biggest issue spacing california right now, important questions about the comeback after covid the economy and the future of the golden state from the richard nixon presidential library and museum in yorba linda. this is the california recall debate now, here are christine devine and alex michaelson. it's not. and good evening. welcome to the california recall debate. we are live at the nixon library in your belinda and we are live right now on fox 11 in los angeles. ktv you fox two in the bay area and also the salem radio network. all right. come august. 16th every registered

california voter, you'll be getting a ballot in the mail, and that ballot has two questions on it. number one should governor newsom be recalled, and number two if 50% of voters say yes. who should replace him? well, these four candidates, they want that job, so let's now go to our moderator. so that is hugh hewitt, salem, radio host and ceo of the nixon foundation. hugh. thank you, christine, and welcome everyone watching and listening tonight. as christine said, i'm the president nixon foundation, joining alex christine and me and asking questions tonight, his ambassador, robert o'brien, former national security advisor to the president. co chair of the nixon seminar, the nixon foundation sent seven invitations of the debate tonight. governor newsom, larry elder and caitlyn jenner declined to attend. accepting and with us tonight are the 2018 gop republican nominee for governor, john cox, two term mayor of san diego, kevin faulconer. currently serving

assemblyman from the sacramento area. kevin kiley and former congressman doug ose. he who also represented the sacramento area, thank you gentlemen for coming tonight. the rules of the debate are very simple. i've discussed them with each of the candidates, and they have agreed to them. questions are 30. seconds in length answers are 75 seconds in length. there will be a bell at 75 seconds and they've all agreed to stop talking. have also agreed not to interrupt each other. there is no right of reply. if they hear their name mentioned, they just have to hold their fire until it is their turn each questioner on our panel inside can ask either one question of all four or a separate question of each of the candidates. will be as many rounds as time permits, and we begin with alex michaelson, california's preeminent political reporter. thank you very much you that's very kind. welcome to you all. thank you so much for being with us tonight. this question is going to be for all of you, and we're going to go in alphabetical order starting with you, mr cox, if you become governor.

you are going to face a democratic supermajority in the assembly and the senate they could override any veto that you have. you're going to face a lot of interest groups that are not going to want you in there and think they can wait you out for a year and then get a democratic governor in november. given all of those constraints. what specifically, tangibly can you get done as governor and what is priority one to actually get done? thank you, alex. for that question, the first thing that i do. as the governor of this state as i call a special session to address housing. housing crisis is the most severe problem. we have a lot of them, but housing really is the most severe because it's driving businesses out of the state is driving people out of the state. housing is my business. i build houses in other stakes for a tiny fraction of what it costs to do in california, and the problem is government. its government mandates its government lawsuits. occasioned

by the california environmental quality act. it's all the delays. it's all the approval process is i can get approvals in indiana in 6 to 12 months, it takes 12 years. the problem with the cost of housing as it drives the middle class into poverty and out of this state. and it also drives up the cost of everything else. think about it. it's a wage price spiral upwards. i'm a cpa. i'm a businessman. i understand what families are going through and we need to tackle housing. i'm also going to tackle the other problems in this legislature. i'm gonna try to do it with the legislators help, but if i don't get that help, i'm going to go in the districts and try to get people elected. who will fix the problems of this state? now to you, mayor faulconer. what can you tangibly get done, especially with the legislature. that probably isn't going to want to work with you, alex. thank you for being here tonight. thank you to the nixon foundation, a new majority. i would just say at the outset first and foremost, i'm excited. i'm excited because

this recall happened. it's happening in californians are ready to make a change at the top. and i'm ready to bring california together to champion. the reforms and the changes that this state so desperately needs. standing up for public safety and making our neighborhood safer. removing tent encampments from our sidewalks and making california more affordable. i'm looking forward to bringing our state together after a very difficult time to do that. i have experience doing that. i did that as mayor of san diego after a very difficult time in our city's history, i'm gonna take that exact same approach. and i have experience in working with a majority democrat legislature because i did it my entire tenure as mayor of san diego. what do you do? you go out and you when the argument publicly. and when you win the argument, you can get the vote and i'm going to focus first and foremost on making california affordable. put forward the largest tax cut in california history for middle class because we need it.

because our states too expensive in californians are leaving and voting with their feet. so if you believe like i do, it's time to make california more affordable. we can do it. assemblyman you're in the assembly. you know how challenging it is to get republican led legislation through right now, what can you specifically actually make happen? have offered some of the most groundbreaking legislation passed in recent years on topics like school choice, public safety, criminal justice reform, artificial intelligence, but what i've also seen in my five years in the legislature is that our state government is fundamentally broken. that's why our quality of life is declining in california and what's broken it is. we have a political class that serve special interests rather. serving the people of california and i have not been able to fix our broken state government as one member of the legislature, and i wouldn't be able to do it on my own as governor, but i would be able to start doing it on day one with the mandate for fundamental change that this recall would provide. so the question you ask is the right one because whoever wins this race is going to have one year to offer a viable alternative and set our state at a new course before the next election,

so i'd say, first of all the era of corruption is over. i've already taken a step in this direction by becoming the first elected official in california. not to accept any funding from such special interests. second i used strategically use executive authority to unwind harmful policies such as might finally terminating the state of emergency and making sure that every california school is open full time. but yes to truly get fundamental change, you need to work with the legislature and having spent five years in the legislature. i know that the one thing legislators respond to is political pressure, the fear of losing their job and having just seen the governor lose his job. will be a unique opportunity to bring fundamental reforms on issues like the cost of living, rising crime rates and school choice. congressman oc what is something tangible and specific that you can actually get done? so the governor's got immense authorities within the agencies and departments of the state. first thing i'm going to do is i'm firing the guy that's preventing the construction of new water storage. then i'm firing the guy that is trying to release through regulatory changes. the prisoners who have been righteously convicted. and

have not yet served their terms. the state board of education. the governor has a number of appointees on there. that group controls the curriculum that has presented in our classrooms. i'm replacing the people that are there who are giving us all these foolish things that our kids don't need. we're going to focus on reading by the third grade. history by the sixth math by the eighth and civics by the time they get out of high school, the governor also has immense authority in terms of the appointments to the puc. i'm replacing the people. you have given us. power at 70 to 80% more than what our neighbors in nevada or arizona or elsewhere or pain. we're going to get back to fund addressing fundamental. things that make a difference around the kitchen table. thank you very much to my colleague now, christine devine. talk about the coronavirus. it is the issue of our time. the delta variant is surging. i'm going

to start with you, mayor faulkner. republican governors in states like florida and arizona have signed bills banning a mask mandate in schools. where do you stand on a mask in schools? and would you allow for local control for districts who have their own numbers that they're concerned about? to deal with this themselves. well, first and foremost, i urged everyone to get back to it. vaccinations is how we get our way out of this. i'm vaccinated my family's vaccinated. if we don't want to be dealing this with our kids and our grandchildren, we have to take action now. i want our schools fully real, but i want our kids back in school. i want our teachers back in school, but i do not favor mandates. i favor educate you're not going to mandate your way out of the coronavirus. i think people in california want to do the right thing. and for those that are still hesitant. we've got to continue to provide that education continue to show the benefits of what happens when you do get vaccinated. so i

believe that is absolutely the right way to go. education first, not manu ban a mask mandate in schools? i do not support a mass mandate in schools. thank you very much. go now to mr cox. my question for you is governor newsom issued a mandate for state employees and healthcare workers to show proof they've been vaccinated or take a weekly covid test. would you uphold that? no, i don't believe that. we should do that. first of all, there's a lot of people that have had covid and have antibodies. they don't need the vaccine. they shouldn't get the vaccine. this disease is an awful one. i had it very early on, and it's not something you want to have. but it's 99.9% survivable by people who are in decent health who aren't elderly. what we need to do is look at what other states have done. i mean, i compare california to florida. uh i have two nephews that live in orlando. they were able to go to school the whole time in front of a teacher. kids in

california were not given that privilege by governor newsom. governor newsom closed so many small businesses. i'm a small businessman. uh, big businesses were fine. costco and home depot had just a good time, but small businesses were crushed. i don't think we should do mandates. i think the governor's covid management was an absolute disaster. uh it resulted in far more danger and far more problems. he got slapped down in court to for closing the church's strip clubs and pot shops were deemed essential. i think it's really a problem when politicians and governments get involved in deciding what's essential and what's not. all right. we do know that the coronavirus is unpredictable. so my question now is do congressman oc. the cdc came out last week recommending masks indoors in hotspots even if you're vaccinated, would you adopt cdc guidelines? several republican governors. texas, nebraska are not. i think the government is

