CALIFORNIA — In case you missed it, Democratic gubernatorial candidate and climate advocate Tom Steyer appeared on Mehdi Hasan’s Mehdi Unfiltered on Zeteo News, delivering a blistering critique of special interests, Donald Trump, and Xavier Becerra.

Steyer drew a stark contrast between his campaign and what he described as a political system flooded with corporate money and backroom deals, calling out Becerra directly for ties to Big Oil and inconsistent positions on healthcare, most recently flip flopping on his position on single payer in order to get a powerful Sacramento lobby’s endorsement.

Here are excerpts from Steyer’s interview:

“Donald Trump is a malign influence in American politics. I started an organization to get 8 million signatures to impeach him in 2017 and 2018 because I've been in enough boardrooms to know a crook when I see one, and he's a crook, and he's been stealing every day he's in office. But more than that, he's trying to destroy America, and he's attacking California. So what a lot of times you know Medhi, sometimes you know people by who's against them..”

“I'm the only billionaire on the ballot, but I am very far from the only billionaire in this race. There are corporations and billionaires putting tens of millions of dollars into this race, and they're putting tens of millions of dollars against me. And the people who are doing that are the electric monopolies like PG&E, big oil companies, the realtors and people who are absolutely opposed to single payer health because it would hurt their bottom line. And let me say this about Xavier Becerra, which I think you know, Chevron put in the maximum amount of money that they could into his campaign to support him. He said last week, ‘Chevron are good guys. We need them.’ He has basically locked arms with big oil, which is ripping us off at the pump and polluting our state.”

“There is no federal immunity for someone who's breaking the law, who is not performing a legal federal function. Breaking the law in California, which is racially profiling, is illegal. That's not performing a legal federal function. Secondly, we have said we will prosecute people who commit violence against Californians, like ICE agents, and we will go up the chain, because you can't all the people who think they're immune from doing this, who are sending the ICE agents out into the street to do it, and think they're safe, we will also prosecute. So in answer to your question, do I think that the governor of California should be upholding the values and the laws of California against a group of masked men with assault rifles who come in to racially profile, terrorize and commit violence against California. I think if you don't do that, you don't deserve to be governor, to be honest.”

“Let me say one more thing. Xavier Becerra was for single payer in January onstage [at a forum]. He said it last month in April, and behind closed doors, he told lobbying groups who are strongly opposed to single payer that he was not for single payer. [..] That is exactly the kind of behavior we cannot have in California.”

Steyer’s appearance underscored a central theme of his campaign: a call to confront entrenched power, reject corporate influence, and demand consistency and accountability from California’s leaders.

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