Live at Gladstones in Long Beach with Steve Hilton and Shawn Steel

And we continue live from the City of Long Beach. It's the John Phillips Show broadcasting live today from Gladstones in Long Beach. And I just downed one of the best crab cakes I have ever tasted. We're here until three o'clock. Come by and have lunch, have a drink. It's Jimmy Buffett Friday. Enjoy yourselves down by the water here in the Long Beach Harbor. It is so beautiful out here today. You can see the Queen Mary and have Mai Tai. What a great day. We're here until three o'clock and we're here for a very important cause. Susan Shelley from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association is sitting out front collecting signatures to save Prop 13. And if we don't save Prop 13, none of you are gonna be able to afford to live here anymore. So go to the website saveprop13.com and we're here until three o'clock. And the portion sizes are humongous. Look at the ahi tuna. The crab cakes are huge. It's like a size of my fist. I am working my way through. I think I finished the poke nachos. Now I'm onto the crab cakes. And we've still got two hours left. I am afraid of what John Sengmeister is gonna put in front of us next. Although I am staring at your face on a cake and that is quite a sight. All right, it is our pleasure to welcome our next guest to the program. He is the founder of Golden Together and the host of the Steve Hilton Show. He's also a candidate for governor here in the state of California. You can get him online at goldentogether.com and follow him on X at Steve Hilton X. Steve Hilton, welcome. So John and Randy, it's great to be with you. Sorry I couldn't be with you in person, especially now you've told me the size of the portions. And for those who only know you on the radio, John, and not in real life as I do, when you say there's the size of your chest, that really is saying something because people need to understand. Your chest is Arnold Schwarzenegger in his heyday proportions. That's what we're talking about. I'm gonna eat your crab cake, Steve. Ha ha ha ha. Well, first of all, excellent job at the debate this week. Not only did you get tons of praise all over social media, but the independent trackers who were monitoring the debate said you won that debate, you did very, very, very well. So let's start out with the question that's on everyone's mind. Why in the world was Katie Porter not there? And I asked that question because my working assumption is that one of the other candidates already has a restraining order out against her. Ha ha ha ha. I know, I was waiting for that moment where I could walk in front of her and then ask her politely, of course, without using any F-pons to get out of my shot in front of the statewide TV audience. Stop. I, ha ha ha ha. You're so ready with, I knew, there you go. I really was disappointed. I don't know. They would, they did it, it swung well pulled out. I had a whole set of jokes ready about that, by the way, at the last minute, because he had to, at least he had to go vote. And as I said, when we heard that excuse, that's like the first vote he's actually bothered to attend since he's got the worst voting record out of the entire Congress. At least he had that excuse. I don't know what hers was. They said something about a scheduling conflict, same as Chad, I don't know. Very disappointing. I'll tell you what I liked about that debate. And I think your presence in the race and maybe the presence of Matt Mayhan from San Jose and some of the others will make it so that this campaign for governor is not like previous races for governor, where we allowed the race to devolve into debates over subjects that have nothing to do with that office, that have nothing to do with state politics, that have nothing to do with what a governor would have influence over should you be elected. It seems like with this race, we actually have a fighting chance to talk about the subjects that the next governor of California will have to deal with, whether it is the budget being upside down, the insurance crisis, the fires, and now the new scandal in Los Angeles dealing with the fallout of the doctored up reports. We certainly deal with crime and homelessness and just a long list of other issues. But I really do feel like we might have a shot at having a conversation about them and not just ignoring it. I agree, I really enjoyed it for that reason actually, because it was all about that. And gas prices, electric bills, housing, all those things. We're absolutely the core of it, education, crime, and so on. And I take these things seriously and I'd properly prepared and was fully expecting a bunch of questions about ridiculous political, whether from the moderators or more likely from the other candidates honestly, about Trump or January the 6th, stuff like political nonsense that have no bearing on anything that will affect our lives. None of that came up. It really was very focused on real issues. And I think the reason I stood out was because basically you had all these people who were both the same as each other effectively. They didn't really say anything different. I mean, with slight nuances or whatever, basically they were all the same as each other and all the same as what we've