engaged in a significant overreach of its authority. in terms of imposing these things. happen to have great faith in the ability of people to make decisions of their own to assess the risk that they face whether it be for their child in school or their workplace or where they shot. if you go to a store that says, please wear a mask. you have a decision to make. you can put on a mask and go in or you have to respect the store owner's rights to control their own environment. just think that government overreach has to stop. right. this is not the last variant we're going to have if we don't break this pattern of government overreach into our daily lives, then we're going to get stuck with this over and over and over. let's have some faith. and the people that are in our state or in our country now, my view here is that instead of giving people mandates, we need to give them options are legislature and our governor. right now, i have

said you will do this. without giving people options. i'm for giving people options. take your kid to a different school shop somewhere else. i'm not in favor of governmen thank you for your answer. assemblyman cali. this is to you. 20 million californians are fully vaccinated. that is 53% of our today's population. what would you do to get more people vaccinated or do you believe personal choice? personal risk? believe in personal choice, and i should say that i have done everything as a member of the legislature to get information and access to my constituents. that is a stark contrast to gavin newsom in october of last year, he cast doubt on the safety of the vaccine, he said. we can't take the fda s word for it. this drew a scathing rebuke from the chair of the united states senate health committee who said the governor needed to stop second guessing the career scientists at the fda. said that newsome was costing lives and discouraging americans from taking the vaccine. and then when it came time to actually

roll out the vaccine of december, california had the slowest related of any state for a time. we were 50th out of 50 and actually administered hard doses. i had asked him to call a special session of the legislature so we could be there to help, but he refused. he said. he was going to do it on his own, and he blew it. you had seniors who are told they were eligible. it's been all day on the phone, trying an appointment and couldn't get them running. this was at the time when it mattered most when covid was at its peak, when hospitalizations were at their peak, when deaths were at their peak, we undoubtedly could have saved vibes if we had had a better government performance. we certainly would have done a lot more good than the hoopla with these, you know, vaccine lotteries and these steps were taking towards mandates and passports. it is a perfect case study for the perversity of california politics, you know, using. bright lights and cash giveaways and state control as a mirage for a broken faith state government that fails to serve california in the most basic ways. we turn now to the ambassador. thank you, christine. and this is a question for all the candidates with similar kylie to, uh, to begin. the d a. the drug

enforcement administration reports that cartels from mexico south and central america are the biggest drug threat to the united states. there's an avalanche of cocaine and deadly fentanyl that that's coming into this country. unfortunately the d a says that california is at the epicenter of the cartels malign activity here in our state. there are parents today outside of this library in the parking lot who've lost children to fentanyl, and they're protesting and asking for relief from sacramento. if elected governor, what would you do to stop this avalanche of drugs and stop the cartels from coming into our states? thank you. thank you. it's a very important question, and i was just at an event for parents in my own district whose son tragically died of fentanyl late last year. who would have been a senior would have just graduated from whitney high school in rockland, and this is an issue that is affecting more and more families throughout the state. so public awareness is a very big part of it. obviously a lot of the issues at the border or exist on the federal level, but there are things that we can do. at the state level as well.

for example, laws like the sanctuary state absolutely need to be rolled back, which have gotten in the way of our law enforcement in order to keep folks who are dangerous to our communities out and to actually enforce the law and keep our community safe. i'll also note that california has made changes to our drug laws that have been entirely counterproductive. i was a prosecutor before i ran for office. i was the deputy attorney general for the state. i saw right before i ran in 2016 that recent changes to our criminal law. we're having a devastating impact on the safety of our communities. it's taken gavin newsom five years now, with a pending recall to finally realize there is a problem and say that he's tough on crime prop 47 to take one example has made it so you can't charge someone with a felony for even using class a drugs. that's why we have open drug use on our streets. it's also why prosecutors no longer have the leverage. actually force offenders into drug treatment, so there aren't given the tools they need in order to turn their lives around. it's a lose, lose and hurts public safety and it hurts the offenders themselves, and we make farmer too many of us lose lunch choices in california. congressman oc. what's your plan to take on the drug cartels and the gangs who are pushing fentanyl and

cocaine to our kids? so one of the things that i bring to the table here is 23 years of experience following this issue. i went to congress the sink. i didn't want to go on appropriations. i didn't want to go on ways and means i wanted to go on the drug policy subcommittee because that's who that's who controls us policy dealing with this situation. this is not new to me. we are being overwhelmed. by the. illegal importation of all sorts of drugs. we are being. overwhelmed by the production of these same drugs in our rural areas. we cannot try to solve this problem by lessening our attention to it. we have to increase funding at the state and federal level to those agencies that are charged with interdicting this flow of drugs. we have to set up a much more. serious inspection regime at the border. we have to give our law enforcement people the

antidotes for immediate application when they find somebody in the street who is suffering from fentanyl overdose or methamphetamines, or what have you and we must find a way to provide treatment. for those who are suffering from drug addiction. thank you, mr cox. why is sacramento getting this so wrong for california families right now, how would you fix it? because sacramento is all about politicians who talk, talk talk, and they don't do anything. i've been a businessman for 40 years. i have to solve problems. if i don't solve problems, i'm out of business. this issue about the drugs coming across our borders, and i might also add the human trafficking as well as the guns. is personal to me. i have a 16 year old daughter. last night. i was at her high school in an all parent seminar, talking about the incidents of drugs in her wonderful school. it affects everybody in every neighborhood. if you don't think so. hope you never have to find out. we need to stop

the dithering. we need to solve this problem. as i think only a businessman would go right to the heart of it. we first of all need to end the sanctuary state nonsense in the state. we need to have the local police able to interface with ice as well as the border patrol. we absolutely need to build a wall along our shore, the southern border all the way. it's there in parts in san diego, but it's got to be all the way across this border. we don't have these problems in canada. because they can enforce their law. they're not corrupt, but unfortunately we have problems with their neighbor to the south. they can't run their country and interdict this stuff, and we got to make sure that we protect our children at all costs. thank you, mayor. you confronted this issue, head on. and san diego. what's the first step you take is governor. as governor. i'm going to put victims first, and i'm going to put criminals in jail. simply as i can put it. the fact that we have a governor, ladies and gentlemen that has enabled the defund the police movement. the fact that we have a governor

that has supported lessening penalties. our criminal justice system and we've seen ambassadors. you said the results on the street. he changed from doing heroin and methamphetamine from a felony down to a misdemeanor when he supported prop 47. and guess what else we're seeing. and i was in san francisco just last week in front of a closed walgreens. why was that walgreens closed along with 13 others because of rising crime. and that means that in those neighborhoods where those walgreens were. those families can't get the groceries that they may have depended on. our seniors can't get the medications that they wanted. will take a very strong and farm approach because i've seen the disasters of these policies on the streets throughout this great state of ours. it's time to have a governor who is going to put victims first. that will be a dramatically different approach than we're seeing in sacramento today. big ambassador. i want to ask you all about critical race theory

it has embroiled the california education board in controversy for four years as they struggle to define ethnic studies. divided communities. it's outraged parents over indoctrination of their children is divided teachers from school administrations and teachers from parents and children from education. what is crt? is it a real issue for the california public schools? and if so, what is gavin newsom done wrong about it? and what would you do? write about it. you alluded to it first. i'll bring it back to you, congressman l c. what would you do on your first day as governor? so the curriculum it's decide that's offered in our k 12 schools is dictated by the state board of education. on which the governor has multiple appointees. and then the school districts all have to comply with with the options that come out of there each of those options today require a district to offer crt as it's known in one form or another. it's very important to note. at

crt is anti merit anti objectivity and anti achievement. it introduces a totally different set of standards for measuring success. those standards serve at cross purposes to undermine what we need to teach our children. right. our children need to learn to read by the third grade. they don't need to be given an excuse as to why they haven't learned to read by the third grade. children need to learn math and civics by the eighth and the 12th grade. they need to not be given excuses that they can use to avoid responsibility for not learning that. i am opposed to crt. it is anti merit anti objective, an anti achievement. thank you, congressman mayor falk. er if it's real, what is gavin newsom done wrong and why should he be held accountable for these controversies? well, crt has absolutely no place in our public school system. period.

