Governor Gavin Newsom's podcast, which has now opened an entire national political conversation about California. Should people go on Gavin Newsom's podcast? My conversation went very viral, and I think it was a good use of time.
Joining us now is the expert on California, Steve Hilton, reversing the ruin of America's worst run state. Steve joins us now.
Steve, welcome to the program. Man, it is so great to be with you.
I enjoyed that so much. I think it was an absolute triumph, I got to tell you.
Can I just tell you my, I want to set this up the right way. Please.
When I watched the whole thing, what came to my mind was this performance by Margaret Thatcher of Prime Minister's Questions, go with me on this, where she absolutely eviscerated the then leader of the opposition in the House of Commons, you know that when they're jousting with each other. And there's this phrase that she used that is what came to my mind

when I was watching you with Gavin Newsom.

And she was calling this Labour politician,

he was weak,

but she did it in this incredible Margaret Thatcher way.

And she went weak, weak, feeble like that,

incredibly powerful.

And that's what I thought of Gavin Newsom.

You totally dominated him.

And he just came across to me as just utterly weak, weak, feeble, pathetic.

It was a total revelation. Well, thank you.
And the response has been overwhelming. It has been seen tens of millions of times.

People are constantly remarking on it and thought that I handled it in a gentlemanly way,

but also very much

confronted him on his core contradictions and major issues. So Steve, let me ask you just a broad question.
What is he doing? Why is he doing this? Because if it was all about, I thought at first it was he wanted to stand up to MAGA. I'm strong enough, but he's not really doing that.
No. He was kind of just very sheepish and kind of of his own shadow.
What is your prognosis of what's going on here? Well, that's exactly right. I mean, you completely dominated him both with your arguments and also physically.
I mean, just watching it. People have to watch it, not just listen to it.
You dominated him. And I think that the story here is that he is trying, I mean, look, he's a machine politician.
He'll say whatever is politically expedient. I know him personally.
We have friends in common. I've always been clear about that.
And fundamentally, I don't think that he is a left wing ideologue. I think that he is a machine politician who will say whatever it takes to get on.
And in the last few years, that has meant pandering to the people who really have the power in the Democratic Party these days, which is the far left activists and the unions and the government unions. And they're basically the same people now because the unions are run by the far left activists.
So he's gone along with it. But now he realizes that he's got a different audience.
He's not running in California anymore. This is all about his next move, which has been well telegraphed for years, is running for president.
He wants to run for president. And he knows that the same old shtick that he's been getting away with in California won't work on the national level.
So I think he's trying to signal that he can get, he's the kind of candidate that can win nationally. I think that's what he's trying to show.
The audience he has in mind, I think, are Democrat primary voters in the states that will determine who is the nominee for the party in 2028. And I think the message he's trying to send is, pick me because I'm a winner, because I can actually operate not just in blue states, but in red states, and I can get along with all sorts of people.
And I'm the winner that we need in 2028. And so I think that's right.
And I have a new op-ed out right now kind of reflecting on my time sitting down with him. And I don't think it will necessarily work with the Democrat base if he continues in this direction.

But let's take this more broadly.

And Steve, I was not uniquely positioned to do this.

Let me tell you why.

I've never lived in California.

I'm a tourist.

I visit often.

I love California.

Now, if that Nepo baby fat slob, J.B. Pritzker, ever starts a podcast and invites me on,

that's a completely different ballgame because he ruined my home and it would be game on. I know Illinois and Chicago like the back of my hand.
However, California, even though the biggest audience of this program is in California, and I feel as if I have absorbed the issues, I still have difficulty prosecuting the case against Gavin Newsom for two reasons. Number one, he's so slippery and so slick at weaseling his way out.
You saw that in one time when I was talking about the transgender kidnapping bill. He just lied about it, and he used an argument from authority saying, you don't understand this, and I said, well, no, it isn't.
I felt even a little bit gun shy because I don't live there and I don't work in the general assembly. That's number one.
Number two, you know, Gavin kind of has this like timeshare salesman vibe to him where it's just, he's, he's just able to communicate whatever he needs to hear to the audience. But the second part of this, and Steve, I want your reaction.
He's so insistent on repeating these like 10 or 12 talking points. We're the leaders in AI and we have no rivals and we have no equals.
Steve, you are uniquely positioned to prosecute the case against Gavin Newsom. Yes.
How should it be done? Well, first of all, I'm glad you brought that up because, funnily enough, just like you with Illinois,

I'm kind of itching to go on this podcast.