got now. There really wasn't anyone there to me who was laying out a really clear, strong alternative. It was like very ancient and what we have now. And that's obviously a disaster. No one wants that. We can't have another four years of this one party rule. And I think people really responded to that when I laid that out very clearly. And that was very good to see that response. Do you think at this point, you had a good fundraising quarter that you will be able to get your message out there in front of voters, your message of reform for the state of California. And I say that because a Tom Steyer who is a billionaire running for governor here in California just dumped another $9.3 million into his campaign for governor. That brings his total to $38 million. If you add up what you've been able to raise in Chad Bianco and Tony Ovia-Rigosa, Eric Swalwell, Katie Porter, Javier Bacera, Betty Yee and Tony Thurman and add it all up together, you guys hit $34 million and he has outraised you by four, the entire pack. But it's not really getting him anywhere. I mean, he spent a lot of that money already. He spent nearly 30 million, already it's gone. And he spent it on all these TV ads that people already tell me they're sick of. Even the moderator made a joke about it when one of his answers said, I think I'm listening to one of your TV ads. And the thing is that after all of that, millions and millions, a huge amount of money already spent, he's still basically in single digits in most of the polls. He's certainly gone from zero to just below the top tier of Democrats, if you can call it that, which is still I think Swalwell and Porter. He also is very important to understand, we're going to have Matt Mayhand has got a huge amount of money, not his own, but he's raising a ton of money. This is the mayor of San Jose, who's the last to enter the race just about a week ago. And he's already raised, I think he said this morning, $6 million. He's got the Silicon Valley money behind him. And the tech pros and all of that. Now, I know a lot of those people and I say to, you know, they say to me directly, I've had these conversations, look Steve, we love you, you're great. We'd love to support you, but we think the Republican can't win. Obviously I disagree and I challenge that, but they're very set in that view. And so they've been scrambling around, I know exactly what happened. They were all heading to support Rick Caruso, who they thought might run. And almost the minute that Rick Caruso announced he's not running for governor, this was become quite a notorious signal chat popped up with about 400 of these tech people on it. And they all been scrambling around and they've glommed on to Matt Mayhan. And they have said, I mean, this is a direct quote, which is not exactly the best, you know, ad for Matt Mayhan, this is a direct quote. He's the least insane Democrat we can find. The least insane Democrat. And so they're talking about raising $100 million for him. So I think it is going to be on their side, a lot of money thrown at it. But what we have is the actual truth and the arguments about what's going on. But I look, we're going to need to raise a lot of money. There's no question about that. I think that all gets easier when I'm in the top two. That's why it's so important as I laid out in the debate, we get behind one Republican candidate. Of course, I'm arguing that I'm the strongest candidate with the business experience, government reform experience, policy expertise, media platform and all of that. We get behind one candidate. So you guarantee a Republican in the top two. There's a very real risk we'll end up with two Democrats if we're not careful. And then I think when it's me against one of them, then I say, especially if it's one of, you know, Swalwell or Porter, then I think we're going to get a lot of financial support because people understand we cannot go on with these kind of Democrats. Wells Fargo is a longtime California company. They recently announced that they will be moving out of the state. They're following in the footsteps of any number of other companies that have been longtime businesses headquartered here in California. But we now know that ever since this SEIU wealth confiscation initiative has been spoken of, we've seen over a trillion dollars of wealth leave the state of California and go to other states. We now are seeing the California Federation of Labor and Lorena Gonzalez going after Gavin Newsom directly saying, look, it's either us or AI, which side are you on? And you better be on the right side, buddy, or else. How important is someone who, your television show was broadcast or was filmed out of LA and you have a home here, but you come from the Bay Area, you come from Silicon Valley. How important is it for the long-term health and survival of the state of California to make it so that we have an environment that keeps this innovation here, that keeps these companies here, that keeps the jobs here, and the money that really allows the state to exist. I mean, that industry funds the state of California's budget. If we lose them, we're really in bad shape. 