it's divisive. focuses on what divides us rather than what unites us as a country. that's why it's wrong, and that's why again. we need to absolutely stand up for that, and the fact we have to be very clear. united states is not a racist country. we say that again. the u. s is not erased this country, the more folks that stand up and speak truth to that. i think the better off we're going to be because what crt also leads to its cancel culture. i stood up against cancel culture. fact i stood outside abraham lincoln high school in san francisco several months ago. where the school board up there wanted to remove the name abraham lincoln from the high school. and i stood up and i said, well, wait a second. what are we doing here? instead of trying to get the kids back into school, where they belong to get a good quality education. this school board was saying we're going to spend all our time trying to remove the name of abraham lincoln. we stood up to cancel culture and guess what? two days later, they change their mind. that's the type of

pressure that i will bring. that's the kind of resolve i will bring as governor to stand up for the courage of our convictions. don't put yourself in front of to say what the woke crowd wants to do with the politically correct crap. mr cox. what role does the governor have, though in local education decisions, or does gavin newsom have a leadership role that he is not executed? he has a leadership role, and he hasn't been exercising and in the state spends $100 billion a year on education, and that gives them a lot of power head. listen, the real problem. here is the introduction of politics in our education system. i am an absolute advocate for giving the parents the power of education. let's put every dollar we spend into a backpack and give it to each child and give the parents the power the parents learned. during the management of this pandemic, who has the real power in the public schools, and that's the teachers, unions, bosses not necessarily the teachers, the union bosses. crt and all the

other things that go along with it, an ethnic studies and all these things. are just a symptom of the politicization of our schools. my mom was a teacher in the public schools. i was the school board president. i've been a teacher. i understand what it takes to teach and we've taken. we've put politics too much we need to teach reading writing arithmetic. i toured. also in prison, and most of those inmates were from l. a and they had high school diplomas but couldn't read past a third grade level. that's criminal and that's what we're doing with our children and our future. we have got to stop that get the politicians. out of the school system. assemblyman kylie. well, the governor will make a decision. if this bill passes the legislature on whether to sign or veto a bill to mandate the teaching of crt, or as it's being called ethnic studies in every single high school as a graduation requirement requirement, and i would certainly veto that bill. i spoke against it on the floor of the assembly. but what's important to note is that just

two years ago, gavin newsom was against this to in the first edition of this correct leland came out. it was universally condemned. newsome himself said it was offensive in so many ways, and it would never see the light of day. the california legislative jewish caucus wrote a letter saying that the curriculum echoed the propaganda of the regime. we should have scrapped the whole thing then, but instead, they made a few edits and are now seeking to impose it on every high school student in california. i think the important point of crt is that it's exposed to vacuum in our public education system. we don't truly teach civics in our schools anymore. at least not like we used to. civics used to not just be some add on to the curriculum, but it was the unifying thread of your education to empower you to prepare for citizenship to be a productive member of society to learn about the things that america and make america great and our founding principles, but we don't teach education won't think about education that way anymore. so crt has come along, and it's exploding that back here if we're no longer going to teach our kids how to build their communities up, and we'll teach them how to tear their communities down, so i think we need to defeat the crt bill, but we ultimately need to be reimposed. it's sort

of a real civic education. our schools. thank you, sam. remember four we begin around two. i remind the audience that has joined us either on the radio or television at the big since the beginning of the debate. your ballot will arrive next week. there are two questions yes or no? should gavin newsom remain in office? and then if he is removed from office who should replace him? would it be one of these four people round two begins with alex michaelson. thank you very much. let's talk about the issue of homelessness, which a lot of polls show is the most important issue to people. congressman oc on our statewide political show. the issue is last week you referred to mayor faulconer as a plastic man and said that his plan when it comes to homelessness is disingenuous. mayor will give you the opportunity to respond in a moment, but first to you, congressman, what do you mean by plastic man? and what specifically, would you do differently when it comes to homelessness? so the facts of what's happened in san diego? is that in 2017? administration there changed the methodology by which they counted homeless and excluded people living in

their cars, their rvs. number went down. city police department has been engaged. and rousting homeless than that result of which is that people have been moved out of san diego into the satellite cities around san diego. reducing numbers in san diego but not reducing overall numbers. these are not answers. hotels for homeless, not an answer. all it does is take somebody who's dying on the street and put them in a hotel room or they can die. you cannot advocate. hotels for homeless without also mandatorily, requiring treatment for the underlying drug illness or mental illness. that's what i mean by plastic. it doesn't hold up. the examination. so how do you actually get that through your change? you change the law, known as landerman petrus from the standard, which says someone can be taken into custody if there's an imminent threat to themselves or others, and you can compel treatment. you change that standard from imminent threat to someone who

is unable to conduct their affairs. self sufficiently if their drug addicted or mentally ill, and then you get them the treatment they need. mayor faulkner your response to being called plastic man him saying you're kind of playing with the margins to change up the reality. i think it's important to get to the facts. alex on particular this issue, which is so incredibly important. the fact that it was proud in san diego that we reduced homelessness by double digits, the only city big city in california to do that, and yes, with the same methodology that every other city was using, and in fact, not only did it go down in san diego, it went down. and the county as well. why? because i took aggressive firm action. i did not allow. tent encampments on the streets, and i was the mayor of san diego. got a lot of attack at first. but when people saw the difference when people saw that we were helping people and getting them into the shelters, it made a dramatic from what was opposed to support i strongly believe that if will you allow. tent encampments on the sidewalks. people are going

to die on the sidewalks. and we're better than that. and so we sent a very strong point of view in san diego. as i said, not only reduced it but made a real difference in the quality of life of our city, and i felt so strongly. about that that i created a new division within the san diego police department called the neighborhood policing division. that became the number one referral source to get folks off the streets and into the shelter system that we had set up. i am going to lead by example, is governor and take that exact same firm approach. mr cox. i know you sometimes have been critical of mayor faulkner as well. when you've talked about homeless, though, some of your words have been lost a little bit because you've traveled the state with a bear and travel to state with a giant eight ft thing of trash. and what do you say to critics who say some of those gimmicks are getting in the way? of the serious message in the serious discussion. no this is a serious issue, and that's why i did it to draw attention to it,

and it got a lot of attention. let me tell you this this issue i was just in san diego. this issue illustrates the impotence of the career politicians we have in leadership in this state all across the state. i was in san diego last week and i drove down imperial boulevard. hence all over the place people living on the street all over san diego, and it's that way in chico. it's that way in san francisco, los angeles everywhere. i proposed a specific set of goals and revolve around treatment. i'm a businessman. i need to solve the problem and that's what we're going to do. we're going to if we have to. we're going to force people to get into treatment. we're not just going to buy hotels. the city attorney in san diego, just sued by the way to avoid a couple of hotel deals were excessive prices were paid for hotels in san diego. we have got to stop wasting money on this. we've got to do the smart thing, and that is. get people in treatment. get conservative

ships if we need to. britney spears didn't need a conservator. a lot of the people living on the streets do and we've got to make sure that we build lower cost housing. i can't emphasize enough. that's the number one issue that i'm gonna dress and we have to make sure people can afford a place to live. assemblyman kylie a lot of what mr cox is talking about cannot be done unilaterally by the governor requires a changing of the laws. i know when you were on the issue is you said you wanted to call a special session of the legislature bring them all back and deal with issues like homelessness. what specifically, would you want to see in terms of the budget? and if the legislature say no, we're not going to work with you. what do you do? well it's the governor himself, who has gotten the way a lot of cases that i should say at the outset the track that homelessness in california is a human tragedy and a national disgrace. we have more wealth in this statement, all but five countries and yet we have thousands of people dying on our streets, so i decided to do an audit of all the homelessness spending. in california because we keep spending more and more and the

problem keeps getting worse and worse. we have nine times the unsheltered homeless population as the next closest state. my audit would have looked at whether all the spending is going and why isn't why isn't it solving the problem? it got unanimous, unanimous support on the senate side of the audit committee by the governor's administration testified against it, and we fell a single showboat short on the assembly side. so what's happened? we've simply continued spending, more money, and the problems only continued to get worse. the nonpartisan legislative analysts had more spending will quickly dissipate because there is no strategy the governor's own mental health or his top mental health advisor, said in an interview in march that homelessness in california is not a money problem. it's a leadership problem. so what would i do? i would bring a new strategy and i would bring new leadership under the ninth circuit decision. you can't ask people to move along and get off the streets and there's a place for them to go. side. make sure there's a shelter. there's a roof overhead. there's a place for them to go. but then i connect them with the needed services substance of nutri, the mental health counseling job training, you name it. this isn't brain surgery. we can look at what's worked in other states, and we can do it here. all right. thank you very much now to my co anchor, christine. so we reached out to our voters

