Speaker 1: It's finally become socially acceptable for liberals to notice that
Speaker 1: California is not doing so hot. It's finally socially acceptable
Speaker 1: for liberals to notice that, hey, California has had fifteen
Speaker 1: years of unimpeded Democrat rule and yet and yet things
Speaker 1: aren't so great there. Not everything is hunky dory, And
Speaker 1: it's sort of leading to questions about the so called
Speaker 1: expertise of the experts, of the sort of technocratic class
Speaker 1: that democrats love and have embraced and embody, and the
Speaker 1: kinds of the ways in which they have decided to govern.
Speaker 1: This has impacted a lot of things. Well, let's go
Speaker 1: from things like housing and all kinds of stuff like that.
Speaker 1: There are so many areas of classically bad liberal governance
Speaker 1: California environmental law, the high speed rail system, all kinds
Speaker 1: of bad things. I want to go to. Community colleges
Speaker 1: not often the butt end of our jokes and critiques
Speaker 1: of California's inept system of governance. And yet this story
Speaker 1: is so bad it's hilarious. It's about scammers stealing millions
Speaker 1: of dollars from California's community colleges. This is from a
Speaker 1: piece in cal Matters calmatters dot org, written by Adam Ecklman.
Speaker 1: For years, scammers have targeted community colleges across the state,
Speaker 1: posing as students in order to steal money from scholarships
Speaker 1: or government financial aid. Recent state reports suggest that the
Speaker 1: problem is getting worse, and college leaders say they're worried
Speaker 1: that the Trump administration's cuts to the US Department of
Speaker 1: Education could hamper fraud prevention and investigations. So, of course
Speaker 1: the media the article tries to paint this as a
Speaker 1: Trump administration problem. But let's let us continue, shall we.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty one height of COVID, the California Community
Speaker 1: College's Chancellor's office reported that about twenty percent of college
Speaker 1: applicants were likely fake, So a fifth of all people
Speaker 1: applying for the community colleges were not real human beings.
Speaker 1: In January of twenty twenty four, just a year ago,
Speaker 1: fifteen months ago, the state said it was about twenty
Speaker 1: five percent. Now, just a year later, the number is
Speaker 1: thirty four percent. So fully a third of everybody applying
Speaker 1: for community college in California is not a real person,
Speaker 1: is a fraudster, and it's probably more than that. Those
Speaker 1: are all the ones that are getting stopped, said John Hetz,
Speaker 1: the Executive Vice Chancellor for the Data Team at the
Speaker 1: Chancellor's office. The scammers that aren't stopped have stolen millions
Speaker 1: in taxpayer dollars. Calmetters reported that these fake students receive
Speaker 1: more than five million dollars from the federal government and
Speaker 1: nearly one point five million dollars from the state, according
Speaker 1: to anonymized reports that colleges submitted to the state from
Speaker 1: September twenty twenty one through December twenty twenty three. Faculties
Speaker 1: say they're exasperated from working as detectives trying to suss
Speaker 1: out which students surreal. They say scammers are increasingly relying
Speaker 1: on artificial intelligence to infiltrate classes, using tools like chat
Speaker 1: GPT to pose as students. Students say these fraudsters are
Speaker 1: taking coveted seats and preventing them from enrolling in classes
Speaker 1: they need to graduate. In the last twelve months, colleges
Speaker 1: have reported giving away giving more than ten million dollars
Speaker 1: in federal dollars to fake students, so just in the
Speaker 1: last twelve months. In the last year, colleges have reported
Speaker 1: that they've given ten million dollars to fake students. That's
Speaker 1: the federal money and three million dollars in state money,
Speaker 1: so thirteen million dollars just in the last year. Data
Speaker 1: from the first few months of twenty twenty five show
Speaker 1: that colleges have already given away more than three million
Speaker 1: in federal aid and over seven hundred thousand in state dollars.