And when my book comes out, Caliphailia,

I really, you know, I think we're trying.

We'll see if he takes up the offer.

Caliphailia reversing the ruin of America's worst run state.

And who's been running it the last six years?

Gavin Newsom.

So somehow I don't think he wants to,

he doesn't want to engage in that argument. We'll see.
But you're exactly right. He just, he has these, these, these talking points and, you know, we can call it gaslighting and we can call it spin and so on, but it's not, it's actually just, it really is.
Well, it's more than that. It's certainly that let's just take that on the transgender issue and, and, and the one that really made all the headlines, which was when he was agreeing with you on the unfairness of biological men and girls' sports.
Okay, fine, but what are you going to do about it? I mean, you've been the governor for six years while that's the law in California. What have you ever done to challenge it? Nothing.
What are you doing now to challenge it? Nothing. So you could say that is gaslighting and he's trying to convey a position without actually doing anything about it.
But on other issues, it's actually just lying, just straight up lying. I mean, not with you, but I just saw with another one of these that he did.
He's trying to make out that taxes are somehow lower in California than in Florida by some ridiculous statistical sleight of hand. It's total BS.
And on any measure, we have the highest taxes in the country. We have the highest income taxes, the highest tax burden on income, you know, on and on.
So the truth is that on almost every meaningful measure, California is literally 50th out of 50 states. And if we're not 50th, we're 49.
So I'll give you an example. So for much of last year, he goes on about the great economy.
For much of last year, 2024, we had the highest unemployment rate in America. Now we're the second highest.
There's one state that's worse. And so he can brag all he likes about being the fifth biggest economy.
The numbers just aren't there. We have the highest rate of poverty in the country on and on, you know, the highest housing cost, the lowest home ownership.
So and actually, he does have these ways of wriggling it out of it. I noticed, for example, in his debate with Ron DeSantis, where Ron DeSantis brought up all the exodus of people leaving and so on.
Gavin Newsom threw something at him about people going from Florida to California. And when I dug into that, it turned out that that was military transfers, nothing to do with people choosing to move to California.
So it's total BS. The record is completely appalling on every single issue.
And it's true to say that California remains the fifth biggest economy in the world. But in a way, that isn't even more shaming then that we have the worst homelessness crisis, the highest poverty rate.
It's totally shameful. And the reason, by the way, that we have second highest housing prices, most unequal state, highest cost of living.
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Go to TuttleTwins.com slash Charlie today. TuttleTwwins.com slash charlie okay everybody i want to play this and get steve hilton's reaction play cut 152 please gavin i pay 16 in state taxes you need a better accountant because it's 13.3 but there's a millionaire's tax on top of it well there's and i'm 83 years old and i still work right okay i have another home in florida yeah i don't live there.
I prefer where I live. I've gotten used to the fog, to the seagulls, to the cormorants.
I know all the birds of the bay. I'm an avid boater.
But there's a point at which I will leave this state, and that will be taxation without representation. I shouldn't be punished for succeeding.
So, Steve, what's the truth here? It's just a total lie. I mean, I'm just looking it up now because there's, you know, WalletHub published all the data.
So he's completely lying. We have the highest tax burden.
I'm just reading now from WalletHub.com. California has the highest individual income tax burden, while seven states, including Texas, Florida, and Washington, have the lowest, including Florida, have the lowest.
I mean, it's just, there's so many different measures. If you look at individual income tax burden, the highest in the country is California.
If you look at overall tax burden, that's taking everything together, sales tax, everything else, California is number five, and Florida on overall tax burden. Where am I getting to the bottom? We've got to go all the way down to number 47, right? So it's just a total lie.
There's no truth to it whatsoever. And he's got this incredibly narrow, detailed kind of total BS statistic that where he, Gavin Newsom, he said it in this in the longer clip, where he says, well, the people in California, working people in California, in Florida pay the same taxes as the very rich in California.
The way he's calculating that is comparing income taxes in California on the very rich with combining all the sales taxes, property taxes, and everything else on working class people in Florida. And the fact is that people on lower income spend more of their income on things that attract sales tax than on as a proportion of their income than the very wealthy.
So it's just total, the Wall Street Journal ripped that apart when he first said it with Ron DeSantis in the debate. But he keeps saying these things because he's got this, he just kind of bulldozes through and he says it with his total confidence and kind of asserts it as if it's the truth.
It's more than gaslighting. It's lying.