asked them to send us questions. we had way too many questions for the amount of time, so what we're going to do is just toss each of you a different question just to get to know you a little bit better. we'll start with you, congressman oc. it's about tdd fraud. bruce awash, she asks. how do you clean up the mess? perhaps 30 billion and fraudulent unemployment claims in these covid times. others say it takes them days to get on the phone to get help to get their checks. how do you correct things? so elaine? how well did our report on tdd. it was routinely ignored by the governor, so this really does lay right at governor newsom's feet. i doubt if he's even read the report. 114 pages filled with recommendations. this is not rocket science. every large and small business in the state of california has measures in place to prevent inappropriate payouts for false invents invoices and the like. every single's large and small business in this state has a

practice if they're successful of. answering the phone in a timely manner. those are the two critical pieces to this. let's figure out. going and looking at other entities that have large employee pools or large sales volumes. how do they prevent fraud? let's incorporate those measures into the pdd process and secondarily. just answer the phone. right. just answer the phone. it's a sound bite right there. okay alright. thank you, mayor faulkner. the question for you is crime. we all know that shootings are up homicide as well. susan nelson asked about prop 47. it changed a number of felonies to misdemeanours basically theft under $950 to a misdemeanor. voters approved that, though in 2014 so what would you do about crime? we're ready to overturn that. every california. every california

family deserves to be safe to feel safe and to have a safe neighborhood. that's not the reality under gavin newsom's california. as you rightfully point out crime right now. violent crime is at a 13 year high. murders are up 30. and yet we have a governor who doesn't seem to think that it's a problem. don't talk about it. we have a governor. comes out and support defunding the police movement. stood up. the defund the police movement. had hundreds of protesters out in front of my house this past summer yelling at me yelling at my family, every name of the book. he find the police? i said no. said. the longer that they were out there would only strengthen my resolve to do the right thing. i didn't. defund the police budget in san diego. i increased it. increased it because if we want safe neighborhoods if we want the best and brightest men and women who wear that badge.

protecting us day and night. we better darn well given the tools, the training and the support to be successful. that's the approach that i will take as governor and work to strengthen those laws that this governor has worked to weekend. he's wrong. california's no, he's wrong. that's why he's going to get recalled. all right. thank you. this is to assemblyman kylie. the question is about immigration. carmen perez would like to note your policy on the border and immigration and another question came in. would you send the national guard to our border our southern border? well, we're obviously seeing huge problems at the border, and there is only so much you can do at the state level, but i would do what i could to try to assuage the situation and try to staunch the flow of folks over here because it's become untenable in a lot of ways, but i should also point out that there's a lot of things that have been done at the state level using state policy that have been unhelpful. the sanctuary state is a prime example of that this past in 2017 and limited the ability of. folks that have law enforcement to coordinate with federal immigration authorities, and it

was a law that only apply to those who had both come into the country illegally and had been convicted of a criminal offense and so are at least arrested for one and so i would seek to undo policies like that that have served to put california in the wrong position vis a vis the federal government. when it comes to immigration. i also think that we have done way too much in terms of expanding benefits that almost no other state has done. for example, in this last budget that were unprecedented benefits medicaid given to undocumented immigrants in california this is a $257 billion budget, by the way, which is the largest in state history and includes, you know record levels of funding in a variety of ways, but does very little to actually get our state moving in the right direction and give us the economic recovery that we need. all right. we thank you for your time. the question now, mr cox is too. it is a business question support for small business. nick patron, it writes. i work as a manager due to unemployment assistance in covid. times were struggling to find employees for our warehouse. how do you get people back to work? small

business is the engine of growth for not only california but the entire country. and right now we're supporting a lot of people. which is great for people who can't afford their life in this state, which we've got to reduce the cost of living, but we've got to correct the problem. we've got to give people opportunity. just to start a new business in california. now it takes 6 to 12 months to get the paperwork done. and then you've got all kinds of problems with bureaucracy and regulations. we've got to cut through all of that. what i'm gonna do is as governor is zero based budgeting and a transparency agenda, which means we're going to shine the light on every single regulation in california. that limits the ability of people to start their own business. you know the licensing rules and the regulations are geared towards protecting existing business but not letting people get into business. and we penalize people tremendously. we also

need to reduce the tax burden. i'm going to be announcing a 25% across the board tax rate cut for every california the largest tax cut in the history of the state, because this state. taxes, people too much and regulates people to death. i'm a business man. i would never even think of starting a business in california. ambassador brian we turn it to you. thank you for seeing this question as related in the next question, and it's for all the candidates will start with congressman oc. at a time that the u. s manufacturing base is starting to return home from overseas to california are to the united states because of covid but also because of the buy american initiatives of the biden and the trump administration's. we're seeing thousands of california businesses leave the state, and those include household names like hp and oracle and palantir. mckesson charles schwab, even elon musk is spending more time in texas now than in california. so the question i have for you, congressman and the other candidates says, how

would you encourage companies that are reassuring? they're coming back from overseas, and i want to bring the supply chains home to america to come locate in california. how do we keep the companies that are already here from leaving to go to other states? thank you. so newsom and his minions think that everybody's going to stay here because they're in charge. empirical evidence is exactly the opposite. they're leaving. because their insurance let me tell you what i do specifically. does this wants to open? we need to reduce the llc filing fees that they have to pay the franchise tax board. this just wants to hook up to utilities. we need to stop the excessive charges for connecting to utilities. business wants to, uh, hire independent contractors to do this or that or the other thing because they don't want or they don't have the volume to take them on full time as employees. we need to rescind a b five. make independent contracting available to these companies.

these are simple things we can do along the way. i want to go back. something on the. audit question of e g. d. because one of the things we're dealing with that tdd is that they continue to pay out money to people who rightly should be back at work. we need to stop paying people to stay home. we need those people back at work. there's two parts to this question. the first part dealt with the companies. the second part deals with getting people to work there. thank you, cinnamon. kylie we've got a legislature that hasn't done some of these basic things that the congressman just outlined. how do we get the legislature to work with you as governor? to make california more attractive a for businesses to move into california and be to keep them believing. well, so first of all, that a lot of the damage isn't actually done by the legislature. the legislature has delegated an enormous amount of power to california state agencies, and that's where a lot of the damage is done. they turn out regulation after regulation and entangle themselves more and

more in our lives every year, and so, as governor, you could bring new leadership. you could give our all of these state agencies carved the waterboard the department of public in public health. new directive to actually serve the people of california. don't harass them or hurrying them or try to run their with all lives like a lot of them do but ultimately in order to have sweeping change. and so, yes, i would try to roll back those regulations and would do so using executive authority but to have more sweeping changes. you didn't get the legislature to act and the thing about the problem that you've cited as you hear a lot of these examples about you on musk and hp and the big companies. actually the arrangement works out pretty well for big companies who have wide margins in a lot of cases who have compliance departments who can tell them how to file the how to follow the law, who have lawyers on staff who can help them reduce litigation risks. it's small businesses who ultimately pay the price and we saw that more than ever during the covid shutdown as powerful industries like hollywood were exempted from the lockdowns will small businesses die in droves so i would immediately work on things. rolling back portugal, which is a huge impediment as a huge litigation risk for businesses. certainly repealing 85 doing a systematic review of every regulation that

needlessly makes it so difficult to do business in california. mayor. how were you able to keep businesses from believe in san diego? and what would you do as governor? look, you're right. people are leaving california. they're voting with their feet. you name the state that they're that they're going to let me ask the audience the question. raise your hand if you know somebody who's thinking of leaving california. i'm not surprised. see that? that's the reality. and the reality is that we have a governor who doesn't seem to think that it's a problem because people are voting with their feet and for the first time we lost population. last year, we lost a congressional seat, of course, because of these terrible. policies and so rather than helping to make it easier to start a business or to make it more affordable for a family to actually stay, live and retire in california. have a governor and the legislature whose sole solution for virtually any problem. they want to raise taxes and send more money to sacramento. voters said no. this past cycle when they came out with the largest commercial property tax

increase in the history of california, and the reason the california and said no is because we've gotten to that point that says enough's enough. you can't keep putting the burden on small businesses. it's crushing our families. it's crushing so many entrepreneurs that we are so proud of here in california, so i will have a vastly different approach to support our businesses stand up for doing the right thing. not moving forward with any of the tax increases that this governor and legislature continue to want to foist on california. thank you, mr cox. here successful businessman. what would you do in your first year as governor of the at least the year that you've got left in the term as governor to change the situation and change it quickly. well, this is the problem in california. we get businesses leaving left and right. it's because we put career politicians, celebrity and insiders and control of the state. lot of states around the country, red and blue have elected businessmen when women as their governors, and they're the most popular governors in the country because they focus on the problem, and they focus on solutions. so what are we