Speaker 1: So we're on track for about twelve million dollars, about
Speaker 1: almost fifteen million dollars for this year. The scope of
Speaker 1: fraud is relatively small, said Chris Ferguson. I don't know
Speaker 1: if the amount of fraud is relatively small. I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's fifteen million more dollars than I have, said Chris Ferguson,
Speaker 1: a finance executive at the Chancellor's office, especially when compared
Speaker 1: to the roughly one point seven billion dollars in federal
Speaker 1: aid and one point five billion dollars in state aid
Speaker 1: to California's community college students last year. He also said
Speaker 1: it's likely that colleges have improved their ability to detect
Speaker 1: fraud over time, potentially inflating the reporting numbers. Why would
Speaker 1: that inflate the reporting numbers if they are getting better
Speaker 1: at detecting fraud, I mean wouldn't just mean that their
Speaker 1: numbers before were inadequate anyway. State lawmakers of allocation did
Speaker 1: roughly one hundred and fifty million dollars towards cybersecurity in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, and the Chancellor's office has brought in
Speaker 1: numerous tech companies, including id dot me and to n
Speaker 1: in Lexus Nexus to help authenticate students. Here's a way,
Speaker 1: Why don't you have the student show up with an
Speaker 1: ID to talk to a human being at this community call.
Speaker 1: Oh wait, I forgot. We're still trying to do this.
Speaker 1: Pretend you know, kobuki theater, silliness of being concerned about
Speaker 1: in person classes and blah blah blah blah blah. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we're bringing in all these tech companies to help authenticate students.
Speaker 1: But Hets said none of these interventions will ever completely
Speaker 1: eliminate fraud, because each time the state gets better at
Speaker 1: fighting fraud, the bad actors adapt the tech equivalent to
Speaker 1: the red queen hypothesis. Not sure what that is. College
Speaker 1: leaders also rely on the Federal Education Department to help
Speaker 1: find scammers. The department is broadly responsible for administering federal
Speaker 1: financial aid and for preventing and investigating related fraud. The
Speaker 1: office that administers federal aid has lost about half of
Speaker 1: its staff through layoffs, voluntary buyouts, and retirements. California Attorney
Speaker 1: General Rob Bonte recently joined other Democratic Attorneys general ensuing
Speaker 1: the Trump administration over these cuts, alleging they violate the constitution.
Speaker 1: Although not technically part of the lawsuit or the layoffs.
Speaker 1: The Education Department's Office of Inspector General, which is responsible
Speaker 1: for fraud detection, so the state employees who are supposed
Speaker 1: to look into fraud, none of them have been touched here.
Speaker 1: Some of the Federal Department of Education fraud detection people
Speaker 1: have been laid off or have resigned. Since October first,
Speaker 1: the Office of Inspector General has lost more than twenty
Speaker 1: percent of its staff, said Catherine Grant, a spokesperson for
Speaker 1: the office, including experienced auditors and investigators. As as for
Speaker 1: how these staffing changes affect the Office of Inspector General's
Speaker 1: ability to investigate student aid fraud in California, we are
Speaker 1: committed to fighting student aid fraud wherever. That's not an
Speaker 1: answer as to how these staffing changes will affect their
Speaker 1: ability to investigate, And then they don't say how we
Speaker 1: are limited with what we can do based on our
Speaker 1: limited resources, so basically, and then it goes on to
Speaker 1: tell the story about how at Berkeley City College, how
Speaker 1: students were able to get around get around it, and
Speaker 1: how professors one professor was saying a librarian, Heather Dodge,
Speaker 1: who works at Berkeley City College. It writes about her
Speaker 1: to connect with students and make the classes more engaging.
Speaker 1: Dodge said she always began the course by asking students
Speaker 1: to submit a video introducing themselves using their webcam or
Speaker 1: an iPhone. It's a very low bar, she said, but
Speaker 1: quote I started noticing that there would be a handful
Speaker 1: of students that wouldn't submit that assignment in the first week.
Speaker 1: First she would send them a message, and then if
Speaker 1: they still didn't respond, she'd drop them from the class.
Speaker 1: As long as the teacher drops a student within a
Speaker 1: certain timeframe, in this case, the first week, their enrollment
Speaker 1: in that class is void and the student can't seek
Speaker 1: financial aid for that course. After the first week, however,
Speaker 1: it's harder to remove them. This semester, she said, she
Speaker 1: started with thirty five students within the first week. She
Speaker 1: kicked out a few students who didn't submit a video
Speaker 1: before students found a work around sending her a written
Speaker 1: response instead. The text was generic, she said, like something
Speaker 1: chat GPT would write, but she wasn't willing to drop
Speaker 1: them from the course. Are these students who are having
Speaker 1: technological challenges? Maybe they didn't have a webcam, maybe they
Speaker 1: didn't understand the assign again, have them show up to
Speaker 1: the college. Stop doing all this remote crap. COVID's done.
