Del Beccaro & Hook podcast Kickoff with special guest Steve Hilton.

[Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome everyone I'm Tom delaro and that's Steve hook and welcome to the inaugural broadcast of our podcast which we call enlightened descent delaro and hooks enlightened descent and we're so happy to have you here today we have a great special guest for you in just a little bit in the meantime we'd like to introduce ourselves and why we want to do this sort of thing there's a million podcasts out there but not every one of them has the legendary Steve hook or even has me as part of that podcast so let's get started our format format is basically we're going to do what we call in the first segment the opening volley we're going to introduce the topic Steve and I will go back and forth about it we'll then have our special guests and then we'll make our closing Arguments for the day we'll be out each Sunday night with uh a broadcast going all the way through the election and far beyond so we welcome you thank you for tuning in and let's get started first a little bit about Steve Hook from the man himself well thank you Tom what a thrill man our very first one um and and it's gonna be a good one too I'm really I'm really kind of jazzed about it um my name is Tom mentioned is Steve hook I've been in radio for goodness gracious longer than most mental health care providers would recommend over 40 years now I've done the political thing for about 12 to 13 years I got my start with the late great Bob Grant everybody might remember Bob Grant legendary talk show host pretty much invented the format of political talk uh and I was his regular fill-in host uh for his show straight ahead with Bob Grant which was kind of a short-lived internet thing Tom uh that's because Bob he died shortly thereafter I hate to say but Tom but but uh Bob and I had become really good friends and that led to my own show right hook radio and then I worked for TNT out of Australia uh done a lot of podcasting and whatnot over the years and it's just a real thrill uh to be here with the brand new Venture uh with enlightened descent with my friend Tom delbo Tom that's my story brother what's yours well I started par got getting into politics at a very early age met Richard Nixon at seven years old my father was uh started or helped start the conservative party of New York way back in the day uh elected James Buckley he started me reading The Economist and foreign policy magazine is a 10-year-old history books as a teenager and especially will and Ariel Durant and so my career in addition to doing starting there I of course was former chairman of the California Republican party I ran for US Senate against a little known figure kamla Harris who apparently has gone farther than me at least that's what I'm guessing and uh beyond that I uh came out with a couple of history books which I think are pretty pretty darn good and relevant one is called The Divided era which explains that the more government decides the more it divides and my most recent effort is called the lessons of the American civilization which certainly has some lessons for uh the our current times to be sure uh Steve why don't you tell people just a little bit about your point of view how you do how do you come to politics well I'll tell you you know there's there is a absolute moment where the worm turned for me and I can give it to you I was a registered Democrat for many years damn near 30 years uh and it was in 1996 when I saw what was going on with the Lewinsky affair with Bill Clinton and then I saw the Democratic party immediately circle the wagons around Bill and turned their guns on every woman that came forward and right then and there I said these guys are not what they claim to be this is straight up rank hypocrisy and frankly it's bullying of these women I remember SNL doing skits on Linda trip you may recall that funny skit with John Goodman but none of that crap sat well with me and frankly I was already starting to uh you know as an adult having kids and stuff you start realizing maybe I should have paid a little bit more attention to politics and and now that I have I tell you Tom I wouldn't vote Democrat uh maybe in a local election if it was somebody I knew but I voted Democrat straight party ticket from year on end and I just I I will never do that again ever ever ever and it my uh my conservatism has only grown since 96 so that's kind of where it began for me how about you obviously young yeah no question about it and my viewpoint has really been shaped by the many decades I've spent reading history books and now writing history books in that process my particular brand of history books is always to put things in political context or historical context we are pretty much the same human race maybe with more wealth and more uh things that are act are we're eligible to use now because we're a much richer society and you know we can take hot showers maybe they didn't do that not they didn't do that right 150 years ago that kind of thing but we're still basically the same human beings as thousands of years ago we respond to incentives and stimuli in almost the same fashion and so what I try and do and it's called what I write is called historical philosophy which is to take the moment and put it in light of the whole that's what the great historical philosopher will Durant would say and so I always try and place things in context and once you read enough history I think you develop a healthy skepticism of those in favor of big centralized government so my animus where I'm coming from is if we know that it ends up bad with big centralized government maybe we should stop running headlong into that particular direction and folks that's where we're coming from but let's let's talk a little bit about that format and the opening volley as we said which we're just about to begin then we'll have our special guests and our closing argument so I'm going to start with my opening Vol as you know this is coming right after the DNC convention and the surprise or maybe not of RFK Jr endorsing Donald Trump so my opening volley is that the Democrats got pretty much what they wanted out of the last convention they're happy with where they are until RFK stole the Limelight a little bit so let me explain why I think they're happy where they are if they hadn't to switch candidates think about this that convention