going to do? first of all, we're going to fix the housing crisis in the state. a lot of businesses have told me they're leaving because their employees can't afford to live in this state, and it drives up their cost, and it drives up their salaries. going to cut taxes as i just talked about. we're also going to talk about changing our legal system. the loser pays. texas has done that. and texas is getting a whole lot of our businesses every single day. we've also got to make sure that we deliver water and electricity. i've talked to businesses that rely electricity. they tell me they're paying 234 times what their subsidiaries pay in other states. they will not keep doing that forever. we need to cut the cost electricity. we need to get more sources. we also need to make sure that we have water of the agricultural industry is important to the state. we also have to make sure that people can afford the water in this state. we're going to have rationing next year, and it's wrong because we're sitting next to the largest body of water in america in the in the world. ambassador i'm going to turn to that subject water. the north

coast has already parched by drought drought has returned to many parts of california and just yesterday, the state water resources control board issued an emergency curtailment authorized by governor newsom that will devastate the central valley. the farmers in the hundreds of thousands of people. work for them. i'll start with you, mayor faulconer on day one. what will you do about the water cutoffs in the central valley that is causing for the second time in a decade, devastation to the agricultural businesses stop them. because agriculture is so incredibly important to our. our state, our community. we're so proud of agriculture in california in the central valley. we are not only central valley is not just the bread basket for california, where the breadbasket for the nation. that's a that's a truism. and yet we have a governor that has not done a thing. to increase wat. i was io just last farmers who are seeing their all their allocations cut virtually zero we need to increase our supplies.

specifically we must move forward on projects that are already on the books. but this governor and legislature won't do it. why would you won't do it? because he's letting the far left environmentalists stop him from doing it. what am i specifically talking about? i'm talking about sites reservoir and temperance flat. those are two big things that we need to do for our central valley farmers. they deserve a governor that's not going to ignore. the central now they deserve a government understands how important water resources and new supplies are. we did some of that in san diego. we did one of the largest water recycling in california. i'm proud of that. you've got to put your elbow into it. we've got to increase our supply. if we don't. why do we expect anything to be different year after year? when we have drought conditions? we have two conference going to stand up for farmers. mr cox, what will you do about the emergency curtailment order yesterday for the central valley farmers and the. again hundreds of thousands of people who work for them. i would counter man in that had immediately talk about getting us more water again. this is

the politicians and celebrities insiders that we've had running this state into the ground. we're sitting next to the largest body of water in the world. the pacific ocean. israel has turned a desert into an agricultural paradise and why? because they've done desalination and they've done it at a fraction of the cost of what we have done in california. we have under invested the california water project was a miracle. it turned this wonderful central valley into the fruit basket of the world. we produce 85% of the eating oranges. we have more dairy than vermont and wisconsin combined. we have more cattle than texas. we need to make sure that we have water for the future as well as for the people that are here. we need water every single day. it's the staff of life. so we have. true if thickly under invested and why? because we've listened to the insiders. i'm an outsider. i don't i'm not a politician. i'm not beholden to these groups. i'm going to talk to the people of this state about common sense solutions,

and that means desalination. that means building more storage. that means building more recycling. that does not mean cutting allocations to our farmers or people. assemblyman kylie does the rest of the state even understand the agricultural devastation brought about either on the north coast or in the central valley by water cutoffs. well, then a lot of folks probably don't you know, see the immediate impact of it, but certainly will experience the ultimate impact of it because we rely on our farmers for our food supply. and so we absolutely cannot have them be the first to have to face rationing and cutbacks whenever we hit these dry spells. so to answer your immediate question. yes i would seek to roll that back in any way i could and to put to put our farmers as our first priority rather than always being our last priority, but yes, the long term solution ultimately is direct agonized that this is a political choice. we have made the governor's own, uh, agriculture secretary said that the reason for these cutbacks was mother nature and climate change. that is not true. the reason we're

facing these cutbacks is because of political choices that we have made rationing and cutbacks and scarcity. those are political choices, and we know full well that endemic to our climate, our periods of wetness and dryness. we used to do things differently. we built the state water project back in the 19 sixties. the world hasn't seen anything like it. it was a marvel of engineering. but then we've got rested on our world and we haven't expanded capacity in any significant way. since so i actually am authoring an assembly constitutional amendment that will dedicate a fixed portion of the general fund every year. the water storage progress, temperance flat sites reservoir, there's a low hanging fruit like raising the water level at san luis and shaft. a. we can have an affordable supply of water and one that is sustainable and we can embrace abundance rather than scarcely congressman oc with apologies to oklahoma. and the farmer and the environmentalists be friends. can you actually served both of those communities of interest when it comes to water and the delta? so there's one farmer in this race? one. that's me. my sisters and i raise 1000 acres of rights. water is not

theoretical to me. right. it's not theoretical. these fellas, they know the story. they don't know the reality. we need to increase supply. increased supply. it benefits not only farmers, but also cities and the environmental community. we need to increase supply by going back to the projects i first advocated for when i was in congress. 1999. which is the sites reservoir. we need to build on that in temperate flat. we need to go beyond that, though. we need to go to modesto irrigation district. we need to go to fresno wastewater treatment plant. we need to go to sacramento wastewater treatment plant. we need to go to every single wastewater treatment plant. figure out how to provide funding for them to pair up with farmers to process water to a sufficient clean cleanliness so we can use it on our crops. this is again. this is not theoretical. if you're a farmer. these guys are all they

all know the story. i live it. right. i live this issue. i'm your guy waters your issue. before we begin round three. i want to remind those viewers and listeners who have just joined us where at the richard nixon library and your belinda it is the first california recall debate channel 11 is carrying it. fox live, as is their sister affiliate in san francisco and the salem radio network to alex. alex alex michaelson for around three alex. thank you so much. you and this is the california recall debate. this is not a republican primary debate, even though we've got a bunch of republicans on the stage, and if you look at polls right now, about 40 to 50% of california voters are undecided on who to pick on question number two on the ballot, which is who should replace governor newsom. we know democrats can vote on that question, even if they vote to try to keep governor newsom. we know there's a lot of democrats that are in favor of the recall. and so they're trying to figure out where do they go? there is

not an establishment democrat on the ballot. and so i want to ask some questions that are important to democrats to get your take on on them. and assemblyman kylie, let's start with you. if senator feinstein were to retire. next year, you would be in charge of appointing her replacement. if you pick the republican. the republicans would get control of the united states senate. lot of democrats who would say she's a democrat, senator patty is a democrat. they both won overwhelmingly. joe biden won this state by 30 points. she should be replaced by a democrat. isn't that the most spare thing? and can you commit that you would appoint a democrat to that seat? actually alex. i hate to do this. but after reject the premise of your question, i wouldn't make an appointment at all. i would leave it up to the voters, which is exactly what i you know. asked gavin newsom to do when there is the vacancy and kamala harris is see. he didn't do so. he appointed alex padilla, who had a very fraught history in his tenure as secretary of state. and so the voters of california deprived

of choosing their state senator, one of us important offices in the entire country. as a matter of fact, what the governor did was was a questionable legality. i actually got a legal opinion from our legislative council's office, saying that no gavin newsom's appointee cannot be or gavin is that cannot serve the remainder of kamala harris's term before the term expires. there needs to be an elected senator. and so now it's almost like farce. there's a bill that's going through the state legislature and what it's doing is you're going to have to elections for the same office on your ballot next year for the united states senator there's going to be one election for who's going to serve the next six year term. and then there's another election for who's going to sort of like the last month of the existing term. so this is all too typical of what happens in our state capital as we try to shut voters out in every way possible, and so here they solve the constitutional problem in the least democratic way imaginable. that's what ultimately this recall is about is returning power to the people of california are very interesting. mayor faulconer. the newsome campaign has

repeatedly called this a republican recall driven by trump supporters. they fought to even get that language on the ballot. they did. i'm wondering. for you. we know that you supported president trump in 2016 and 2020 after january six. are you still a trump supporter? do you welcome his endorsement? and would you want him to come campaign for you? look first and foremost. what happened on january six was abhorrent to our country. have folks storm our capital. attack our capitol police officers that was wrong in every way imaginable. we want to have those folks held accountable and i think that's incredibly important. and i will tell you, alex when it comes think you hit the nail on the head. by the way. what gavin newsom wants to do is make this all about republican or donald trump. what he doesn't want people to do is talk about his failed record. and what's not happening here in california, and i've been very, very upfront about. it's not about partisanship. right now. it's about leadership.

