Sec. Xavier Becerra joins Tavis Smiley

California Democratic gubernatorial candidate and former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra joins Tavis in-studio for a special conversation about his campaign, representation and meeting the moment for California.

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Speaker 1: We're celebrating the centennial of the birth of Chuck Berry.

There is no rock and roll without Chuck Berry. And

we've been playing and will continue for the rest of

today's show, playing some of the best of his catalog,

all three hours of Tabby's Smiley.

Speaker 2: But I want to get quickly to our guest.

Speaker 1: He is here, as I promised you he would be,

live in studio, Javier Becerra, Democrat, of course, running for

governor of California. The polls indicate he is likely the

next governor of California.

Speaker 2: We shall see.

Speaker 1: Come Tuesday, November the 3rd. Hopefully we'll know by the

4th who the winner is, Javier. Good to see you,

my friend.

Speaker 2: How are you?

Speaker 3: It's always good to be with you.

Speaker 2: Always.

Speaker 1: It's good to have you in. Let me just start

by asking how you're feeling. I've been asking all kinds

of candidates who are on this program. We're, of course,

based in L.A., heard nationally. So I've been blessed to

talk to everybody. And I'm asking at this point, how

are you feeling?

Speaker 3: You know, you've got to feel pretty good when you

work it hard. I remember my dad would say, just

work it hard. You're going to earn something. And sometimes

in this country, even when you earn it, you don't

get it. And so you don't take nothing for granted.

We're going to run through the tape. We're going to

act like underdogs. And we're just going to try to

do this the right way.

Speaker 1: Speaking of running like an underdog, I've been fascinated to

ask you this. And as much as you and I

have talked publicly and privately, I've never had a chance

to ask you this question, but I've been thinking about

it a lot lately. What does it feel like? How

do you process, speaking of underdog, running so far from

behind in the primary versus running so far out front

right now? It's rare that people are like at the

back of the pack in the primary. And then the

lead dog, in the general, that's, talk about a dichotomy.

Speaker 2: How are you processing that?

Speaker 3: I don't know if you can. And I think books

will probably be written on it. But what I can

tell you is this. I think folks finally started looking

closely at who was running and decided we want someone

who doesn't need training wheels when they get into the

governor's office. And that's the only way I explain it.

Because you're right. I was down at the bottom of

the pack with a lot of other folks. By the way,

all the candidates of color. And as it always is.

And Fortunately, I was able to break out because people,

I think, took a look at what was out there

and said, you know, we're in a crisis. We need

somebody who knows how to deal with health care, with housing,

with electricity. And who's out there who can do this?

Who's actually balanced the budget the size of California? And

I think that's when they looked at me and said,

let's look at this guy.

Speaker 1: This primary was obviously bizarre, for lack of a better word.

And there's all kinds of commentary from all kinds of

Californians about whether or not the time is now for

us to change the process. the way we do this.

Here we are, a blue state. And at one point,

as you recall, we thought there might be two Republicans.

There'll be the top two finishers.

Speaker 3: I never thought that, by the way.

Speaker 2: Tell me why you didn't. Tell me why you didn't.

Speaker 3: Because I just knew that when folks started to think

about this, they'd take a look at who could really

run the state. And I don't think most of the

voters in California would have thought that the two Republicans

were going to be the folks who could best run

the state.

Speaker 1: So to those who think that now is the time

to rethink how we do this, so that in the

future we can guarantee that something like that doesn't happen,

you say what?

Speaker 3: I say now is a time to make sure everybody's voting.

If we get everybody voting, we'll get the right person.

And too many of the folks who aren't voting are

in our community. It's a black and brown community. What

I would love to see is robust voting. I'd love

to see 80 percent turnout, not 35 percent turnout, because

I know what happens is a minority of a minority

are electing our leaders and typically the folks who do

the electing. are not folks like us.

Speaker 2: Well, if you can figure that out, you're better than

all the rest of us.

Speaker 3: Well, that's what I'm going to list you, Thomas.

Speaker 2: You're going to help me do this. How do we

do that?

Speaker 1: Some would argue, no shade on you, some would argue

that is the quality of our candidates. Some would argue

that skepticism is now turning to cynicism and that people

just don't trust government. There's a long litany of reasons,

as you well know, why people don't turn out to vote.

Speaker 2: And how do we fix that? Deliver.

