“They're spending tens of millions of dollars to try and prevent me from winning because they know that I'm serious."

CALIFORNIA – Democratic candidate and climate activist Tom Steyer sat down with Molly Jong-Fast to discuss his campaign as the gubernatorial primary race enters its final stretch. Steyer honed in on the special interests that are bankrolling his opponents, Xavier Becerra's record of failure, and on the entrenched power structures he argues no other candidate is willing to confront. The following are excerpts from their conversation:

Steyer as the only candidate willing to make real change:

"If we're actually going to bring down costs and make California affordable, somebody's going to have to take on the special interests, and I'm the only one doing it. If we want structural change, including single-payer healthcare, who is going to take on the special interests? Who's going to get it done? The only person doing it is me — and the way you know that is they're spending tens of millions of dollars to try and prevent me from winning because they know that I'm serious."

On why special interests are spending against him:

"We have legal monopolies in electricity, and they charge Californians twice as much as the average in America. We're going to bring in local competition and regulate them completely differently. Pacific Gas and Electric has spent over $12 billion running independent expenditures against me. The big oil companies — I'm for polluters pay. I've been fighting big oil for 15 or 20 years. They know it. They are spending millions of dollars against me because they know that if I get elected I will push a clean energy transition really hard."

On Xavier Becerra's history of incompetence:

"The strongest lobby against single payer has maxed out to Xavier Becerra because they know I'm going to push for single payer really hard — that's the only way we can deliver healthcare as a right at a price we can afford. He was the HHS secretary and people from the Biden administration said 'we wanted to fire him, he did a bad job.' He in effect lost 85,000 kids who ended up being trafficked, being injured in jobs — a true disaster. A lot of Democrats described it as a tragedy and a travesty. And he just denied it happened."

On Becerra's failure to answer tough questions:

"As things pile up that he can't answer, he just says words but refuses to face the music. If you want to be the governor of California, you've got to tell the truth, look people in the eye, and tell them a hard truth. And if you make a mistake, you've got to own it — because until you own it, you're not going to change it."

On his plans to fight climate change:

"My plan is very simple: make polluters pay. How is it possible that oil and gas companies are not paying for their pollution? We have houses burning down in Altadena and Pacific Palisades. Home insurance rates are going up because of the fires. And the people massively contributing to that are not paying for it."

On connecting with voters on the campaign trail:

"People are always like, 'is this really hard, Tom?' And let me say — this is really, really fun. My whole job is to see as many Californians face-to-face, to hear what they have to say, to answer their questions. It's a pleasure, but it's also primary research. You've got to know what is on people's minds and where their hearts are to make sure that what you're doing actually reflects the needs of the people of California."

Listen to the full episode here.

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