could have been closer to awake than the excitement that they showed inside they were were very down on their luck with respect to Bill Clinton their own fault mind you they they chose not to do uh a primary process that would have brought a new candidate to the four they chose to crack down on others who dissented from saying that he wasn't uh still up to the job but they switched KLA Harris has been their month they're much more excited than they would have been there's been a reshuffling of the deck yes the media on the left which has become the pr outlet for kamla Harris is exaggerating her abilities I mean think about it uh the first half of the year they said for Washington Post said for the country she should step aside now she's the second coming uh and so nevertheless they went through this convention they're unified at least within that convention hall the media is Unified again they're not arguing about whether Joe Biden should step aside they still have problems the whole Israeli Gaza War definitely divides them so to how far left they should go but they're happy with where they are in this election cycle so what's next is the question for them Steve what's your view well very similar to yours actually Tom I you know obvious and I love the line that it would have been awake had Biden been there that's that's an absolute fact it would have been a wake uh everybody knew it but you know Tom I you'd like to put things when when you kind of line it up with history and I and I like to take a look at that historical context too and that makes it difficult this time around because there is no historical context for what the Democrats have done this time around they've never done this remember this Joe Biden got damn near 14 million votes in the primary process such as it was it's important that we remember that during that primary process RFK Jr was being sued at every turn to keep him off aate ballots uh there was all kinds of nastiness and kneecapping going on behind the scenes that MSNBC and CNN and God knows the New York Times and Washington uh post editorial boards will never talk about but RFK Jr was treated much like Bernie Sanders was in 2016 and even that kind of flew under the radar so now after Biden gets his 14 million votes uh he's he's sitting on a beach Furious somewhere and Kamala Harris is luxuriating in this brand new agulation that's coming from the same people that four months ago were begging Joe Biden to dumper I just am so another there is no historical context I don't know where we go from here I suspect that she will you know typically you get a convention bounce she might get a bit of a convention bounce apparently that's already starting to show up a little bit in the polls the question though Tom is how long does this bounce last especially with RF a Kennedy for God's sakes uh I wonder if he'll ever be invited to back to Kenny bunkport uh from his family now that he's endorsed Trump uh who would have th it what's your thought on all of that yeah they should definitely do a uh Kardashian version of the kennedies at Thanksgiving and see how that all works out for them uh look I think the Kennedy endorsement can be a big thing but not necessarily will be and it all comes down to what he does from here because his speech the other day I think is must listening for anyone who wants to understand the real dynamics going around with respect to the media and the Democrat Party it's an absolute fact that he su they he was sued to keep him off the ballot because the so-called saviors of democ rcy do not actually want that throughout all of history those claiming to want to save democracy the stability of the Republic has usually been authoritarians who wanted to prevent others from taking away their seat of power and that's no different than what uh today I actually talk extensively in my book the lessons of the American civilization about that Dynamic and so the Democrats saw him as a threat they saw him as a threat to not to grow their party through a open discussion but they wanted to stop him from using money that they would have to return by using money in a in a campaign fight so they so they kept him off the ballot and forced him out of the party they also have been suing Jill Stein the green party leader who who runs consistently suing her wherever she's trying to get on the ballot in an effort to not siphon away votes that's their definition of democracy but where this could really work or help Trump this particular uh endorsement is if RFK hits the trail in important States and he's already said he's going to come off the ballot in the Battleground States he'll stay on the ballot in the deep blue like Cal my California or uh Jersey and New York where where you hail from currently uh it he'll come off the ballot in the Battleground but stay on those States if he goes to those Battleground States and talks to Independent voters and says look this is not my uh great uncle's party this is a party that is interested in the consolidation of power and is anti-democratic if he goes around the country or especially those Battleground States and makes th that argument clear clear then I think what you're going to find is that the he will make a significant difference and bring votes to yeah I agree and I also think that you know the general consensus is that RFK Jr brought about 5% of the vote uh if you just kind of cumulatively around the country maybe 5% call it four to 5 percent if if if Trump can peel off 3% of those in these key Battleground States it's it's it's a game over I mean if he can get 3% of RFK Jr uh support in Georgia he wins Georgia if he can get three to 4% in uh Pennsylvania and that's going to be a tough road to Ho because you got Philly and you got Pittsburgh which is pretty much blue blue blue but the rest of Pennsylvania I can tell you living near it it's very much Trump country so if RFK can help him peel off a percentage point or two there he could win Pennsylvania it's and I really do love the fact that he is and this is talk about a sharp stick in the eye to the DNC he's saying I am not gonna pull out of these states that are obviously blue States I mean that's Tom how's that for just like you know G gfy if you know what I'm saying but that's that's what RFK is saying to the DNC gfy and it really is I don't blame him I would be furious if I were him uh for what they did to him starting with not giving