100%, I mean, look, here's how I see it. First of all, you're right, let's just in terms of the numbers, the top 1% of taxpayers by income in California pay about 50% of the tax. So you drive them away, you're in some massive hole in the budget, and that's already happening with this, just the threat of this ridiculous asset confiscation is already, as you say, a trillion dollars of wealth left, that translates into billions of dollars of tax revenue that's already gone, that's left already. We can't even get, that's just the threat of it. So the second reason, so it's important for the tax base that we keep innovation here, but also it's just part of the story of California, that people are very excited. That's one of the reasons we're an attractive place, we build the future, we do amazing things. When Gavin Euston bragged about California being the fourth biggest economy in the world, a huge chunk of that are these giant tech companies. So that's all, we've got to keep that going. However, the real issue is that these tech companies, they generate a lot of wealth, they generate a lot of tax, but they do not create many jobs. And so that's why we have right now, fourth largest economy in the world, but the highest unemployment rate in America, and the highest poverty rate in America. We're actually driving out the real jobs we need to create, blue collar jobs, manufacturing, construction, energy, all those kinds of jobs are being driven out of our state. For example, you look at some of these tech companies like NVIDIA, a trillion dollar company right here in the Bay Area where I am, they just announced half a trillion dollars of investment in the US a few months ago with President Trump, none of it in California. It's going to Texas and Arizona because it's too expensive to do anything here. Same with Anthropic, that was another one. They announced a smaller investment, about 100 million, sorry, 100 billion, but it was none of it in California. And so that's what's got to change. And that's all about taking a sledgehammer to this bloated nanny state bureaucracy, the insane regulations, the climate nonsense, all of that stuff has got to be taken on. And actually my main point in the debate, that's why it's so ironic and ridiculous that these tech people are supporting Matt Mayhan, is because he doesn't disagree fundamentally with that at all, that agenda. He's in fact, when he was announced, when he's candid, if he was announced, he was described as being squarely in line with Democrat orthodoxy on climate change. That's one of the main reasons everything's so expensive in such a nightmare in California, they're climate change orthodoxy. So if we want any change at all in California to save our economy and everything we like California, we have to elect a Republican governor this year. Well, I think a lot of people assume that Wall Street always has to be in New York City and the tech industry always has to be in Silicon Valley. And that's just not true. It's not like the coal industry has to be in West Virginia or certain things that come from the ground and they have to be in a certain place, a silver in Nevada. These companies can move if we make the environment hostile enough. And it seems like that hasn't registered yet in Sacramento. And half the time, half of them are delusional about it, like Gavin Newsom, and think it's going to go on forever despite the insane onslaught of bloated government bureaucracy. And then the other half kind of don't care. And they look like Gonzalez, you know, they say, well, okay, see you later. We don't care, get out. Like who do they think is going to pay for everything? This is the thing that's amazing about the left. They just think that they can keep squeezing and squeezing and squeezing. And the money will keep coming into their bottomless money pit to spend on their ridiculous schemes and their corruption and their fraud and all the things we know about. And the money's just going to keep coming in. Well, it's not. And so this is really a really important election for us in California. Do we change direction? And if we don't, I think we've, I mean, it's a sort of old school cliche analogy, but we're heading off a cliff and we've got to turn before it's too late. You have consistently been polling in first or second place in all of the most recent polls that I have seen. Certainly at this moment in time, you're regarded as being a favorite to make it to the November ballot. I would assume that because of your status as being one of the front runners, at some point the big guns are going to come after you and the deep pockets of people like Tom Steyer and Katie Porter and others are going to start taking aim at you. Are you expecting to see that or are you ready for it? Oh yeah, I've been in the public eye a long time. I don't care, you know, whatever, you know, they can try and do that. And I'm totally ready for that. I think that, you know, in the end, they don't have anything positive to say. They cannot defend their record. They don't have anything to offer in terms of change, and I think these days, you know, they can spend all their money on ads and whatever, but it's a very different media environment, you know, there's social media, there's all these different ways of getting your message across, there's podcasts, and so on, and I just think it's harder for, even with an