Speaker 1: Stop pretending otherwise. It was really hard to suss out
Speaker 1: what was going on with it. It's not that hard
Speaker 1: to say, I'm not blaming this one, you know, teacher
Speaker 1: at Berkeley City College. It's easy to fix this, Dodge said.
Speaker 1: She's also worried about how it looks to drop so
Speaker 1: many students in a class. Well, yeah, and this shouldn't
Speaker 1: be on her. Community college's funding is largely pegged to enrollment,
Speaker 1: and the Peralta community college district where Dodge teaches is
Speaker 1: suffering from enrollment to clients and faces major financial losses
Speaker 1: if they see I'm running a class it starts with
Speaker 1: thirty five students and ends with fifteen. That looks terrible.
Speaker 1: But yeah, of course it looks tir I feel bad
Speaker 1: for she shouldn't have to be that the individual community
Speaker 1: college teachers shouldn't be the ones doing this. The administration
Speaker 1: should be smart enough to realize, hey, like a third
Speaker 1: of everyone applying is a scammer. More than that are
Speaker 1: probably getting through. Have some requirement that someone show up
Speaker 1: to something like this isn't hard and the idea all
Speaker 1: we got to blame the Trump administration for not helping
Speaker 1: detect front. No, you can manage this on your own.
Speaker 1: There are low tech solutions to this. The bots impersonate
Speaker 1: homeless students and former foster youth. By statute, California's community
Speaker 1: colleges are required to accept any legitimate student, and state
Speaker 1: leaders have spent decades to trying to make it easier
Speaker 1: for students to enroll. Community college districts must sign an
Speaker 1: affidavit swearing the veracity of their information, but otherwise many
Speaker 1: colleges don't independently verify a student's address or identity. Why
Speaker 1: the heck not? We serve a large proportion of students
Speaker 1: who may not have documentation for a variety of reasons. No, okay,
Speaker 1: if you're talking about genuinely homeless students, all right, but
Speaker 1: it is not a large proportion of your students who
Speaker 1: cannot provide you with any kind of documentation of that
Speaker 1: you live somewhere or that you're a real human being.
Speaker 1: Everyone's got a social Security card, everyone's got a driver's license.
Speaker 1: We have a large proportion of students who may not
Speaker 1: have documentation for a variety of reasons, SI heads, such
Speaker 1: as students who are homeless, those who are undocumented, and
Speaker 1: those who are leaving the foster care system or don't
Speaker 1: have a relationship with their parents.
Speaker 2: But still like, if you're going to community college, presumably
Speaker 2: you've got a driver's license, you've got a social Security card,
Speaker 2: you've got some kind of ID.
Speaker 1: I guess undocumented immigrants that that's another you know, that's
Speaker 1: a whole different can of worms where we have to have,
Speaker 1: you know, political arguments at any rate. It's just yet
Speaker 1: another example of California is very comfortably ruled by sort
Speaker 1: of one class of people, and they're all very comfortable
Speaker 1: in their expertise. They're all very comfortable, and how smart
Speaker 1: they are, they're all very comfortable, and how professional they are,
Speaker 1: and how credentialed they are. And when you just scratch
Speaker 1: this veneer of competence, you pretty quickly find out these
Speaker 1: are not very competent people. These aren't like the smartest
Speaker 1: people in the world. They're just as dopey as anybody else,
Speaker 1: and they're getting But the problem is, I mean, this
Speaker 1: is far from the biggest scam that has robbed taxpayers
Speaker 1: in California. I don't know how many of you guys
Speaker 1: remember like the number of people who are just absolutely
Speaker 1: bilking the state, the state through its unemployment agency, and
Speaker 1: how we were losing like billions of dollars in unemployment
Speaker 1: benefits that we're just going out to total scammers, including
Speaker 1: this one rapper who literally did a rap song about
Speaker 1: scamming the state of California out of the Employment Development Division,
Speaker 1: the EDD scamming EDD out of money like it's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: But then sort of the helpless attitude of this article
Speaker 1: where we try to be so lenient with homeless students,
Speaker 1: which I just cannot imagine. There are that many homeless
Speaker 1: students whose identity you cannot verify through any other means.