him any kind of Secret Service detail given the fact that his uncle and uh his father were both assassin at that just seemed to be politically inept from the Biden Campaign which might explain why it's the Camala Harris campaign now I don't know yeah no doubt let's just shift the focus slightly here with her strategy of not talking to anyone and so let's put this in context uh Barack Obama wasn't very specific when he ran either Joe Biden ran from his basement in in a sense stayed away from the press and now she's doing the same and she's so far precious few details this has worked for them it worked with them with Obama it worked with them with Biden the campaign was carried by surrogates and where uh CNN and MSNBC that drove out their base who watches those shows and now they're trying it again with kamla now look I ran against kamla I debated kalala she's not good when she has to think on her feet we saw that you see those and all those word salads so it's not surprising to me that they're hiding her away if you will keeping her away from a lot of questions because just one or two word salads will really hurt it's really going to be up to Trump to get on that debate stage I don't care where it occurs it could occur on ABC or uh a a stage in Illinois between Lincoln and Douglas anytime he gets her on a stage and this is what he needs to do in my view and I ran against her and I won the debate poll so here's what you do you simply say here's the problems that their Administration call caused the the open border here's why that was bad I'm going to close it down by doing one two three and that'll be better for all Americans now let's talk about inflation he just needs to be Mr Fix It then during the debate he should occasionally gesture his hands toward her not look at her but just justess her his hand and say maybe she can explain the difference between her and Joe Biden or why she flip-flopped on uh on fracking or uh do you really believe and then insert whatever it is they need to get her speaking extemporaneously so he has to agree to as many debates as he can get her to agree yeah and and that's but there in lies the rub because I don't think she's going to do another debate save the ABC debate I think she'll do that that one and say well you know what that's it uh you got me and that's all you're going to get she has been dodging ducking and weaving this is basement campaign 2.0 uh but this time with Camala at the head of the ticket uh and um you know goodness gracious we could do three hours on what do you think of Tim Walls I mean the nerve of that guy calling anybody weird is is just beyond my ability to quite wrap my head around but anyway Tom well there you go so that's where we're at I can't wait to talk with our special guest about this you want to kind of tease that out a little bit Tom well the special guest is someone who I want to be the next governor of California and let's leave it at that thank you listening so far and let's go to the break [Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome back everyone I'm excited we have our special guest you can see him on the screen right there so easily uh my friend Steve Hill the dynamic Steve Hilton Steve how you doing today very good feeling very Dynamic it's extra Dynamic for you Tom great to be here there you go for those of you who don't know Steve Hilton the two or three of you out there he served as the senior advisor to former United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron he's the author of the UK Sunday Times bestseller more human designing a world where people come first of course many of you know him when he joined fox in 2016 and hosted the next Revolution and his current project is something called Golden together which I'm a big supporter of and that entity develops and advocates for positive emphasis positive and practical also the emphasis there policy ideas to help solve California problems so Steve thanks so much for coming on the inaugural broadcast of uh enlightened descent with Del bakaro and hook and if you could could just start out right there and tell people a little bit about better together well done together yeah it's it's um it's it's a real joy for me actually to be doing am I allowed to say the word Joy these days or is that completely owned by Cara Harris and her her crew over there at the Democratic party I feel very very excited about what we're working on because you know I've been here in California now for 12 years just 12 and a half years we moved here in 2012 from England with our family and as you mentioned recently in the recent years I've been um on television and and elsewhere and talking about things um including how badly things are going off the rails here in California um as you know and I'll make sure our audience knows I'm a proud American now I got my citizenship three and a half years ago something like that um but I'm also a proud Californian I love this state so much we raising our family here I've had so many incredible opportunities here I got to teach at Stanford University the first couple of years we were here I started a tech company I had this media career amazing we love California but it's just so obvious it's going off the rails and so the whole point of golden together for me was a way to sort of in a way get back to what I used to do before in terms of policy and government and and um developing ideas and then um figuring out ways to actually make them happen to actually stop just talking about these problems that we have in California and complaining about the whole time on television and actually trying to develop Solutions so that's what we're doing at Golden together we we're touching on all the big issues we published a report roughly once a month um our latest one was on water which is a huge issue um here in California particularly for our great agriculture industry um there's no reason why we shouldn't have abundant water in California we've got a plan to make it happen we talk about how we've got a policy report on housing and our housing crisis um on the business climate um there's so many things that we're working on it's fantastic I'm really enjoying it and especially the part of it which takes me around the state um to meet people meet people in all walks of life and especially business people who are really struggling under the burdens that have been placed on them by government in California