it's about leadership of a governor who has failed who has failed to do the right things and who won't actually take the stands because he's too afraid of the far left. and so what does he have to do now? ali has is not going to come out and defend his record in the recall. he's going to call it all kinds of names, but he's going to have it's going to have senators from other states come up and say that this is a partisan issue. it's not. it's about bringing our state together. it's about a leader that understands you can't politicize every single thing like you have a newsom wants to do. he's not doing the job. it's time to have a governor. that's going to do the job. so are you. are you a trump supporter? though you're saying he's afraid of the far left? are you afraid of the far right? i'm not afraid of anybody. i'm not afraid of anybody. so what's the answer? i'm proudly take the endorsement and support of any republican independent or democrat who wants to get rid of gavin is, um, and make california a better state. alright, uh, congressman oc. um, what do you see as the size of the california budget if

you're in charge in an ideal world and who were two or three california democratic legislators, you think you could work with. to make that happen, so i want to answer. i'm gonna get to that. but on january 6th, i didn't wait. didn't wait untilpril or may to make clear my position on what happened. january 6th. i'm on record that afternoon that when they broke into the capital, it was time for the police to clear the building and arrest those people on the spot. i want to be absolutely clear about that. no equivocation. no delay that afternoon. that's what leadership requires. you got to be clear. you cannot put up with the kind of behavior that occurred when they broke into the capital. terms of the folks that work in the capital right now, archery think this is gonna sound like apostasy, but you have to figure out how to work with lorena gonzalez. she's the most powerful politician and the legislative branch of the capital. you have to figure out how to work with her. that's what i do. i mean,

she everybody, everybody on the democratic side, terrified over and how do you do that? call her up. i find out i said, sit down and go, lorena. you got kids? i got kids. you got people in business. i got people in business. how do we work together? let's find something. we can work together on the same way. i did it in congress. mr cox. larry elder is not here tonight. we invited him. he had a fundraiser and chose not to come. but he has said that he wants the minimum wage. to be zero. in the state that the minimum wage should be zero. do you agree with that? and do you support the current minimum wage of $15 an hour? i like larry. i was on his show a lot in 2018, he said. i would be a great governor for the record. uh listen, i think there's a place for a minimum wage, but i think he's right from the standpoint. i think the free market is a much better judge of what wages should be. but but i think getting back to the problems of

this state. what? we've got too much government and too much regulation. we've got too many times. where government has inserted itself in the business like that, you know, i grew up a democrat. i became a republican because ronald reagan talked to me about the fact that governments, not the solution to our problems. government is the problem. so my message to the democrats and independents and by the way, many thousands of them signed this recall petition. let me make that clear. they want a state that works. they want this state fixed. we have elected celebrities and career politicians and insiders for so long. we have not elected a business person who spent a career i started with nothing. and i built a business that's highly successful. i did it by solving problems every single days. i don't care if it's a democrat problem or democrat answer a republican answer. we've got to come together and unite and solve these problems. so what should the minimum wage be? you know, that's a that's

a. that's a question right now. it's what 12 hours and i would have to 15. i think it should be gauged versus other states, but i'd like to see the real true minimum wage. i agree with larry. it should be zero. it should be set between. the employer and the employee. all right. thank you, sir christine. all right. so we are all here because we love california. our friends are here. our families are here. this is a question about preserving our neighborhoods. at the same time, some women kylie, this is to you. linda merkin xyz, a voter who asked. how do you preserve single family neighbourhoods but still increased housing opportunities. well, it's a great question, because housing is maybe the core issue as to why the american dream is falling apart in california. there was a recent survey that showed that two thirds of californians believe that kids growing up in our state today today will be worse off than their parents. and it's why more and more people are packing up u hauls in order to avoid that fate. last year for the first time in california is 170 year history. our population declined. it's truly

staggering. you know, this used to be the state where anyone could get ahead. now it's the state that many can't wait to be leave behind and are soaring housing costs are central to that. have a new, some promised a marshall plan on housing, but he has not produced anything of the sort you know out construction is actually declined, and he's provided about 1/5 of the units that he promised all the while we now have a median house price in california. that's over three quarters of a million dollars. that's up 20% just in the last year, and so you can get a good job after college work hard. do everything right and not be able to form a down payment on your home until you're in your forties, so it's very important to preserve single family neighborhoods and to allow for local flexibility and local autonomy. but there are simple steps that we can take to increase the supply of housing we could get it certainly stream i'm in the permitting process. we can eliminate all of the fees and costs that can be on average $150,000. we can reform sequa. and other litigation traps and do what other states do when they get projects right off the ground without delay. congressman ellison. i'm going to stick a little bit with that same question about preserving

neighborhoods. how do you preserve the single family neighborhood and increases housing? so i think the fundamental problem on our existing neighborhood is that the legislature. has gotten itself into a position where they believe they know better. what should happen in this or that neighborhood. than the local land use authority. they've started a substitute their judgment through legislative fiat. to accomplish their goals in sacramento, whereas they may not work in, you know. pick a city. uh my view here is that you have to figure out how to get houses to market. in a timely fashion. let me give you an example. my sisters and i are in the middle of a project. for 1000 acres for 5000 houses. or in the 28 year. trying to process through the entitlement process. sequin needs to be changed so that within the general plan area that a community adopts and which they finalize an e i r on

that within that general plan area. you don't have to have redundant gi ours over and over and over again as long as the housing project or the commercial project meets the intention of the general plan. this is fundamentally common sense. you cannot layer on time requirements and expect housing to stay affordable. mayor faulkner to send this one to you here. this is from greg lee, political reporter from ktv. you in san francisco? we already heard on the stage here that the average price of a home is $750,000. a lot of americans. california's can't afford that, so a lot of them are going to rent. greg lee points out that rent in san francisco is the highest in the nation. what do you do about that? it is too expensive as we talked about earlier, and californians are leaving and voting with their feet. and yet what we have seen from gavin newsom is nothing. lot of rhetoric, word salad. he talks a lot about issues but actually doesn't provide any of the solutions to make a change.

it's time for a governor who's actually going to put proposals forward. in san diego is mayor because of all of these regulations, we had to go through a process to do a citywide e i. r for one year, but we did it for complete communities with one goal. how do we make it easier? faster, more efficient to do what. actually get units constructed, and now you can do that in san diego by going over the counter and we said very clearly. here's where you want the growth and development along our major transit corridors. and just as importantly, here's where you don't. are single family neighbourhoods and let me just be very direct when we see some of these pieces of legislations that want to eliminate. single family zoning in california. that's wrong. i will veto that. we can put the housing where we want it along our transit corridors. we can make it easier to construct that housing and we can have a governor that's actually going to back it up with changes in policies rather than what we're seeing from gavin newsom. which is zero. mr cox. i want to

change it up just a little bit about protecting our homes. this is a question for you about wildfires. our meteorologist in los angeles at fox 11. rick dicker. asked about this. he points out. last year, we broke a record. there are fires burning right now. but last year 10,000 fires he points out burning over 4.2 million acres. what would you do differently on california's fire prevention plan? that the governor isn't doing now again and the other issue that the politicians, celebrities and insiders just failed the people of this state. climate change may or may not be causing these fires, but we've got to deal with them. first of all, we should be doing better forest management. we should be clean out the brush and the dead trees. we also then have to get a better suppression response. right now. we're spending $4 million a day on that train to nowhere that three people are going to ride. we need to take that money and get airplanes. there's never been a time when there's more airplanes on the ground, not being used. get an air force of 100 or so planes.