We have the highest income tax burden in the country, the highest income tax rates on corporate tax. I mean, you name it.
It's just a disaster, which is, by the way, why so many people? Why do you think people are leaving? Why is anyone leaving such a beautiful state as California? Why businesses leave? So let's just say let's just say you were to become governor, Steve Hilton, and you're governor of California. What are two or three things that could change without the legislature? Let's say they keep their super majorities.
What could a Republican actually do to change California? Well, the number one thing is that the executive branch means the absolute nightmare of bureaucratic agencies. Let's call it the administrative state, the swamp in Sacramento, which is actually worse than what we have in Washington.
and because you've had one party rule for so long, you haven't had any kind of input from an opposing ideological point of view. And so you control all that.
I'll give you a specific example. The governor appoints all the members of the State Board of Education.
It's the State Board of Education that sets the curriculum for the public schools. The governor appoints members on the California Air Resources Board.
Not all of them, but enough to make a difference. The Air Resources Board is what's pushing through the climate extremism, banning gas cars, banning gas stoves, banning gas heaters and boilers and all the rest of the insanity that is raising costs for everyone.
So on and on, you've got all the, if you look at the fantastic agriculture industry being completely destroyed by deliberate policy, you appoint the people as governor to the Water Resources Control Board and all those agencies. You can make a pretty much an overnight change because it's these agencies that are implementing and far exceeding what's even, it's just the same pathology as you have in Washington, where the legislature, in the case of D.C., it's the Congress, passes legislation that's kind of vague, and then the agencies, the bureaucrats, overzealously interpret that, push their own agenda, and make it 10 times worse.
It's the same pathology in California at the state level, and you can reverse it just in the same way. I mean, a simple way of thinking about it is Doge, California.
That would make such a difference. And you could start to affect housing costs because the reason housing costs are the highest in the country is because of the overregulation.
Every year they change the building codes, endless new climate things they add on that make it incredibly expensive. I mean, the median house prices now have a million dollars in California.
It's ridiculous. So that's where you start, right, with the bureaucracy that you directly control.
Now, the second point is vetoing legislation. So this year already, it's unbelievable.
The number of bills that have been submitted by members of the legislature, 2,000-plus bills. You can veto them.
They can override it because they've got to sue 2,000 majority. And then you have negotiating power, and you could bring people to the table, and you can actually get a better product.
Steve Hilton, excellent. And everyone should listen to him.
He's a great, great guy. Thank you, Charlie.
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Visit pharmawindfall.com. Joining us now is a great man from a country that we're having a little tussle with right now, but we just love this guy.
He's a patriot, and he could be an honorary American anytime you want. He's a freedom fighter.
Ezra Levant, Canadian journalist, rebelnews.com. Ezra, before we get into the plan of which you have authored, and you made the case in the Wall Street Journal, I want to just kind of just take a step back here, and how are Canadians processing all of this between our two countries? Well, the Liberal Party of Canada, they've decided that it's easier to run against Donald Trump in the next election than to run against the Canadian Conservative leader in the next election.
So you've never seen a Canadian election like this before. All the liberals are talking about is Trump.
And by the way, Trudeau is gone now, but we've got Trudeau 2.0, a guy named Mark Carney, who is even worse. He was on the board of the World Economic Forum.
He's got three passports. He's the ultimate globalist.
He was the head of the State Bank, the Federal Reserve. It's called the Bank of Canada.
And then he went over to the UK and he headed the Bank of England. And while he was there, he was friends with Elaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein's right-hand woman.
So this guy is the worst. I don't even think he lives in Canada.
His wife still lives in New York where she works. He was selected in a Kamala Harris style fake primary where foreign nationals were allowed to vote and children as young as 14.
So this guy was installed and he's going straight to the top of the Canadian political food chain. And he has decided that running against America, running on an anti-America platform and obviously anti-Trump is his his way to win.
Trouble is that's terrible for ordinary Canadians. So explain this to me.
Is that, was this a party vote? What, what, I mean, what exactly was the process here? Yeah. Trudeau for nine years, he's been in so many scandals.
People are sick of him. So he resigned and he said, I'm out of here as soon as the party chooses a successor to me.
So they had an internal vote, but that internal vote is so fishy. 400,000 people registered to vote, but only 150,000 of those were qualified and certified and verified.
So more than half of the votes were not qualified. What the heck was going on? And like I said, you didn't have to be a Canadian citizen to vote.