small businesses um amazing Innovative companies they're all struggling and we got to do something about it so that's that's the plan here at Golden together and where can they find that on on the web yeah very very simple golden together.com or one word golden together.com and there's a section at the top on the menu called policy and if you sort of do the drop down menu there you can see our different reports download them all um there's a simple summary at the beginning for people like you Tom who I know you don't like reading very much so there's a few bullet points at the beginning you can get all the information there you like writing but it reminds me of um there's this famous um saying from null cowards some some of the audience may have heard of nocow a great wit um in 20th century England and in the early days of Television he was asked if he ever watches TV um and he said my dear television is for appearing on not watching so in the same way um Tom you know for you books are for writing not reading I'm guessing I'm gonna I'm gonna steal that one all right's folks there's a reason why I wanted to kick this off with Steve Hilton uh as you know or maybe Americans don't know uh English politics is intense as well and it's not always easy just to get elected it's not a one one party state where you just rush in you have to be really thoughtful and certainly during your era while you were a strategist you had to be so thoughtful and now he's finding himself in California which is uh a difficult state in its own right but also on the national stage obviously this is going to be a close election I wrote a book called The Divided era so Steve I've been dying to ask you because of your background what what is your take on the race today and what do you think Trump needs to do going forward I mean we we're taping this um on August the 24th people may listen to it different times it's the Saturday after the Democratic Convention um you know lot of lot of agreement that the convention went smoothly um it went well from the democrat's point of view of course that's not difficult when you have the media completely fawning all over you and and helping everything to go well but there you are again there's another English saying that I think is very important to bear in mind um I can't remember exactly who said this one but uh the the saying is this for a politician to complain about the media is like a sailor complaining about the sea um and I kind of think that's true for Republicans of course it's true that the media are terrible and biased and whatever we get it right it's our job to navigate that um I think that you so but but just the reason I mention the date is because it also comes a day after the very significant endorsement of of Trump by RFK Jr in a in a rather amazing event I have to say I mean I wasn't able I was on the road and I didn't see any of the coverage of it live but as as I've been watching the um the speeches that were made at that event where Kennedy appeared on stage with Trump rather amazing and and very interesting um you know conversation between them about policy in particular an area of policy that's been a huge Focus for me which is how we you know the whole area of health care and we spend all our time talking about Health Care Systems and bureaucracies and payments and all the rest of it but far too little time I'm talking about well why are we so sick in the first place and how can we do things to help us become more healthy um that's a big part of my book more human so it's very interesting which was 2015 I wrote that book so it's very interesting to me that that Trump and Kennedy were talking about chronic disease and so on and I think and a lot of people may dismiss that and say well that's just a kind of you know narrow Niche interest and who cares about that I think they're just completely wrong to dismiss it um and I think it could be very powerful and then you look at the Electoral effect again people dismiss the Kennedy endorsement because they say well he doesn't have you know his support collapsed after Biden was kicked out of the race the idea being that really the Kennedy levels of support where you saw him getting you know 15% Oro in the National polls was all because it was disaffected Democrats who didn't want to vote for Biden now his supports around 5% in the latest polls but that could make a huge difference in the swing states where things are very close and that really is the point I think we should emphasize it's a very close election very close um yeah and you've got a situation where right now I mean I you know again I think there's a there's that phrase I I can't remember who who coined this phrase it was about the financial markets there's an irrational exuberance about the carela Harris campaign it seems to me that they think they've got it in the bag um that that was the vibe you got out of uh Chicago I don't think that's true at all it's a very very close election remember that Trump now in the in his position in the polls which is either neck and neck or slightly behind Carl Harris at the national level similar picture in the swing states that is a much better political position than he's ever had in an election it's it's further ahead than he was against Hillary Clinton in 2016 and further ahead much further ahead than than he was relative to Biden in 2020 and what we've seen with Trump in every single election that he's where he's been on the ballot is that consistently his polling position understates his actual support when all the ballots are counted and so right now you would you would have to say that again this is not the narrative you get from you know most most in the media I think he would be slightly favored because it's very close and if and if if the same uh position you know holds true as it before that means he's actually a little bit ahead but of course we have at least a month to go till people start voting two months or so till election day more but um we got some big things happening we got the debate on September the 10th that's going to be crucial um and then we've got the ability of the Trump campaign to really focus on the area of opportunity for them which is policy because that is their strength and Carla Harris's weakness and policy comes down to two things it's actually a demonstration of you know what you would do to make people's Liv better and of course Trump