Speaker 1: You can't use a Social Security card, you can't find
Speaker 1: a birth certificate, you can't on record, you can't find
Speaker 1: any other way to verify that someone's a real human being.
Speaker 1: And beyond that the community colleges they're getting skilled. When
Speaker 1: we return, we'll talk about ways community colleges are getting
Speaker 1: scamed left, right and centered. They're getting scammed with wildfire relief,
Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff. That is next on the Johntsarardy Show,
Speaker 1: a big story about how fully a third of every
Speaker 1: every one applying for community college in California is a scammer,
Speaker 1: and actually it might be more than that. Many people
Speaker 1: being admitted to community colleges in California and participating in
Speaker 1: remote classes is a scammer, and the state is befuddled, bewildered,
Speaker 1: and woe is me trying to find a way to
Speaker 1: how can we stop online scammers who are applying for
Speaker 1: community college and trying to get state in federal financial
Speaker 1: aid and bilking the state out of millions and the
Speaker 1: helplessness that is on display. So here, the problem is
Speaker 1: you have bots run by scammers applying for community college,
Speaker 1: signing up for classes, and if they're in a class
Speaker 1: for more than like a week, and I guess this
Speaker 1: must be all remote learning classes. If they're in a
Speaker 1: class for more than a week and don't get dropped
Speaker 1: within that week, they get that money and it's really
Speaker 1: hard to get them to need to get that money back.
Speaker 1: The horses out of the barn. And I can think
Speaker 1: of several solutions, like, hey, stop having stop having so
Speaker 1: many remote classes number one. Number two. Maybe just requires
Speaker 1: someone at the start of every semester to just show
Speaker 1: up in person to register for something. I don't know,
Speaker 1: crazy idea. It just seems like there's so many low
Speaker 1: tech ways, and the community colleges just seem like these
Speaker 1: helpless waifs, unable to solve the problem. So the State
Speaker 1: Chancellor's Office for the community colleges throughout the state contracted
Speaker 1: with id dot me to provide verification through the state's
Speaker 1: college application portal. But students aren't required to use it. Well,
Speaker 1: then what the heck's what's the point of it. However,
Speaker 1: local districts can impose more stringent requirements. Why why did
Speaker 1: you spend a bunch of money to contract with an
Speaker 1: ID verification thing and then not require it to be
Speaker 1: used for a while. Nicole Albo Lopez, the deputy chancellor
Speaker 1: for the Los Angeles Community College District, said her district
Speaker 1: was more lenient with college applicants who appeared to be
Speaker 1: homeless or former foster youth, but quote the bots figured
Speaker 1: that out again that they keep trying to use this excuse.
Speaker 3: Well, we didn't want to have people submit like, you know,
Speaker 3: address verification, you know, verification materials because they might be homeless,
Speaker 3: which is like okay, First, how many homeless students are
Speaker 3: actually applying?
Speaker 1: This seems I don't know, it seems like a fishy excuse. Secondly,
Speaker 1: how many foster youth are applying? And why would foster
Speaker 1: youth or former foster youth not have like any materials
Speaker 1: available to verify who they are? Like that really nobody
Speaker 1: has a social Security number. Last year, the deputy chancellor
Speaker 1: for the LA Community College District, which I have to
Speaker 1: imagine is you know, overseeing gazillions of community college students.
Speaker 1: She said that her district purged roughly a quarter of
Speaker 1: all class registrations because of potentially fraudulent activity. So a
Speaker 1: quarter of everyone in the Los Angeles Community College District
Speaker 1: was a fraud start that they found that they detected
Speaker 1: and changed its policy requiring almost all students to verify
Speaker 1: their identity. Again, why not just have the student show
Speaker 1: up so that you see it's a real person. It
Speaker 1: also paid so cure an identity verification company just over
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to help with its
Speaker 1: fraud detection. Again, why not just have a policy of
Speaker 1: show up with something that shows you're a human being
Speaker 1: with a name, like show up with your driver's license.