And you didn't have to be a grown up. So 14 year olds and foreign citizens chose our new prime minister.
And he goes straight to the top. It would be as if Kamala Harris became president, but at least she was on a ballot in 2020.
This is so undemocratic. And he doesn't have a mandate.
He's down in the polls, and he knows that fighting with Trump will prick Canadians to come. He's playing Captain Canada.
But the trouble is, when you fight with Trump over economics, you're going to get hurt. It's just a fact.
America is 10 times bigger than us. And I'm really worried that there's what's called a moral hazard here, if you know what I mean.
Donald Trump is used to negotiating with people who want a deal. And Trump is the one who's not afraid to walk away.
That's how Trump did it in New York City when he was a real estate developer. But in this case, Trump is the one who wants a deal.
And Trump is the one who's not afraid to walk away. That's how Trump did it in New York City when he was a real estate developer.
But in this case, Trump is the one who wants a deal, but it's in the Liberal Party's interest not to get one. They want the fight.
And believe it or not, they want the economic damage that the fight will cause so they can blame Trump for our looming recession rather than their own economics. It's really the worst of times in Canadian politics.
But more to the point, I hate the fact that we're fighting. It's like Batman and Robin are fighting.
We're the junior partner. There's no doubt about it.
But I think we've got a friendship and a respect. And I can't think of two countries that are better friends.
And I'm worried that our liberal leaders are wrecking that just to win an election. I think you're right.
And look, I think all this is going to simmer down. I have great respect for Canadian patriots, not Trudeau.
But the rank and file of Canadians have always been so decent and so good to us. And I think the 51st state thing is just a negotiation.
But Ez but but Ezra you make a good point here could an unintended consequence of President Trump trying to rebalance some of these trade deals that have been not great for our own country here could he unintentionally help the liberal party here could an unintended benefit not, but consequence of President Trump saber rattling, which I support, could be installing a really bad government of Canada and therefore thwarting what looks to be an ascendant conservative correction? I think so. And you're exactly right to say unintended consequence.
I think Trump likes yanking people's chains like Justin Trudeau. And so many of us love to see it.
But there was some collateral damage there. And so I thought, you know what, we need a plan.
How do we put this in America first terms? Because Canadians know what we want, but that's not going to move the needle with President Trump. How can we rephrase this in a way that maybe the president will listen to? And here's my take at it.
I'm obviously a Canadian citizen, but I've been a Trump supporter three elections in a row. We're the only Canadian media outlet that endorsed Trump three elections in a row.
And we paid a price for that, by the way, under Trudeau. So here's my best effort.
And Charlie, you tell me if I've got any holes in my argument, because I'm trying to work this out. Here's my theory.
The biggest source of that trade deficit that President Trump talks about is because we sell a huge amount of crude oil to the United States, much more than we sell auto parts or agriculture. And that's because although America makes produce a lot of oil, it still consumes more than it produces and exports.
So Canada fills the void. And so you're not going to get tariffs fixing that.
A tariff is good to move a Honda factory from Mexico to the States because you to move the factory. But Canada's oil comes from the oil sands in Alberta.
And you just can't move that. So a tariff is not going to move the oil to America.
It's just going to make it more expensive for those US refineries that buy it. But here's the thing.
That oil, the Canadian oil sands, it's the third largest proven reserves in the world, just behind Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. And it's just sitting just north of Montana.
And the premier of the province of Alberta, that's sort of like the Texas of Canada, seems so pro-America. She went down to President Trump's inauguration.
I don't know if you know that. She's so positive and upbeat.
She has not given in to the vendetta-style politics of Trudeau. She knows Americans are our best friends.
And she told me, I met her when she was down there on the inauguration. She says she would love it if Alberta could double the amount of oil that's produced in the oil sands.
And so here was my thinking. Instead of pushing away the oil sands, pull it close.
Don't tariff it. Buy it all.
170 billion barrels of oil. Even if Alberta doubled the production, that's enough oil to take care of all of America's import needs for the next 50 years.
It's a $13 trillion deal. I would think of it sort of like a real estate deal, but much more valuable than Greenland or Panama.
And the thing is, Donald Trump negotiated the USMCA, which has a special side letter on oil, and it allows America to get preferential access to our oil. So what I would say, if I was trying to talk to my America First friends, I would say, don't push this oil away.
China is already sniffing around. China is already trying to buy the oil sands.
Don't let them in. Take the oil.
Don't tariff it. It's practically yours anyways.
What I mean by that