when they make the policy argument they can point to what they did before which is still seen as a far better record than the recent record of Harris and Biden and then the other aspect of it is to is to draw out the negative consequences for people of the Harris agenda which are very obvious I mean you just see a headline just yesterday in the New York Times almost without comment you can just put the headline out there you know what do we know about carela Harris's $5 trillion plan to raise taxes trillion I I it's astonish it's just straight up there in the New York Times headline I mean really there's a lot of material to go to town both positively negatively and again what we've seen from Carla Harris in the past and you saw a glimpse of it in her first policy intervention her only one so far her economic speech just before the convention that's where she really falls apart she's not strong on policy she really doesn't have a kind of strong grip of of that and you saw that in in the in the way that that announcement just fell apart you know that the it's a suggestion that she's going to do price controls is the answer to inflation and then ever since then they've been going of backing off that and trying to say well that's not really what she meant and so on you know your first big policy speech and it is panned by even allies like the Washington Post and you spend the next week running away from it so that's a vulnerability for her and it's a strength for Trump and I think that's where the opportunity lies Steve let me ask you this because as as we talk about this the I mean obviously the price can troll landed with a thud uh and everybody I mean even the CNN panel shows were all like going well what is this just a gimmick and the answer is yes it's just a gimmick uh I thought the convention was filled with platitudes and cliches um obviously somebody trained her on delivery I didn't hear her really tackle once during her acceptance speech uh I thought the acceptance speech was funny uh she says I'm here for the people when not one single person has voted for her but there you go that's what it is is and she is going to get the the gungadin water carriers in the media you mentioned policy and policy is everything in this Trump I think seems to be a little bit more disciplined this time around when he addresses policy concerns and he got to he's got to get off the negative attacks because I think that'll turn off some female voters but now that we know that the price control argument's not going to work for her you look at some of the internal polls the Border uh crime all of this doesn't the ele doesn't the campaign really start now and do you think that the high watermark for Cala Harris may have ended on Thursday night no no no I think that's exactly right that I mean that's what you would expect so in the way that there's a lag about these things you should expect the polling position to get better over the next few days and into Labor Day weekend but once we're back from Labor Day weekend yeah then it's on very little time I mean you've got a week till the debate on September the 10th and then another week or so still until well it's days actually till they start voting unbelievably because we have this in insane um new you know uh election season voting rather than election day so in Pennsylvania I believe it's a it's a couple of days after the the first debate plus you have the Trump sentencing um which is in there as well that's I think on the 18th I mean it's just there's a lot happening soon um I ju Just a thought on the convention I mean I completely agree and to me the whole thing was so unbelievably dishonest I mean even for them and even for someone like her who's just I mean the the the central thing to understand about K Harris I think and I've said this about and she in one sense she's exactly like Biden and if you watch her career you can see this she's a classic example of a m machine politician she does not have any kind of core beliefs that drive her that's why you didn't really see any of that in her speech and it was all a bunch of platitude there's nothing really there other than to do whatever is politic I Ally expedient that's why it's so simple for her to say yeah all those things I said about defunding the police and fr baning fracking and Medicare for all and abolishing Private health insurance and on and on all the list of far-left positions that she's taken not that long ago um this is not like when she was in her 20s this is just the last time she ran for president and she's just saying yeah actually all inoperative just delete them doesn't doesn't doesn't you know apply anymore um and so she'll say it Whatever It Takes and that's why you know within the space of a few years she was branding herself as you know cop carela and the tough prosecutor and then she was on about defunding the police and reimagining criminal justice and bailing out riers you know so she's that's that's the central weakness and and by the way I just want to make an argument about why that matters for voters in my experience of of being working in politics and in government over the years the truth is that in an election of course you you lay out all your plans you say this is what I'm going to do and vote for me and this will happen but actually in particular at the national level um and certainly at this presidential level when you're the president of the United States what really determines the outcome of your presidency what really you know most of the time that you spend when you're in that position it's not actually implementing the plans that you've laid out it's responding to unpredictable future events things that you know no one knows what's going to happen and so actually your character is incredibly important and if you're someone like Biden or like carer Harris who doesn't have that firm set of convictions and beliefs about what you want to do then your response to unpredictable future events is going to be all over the place and weak and and that's what's so dangerous and you saw that with Biden you saw it in relation to International Affairs most particularly I mean just recently with Israel so when October the 7th happens you know gives a strong response rhetorically he goes to Israel great but as soon as there's political pressure as soon as there's a sense that this is not helping him politically he abandons Israel runs away