Speaker 1: How many people are signed up for classes at an
Speaker 1: LA community college. You don't have a driver's license, you
Speaker 1: don't have a birth certificate, you don't have a driver's license,
Speaker 1: you don't have a social security like something. But fraud attempting.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you just required someone to show up
Speaker 1: one time before this, even if you want to do
Speaker 1: all remote learning still by the way, it's twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: COVID is done. I don't understand why you have to
Speaker 1: have still like classes on zoom. Stop doing it. We
Speaker 1: have these community college buildings. Just have them show up
Speaker 1: at least one time, show some identification, say hi, my
Speaker 1: name is so and so I am here, take their picture,
Speaker 1: make sure the picture doesn't match someone else in the system,
Speaker 1: and on you go. I don't understand why you need
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty thousand dollars from an identity verification company.
Speaker 1: Fraud attempts persisted nonetheless as wildfires. Now this is great
Speaker 1: as wildfires raged through Los Angeles County in January and
Speaker 1: community college has raised millions to support students who lost
Speaker 1: their homes. Scammers swooped in. Enrollment at East Los Angeles
Speaker 1: College suddenly doubled that month, but many of the students
Speaker 1: were likely fake, said Albo Lopez. People probably thought there
Speaker 1: was going to be fire money at the San Diego
Speaker 1: Community College District, where instances of fraud were also on
Speaker 1: the right. By the way, this is a story from
Speaker 1: cal Matters reporting on all this. Student services Dean Victor
Speaker 1: de Vore said his district has found potentially fraudulent students
Speaker 1: who passed the id dot me verification process. Now, he said,
Speaker 1: his district screens all applicants, even those who have verified
Speaker 1: their identity through id dot me. Well, so why did
Speaker 1: we pay for id dot me. Dodge said that this
Speaker 1: teacher from the Berkeley Community College said she asked administrators
Speaker 1: at the Peralta Community College District to help with all
Speaker 1: four suspicious students in her class, since she no longer
Speaker 1: had the authority to drop them from the course. The
Speaker 1: district ultimately removed both students who had agreed to meet
Speaker 1: with her over zoom, and but she said that the
Speaker 1: other two students, the ones who never responded, are still
Speaker 1: in the course. So there you go. Are incredibly competent,
Speaker 1: incredibly efficient state government which basically is letting gazillions and
Speaker 1: gazillions of people just come into community college, get financial
Speaker 1: aid and just go on their merry way. Scammers and scammers, scammers,
Speaker 1: scammers with gazillions of bots, siphoning millions of dollars. And again,
Speaker 1: these are the smart These are the people who were
Speaker 1: smarter than you. These were the people who knew better
Speaker 1: than you about everything. These are the people who are
Speaker 1: in control of California state government and have been in
Speaker 1: control for fifteen years and are going to continue to
Speaker 1: be in control now when we return. I had another
Speaker 1: piece published in National Review talking about Javier Bisera that
Speaker 1: is next on the John Girardi Show. Well, folks, yet again,
Speaker 1: I had another piece published in National Review. You can
Speaker 1: check it out at my Twitter account Twitter dot com
Speaker 1: slash Fresnejohnny at Fresno Johnny on Twitter on x I
Speaker 1: still can't get over the name change anyway. Check it out.
Speaker 1: You can also check out on Facebook the John Girardi
Speaker 1: media page. Look for John Girardi on Facebook and you'll
Speaker 1: probably find it. So I had this piece published in
Speaker 1: National Review, and the the subject of it was Javier Bisera,
Speaker 1: our beloved Javier Bsara, former Attorney General of California, former
Speaker 1: HHS secretary, and I talked about this on the show
Speaker 1: a bit. But last week Bessarah announced that he was
Speaker 1: going to run for governor and he did this insane,
Speaker 1: this hilarious interview with the local Fox affiliate news anchor
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, in which he was given like opportunity
Speaker 1: after opportunity. He was asked the question basically, well, you know,
Speaker 1: we've had all these problems with unaffordability, high cost of
Speaker 1: living in California, high housing, cost of living in California,
Speaker 1: and we've had unified Democrat control for control going through
Speaker 1: puberty on the radio, We've had unified Democrat control for
Speaker 1: the last fifteen years. What would you do different And
Speaker 1: but Sarah just proceeded to pay nothing. He talked a
Speaker 1: lot and didn't actually propose any specific policies he would
Speaker 1: do differently from his predecessors. The only thing he kept
Speaker 1: saying he would do is that he would gather together
Speaker 1: all the experts the best minds, gather together all the experts,
Speaker 1: have them put all their ideas on the table, scrub
Speaker 1: it out. He kept using that term, scrub out all
Speaker 1: the ideas and find what's left, with no sort of
Speaker 1: indication of like, all right, how are you qualifying someone
Speaker 1: as an expert? What does scrubbing an idea mean? What
Speaker 1: is the criteria which you will use to you know,
Speaker 1: sift through the ideas of the experts and come up
Speaker 1: with some solution. Anyway, his but basically be Sarah was
Speaker 1: presented multiple multiple times with the ability, Hey, say what
Speaker 1: you're going to do different, and he just refuse to
Speaker 1: take it, like twice multiple times in this interview, is
Speaker 1: like no, I'm just not gonna say.