enormous amount of money, to dominate a narrative in the way that they may have been used to in the past. So, I think we've got the truth on our side, we've got all the arguments on our side, on our side, we got the energy of people. You know, like one of the things I'm most proud of is, you know, I've never run for office before. As I said in the debate, I'm an outsider. We need an outsider to shake up the system. But I built this campaign from scratch, from nothing. And we've now got over, I mean, just by the end of the year, we've had over 30,000 individual donors. That's a huge amount from nothing, just in six months. And, you know, that's on the pile with some of these people who've run for office for years, like Swarwell and Porter, in terms of their donor base. And what that tells you is that there really is a kind of grassroots movement here. We're sick of what they're doing. And I just got a good feeling about our chances this year. But the big risk is that we don't get our act together. We split the Republican vote and let two Democrats into the final. That's what I'm really concerned about. Last question before you go. The Super Bowl is Sunday. What's on the menu at your house? Oh my goodness. I'm going to, I've got, it's always the same, which is any excuse for hot dogs I will take. I'm the only one in our family that likes them. So I buy as if it's gonna be for the whole family. And I end up eating them all. It's a very happy day for me. All right, well enjoy your Super Bowl Sunday. And again, great job at the debate earlier this week on Fox 11 and KTVU in the Bay Area. You can get Steve Hilton online at goldentogether.com and follow him on X at Steve Hilton X. Steve Hilton, thanks so much for stopping by. Great to be with you. See you soon guys. It's the John Phillips show live from Long Beach. It's the John Phillips show live from Long Beach. We're broadcasting live from one of our favorite places, Gladstones in Long Beach. We're here until three o'clock. I have already shoved poke nachos and crab cakes down my throat. And it has been a good time. We're here until three o'clock, but we're here for an important cause. We need you to come by and say hi, but we also need you to come by and go to Susan Shelley's table from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association. She's collecting signatures to save prop 13. You wanna get involved? It's very easy to do so. Come here in person and sign the petition. Or if you can't make it today, go to the website saveprop13.com that saveprop13.com. Susan needs as many valid signatures as possible by the 17th. So get on it, get your friends to do it. Gladstones in Long Beach, we're here until three o'clock and I am losing my train of thought because John's saying, myster just put a gorgeous piece of fish in front of my face. We'll see you at till three o'clock. So come by and say hi. Sean Still joins us next. Don't you go anywhere. We're live in Long Beach. John Phillips show live from Long Beach. We are broadcasting live from one of the best places in Southern California. Gladstones in Long Beach. And John's saying, myster's not messing around. He just dropped off what I consider my favorite dish on the menu, the Parmesan Crusted Halibut, which is, it is magic in your mouth, it is so good. We're here hanging out. Everyone's having lunch, having drinks, having Johnny birthday cake, having a great time, but we're also here for a very important cause. Susan Shelley from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association is out front collecting signatures to Save Prop 13. If you can't make it here in person to sign that petition, go to the website, saveprop13.com, that's saveprop13.com. Susan needs as many signatures as possible by February 17th. You know, we could say we're in Long Beach, or we could also say we're just up to 405 Freeway from Sean Steel. There you go. That's a shorthand way of saying it. Ladies and gentlemen, we're pleased to welcome our next guest to the program. He is the RNC Committeeman, representing the state of California, Mr. Sean Steel. Woo! Woo! Absolutely great to be here. The trouble was, this place is so crowded, I had to park three blocks away. Now you're a beach guy. This is your climate, this is your neighborhood, this is your neck of the woods. You have to tell all my friends in Washington, DC, we're worried about it getting below 70 degrees. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Well, thanks so much for stopping by. Now, you have been engaged in politics for a very long time. You go back to Ronald Reagan, and even before. And today we're here to talk about Proposition 13, and saving Proposition 13. Can you speak to the importance of what Proposition 13 means to the state of California, and specifically to homeowners in California? Prop 13 is a hallmark what gave California an extra generation of life. It was in those days that people got their property taxes, we still think the LA County property tax bureaucrats were sitting out the bills for their property taxes two weeks before the election. And that shocked so many homeowners, they realized that the property taxes were skyrocketing because of increased values. And so Howard Jarvis is kind of a guy that never gave up, he was always