from his positions because of that prolongs the war um exacerbates the chaos in the Middle East that's what happens when you have someone who doesn't have strong convictions and will just say whatever it takes whatever is politically expedient at the time and that's the danger with Carla Harris so Stephen in a couple of minutes we have I mean in years past there's always remember there was soccer moms there uh changing of uh the Latino vote that type of thing one Dynamic I find very interesting is the changing in Silicon Valley Elon Musk and others could you just give us in the in in the next uh two minutes what's your thought about that and does it have staying power yeah I think so because you've got um uh I think what's broken is the sense that you can you know there there there's there's such a big social cost and reputational cost to actually expressing what you really believe so for for for a long time actually you've you've had this I've noticed this when you speak to um Tech leaders who who are absolutely over the years who've been very very strong Democrats um publicly and privately and they've hosted fundraisers for Obama and Hillary Clinton many of the people my neighbors people I actually know and and and they and they are yeah I'm a Democrat but then you talk to them about what they think about issues and it turns out that they are that classic combination that you hear about a lot which is yes on some social policy issues they they're they're very much in line with the Democratic position on on issues like abortion and marriage equality and to a certain extent climate change but when you talk to them about economic policy they're very very conservative in their views um or or education policy or anything anything that that you could you could put in the category of I suppose more directly affecting their businesses and so that's always been there um and I think what you're seeing now particularly where you have this reorientation of the Republican party with Donald Trump who himself has been more liberal if you like on some of those social issues and you see how he's um handled abortion and and you know you know people forget it was the first US president elected publicly in support of marriage equality Donald Trump was the first one um and so actually that that has created a permission structure I think for some of these Business Leaders in the tech world to to to in in a way you could say carrying on the analogy to come out and say well actually this is the these are the the the policies that make more sense to me and then the further thing that's really driven this I think given the a very strong part of the Silicon Valley belief system is about freedom of expression and information being free and and of course that's the foundation of of the tech industry in many ways um you know information that that is put out there for the world and so the the the rising tide of authoritarianism that you've seen from the left in particular the censorship I mean that is and then of course that came to came to its head during the pandemic I think all of that has really combined to to say to people I've had enough and one last thing I'd say um yes of course you have Elon and there the big names that we talk about others like David Sachs hosting events for Trump but actually on the lower level one thing that I really noticed was that in the wake of the Trump assassination attempt there was a huge outpouring of support from people working in Tech I saw this on social media and so on people and and and and it was it was just really striking it's like that's it I'm done I'm not I don't care what it cost me reputationally economically this guy you know he's a leader and he needs our support and we're going to support him so I think that was a big factor as well yeah I mean even Zuckerberg came out and said that was the most badass thing I ever saw when Trump stood up and put his fist in the air and said fight fight fight who would you have thought and Stephen I know you've got a split and and and we thank you for your time but before you go would you have ever in your wildest dreams have a imagined that a Kennedy would be back would be endorsing Trump and that Elon Musk and Kennedy May some way maybe it'll be a zar position or something may end up in the cabinet of Donald Trump should he win and be number 47 uh what do you think the betting line on that was Kennedy endorsing yeah and and Elon Musk endorsing well I honestly I'm not surprised you know the thing is that I've you know I've I've known Donald Trump for for for a long time you know actually um because you know I first met him and interviewed him in when was it 2018 um but I've you know observed him and the thing and that's what's interesting he's not an ideolog he's not an ideologue let's put it that way and therefore he's open to different ways of looking at the world very prag he is very pragmatic now the critics would you know like shudder at that kind of description and they say well he's just a monster and he's this and that well to me he's he's absolutely not that he's not an idealogue he's very pragmatic he's very businesslike it's like okay how do I get this done and I think one of the things that really went wrong in the first Trump presidency and in in a way and I've said this before you know drives still does and certainly drove then a lot of the behavior that a lot when you hear people say well I support Trump's policies I don't like the way he behaves I think a lot of the behavior was driven by the fact that he believed as an outsider to politics and a business guy that you you know you run for election and here's what I'm going to do and you get there and you do it and to his sort of absolute amazement and I think genuine amazement he gets there and instead of all the people around him helping him to do what he said he would do they're all trying to stop him I mean literally all the people in congress the people in his team the people in the White House the media of course everyone is trying to stop him and he's sitting there thinking hang on a second this is all like really clear I said i' do this why can't I do this and so I feel like that that pragmatism and that like just that get things done mentality is exactly what you see in someone like Elon Musk and also the kind of heterodox thinking where you know you have you know Bobby kenned yes he's a Democrat and has certain