California Has One Governor's Debate and CNN Is Running It | John Phillips

**Guest** John Phillips, KABC Talk Radio Host & OC Register Columnist **Guest Bio** John Phillips is a Southern California radio host, political commentator, and columnist for the Orange County Register. He has covered California politics for two decades and has been called the state's political historian by figures in the California political establishment. Phillips is a regular voice on the intersection of state policy, elections, and the consequences of one-party rule in the Golden State. **Show Summary** California has one gubernatorial debate this November, and CNN is moderating it with out-of-state hosts who have no stake in the issues destroying the state. Host Jon Slavet sits down with veteran California political commentator John Phillips to walk through the full landscape of the November 2026 ballot: the governor's race between Xavier Becerra and Steve Hilton, the LA mayor's race between Karen Bass and Nithya Raman, 14 ballot initiatives including three major tax measures, and the homelessness crisis that no level of government seems willing to solve. The conversation closes on the LA mayor's race, the homelessness industrial complex, and a historical parallel that sticks: in the 1930s, when Upton Sinclair nearly won the governorship on a platform of government ownership of farms and factories, California's business elites (the Chandlers, Hearst, Louis B. Mayer) stepped in and stopped it. Today's elites, Phillips says, the Elon Musks and Peter Thiels, have the resources to do the same. Will they? **Chapters** 00:00 – Welcome: John Phillips on the State of California Politics 00:30 – One Debate, CNN Moderators, and the Issues They Won't Touch 00:59 – Homelessness, Insurance, the Bullet Train: California-Only Problems 02:46 – The Train to Nowhere: Waste, Fraud, and Uber Blacks to Sacramento 03:51 – Becerra 60, Hilton 38: The PPIC Polls and the Basement Strategy 05:30 – Embarrass Becerra Into Debating: Boyle Heights and the Cold Storage Fire 06:38 – 14 Ballot Initiatives and the Case for Direct Democracy 07:18 – Hiram Johnson, Southern Pacific, and Why Initiatives Exist 08:06 – The SEIU and CTA: The New 800-Pound Gorilla in Sacramento 09:39 – Prop 43: A Supermajority for Local Taxes (Currently Failing) 10:08 – The Billionaire Tax (Prop 40): How It Split the Labor Movement 11:19 – Will the AI Industry Leave California? The Catastrophic Risk of Prop 40 13:01 – Bass vs. Raman: The LA Mayor's Race Nobody Wants 15:13 – The Doctored Fire Report: Karen Bass Can't Learn from Failure 16:03 – Defund the NGOs: The Homeless Industrial Complex 16:51 – Enforce the Rules: Rehab, Treatment, or Prison 17:39 – Dr. Drew and the Missing Coordination Between City, County, and State 18:20 – Nothing Changes Until People Vote Differently 20:18 – Upton Sinclair and the Elites Who Saved California Before 21:29 – Today's Titans (Musk, Brin, Thiel) Won't Step Up. Yet. **Connect with John Phillips** - X : https://x.com/Johnnydontlike - YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/@randywangradio Enjoyed the episode? Subscribe to our podcast, leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and join the conversation on Instagram and LinkedIn with the hashtag #stateofgoldpodcast **Connect with State of Gold** - X: https://x.com/realjonslavet - Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/company/stateofgold/about - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stateofgoldpodcast/?hl=en - Website: www.stateofgold.com