the minute smoke is spotted. you send those planes. and you stop these fires before they become infernos and out of control, and the last thing would be to revive the timber industry again. that's what a businessman would say. we need to get. the timber industry, and why? because we used to have 1 100 sawmills in the state, and we ran them out of business with regulations. they would clean the forest. they would build fire breaks, they would help. make sure that fires were control, so we need to apply common sense solutions to this, not just sit and throw up our hands and blame climate change or some other external source. that's what the politicians do. we've got to stop doing this and fix the problem. we'll have a ton more questions here. we'll see if we have some time right now. i turn it over to the ambassador. thank you, christine. according to fbi director christopher wray. the chinese communist party has taken trillions of dollars in u. s intellectual property. and is currently influencing american policy through donations to

universities through front organizations like the confucius institutes. governor desantis in florida just signed legislation to stop this conduct in florida. mayor faulconer. what will you do to defend that you see in cal state systems from both i p theft but also unlawful foreign political influence. while at the same time. protecting the civil rights of our patriotic chinese american professor, staff and students at the universities. well, it's about calling it out when it happens, ambassador as you well know, and particularly from state sponsored groups. we absolutely have to protect our trip. we are the most innovative state in the nation. we're proud of that. we have to have a governor that's going to stand up and protect it and call it out when those international bad actors are doing the wrong thing. i have no problem doing that. and in fact, i spent a lot of time while i was mayor. the last year and a half on working to get us ymca across the finish line, because how do we compete with china? it's about north american competitiveness. it's about the

united states, canada and mexico. we worked so hard to get that agreement signed because what that's going to mean for us and our ability to compete with china to be direct. and now we have the benefits of that. i saw it first hand is. mayor of san diego, what we can do and we're working together with all of our trade partners. that's how we compete. we strengthen the rules that allow our small businesses and private electric companies to do what they need to do. and we take a firm stand when the bad actors come out and do the right and don't be afraid to call him out on it. that's i think the most important thing. thank you, mr cox. what do you say about the confucius institutes in this foreign political influence? our university students going from the chinese and other foreign governments. well, we need to deal with the communist chinese party and there's no question about it. it's an unaccountable, uh, party that controls their country that. deals that's going to control the descent. it censors its people. it tries to control the economy. in other words, it's kind of like

sacramento. we've got to stand up to this. uh listen, we want to have a great relationship with every country in the world, but we also have to protect what our businesses have generated in this country and. as the mayor said. california is one of the leaders in developing intellectual property and developing business methods. it's not just intellectual property. it's business methods and marcus. we need to make sure that we produce in this country. that's vitally important. we found that out during the pandemic when we found out that we didn't make enough ventilators, so we didn't have enough supplies for testing and other things in the pandemic. we need to make sure that we stop. chasing business out of the state. that's what the politicians and celebrities and insiders who have controlled the state for too long had been doing the business not just in california but around the country. we need to make sure that work that we have people that are accountable and that we stand up for our business interests.

thanks, congressman. oc. what do we do to protect the uc system in the cal state system? the gems of our our educational, uh, program in california with that's what's made are. our state so great so competitive. it's why so many innovators live here and come here to study. how do we protect those universities from i p theft and malign activity. so great. this is actually one of the most interesting questions. our country faces right now. it's not the uc thing. i'll get to ccp, as you know. is engaged in a systematic effort to steal our pipe. it's been going on for at least 30 years they started in agriculture. they have taken our tree technology, our livestock technology. our crop technology and they've taken it to china and they've tried to implement it. henry kissinger wrote a book in 2011 called on china. about this thick. small print. but enlightening. i commend it to you to read. if you want to

know what the chinese are up to terms of the uc and csu system in terms of protecting the ability. continue with the i p. we need to have a very, very strong standard. for who ends up owning the aip that comes out. i'm not sure that's a state or federal issue. i would prefer to be a federal thing for all universities across the country, but we can do it here if we have to, and i would support it. we are at war. with china. we're not shooting bullets yet, but we are at war with china. you need to understand that. cinnamon kylie, one of the things that the governor in florida has done, as he said, that state universities in florida cannot contract and cannot introduce agreements across the whole wide variety of areas. with china with russia with viet with cuba with venezuela with syria with iran. is that

something you'd support here for the u. c system and for the csu system as well? well, it sounds like something certainly we're looking at with the you see, it's a little complicated cause their constitutionally independent state can't regulate them in the same way that they can to c s. u s. but the problem do you bring up is one that i have a great deal of familiarity with when i was in private practice. i prosecuted the civil case against huawei technologies for intellectual property theft, and this is in the public documents in the case they had stolen this cell phone. the smartphone testing robot from the lab of our client. and then you know, i basically tried to steal the ip and at the wall street journal in a front page article a couple years ago, cited our case as the basis. for the federal action that followed against huawei technology, and so it is a very serious issue, and we need aggressive action of this on the federal level as well as were appropriate at the state level. also add by the way that the threats to intellectual property in california don't just come from china. they come from our state legislature as well. i'm on the judiciary committee and i see bills every year that i wrote intellectual property protections because their trial lawyer back bills that seek to create new ways to sue people, and it's just one of the many ways. reasons that california is routinely rated the top

judicial hellhole in the united states. but on the issue of universities at the end of the day, i think what we need in our universities is to have a culture of free and open debate instead of them being sort of the sites of censorship that they've become. my first piece of legislation was a resolution to protect freedom of speech at our colleges and universities. it passed the legislature unanimously, but we've only seen backsliding sense. thank you. you. thank you, ambassador. i have two questions left. so i asked one of two of you each the first one. i'll asked assemblyman kali to go on the mass mandate for elementary school children. school begins in 30 days, the orange county board of education ensued. governor newsom to stop any sort of mass mandate in the orange county public schools. what do you believe you could do to stop mask mandates on elementary school kids if you are elected governor in a month? i'm 100% against mask mandate at the state level. california's one of only a handful of states that has one. i think that a lot of the authority to impose that stems from the state of emergency so i would terminate the state of emergency on day one parents

know what is best for their kids. they should be making these decisions for themselves, but i'll say is a broader point that california as i mentioned is one only a handful of states that still has this policy and we've been a national out wider throughout the covid era of all the 50 states. we had the harshest lockdowns of all the 50 states. we have the longest school closures were the last to open just about everything and so to make the case that california got it right. you also have to make the case that all 49 other states got it wrong, and that's a case that simply cannot be made on the basis of the data. when you'll get education. our kids are fared worse here than anywhere. we've done more harm to them, including glory in their life expectancy, according to the journal of the american medical association. our unemployment rate has been the second highest in the country throughout the covid era, and our public health outcomes have actually been among the worst as well. when you measure excess mortality. if our excess mortality rate we're even on par with the national average, thousands more californians would be alive today. so i think that the lessons that we need to draw from this which this governor clearly has not drawn is that states that took a different approach that followed the science that took a balanced approach and that trusted their citizens did a

lot better, and i would learn from them and have that model here in california's governor. thank you. assemblyman mayor faulkner in the very first round of questions tonight, christine asked you about mass mandates, and you said you don't support them. governor pete wilson, good friend of the nixon library has told me repeatedly. the california constitution empowers the governor with extraordinary emergency powers. would you use those powers to mandate that there would be no masks required in any public school of elementary schools in california? if you win the recall? i will tell you. i was just like some have been here strongly oppose mass mandates in public schools. parents are the right ones to make the choices for our kids and to see what this governor has continued to do with the mandate approach. it's the wrong approach. um and it's time and time again. it's not just on on what we're seeing right now. but it's also when we went through last year open and close, open and close. we had businesses in california. we're open and closed five and

six different times. we had a governor that started. remember whether it was case rates then it went to, uh, color coded charts. remember those that it went to geographic regions that were as big as like the entire state. that's the type of stuff that you lose confidence. in california stand up and do the right thing. and so that's why it's not about mandates. it's about i got a crush on this. so will you use your authority to bar mass mandates, not oppose them, but to forbid them something i would look into doing here. 1% look into doing or do yep. want to switch to homelessness for congressman oc and john cox federal court, federal district court judge david carter issued an order in may that took authority over homeless spending and programs away from the county of los angeles in the city of los angeles, citing massive dysfunction that result in more than 60,000 people. in on the streets in los angeles. now we have the ninth circuit considering judge carter's order, which has been appealed

by both the county and the city. do you want the ninth circuit to uphold the judge's order, which essentially strips the city in the county of authority over their own homeless programs and budget, mr cox? well, i'm afraid of the ninth circuit most of the time, but i i'm not don't necessarily want them to take away local control, but i want. los angeles to do something about their homeless problem, and that's the problem here. they passed a huge tax increase as we know, and the money wasn't spent. i met with. a gentleman who in the real estate business who told me that he had been asked by mayor garcetti to actually handle it. and he told me that most of the money hadn't been spent. and you know why? because the cost of building was outrageous. they were getting. quotes of 506 $100,000 a door to build homeless units i build in indiana for $100,000 a door and it's not the land cost. that's the regulations and the cost of building. we've got to do is solve the problem again. and

that means we've got to attack the cost of building the state. we've got to get approvals faster. we've got to reduce the mandates. we've got to reduce the litigation. we've got to speed up the approvals and then we've got to have the people demand that their officials use the money wisely. i'll tell you what. when i'm the governor of this state. we're going to go after every jurisdiction in california that wastes money. we're gonna have full transparency and audits of every agency in every city. congressman hosea the ninth circuit is a lot better after president trump added a number of its appointees. judge carter has taken the authority and the money away from the city and county of los angeles. the ninth circuit is considering whether to leave it with judge carter or give it back to the city and county of los angeles. what do you want the ninth circuit to do? so i want to go on record here, thanking judge carter for slapping the elected leaders of la on their performance on this issue. basically said you guys are incompetent. i'm taking it away from you. it's what he said.