doing initiatives, nobody paid attention to him. And finally he struck gold because he changed California history. Now we have a fixed property tax base that has preserved ownership for millions and millions of Californians. If we didn't have that, this room would be cleared out, everybody be moving to Idaho. I mean, that's happening anyhow, but having a home price that's not killing you on property taxes is a great gift. And now the Democrats are searching in vain for the billions and billions of dollars that they're trying to feed their bureaucracies, they want to go off to the homeowners. They've gone after everybody else. And the big news is, we finally got the bullet train back on track. Trouble is it has no track, but it's cost billions of dollars, but we're going to get rail from Fresno to Merced. That's a promise. It's crazy what's going on in Sacramento, they need money, they're parasites. And parasites could only live as long as they can suck off the host. Eventually the host is going to die. Proposition 13 is Armageddon. We have to win that proposition, or we can't even afford to live in the homes that we have. You know, you look at what goes on in Sacramento, and you and I, people like us, feel like there really aren't guardrails that exist when it comes to taxing and spending, but in a certain sort of ways, there are guardrails in the sense that if you're Gavin Newsom, and there is a bond that you want, or there is a tax that you want, or there is something that you want that's on the ballot, you don't want there to be a lot of noise. You want the focus to be on your initiative, and you don't want everyone else with their initiatives sharing the same real estate on the same ballot as your initiative. And usually with the power of being governor, with the power of being in the majority in Sacramento, they can say, it's not your time, wait this one out, we'll do it at some point in the future. And what we're seeing now, particularly with this wealth confiscation tax that the SEIU is pushing, is instead of the guardrail saying, it's not your time, we're not doing this right now, what they did was they told the governor, you're not calling the shots, we are, and we're gonna do this whether you like it or not. And it's not just with that initiative. Randy, we're seeing initiatives at the local level for public transit in the Bay Area and other taxes. There is going to be a sales tax increase on the five Bay Area counties for a half cent and a full cent for San Francisco to bail out public transit there. At the same time, there's going to be a statewide ballot initiative for a public transit bond for $20 billion that will be paying back for the next 20 years when the technology might be completely replaced by then. Are the guardrails that exist now gone? We probably have one or two more elections left when they're completely gone. The, ever since Jerry Brown in his first administration really turned California to the dark side by empowering government unions to become unionized and not, and they could strike whenever they wanted to, but basically to collect dues. The union, the California government unions collect more money for politics and elect their own people more than all the businesses, banks, oil, you name the industry, high tech, they spend a lot more money than the private sector. And that's one of the reasons we have super majorities of Sacramento. And that's why the governor's race is important. I'm really glad you had Steve Hilton on. He's one of the few articulate people that can explain in common sense language what's going on. You got a guy like Tom Steyer, he spent $352 million and that didn't get a single vote for the Democrat convention when he ran for president 2000. Well, he thought that was a good idea, spending $352 million, he's back. He's already spent 26 million, he's not rating. The kind of people that are running on the Democrat side is like watching the dance of the jumping baby rats. They're everywhere, you're not sure who they are, what they're standing for, but each of them have a fascinating, horrible history. Like Villargoza, that's not his name, he wasn't born Villargoza, we know what his name is. His first wife, Attila de Borrester, he coupled his name VR with Ragoza. He's the original benefit. Yeah, well put. We can talk about Fang Fang, Eric Solwell, all we want. And this guy, Tony Thurman, he's the superintendent of public instruction with the worst school system, with the highest amount of public money. And he's got a great idea that I didn't even hear of. He wants to take extra school land and turn it over to the homeless. What a great idea, just what a great environment for kids. We got crazy people seriously running for governor in California. Part of the dynamic of the California media situation is changing right now. Given the fact that there is a new newspaper, the California Post, which is affiliated with the New York Post, the News Carb, Rupert Murdoch, that group, and they are now operational here in the state of California, do you think that is going to change the game here in terms of covering politics? Not only is the California Post new and exciting, it's the first real newspaper that has been unveiled in probably America the last 50 years, and they