Speaker 3: People don't want the promises. They want results. And that's

what I hope to deliver. That's one of the reasons

why I never made these exaggerated promises. I'm not interested

in winning because you thought I wasn't. Look, Donald Trump

promised everything. No more wars, lower prices. What has he

given us? Just the opposite. So what did you get

for your promise? I'd rather show that I can deliver.

Speaker 1: Steve Hilton, in the debates that you all have had

locally and nationally, he's been a guest on this program

a number of times. He says all the time that

all Javier talks about his Trump, Trump, Trump. Let me

ask you, if Trump weren't in office, were not in office,

and you couldn't say, as he suggests you do, Trump, Trump, Trump,

what would your plan be to lower everyday costs for Californians?

Speaker 3: Well, again, if you take Trump out of the equation,

costs would go down quite a bit because gasoline would

be down by about two bucks a gallon if Trump

weren't in office. We wouldn't be paying so much for

groceries if Trump weren't in office because of these darn terrorists.

We'd be paying less than our mortgage Or interest when

we buy a house because Trump has raised the interest

rates to over 7%. And so, yeah, we cannot talk

about Trump, but Trump is in the room. Trump is

on the ballot. But what I will tell you is this.

If Trump weren't there, what we would be doing would

be scaling up our construction of housing. We'd be protecting

every family's access to health care regardless of what happens

with Washington, D.C., We'd be making sure that we invest

in our community schools, not let money be taken out

into the for-profit schools.

Speaker 1: Let me tell you, everybody talks about homelessness and everybody.

And I mean, as we say in my neighborhood, everybody, Javier,

everybody talks about housing. And I ain't seen nobody deliver

to your point about housing. How are you going to

deliver on housing? It is not affordable in the city

of LA where we sit or in the state.

Speaker 3: It helps to have somebody who actually did construction when

he was a young man. I did it. My father

was in construction for about 30 years. I know what

it means to build. We're going to bill. One of

the things we're going to do is we're going to

cut the time it takes to bill because time is money.

And the longer it takes for you to get your permit,

you're rolling in dough when you start and you're out

of money before you can finish. And so what we

have to do is pace and accelerate the construction of housing.

We have to make sure that Prop 1, which is

on the ballot, please vote for Prop 1 because it

makes sure affordable housing gets constructed because it gives us

the bonding authority we need to actually get some 40,000

units that are ready to go. often running because they're

lacking some of the financing they need. Those are units

that folks that are listening could afford.

Speaker 1: Javier Becerra is our guest live in studio. You mentioned

Prop 1. I know there's some other props. 39 comes

to 9 that he's been leaning in on. We'll let

him sound off on some of the props that he's

concerned about on the ballot this time around. And he

mentioned his father, Steve Hilton, and keeps saying that you

are lying, Javier Becerra, about your origin story. We'll hear

his side of that when we come forward on Tavis Smiley.

Tavis Smiley and Javier Becerra, former Secretary of Housing and Health.

Speaker 2: And Human Services. Yeah, all those H's, right? Yes, yes.

Speaker 1: Health and Human Services, HHS in the Biden administration. Former

Attorney General in California, former member of Congress. We just

had your friend on James Clyburn the other day singing

your praises on this program.

Speaker 2: James Clyburn, he's done a lot. 35 years. You ain't

tired of this yet, politics?

Speaker 3: No, it's every day I get to do something for

somebody else. Why would I be tired of that?

Speaker 1: I am.

Speaker 2: Let me go to your father. Steve Hilton says that

you are lying.

Speaker 1: And not so often, you know, even when candidates disagree

on things, because I'm a liar, that's a strong indictment.

He says you are lying about your origin story.

Speaker 2: Talk to me.

Speaker 3: Any respect I have for Steve Hilton, he lost it.

When you denigrate my father, who worked really hard, who Steve, Steve,

so you know, the reason my father, who was born

in the U.S., left was because no one would hire

my grandfather. This was a time of the Depression. And

if it was hard for an American citizen to get

a job, it was even tougher for a Mexican citizen.

So my grandfather did what he had to do. He

took his family over the border to Tijuana. And so

my father grew up in Tijuana, not because the family

wanted to leave, but because America would not hire my grandfather.

And that's the story of so many immigrants. But Steve Hilton,

I guess you don't know that story because that's not

your experience as an immigrant. But I will tell you this.

My dad built this state way more than you ever did.

And I am proud of what he did. And my

dad is an immigrant and I am the proud son

of two immigrants.

