Former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services and Democratic candidate for governor, Xavier Becerra, has come out of hiding long enough to agree to debate his Republican opponent, former Fox News commentator Steve Hilton—exactly one time before the November election.
The debate, which will air live on Wednesday, September 30 on CNN, will be moderated by Dana Bash and Jake Tapper. California voters will receive mail-in ballots shortly after the broadcast.
Prior to this announcement, Becerra had been ducking questions from reporters—much like Ken Norton dodging punches in the ring with Muhammad Ali—about whether he would accept any of the countless invitations from state and national news outlets to debate Hilton. Now we have our answer: we get one debate on a national cable outlet, and that’s it.
What a shame. This is the biggest letdown since the last Fyre Festival went belly-up.
California is a state with a million and one problems, but instead of moderators who are fluent in local issues, we are getting two talk show hosts who make their living covering national politics. That’s not the conversation California voters need.
For example, nationally speaking, homelessness is down 3.3% from 2024, but California is home to roughly one in four people counted as homeless nationwide. Furthermore, among those living on streets, sidewalks, parks, and in encampments, California accounts for half of the entire nation’s unsheltered population. If you cover national politics, homelessness isn’t a central crisis; if you cover California politics, it’s the number one dumpster fire that needs to be put out.
Nationally, the fight over California’s bullet train is viewed as just another battle between Donald Trump and Gavin Newsom. Even CNN’s own reporting has framed it that way. In February 2019, CNN ran a piece titled “Trump, California governor spar over train funding,” where they “fact-checked” the Trump administration and argued that Trump was using high-speed rail as a culture-war foil.
Meanwhile, any Californian worth their yoga mat can tell you the reality: the bullet train barely exists, minimal track has been laid, and no realistic completion date has been given. Other than that, the project is going great! Additionally, the project’s Inspector General says the state has blocked him from getting the staffing and tools he needs to do his job. This means we don’t even know the true extent of the waste, fraud, abuse, and sheer incompetence behind the biggest public works boondoggle in state history. State voters deserve an honest conversation about how to clean up this mess, not yet another talking-head scrum on Trump v. California.
Good luck with that.
California is also in the midst of a severe insurance crisis. According to a survey conducted for Insurance.com, California homeowners were the most likely to report that an insurer canceled their policy and left the state. In 2022, Allstate pulled out of the California homeowners insurance market, and in 2023, State Farm followed suit. Insurance companies are fleeing the Golden State almost as fast as billionaires, taking their money with them.
In metro Washington, D.C., where Tapper and Bash host their shows, insurance is easy to get and pricing remains below average. To them, buying insurance is a non-issue. But here in California, it’s a massive problem.
Instead of a robust discussion about solutions to the multitude of problems facing our state, we’re likely in for another run-of-the-mill cable news segment where everyone yells about Trump and says “empower” a lot.
This format works to Becerra’s advantage, as his previous in-depth conversations about California have ended in disaster. Consider his rollout interview with Fox 11’s Elex Michaelson, during which he whiffed on basic questions like: “Which specific Democratic policy would you change to make the state more affordable?” Instead of providing a clear answer, Becerra robotically repeated the phrase “scrub it” over and over again—whatever that means. He also flopped on KTLA with reporter Annie Rose Ramos, opening the exchange by awkwardly asking on camera whether the interview was a “profile piece” and “not a gotcha piece.”
If CNN is going to host the debate instead of a local California outlet, fine. But could we at least get a moderator who knows more about the state than the stars of Disneyland’s Country Bear Jamboree?
CNN already has the ideal moderator in-house: someone who anchors a California-based news block and has been covering the state beat for years. I am talking, of course, about the aforementioned Elex Michaelson.
Giving California voters the debate they deserve is an easy fix, CNN: just take your current moderator lineup—and scrub it.
John Phillips can be heard weekdays from noon to 3 p.m. on “The John Phillips Show” on KABC/AM 790