see a huge need here. But not only that, we see that there's new media is coming out of Orange County. Your show is more popular, more broadcast statewide so there's a strong, even though we've lost millions of Republicans to Texas and Florida and the Midwest, we keep exporting them, but we still have, as Committeeman, 5.8 million registered Republicans of California. Now the Democrats have a lot more, but the fact that we still have that corpus, Trump got 40% of the vote in California, and yet we don't have 40% of the congressional seats. We have now about 7%. So we're in a struggle, but there's a lot of us here that are not going to move without a fight. Some of us have been fighting for a long time. In my case, I've been doing politics since I was in high school, and I'm one of the dumb ones. I never got paid a dime. I've been a volunteer the entire time. All right, now your vocation, your job, your day job is as an attorney here in California. So I want you to put your attorney hat on here for a second, because the LA Times came up with a report this week saying that the after-action report on the fires in Pacific Palisades were watered down at the direction of the mayor. The mayor told the fire department that she did not want to take the blame for the disastrous response to those fires. You have homeowners who lost everything in those fires who are trying to get their insurance companies to write the checks that they're obligated to write. They're not doing it. State of California Department of Insurance is enforcing them to do it, so why would you write those checks if you don't have to? But it seems like if you're a homeowner and the city failed you, and then they doctored up a report to lie about it, that's liability all over the place on the part of the city, is it not? We're beginning to see these cases hit the juries, and the juries are not very happy with what they're seeing. Everybody knows that Pacific Palisades was an unnecessary man-made Holocaust, literally a holocaust. It just burned everything to the ground, the reservoirs empty, the fire hydrants didn't work, the fire department wasn't ready. In fact, what she was hiding is that the fire department, the bureaucrats over there knew that there was a smoldering fire that just kind of walked away from it, and then a week later Palisades burns down. It's a middle-class community, and of course they want to replace it with nice affordability units. I mean, it's a disaster across the board. Everything that Karen Bass said, everything that she says is a lie. I think Senator Kennedy of Louisiana put it. She cannot tell the truth because all the words come out as a lie. Now the latest lie, which is a scandal, is gonna really play well among juries. There ought to be a district attorney, there ought to be a state attorney general that could do that. I wish it was a federal crime because Billy Asali would be down on that. She lied on the record, changed the records so that she doesn't look bad. She's gotta be, it's hard to say, who's the worst mayor in California, but she's certainly up there. But she's probably the worst mayor, we've had bad ones in Los Angeles. She's an embosser. It's embarrassing to even drive through the city of LA realizing that she's the mayor. Are you alleging that Karen Bass is worse than Eric Garcetti? I receive things on both ends. Yeah. I have to tell you, as much of a clown as Eric Garcetti was, at least he was a lawyer, and he knew when he was lying, he was lying. Karen Bass is too dumb to know when she lies. I've been asking you the same question that I asked Netter. As someone who understands local government in California, if someone who lost everything in that fire came to you and said, it's been a year, I haven't been able to start my rebuild yet, should I continue with this process and rebuild, or should I cut bait and move to Orange County, move to some other city in LA County, and just move on with my life? I think the, just follow the steps. Most folks are leaving. They're catching out from their insurance. They're not gonna try to fight the bureaucracy. Palisades is gonna be an eyesore for the next 20 years, largely because the city has failed given the permit, encourage home building, offering the help, even though they pretty much created the disaster. We know they're leaving the state. Once again, if I ever hear a member of the RNC laugh at me because I'm from California, I'm gonna point out that we've given him over 300,000 new fresh Republicans in the state of Florida, and I want not only an apology, I wanna thank you. We export good God fearing Republicans all over America, and that's part of the process. We're gonna lose a lot of good people. Somehow we're still here though, aren't we? We are, and we're here until three o'clock in the afternoon in Long Beach. Sean Steele, thanks so much for stopping by and fighting the traffic to be here. It's the John Phillips Show. It's the John Phillips Show live from Long Beach. We are broadcasting live at Gladstone's in Long Beach. We are having a wonderful afternoon. In just a few minutes, we're gonna be joined by the lovely Susan Shelley, who has been collecting signatures up and down the state of California for months to get this thing on the ballot to save Prop 