is the companies that pump that oil, that steam it and produce it, they're either American-owned or they're Canadian with a lot of American investors. So it's sort of American on every side you look at it.
The producers are American. The consumers are American refineries.
oh charlie, I forgot my favorite part. If you buy all your foreign oil from ethical oil in Canada, instead of conflict oil from OPEC, you don't need to have the Fifth Fleet stationed in the Persian Gulf anymore.
That's a $50 billion a year expense, let alone the risk of human life. The reason is the U.S.
military- So I guess the question is, Ezra, would Canada be willing to sell? I mean, is Canada, are they open to a deal? They already signed it under Donald Trump in the USMCA, and the premier of Alberta said, I want to do it. She wants to double it.
So keep the price low because it's American consumers. Don't buy any more oil from Venezuela.
Stop funding those guys. Don't buy any more oil from OPEC.
Stop funding them. If you want to have your military in the Middle East on your own reasons, fine.
But at least you won't have to do it to patrol your oil tankers. Alberta wants to sell it.
The oil producers are ready to rock. Remember that Keystone XL pipeline? Joe Biden killed it on day one of his presidency.
President Trump says he wants to revive it. That pipeline alone would bring 800,000 barrels of oil a day, which would replace a huge swath of OPEC oil.
So you know the old saying, don't get mad, don't get me even, get ahead. That's what I would say to America First people, is get ahead.
Don't be distracted by these liberals in Ottawa. By the way, they don't speak for all Canadians.
What do you really want when you say you want a 51st state? Do you really want 40 million people who in the electoral college probably tilt a little bit Democrat? Do you really want the French-English bilingualism? A little bit. What you really want is you want to hug Canada close, get the oil, don't let China get it, let's do trade, don't let Trudeau and now Mark Carney knock you off your goal.