Speaker 4: And it.
Speaker 1: Honestly, the interview was so bad. I had been joking
Speaker 1: with people before because I mean, the thing that is
Speaker 1: on everybody's mind is Kamala Harris. Will she or won't
Speaker 1: she run for governor? Really, Harris, I think has only
Speaker 1: two mutually exclusive paths that she can take. She can
Speaker 1: run for governor or she can run for president. She
Speaker 1: has to do one or the other. She can run
Speaker 1: for governor in twenty twenty six. She can run for
Speaker 1: president in twenty twenty eight. She can't do both. She's
Speaker 1: got to pick pretty much just one or the other.
Speaker 1: And I had been joking with people, sort of joking,
Speaker 1: sort of serious texting people after but Sarah announced. I
Speaker 1: was saying, oh gosh, but Sarah might be worse than Harrah.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're both pretty much equally bad policy wise.
Speaker 1: I mean they're both rabid pro abortion folks. I mean,
Speaker 1: when you actually look at the laundry list of things
Speaker 1: Besarah has done with regard to abortion, it's like nightmarish
Speaker 1: the things he's voted for it because he was in
Speaker 1: Congress much longer than Harris was. He was a member
Speaker 1: of the House for years and years and years before
Speaker 1: he became the Attorney General of California, and the stuff
Speaker 1: he has promoted over his time is insane. Voted against
Speaker 1: banning partial birth abortion even which is nuts. And I
Speaker 1: was joking with people, I'm a little I actually think
Speaker 1: Besarah might be worse because I think he might be
Speaker 1: smarter than Harris. Well, after watching that interview, I kind
Speaker 1: of want to amend my statement. So here's a little
Speaker 1: snippet of this interview. This is Lex Michaelson from ATV
Speaker 1: Fox eleven and he is talking with Sarah. Oh. Sorry,
Speaker 1: well he's trying to interrupt the radio show. Even Okay,
Speaker 1: so this is Alex Michaelson from KTTLA in Los Angeles.
Speaker 5: Expensive to live in California for a lot of people, right,
Speaker 5: that housing affordability, It is all the rest of that.
Speaker 5: But whose fault is that? Because Democrats have had a
Speaker 5: super majority in Sacramento for decades now run every statewide office,
Speaker 5: isn't that the Democrat's fault.
Speaker 4: It's a growing issue we've had.
Speaker 1: Remember, it's a growing issue. What do you mean it's
Speaker 1: a growing issue. He asked you, is it the Democrat's fault?
Speaker 1: And you said it's a growing issue. A great non response.
Speaker 4: We've had Republican governors as well, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Arnold Twitzay, we've had Republican governors as well. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: last sighting of a Republican governor was in twenty eleven.
Speaker 1: A Republican has not one, actually one a statewide elect
Speaker 1: in California since two thousand and six. We haven't had
Speaker 1: any Republican in a statewide office since January of twenty eleven. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we continue with Besara's non answer, Sega.
Speaker 5: Was elected in two thousand and six, I guarantee you
Speaker 5: homes in California two thousand and six.
Speaker 4: We're too expensive back then, but it's gone up a lot.
Speaker 1: This is unbelievable. It's like Michaelson is like incredulous, like really,
Speaker 1: you're blaming Schwarzenegger. And Besara's just sitting there laughing with
Speaker 1: a big smile on his face, like, h of course.
Speaker 1: I mean you know though that Republicans are of course
Speaker 1: partially at fault. No, I don't know the Republicans are
Speaker 1: at fault. Republicans haven't run anything for fifteen years.
Speaker 5: We continue in the last twenty years.