13. You can help out. If you can't make it to the broadcast today, go to the website, saveprop13.com, fill out the petition, send it in, get your friends, your family, your neighbors to do it. Saveprop13.com, we've got until February 17th to get enough signatures to get this thing on the ballot. I've eaten so much fish today, I think I got the gal. So far, we've had poke nachos, the crab cakes, the Parmesan crusted halibut, which is, I need to figure out how to make that at home. It is so good, or I can just come here. And of course, we have John Phillips sheet cake. It is a great day. Well, do you see the combination that they sell on the menu? What's that? You can have a combination plate of every single fish that did not have a speaking roll in the little mermaid. Ha ha ha ha ha ha! It's the under the sea bladder. And right now it's time to open up the California crime blotter. It's the cashier, he's dummy. We can make this stuff up if we tried. I said, hell no baby boy! Let me get up and out of here! It's the California crime blotter. And Johnny, for this one, we're going to the Bay Area where I've got a warning for you. If you own your house outright and you're paying your property taxes by putting a check in the mail, someone's going to steal that check and change the name on it so they write the check to themselves. Uh oh. For more, here's ABC 7 in the Bay. You know the phrase, the check is in the mail. Well, this story gives all new meaning to it. These homeowners drop their property tax payments in the mail as usual, and the checks were cashed right away, but not by the tax collector. I thought, oh my gosh, you know, did I like forget? Kathy Pham of San Jose was surprised to get this delinquency notice in the mail, saying she never paid her property taxes. Uh oh. She's in trouble. But she thought, sure she did. My husband actually took the check down to the post office and dropped it off. In fact, her bank statement showed that check had cleared months ago. Like, I mean, go to the county on Monday, I'm going to tell them that, hey, you guys cashed my check. And then my husband said, hey, let's look at the check. And that's when I almost fell over. The check image showed a very different. Okay, do you think it's someone stealing the mail out of the box? Or do you think it's Cliff Clavin at the post office stealing the checks and living like Ellie May Clampett? Apparently this one, they were stealing the mail out of the box. Then they were using things that you can buy on Amazon to wash the check so you can write the name of whatever name you want to put it in there. And then if you're the person who wrote that check, you're just saying, oh, the check cleared. I guess they got my property taxes in. And three months later, now you gotta pay again. Check, then the one Kathy wrote. Criminals had stolen it from the mail, then used a pen to squeeze letters between the ones Kathy wrote to- Okay, that's an even better scam. Yeah, what teller is accepting that? To form a new name. They kind of fit their name into those letters. That person cashed her check, making off- My name is Propertario Tax Collector. That person cashed her check, making off with her $2,400. Not only did I have to pay the- Okay, there's some Prop 13 for you. Her property taxes are only 2,400 bucks. Oh, she better sign the petition. Not only did I have to pay the property tax again, I paid like all that late fee. Kathy went right down to Wells Fargo Bank. Surely her bank would refund her the money. They denied it, cause I waited too long. Wait a second here. This isn't their fault. It's the bank that cashed the check to a criminal. Oh yeah, but that's how it works here in the state of California. You can knock off the CVS as many times as you want, and they won't arrest you. But if you don't pay your property taxes, you're gonna be sitting in a cell with Jeffrey Epstein hanging next to you. Working real blue today. And I was in the other room and he like went, Bwaaah! The same thing- What was that reaction? And I was in the other room and he like went, Bwaaah! Although if I wrote my property tax bill, and for my much smaller house than they have it, the property taxes are way higher than $2,400, I would also make this noise. Bwaaah! This- Bwaaah! The same thing happened to Jodi Glazer of Los Altos and her husband, Paul. They dropped their property tax payment into a blue mailbox outside the post office. Three months later, they got a late notice from the county. We are at a point where it is too much of a liability to use paper checks. If you're paying money digitally, at least there's a record. Sure you can get frotted that way as well, but also there's gotta be a way to use credit cards so you can get points, right? Oh yeah, and if you complain to the state and you say, okay, I wrote the check, I put it in the mail, someone stole it, they'll say, well, you should have just paid online. Everyone knows that the mail is not safe enough to put your check in. That's only for voting. So there you go, a warning to you. If you pay your property taxes with a check, someone can steal that check and write it to themselves. All right, we're live in Long Beach and we're gonna be here until three o'clock in the afternoon. It's the John Villev Show.