the way the system works. that was the message. now. the city challenge that and the night is going to look at it. uh, look am just done. waiting for somebody's solution on homelessness 75 to 80% of these people are either drug addicted or mentally ill. there's no shortage of funds at the state or local level. did you know that currently in the state today there are 41 separate programs. across nine separate agencies spending $4 billion in the fiscal year ended june 30th to deal with homelessness and the number just keeps going up. now, governor. newsom says he's going to triple down on that and make no changes to the approach. judge carter did the right thing. he called him out. i'm calling them out today. what we're doing isn't working. we need to change. we need to get treatment for the drug addicted. we need to get treatment for the mentally ill. we need to stop calling failure

success and face the facts. we have less than 10 minutes left in the debate, so the last round of questions will go to alex michaelson and perhaps time for a closing statement, alex. all right, mr cox as governor, you control appointments. you get a lot of chances to hire and fire people who stays and who goes. who are you looking to fire? well. considering the way this government has run, that's a very there's a there's a no shortage of people to deal with their. the first thing i'll do as the governor is ordered an audit of every agency as well as an evaluation of its worth, and its its beginnings as well as what it's actually doing. caltrans would be one of the first i'd look at, uh, that agency is so mismanaged. it cost twice as much to build a road in california as a dozen texas. that's outrageous. and we all know we're paying the

most outrageous gas taxes in the country. that's got to change. we know how bad the e d d is. i mean that agency should be completely audited and that management should go to the dmv. e is another ridiculously managed organization many many years ago i lived in florida. i got my driver's license at 15 minutes. when i came to california 20 years ago or so. it took me three hours three hours to get my driver's license. uh the management of that agency and i could go on and on. we are going to have to have, as i would with any business that i turned around. uh look at every single agency and the management mayor falcon this question from our colleague carla marinucci from politico as governor, you have the power to reverse the governor. newsom's first in the nation moved to expand medical to undocumented immigrants that are elderly. um, would you do so that's the wrong approach that the governor took. 100% were very welcoming state. we

take care of people. we provide emergency services, but as we continue to layer on cost after cost, you are taken what was meant to be insurance programs and turning them into welfare programs. it's unsustainable. we can't do that. we very kindhearted in california, but we have to say here's what we're going to do, and here's what we're not going to do. they also get back to that last question, because i feel very strongly about that, uh, it's time for a whole new team of people in california. all of our agencies. on day one i will bring in a whole new team of women and men who believe like i do about the reforms and the changes that we need to do. the governor actually has about 4000 appointments. the folks out there want to serve our state. now is your time because we're going to need you on my very first day as mayor of san diego. brought in the first female police chief in the history of san diego chief shellie zimmerman, because we had a problem with some very few officers in our department, but we needed leadership and change at the top. i understand how incredibly important that

is to the culture to have men and women. they're going to put their all into it are going to be reform minded. that's what we need to do at the state of california, and i will do that on day one. assemblyman you are an attorney as governor, you would have the ability to appoint judges which are so important. to policy in this state. what is your judicial philosophy? and what does a judge looked like that you're appointing? i appoint judges that would uphold the constitution and it would set the parameters for our politics that would not seek to participate in our politics. i've gotten a little experience in the courts this last year. plus when assembly member james gallagher and i took governor newsom to court for abusing his emergency powers. we had seen very early in the very early stages of covid 19 that he was using executive powers emergency powers in a way that our constitution does not envision to actually make policy to usurp the role of the legislative branch, so we took

him to court in june of last year. we will represent ourselves actually as attorneys and we want a trial in centre county. last november and were now seeking review by the california supreme court in order to uphold a very important principle, which is that we have a separation of powers. we have the rule of law. we have the constitution. we have checks and balances and even in an emergency, especially in an emergency, we need to have a representative government and so we're hoping to get a ruling for the california supreme court. will be a very important precedent that we will never have one man rule in california again and i will certainly look to appoint justices whether the supreme court level or throughout our judiciary will be of that. mind. congressman oc as governor, you have the power to declare states of emergency. are there any states of emergency that you would declare. in that job. i think the governor's power in this aspect needs to be constrained. i would go to the legislature and voluntarily ask them to put a time limit on the duration of whatever management excuse me, whatever emergency period i might otherwise need to declare. prospectively that's

the problem or dealing with right now. is that there's no time limit on the current california emergency management act that the governor is exercising all of this authority from so that would be step one. no. from the executive standpoint, i spoke about this some at the outset. we're building water storage, folks. i'm firing the people who are in the way of that. we're keeping criminals in jail. the people who are working with governor newsom to change the rules by which criminals can get out of jail early. that's over. those people are gone. right. the people at the state forestry department. we're standing in the way of timber sales that end up reducing risk in our rural areas for fire. those people are going to have to either change their way or they were retiring. it's just that simple. i'm not going to sit here and glaber. you know? well, how many angels can dance on the head of the pen? we're going to get stuff done. let's

end with something fun, because if you watch our statewide political show, the issue is we like to do a game called personal issues where we get to know you. there are a lot of people that are just getting to know you tonight. so this is a rapid fire round. try to give us like one or two word answers and get through as many of these as we can. all right. so, mr cox, what is something embarrassing your kids would tell us about you. oh boy, uh, that my wife doesn't like my nose here, okay. such information there faulkner when you're not working. what are you doing for fun? i love the cycle when i when i have the time and i've been a big supporter of the challenged athletes foundation, the shout out to everybody who's watching their training for their big ride from san francisco to san diego, raising funds for challenged athletes. i love to get on the bike. ambassador kylie what's your favorite restaurant in california? did i get promoted? yeah. i'm sorry, kylie day, maybe one day at some point. i would go with

frank fats. it's close to the capital, but there's actually two offshoots of it in my district. unbelievably good chinese food you didn't say french laundry of. apparently i'm one of the few politicians in california who hasn't congressman oc. do you have any hidden talents? yeah. yeah. it's the same. it's the same talent i wear on my sleeve. get things done, okay? very nice. thank you. allah twitter. we are out of time. unfortunately and the dreaded closing statements will not be closing the debate. i do, however, want to thank each of our candidates tonight. john cox. kevin faulconer, kevin kiley and diego c. for joining us. i also want to thank ambassador robert o'brien for joining us as he co chairs the nixon seminar. we appreciate that greatly, robert. i also asked people who would like additional information on the nixon foundation to visit it at nixon foundation. org or

at nixon seminar dot com. and my special thanks to channel 11 and our colleagues alex michaelson and christine devine. thank you both. we just want to say thank you for having us into our viewers here if you've never been here to the nixon library museum. it is worth coming out here with yourself and your families. it's a beautiful property and a beautiful piece of our history here in california. this recall election is something very interesting during our times. this is the second recall election ever in our state. we thank you for watching and keep in mind that you have the two issues on the ballot when you get that in the male voters. and if the recall passes, one of these four men could become governor. so if you're interested in more content, our colleague phil shuman is headed into the spin room and you can see more interviews with these candidates at fox .com/ live. we'll have more on the fox 11 news at 10 o'clock tonight. and on our statewide political show. the issue is and as we go, this crowd has been so respectful. so now's your time to cheer and

thank everybody here. this is the time to clap. thank you all the time to clap. thank you all for being fantastic. but the good kind, like on tv, not like my parents. yeah. you're not a real married couple until you can pee with the door open and she's okay with it. i told you, i'm not okay with it. she loves it. so, we got everybody gifts. aw. did you forget about us until you were at the airport? no. we forgot about you until we were on the plane. luckily, there was wi-fi, and i have amazon prime. i heart new york. aw, the baby's gonna love throwing up on this. look, it doesn't have to just be new york. that's the beauty of it. uh, the initials "n.y." can stand for anything you like. for instance, i understand that there is an elderly rock-and-roll musician named neil young.