positions on issues like climate change or whatever that are very much you could say traditionally on the left but on other issues very conservative and so I think that you know they fit together very well that that you know that combination of non-ideological problemsolving thinking and I kind of get things done kind of mindset and actually the big difference with Trump and that's why I think people would be very excited about a second Trump Administration he's completely learn the lesson of that what I the phenomenon I was describing earlier um and and it's absolutely clear about the fact that he's going to have all this institutional opposition and so so this time would go in there forewarned and forearmed and ready to really make things happen you're here Steve thanks so very much for joining us again tell people where they can find you and your good work thank you so much um it's very simple it's Steve Hilton X so the X was before Elon Musk rebranded it as Twitter as x uh that was in mind it's just because Steve was taken so I just put an X I don't know why I did that so at Steve Hilton X um very active on X um and then I from there I linked everything else so um oh the other thing I'll mention is the Steve Hilton show weekly podcast um where we covered the national issues and some California issues as well so check that out on Apple and Spotify and all the usual places the Steve Hilton show folks you definitely should follow Steve he he's not he's not just a thinker and if you read what he's doing he's clearly a thinker but he's also a doer and that's what we need in this country the person will actually help get the work done instead of just being a Critic Steve I thank you so much for joining us great pleasure thank you yeah inaugural effort and we'll be right back after this word from our sponsors which happens to be me in this case [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay welcome back to enlightened descent with me Steve hook and my friend Tom delbo remember Tom's brand new book lessons from the American civilization is out now it's a great book by the way so is Divi The Divided era which is another book I think the first time you and I met Tom uh you were you were pushing that book on my old show right hook radio but it's a that's a great book and this one is as well I think uh Tom the bottom line here um from the convention and the RF uh the the the the Kennedy uh uh you know bailing out and handing his Support over to Trump I think the bottom line is now it now it comes down now we've got a campaign now now we really do now now no more of the uh you know of of the smok and mirrors now we get down to Brass tax I think the Trump campaign and Donald Trump I think he's been much more disciplined this time than he was in 2020 and and 2016 as far as his messaging goes but he still got that trumpian vibe to him but I do think that he needs to really press her on the fact that she was she was the one that broke the tie in the senate for the uh inflation uh redistribution act they call it the inflation reduction act it was basically just wealth redistribution on uh steroids she she broke that tie in the Senate really the only proactive thing I think she ever did while she was in the VP slot uh and it wasn't a good thing it was a bad thing uh so I think Trump needs to press her on that and also remember how she bragged so much about the fact that hey I was the last one in the room when we signed off to bag out of out of uh abig gate and Afghanistan he needs to really pressure on that and we need to remind the American people of just how disastrous she is this whole plan of trying to distance herself from the from the administration that she's currently sitting in I mean I know the media is going to carry that water but I mean surely Tom people have more common sense than that surely they can see that wait a minute she's sitting at the right hand of this F that did all this and she's kind of bragging about it and now she's seemingly forgotten all about that what do you think well my closing argument is this so far it's working for them and so that means the Republicans if they want to win would have to change their tactics to upset their apple cart think about it she's gotten away with not talking to the press for five weeks now she promised to do something by the end of the month I'm not betting that she is going to do very much by the end of the month and I'm sure the first interview that she gives the very first one will be a puff piece uh with George Stephanopoulos or some some similar character Dana Bash there you go so the question becomes will what will Republicans do to upset this apple cart and they need to pull some pages out of the Playbook that are right there in front of everyone if they if Donald Trump and the Republicans want to win the election they have to do a couple of things in my in my view number one the very successful John Carri flipflip flip-flop ads from the past where he was on a sailboard they need to bring those back and what they need to do is just simply the eight or ten issues on which she's changed her mind or she's evolved uh people are it's okay to evolve on one or two I get it you know that's possible but not from three months ago right and so what they need to do is run these flip-flop ads in Pennsylvania and all the Battleground States so that those voters understand and they need to saturate this that's number one and number two uh you saw a huge rally uh with RFK I think it was like 177,000 inside the building those huge rallies are great but Trump needs to have very targeted messages that he approves and that's going back to what I said about him being Mr fix it because at the end of the day there voters it's always about the future elections right and especially for Independence in history Independents become independent for a couple of reasons one they don't want to get Robo calls that's that's serious comment two they don't like the fighting between the parties right and three they're just growing tired of politics altogether because they don't see it actually resulting in anything good so knowing that and that's been true a long time and keep in mind The Independents are about a third a third a third in anyone given cycle third or liberal third or conservative and a third or genuinely in the middle Trump needs to reach them on a very easygoing simple Mr Fix It level this is what I'm going to