Speaker 4: We have not tackled it the way we should.
Speaker 6: And I think principally the reason we have this issue
Speaker 6: in California on prices is because we haven't built enough,
Speaker 6: and that means it's a type market. Everyone still wants
Speaker 6: to come to California. People may be levy, but there
Speaker 6: are a whole bunch of people who would love to
Speaker 6: be at a living California.
Speaker 5: But from a policy perspective, what specific change are you
Speaker 5: proposing that would be different than the status quo right
Speaker 5: now that would make a difference and make prices less
Speaker 5: in California.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so the table is set. Alex Michaelson from
Speaker 1: KTTV Fox eleven in Los Angeles asks Jaby or Basera,
Speaker 1: what specific thing would you do that is different from
Speaker 1: the prior to governors, prior fifteen years prior fifteen years
Speaker 1: of unified Democrat governance. What would you do that is
Speaker 1: actually different. Let's see.
Speaker 6: I can tell you that status quo business as usual
Speaker 6: is not on California California voter's mind as the thing
Speaker 6: to do. And so I think all of us are
Speaker 6: going to be talking change. But here's what I would do.
Speaker 6: I would take the experience I had having to lead
Speaker 6: this country at the Department of Health and Human Services
Speaker 6: out of a pandemic, a once in a lifetime pandemic,
Speaker 6: having to negotiate for the first time in our history
Speaker 6: the lower prices for prescription drugs of some of the
Speaker 6: most expensive drugs that our seniors on Medicare program have
Speaker 6: to use.
Speaker 1: Note he hasn't answered the question. He's just talking about
Speaker 1: stuff he did when he was Secretary of Health and
Speaker 1: Human Services. And this is a politician thing. I hate
Speaker 1: the defaulting to talking about seniors stuff and Medicare, which like,
Speaker 1: first of all, he wasn't asked a damn thing about
Speaker 1: Medicare or seniors. He was asked about affordability of living
Speaker 1: in California. But why does he do it? Because every
Speaker 1: politician knows that the most reliable voters in America are
Speaker 1: old people. So of course they start talking about, oh,
Speaker 1: taking care of prescription drugs. Note he clearly was briefed
Speaker 1: before this, this is the stuff you're gonna hit on.
Speaker 1: You shoeorn it in. However, you can that you negotiated
Speaker 1: drug prices to help seniors, Like, that's what you're going
Speaker 1: to talk about, no matter what the question is. This
Speaker 1: is your answer. Kind of a Clinton esque move. We continue.
Speaker 4: I would say, you need to bring the problem.
Speaker 1: Okay, by the way, this is the actual answer. This
Speaker 1: is his actual answer to what would you do differently
Speaker 1: from the prior governors? What specific policy proposal would you give?
Speaker 1: Here's his actual answer.
Speaker 6: Hey, you need to bring the problem right to the
Speaker 6: table with the best experts there, you scrub it, and
Speaker 6: then whatever is left, whatever's clean and survives.
Speaker 4: That's what you do.
Speaker 6: And we've not been willing to do that because of
Speaker 6: all the politics, all the unbelievable.
Speaker 1: So his answer was, let's gather all the best experts together,
Speaker 1: put all their ideas on the table, scrub it out,
Speaker 1: scrub out their ideas, and whatever's clean. He says, that's
Speaker 1: what you do. That's not a solution, that's a means
Speaker 1: of finding a solution. Why are you running for governor though?
Speaker 1: Why should we have you run rather than I don't know,
Speaker 1: someone who maybe already has an idea. He also talks
Speaker 1: about politics that basically he says that we haven't been
Speaker 1: willing to do this, gather all the experts together, compile
Speaker 1: their ideas, sus out what's the best idea because of
Speaker 1: all the politics. And he does his hand wavy thing
Speaker 1: as if, well, you know, you understand what I mean,
Speaker 1: all the politics, you know, all the silly politics. One,
Speaker 1: as if he's not a very active participant in all
Speaker 1: the politics. But two, what politics, Okay, Politics in California
Speaker 1: is a certain kind of thing. One could say that
Speaker 1: we don't really have politics because one side controls everything.
Speaker 1: One side has three quarters of the seats in the
Speaker 1: state Assembly and the state Senate. One side has maintained
Speaker 1: the governorship for fifteen straight years now going on sixteen.