Speaker 1: I want to ask you a little bit later in

this program specifically about what your agenda is for African-Americans,

why black voters in particular should vote for you and

what they can expect from you. We'll get to that,

put opinion in, I promise. But since you're on this

point now, a lot of money in California. I'm talking

to a lot of politicians. There have been some in

the studio this week who come to California to get

our money, right? Because there's so much money here in California.

Everybody wants to campaign, do an event in California. a

lot of money in the state. And we know that

because of the billionaire, uh, prop that's on the balance.

We'll talk about that maybe, but there are a lot

of left outs.

Speaker 2: In this state.

Speaker 1: Um, here you come now making history, potentially, if you

can pull this off, uh, Latino governor, um, talk to

me about what you're going to do for those who

have been disenfranchised.

Speaker 2: Politically, uh, uh, and economically.

Speaker 3: So when I was health and human services secretary, uh,

Joe Biden, the president said, uh, Let's get more people insured.

I said, absolutely. So we went to work. What did

we do? We took Obamacare and we got a whole

bunch of navigators and we went to communities, not just

any communities. We went to communities that were underrepresented in

health care. So we went to the black and brown communities,

specifically also Native Americans. And by the time we were

done in that first year, we broke a record of

the number of people who got insurance under Obamacare.

Speaker 2: Why?

Speaker 3: Because we increased the number of blacks who had insurance

by 50%. We did the same thing, 49%, I think,

for Latinos. Next year broke records again. After four years,

we more than doubled the number of people who had

insurance through Obamacare over what the Trump administration had done.

And the reason we had that success was because we

went to families that we know had been left out

in the black and brown community. I did the same

thing when it came to health care. We know that

in the U.S., the richest country in the world, we

have some of the worst outcomes for women who have

babies in the black community and also in the Native

American community. So what do we do? We took the

Medicaid program, which is called Medi-Cal here, and we took

a program that said if you're having a baby, you're

going to be given 60 days of health care after

you deliver your baby. After 60 days, you're on your own.

We said the worst results sometimes come after 60 days,

within the first six months of that baby's life. So

what did we do? We extended health care for a woman.

a new mother, and her baby for 365 days. Not

60 days, 365 days. Who does that help most? The

black community, Native American community. Because we knew the results.

And there's no reason why we should have third world

outcomes in a country richest in the world. Yep.

Speaker 1: So those left outs, as you just mentioned, include black

and brown people. Let me ask the flip side of

that question now. I hear this in various spaces and

I sit in this chair every day for three hours

talking to black folk and others around the country. So

for those black folk in particular who are concerned that,

and you know where I'm going, that the brown man,

the Latino, may be the next governor.

Speaker 2: Our time is up. He ain't going to look out

for us. He's going to look out for his own.

You say what? I remember.

Speaker 3: when Tom Bradley ran for governor. I was young, but

I was already getting involved. I wanted Tom Bradley to win.

He was a black man, but I saw in him

my aspirations. If he opened the door, I'd get to

go through. And when I saw Barack Obama running, and

I knew most of the other candidates. In fact, the

Clintons weren't too happy with me when I decided to

endorse Barack Obama for president in 2008. I saw in

Barack Obama the hope and aspirations of so many people. look,

it doesn't make any difference what your skin color is

or what your background is. You want people who know

how to fight for you. And that I commit. I

think I've proven it. I hired more black professionals at

HHS than perhaps anybody in the history of HHS had done.

When I was AG, one of our Supreme Court justices

in California was my special assistant on civil rights, Kelly Evans.

I have Over the years, I've demonstrated that I'm going

to fight for people who've always been left out. To me,

it's not about skin color. It's about inclusion. And we're

going to fight that. Everyone wants to pounce on DEI.

We're going to do DEI strong in California because there's

nothing unconstitutional about having a diverse, inclusive, equitable society.

Speaker 1: The flip side of that question is the Latino community.

You mentioned Barack Obama, and this won't surprise you, of course,

but inside the black community there, you know, we certainly

celebrate this historic first in the White House. And yet

I can recall Obama saying it more times than I

can count. And I like Barack Obama. I did not

like this statement. But whenever he would get pressed on

a black agenda, he would say, I'm not the president

of black America. I'm the president of all America, to

which I would respond, yeah, Negro, but you're the president

of all of us, too. We are a part of this.

So I didn't like that phrase. I say that now

because I said it before. I want to be consistent here.

My question is, what then do you say to Latino

voters who are afraid that voting for you means that

you can't look out for them because you are one

of them?

Speaker 2: Does that make sense? Yeah.