concentrate here is how it's going to help you that type of thing if he does that then he sets himself well up for the debates because if those uh flip-flop ads are showing prior to the debate then that becomes the question that must be asked and if she can't answer it in the debate as as to why she changed on all these issues then that then that maximizes what needs to occur or maximizes her weakness and that's where Trump can gain ground so again my point in in this segment and this closing argument with respect to this campaign is right now she's getting her way she could get her way the rest of the way unless Republicans change the game and they change the game by trying different tactics at this point yeah yeah she gota what what they need to do is the to borrow a phrase Tom what the DNC is doing right now is reimagining campaigning I mean remember that's what they wanted to do with the police we're going to reimagine uh a police security and all this well they're re imagining campaigning I think they saw what Biden did uh the media of course being the gungadin of the DNC carried the water right on through to uh to an electoral Victory I don't know that that's going to happen this time around I think that there's more cynicism in the air than there's ever been and I fully agree with you in your closing argument Trump needs to stay on message Trump needs to be the positive I'm going to fix it candidate and should that happen uh especially if RFK Jr is is going around all these key Battleground States uh I think it's going to be huge we didn't even discuss Elon Musk and his possible role in the next uh uh Trump Administration but you know what that actually might even bring some more votes to Trump just getting Elon in the mix uh it's G to be interesting man and I can't wait to to go through all of this with you uh as we as we get closer and closer to election day and damn it's coming up and in some states it's going to be here within a couple of weeks the early voting that's one more thing I should have added to my closing argument and that is Republicans need to do the early voting they really really need to uh work on the vote harvesting and and getting out there because the DNC is way in front of the uh game on that on that end so uh we'll see how it plays out Tom yeah let me let me pick up there because in my prior life I was chairman of the California Republican party and a lot of Republicans were uh troubled by the vote harvesting of the Democrats I need to remind them in the olden days 25 years ago it was Republicans who voted by absentee valot in greater numbers in many cases than the Democrats uh look I'm a healthy skeptic of uh voter Integrity that is a battle that is never won it is a constant thing I in my book The Divided era I talk at length about some voter fraud there's amazing books out there about the voter fraud over the years it's voter fraud is as old as voting and we've already seen that you see Alabama and I believe Ohio already taking action to remove those here illegally from who are already on the voter roles we see an uncon in my view an unconstitutional effort by many uh uh by federal agencies under the Biden Administration for voter registration which is just completely outrageous I don't know why the Republicans haven't gotten in an injunction yet but at the end of the day here's what we used to do we uh back in the early 2000 when I was chairman of the coner of Republican party we knew who was on absentee ballot list we would contact them as soon as the ballots went out and remind them to get them in then we would check to see how many sent them in with about 10 days to go and then we would call the people that didn't have them sent in and remind them to send them in and then because it wasn't updated as fast as it is today what we would do is we would call them three days out and see whether they send it in and if they hadn't we would tell them at this point you need to walk it in now that's a form of ballot harvesting the Democrats took it as you know steps many much farther than that uh but that means it was to degrees not the concept altogether yeah the current set of rules we're playing under require Republicans to vote early not often but to vote early and get it in there waiting for the last day gives PE it gives results and things like what happened in Arizona where in that particular County the printing M machine broke down okay you you're inviting those kinds of things if you're not voting one in two days before or three days before so I agree with you that uh 100% that we have to Republicans if they want to win have to and I'm Republican have to get out there and stop being shy about voting early and then overwhelming them on Election Day and inviting these type of things the other thing they need to do is be vigilant V videos of dropboxes and and the rest made a difference in the last selection okay we are wrapping up here for the first week uh it was a great first week I want to thank uh our special guest I want to thank Steve hook for hanging out with me and starting this process I think it's gonna g to be cool and Steve where can they find us on the internet well they can find us on our YouTube page and also our Rumble page we'll include that in the link and again want to I want to uh also thank Hil uh Steve Hilton what a what a wonderful guest a great guest for our inaugural week and oh what fun we're gonna have Tom goodness man I mean this is going to be uh this is GNA be quite the we you know I tell you everybody talks about Cala Harris she's historical she's historical the whole thing is historical you've got a Kennedy endorsing Donald Trump for God's sakes you've got the richest man in the world throwing his weight behind Donald Trump and you've got the DNC completely re I mean just knocking the chess board over and resetting the pieces with Camala Harris in the role of the king this time around it doesn't get much more historical than that Tom and I look forward uh to uh having some enlightened descent with you as we get closer and closer to election day all right everybody thanks so much once again YouTube uh and Rumble please uh send the links along to your friends we'll be here every Sunday night uh all the way through ction and Beyond and thanks so very much for joining us on our inaugural enlightened descent delbo and hooks enlightened descent thanks so much goodbye [Music] [Applause] [Music]