Speaker 1: One side has six of seven seats on the California
Speaker 1: State Supreme Court. One side completely dominates the entire executive
Speaker 1: branch bureaucracy. One side controls all of the various regulatory
Speaker 1: boards and everything throughout up and down the state of California.
Speaker 1: One side consistently has a sixty to forty more or
Speaker 1: less advantage in California state wide elections year after year
Speaker 1: after year. What politics, there's only one side. They control
Speaker 1: the politics. They can do whatever they want. Democrats can
Speaker 1: do whatever they want. Democrats can do anything they want anything.
Speaker 1: So the idea that, oh, we haven't been able to
Speaker 1: bring the experts together, what are you talking about. Democrats
Speaker 1: love bringing experts together. Democrats love surveying the opinions of
Speaker 1: academics and think tank people. They can do that anytime.
Speaker 1: They could have done that at any time over the
Speaker 1: last fifteen years. I'm sure they have done it multiple multiple,
Speaker 1: multiple occasions, have done so. And it also it leads
Speaker 1: me to this. You know, when we return, we'll discuss this.
Speaker 1: Javier Besara doesn't actually have any of his own ideas.
Speaker 1: He just wants to be a vessel for whatever the experts,
Speaker 1: whoever they are want to do? That's next. On the
Speaker 1: John Gerardi Show, Javier Basera, when given multiple opportunities to
Speaker 1: say what he would actually do if he were elected
Speaker 1: governor to help reduce prices to make California more affordable,
Speaker 1: refused to say what he would do. Here he is
Speaker 1: again talking with a local Fox News anchor in Los
Speaker 1: Angeles who gives him yet another opportunity to say, what
Speaker 1: specific policy proposal would you do? This is after already
Speaker 1: giving this long, you know, filibustering non answer, saying, oh,
Speaker 1: I just gather experts, all the experts together and listen
Speaker 1: what they have to say. Here's but Sarah again not
Speaker 1: really answering.
Speaker 4: Wait time to change.
Speaker 5: But is there a specific policy change that you would
Speaker 5: propose to make a difference on some of these affordability issues?
Speaker 1: I thought you can see this anchor his face is
Speaker 1: dropping and he's like, I just asked you this just answer.
Speaker 1: Is there anything specific you would do? Here's be Sarah's answer.
Speaker 4: So uh housing uh?
Speaker 1: I think so oh good good. I'm glad you think
Speaker 1: so you're running for governor.
Speaker 4: Development.
Speaker 6: I think everyone agrees we don't build enough. It's not
Speaker 6: enough to say, okay, we all agree, we don't build
Speaker 6: enough and they're not do anything about it. Okay, if
Speaker 6: we all agree, then everyone from all sides of this
Speaker 6: sit down.
Speaker 4: Scrub it. Because this is what I had to do
Speaker 4: with COVID.
Speaker 6: This is what I had to do when we're trying
Speaker 6: to get rid of monkey pox empocs. This is what
Speaker 6: I had to do when we were figuring out what
Speaker 6: prices to negotiate.
Speaker 1: When I was figuring out what to do with EMPOS.
Speaker 1: I really want to make some jokes about monkey pocks
Speaker 1: slash empocs, but I mean I loved in mpocs when
Speaker 1: they released these big public Californians. It is not primarily
Speaker 1: a disease among gay men, and then of course it
Speaker 1: was primarily a disease among gay men. Anyway, we continue MPOs.
Speaker 6: This is what I had to do when we were
Speaker 6: figuring out what prices to negotiate on the drugs. You
Speaker 6: figure out where we could go, and then you go
Speaker 6: and you just say, damn the torpedoes, we gotta go.
Speaker 1: You figure out where you're gonna go, and then you go, Wow,
Speaker 1: what a great answer. He has no ideas he admitted
Speaker 1: as much at AHHS. He just did whatever sort of
Speaker 1: the expert slash activist class told him to do what
Speaker 1: Anthony Fauci Francis Collins told him to do, and apparently
Speaker 1: that's what he wants to do in California. Just let
Speaker 1: the experts. Let the experts run it again. Why don't
Speaker 1: one of these experts just run for governor themselves rather
Speaker 1: than you just being a cardboard box for their ideas.
Speaker 1: That'll do it, John Droty Show, See you next time
Speaker 1: on Power Talk