Speaker 3: And I say to them, you know what? I increased

the record numbers, the number of blacks who got health

insurance coverage under Obamacare. And guess what? I also increased

the record numbers, the number of Latinos, not because I

was focusing on black or Latino. I was going to

communities that were always left out. And that's going to

be my fight because I grew up in a community

that was left out. And so I'm going to fight

for folks who are left out. And you know what?

There are a whole bunch of whites, Asians, Native Americans

who are in that community of left outs. We just

got to fight. And I think this, by the way,

this is where I think I differ from the other

candidates that were running for governor, including the one that's

running right now, Steve Hilton. I got experience. You want

to test me? You want to find out if I'm

going to fight for your community? You fight for a

particular issue? Take a look at my background. I've got

thousands of votes in Congress. I did a number of

things as an attorney general and as health secretary. I

don't hide from my record. I elevate my record.

Speaker 1: Let me discuss three or four things you've said on

the campaign trail and ask how you're going to actually

pull this off. So home insurance, we talk about housing

and how expensive it is. Home insurance, most insurance commissioner

candidates say a governor can't legally freeze rates because an

elected commissioner regulates the industry. You insist you have that power.

You were the AG of this state. So under what

law do you have the power to do the freeze?

Speaker 3: By the way, I was told I couldn't defend the

Affordable Care Act in the Supreme Court because everyone thought

it would be ruled unconstitutional. I did. I went to

the Supreme Court, and I won. People said I couldn't

defend the Dreamers, the DACA program, because it was an

executive order, and any president can undo an executive order.

I sued Trump, took him all the way to the

Supreme Court, and I won. Over and over, I've shown

you you can do things. People didn't think we could

expand health care to so many people. We did, and

we succeeded in getting so many disenfranchised communities vaccinated. When

we were doing COVID, people said, you can't get out

to communities that never get vaccinated. You can't get out

there to poor communities. They won't come. Guess what? The

reason we recovered more quickly out of COVID was because

we reached out into communities that always left behind. So

I've heard that before. You can't do it. You can't

do it. Yes, you can. And we will.

Speaker 1: Issues that you've discussed on the campaign. Here we are

just weeks away. How's he going to do what he

said he's going to do? Emergency powers. You've said you

would declare states of emergency. over energy costs and housing shortages.

What exactly would an emergency let you do that you

can't do now? And is that a way of going

around the legislature?

Speaker 3: So again, because I've done this, I did it at

HHS when we were in the middle of a pandemic

and we had to use our emergency powers, public health emergencies.

We will make sure as governor that we call in

everyone in the government. That means also the insurance commissioner

and say, we need to get behind these prices. Why

are people paying so much for their home insurance? Why

are people paying so much for the utility bill? And

we are going to try to freeze those bills until

we can find out what's behind the curtain. And so

people can understand why they're either paying too much or

getting their insurance canceled. My mom, who had had a policy,

insurance policy on a home for over 30 years, got canceled.

never filed a claim against the house, never didn't pay

on time, just all of a sudden got canceled. Why?

How can you do that? After years, decades of paying

your premiums, you would just get canceled. And then when

she finally got insurance, she had, I think it was

double the price. That's not right. Everyone deserves to know.

So I'm looking to try to freeze and I'm going

to get the insurance commissioner, whoever it is, and I'm

going to say, come on board.

Speaker 2: We're going to do this.

Speaker 3: And if you don't want to do it, go tell

the public you don't want to do this. But I'm

going to try to get behind these prices.

Speaker 1: Speaking of insurance, let me pivot to utilities for my money,

and I'm not the only one. Gavin Newsom, as governor,

has done some things right, some things wrong.

Speaker 2: Nobody's perfect. As I said, you guys are public servants,

not perfect servants. I got issues with him being a

little too close to the utility industry.

Speaker 1: How are you going to hold these utilities accountable, particularly

after these fires that we saw here in California?

Speaker 3: Well, as I just said, I'm going to try to

freeze those bills. We deserve to know what we're paying for.

And one of the things that I've done is I've said, look, utilities,

there are now periods in the day where you actually

have more electricity than consumers in California use. And you're

letting it go to waste. In fact, sometimes they pay

other states to take that electricity from us because they

don't use it. And so what I'm saying is, wait

a minute, keep it here, give it to families who

could really use the help with their bills. And let's

say for two hours in the day, if you use

electricity during these two hours, we will not charge you

a penny, uh, Wash your clothes, wash your dishes, charge

your devices, charge your car, run your air conditioner. Do

everything you need to do with electricity, and if you

do it during those two hours, you won't pay a cent.