Your goal is prosperity and security.

If you bring those oil sands close, you're doing both.

And your question's a good one, Charlie.

The answer is it's already, the deal is already there.

The pipe, the Keystone XL is half built.

The premier wants to do it.

Say yes to the oil sands. Don't be the the Trudeau and Carney hate the oil sands.
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Okay, Ezra. So here, I agree with all of that.
Look, I got a lot of problems with the Canadian government, whatever. I think that if we could negotiate some of the electricity stuff, get rid of some of the tariffs on American goods, love the oil deal.
I think we should have all of our energy going after the Mexican drug cartels and the Chinese Communist Party. Would you say this is now resurrecting an otherwise unpopular liberal party? unfortunately and here's's why.
Let's say someone's happily married. Let's say there's a happily married woman and a man comes up and says, hey, divorce him and marry me.
Well, that's shocking. That's sort of an indecent proposal, as the old movie with Woody Harrelson put it.
And so a lot of Canadians are saying, whoa, when you're saying join America, that's sort of asking me to break up my family. By the way, some other people who maybe were thinking of getting a divorce would say, yeah, I'd love to join the U.S.
as a 51st state. My point is it started that whole serious debate in Canada over what I think was basically Internet prickles.
Trump is a master at that bombastic style. That's the Manhattan style.
Canadians are a little bit more passive, maybe a little more thin skin. So I think that distracted like a million Canadians and a million Canadians sort of took it personally.
And I loved it because it was yanking Trudeau's chain. But Charlie, I'm going to agree with you.

That probably cost the conservative leader of Canada 5% in the polls. And believe me, all of us want that conservative leader.
His name is Pierre Polyev. He's great.
He would be a great international partner, a bilateral partner for America. I think that Trump knew how to needle Trudeau, but it sort of had that unintended consequence.
Let's just say you go to a bar in Alberta. Is this the number one thing folks are talking about right now? Well, the thing is, Alberta is the most pro-America place in Canada.
And Alberta's a little nervous because- Vancouver, Montreal, just a bar in Canada. Yeah, I think so.
I think some ordinary people are excited about the idea of becoming American. I just don't know if that's likely to happen.
I think the risk is if the liberals win again because people are confused. Some people are actually saying the Americans are going to invade.
I mean, I don't think serious people think that that's what's happening. I think Trump is just having some rhetorical fun.
But yeah, Charlie, it is true. I think some people are freaking out.
But I think that doing a deal like this, there's one more thing it gives Donald Trump. Let me come back to the America First

point of view. How did this whole trade war start? You might remember in November, President Trump tweeted to Mexico and to Canada, get your borders under control before I become president.
And instead of doing those two simple things, Trump said, fix the fentanyl issue and stop the illegal migrants. Canada should do that on our own.
But instead of doing that, Trudeau wanted to fight. So if you actually did this deal of a century with Canada, it's a $13 trillion 50-year deal.
But you know what President Trump could demand? He could say, if we're going to buy all this oil from you instead of from the Persian Gulf or Brazil or Mexico or whatever, then we want you to take some of that money and reinvest in your military. We want you to remove some of your tariffs on dairy and poultry and eggs.
We want you to allow American banks to set up shop on Main Street Canada. We want these basic, you know.
And by the way, Canadians would love that. We have terrible banks.
We have the highest cell phone prices in the world. I would love it if American cell phone companies could compete up here.
So if President Trump were to say to Canada, all right, we're going to do a deal for your oil. We're going to make you rich, and we're going to make ourselves rich, and we're going to get out of this Middle East oil business.
But in return, you got to pump up your military. You got to get those F-35s.
You got to patrol the north. You got to fix the border.
You got to crack down on fentanyl. You got to get tougher with China.
I think that's a deal that Trump could make, and that's a lasting deal. I think that's a bigger deal than Greenland.
I think it's a bigger deal than Panama. I just sort of hope that if President Trump looked at it like some sort of a business deal or a real estate deal and thought, okay, how do I get all the benefit of the Canadian relationship without the downsides? I think that's the winner.
And I think Canadians are a little thin-skinned on that 51st state thing. It would be like asking someone, Mary, do you want to be my girlfriend? I think that's what happened there.
But that's a distraction. Let's put that aside.
And thanks for having me on, Charlie, and help me promote the plan. Ezra, you're great.
I love the plan. I will do that.
God bless you, my friend. Thank you.
Thanks so much for listening, everybody. Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

Thanks so much for listening and God bless.