And we can do that because we now generate so

much solar energy, but it's during the day. And so

we have to have people change their behavior. You've got

to be ready to do it during those hours when

the solar energy is coming in abundance, and we can

afford to say, you won't have to pay a cent.

Speaker 1: Yep. We agree on a lot, Javier Becerra. We disagree

on this. As I recall, you gave Gavin Newsom an

A on homelessness. I don't know how you did that.

Speaker 3: A for effort.

Speaker 2: A for effort. Okay, let me clarify that. A for effort,

which leads me to ask, what are you going to

do different on homelessness?

Speaker 1: How are you going to measure your own success on

that particular issue? It's giving Karen Bass headaches here in L.A.

Speaker 3: Job one is accountability. We're going to clear encampments. No

one deserves to sleep on a street, and no one

should just walk over another body that's lying down in

the street. We deserve to make sure that if we're

going to spend billions, we get results. So accountability, clearing encampments.

And then let's face it. Homelessness is not just a

shelter issue. It's mental health and drug addiction. And you've

got to make sure you're providing those services. I'll work

with the cities and counties with the billions that we

give them to make sure that they have that. But

the thing Tavis said I'm going to do most, which

I was the only candidate was saying this at first.

is I'm going to prevent people from becoming homeless because

it costs so much money to pull you off of

the streets, clean you up, stand you up, get you

ready to go.

Speaker 2: Back to work.

Speaker 3: If you just lost your job unexpectedly, you had a

medical emergency you were not expecting, all of a sudden

your piggy bank is gone. Now all of a sudden

you can't pay for your rent or your mortgage. You're

on the verge of losing your home. I'm going to

do everything I can to keep you in your home

because I know that if you hit the streets, it

costs me way more to pull you back out than

to keep you in your home. That's what I'm going

to do.

Speaker 2: Here's the ultimate question, and I've got a few others,

but here's the ultimate. Paying for all this.

Speaker 1: Everybody has plans, right? Like Mike Tyson said when he

lost that fight. He said, Mike, you didn't have a plan?

He said, yeah, everybody's got a plan until they get hit.

So everybody's got a plan until they get in office

and they get hit and they realize that the budget

can't do all of this.

Speaker 2: How are you going to pay for all this?

Speaker 3: That's why I don't make promises I can't keep. And

that's why I'm telling you, on homelessness, it's accountability. If

I'm going to give a county or a city billions

of dollars, I expect results. I'm not going to give

them money if I'm not seeing results. So if there's

a program that got money but didn't show results, shut

it down. If there's a program that is working, scale

it up. Let's go put our money, invest it where

things work, and where they don't, sorry, no more.

Speaker 1: Steve Hilton has raised the issue time and time again,

and maybe that's what you do when you're running from behind.

I don't know, but he's raised this issue of your

visibility or lack thereof to voters. How do you respond

to the fact that he's been everywhere, he says, and

you've been not I didn't say nowhere, but not everywhere

he's been.

Speaker 3: He's been everywhere where I haven't been. I've not seen him.

been around the state i'm everywhere uh i'm i'm heading

from here to uh santa barbara from santa barbara i'm

going to san francisco from san francisco i'm going to

uh inland empire from inland empire i'm going to palm

springs steve where are you yeah i'm everywhere.

Speaker 1: I am Let me ask you, I got less than

five minutes here, more like three or four. Let me

squeeze through this right quick. Your black agenda. I'd be

remiss if I didn't ask you point blank. You're asking

for the votes of black Californians.

Speaker 2: What are you going to do for them?

Speaker 3: And Tavis, I want every black voter in California to

look at me and say, we got to vote for

this guy because he's going to give us an opportunity.

What I'm not going to do is I'm not going

to promise you 40 acres and a mule because I

know what happens when you make those kinds of promises.

I want to deliver. When I worked on health care,

I wanted to deliver results, and we did. When I

was AG, I wanted to deliver results. That's why I

took on this issue of cash bail, because I saw

as attorney general that there were people who had not

yet been convicted of a crime who were sitting in

a jail. Why? Because they didn't have the money to

bail themselves out. And so that's not fair. That's not right.

We're going to fight for true opportunity, true justice, and

I hope that the black community sees that they've got

somebody who will champion that for them.

Speaker 1: You mentioned Prop 1. I know that you're also very serious.

Speaker 2: About Prop 39. What about that?

Speaker 3: 39.

Speaker 2: Why?

Speaker 3: Poll taxes, once again. Everything to keep you from voting.

Why do they want to keep you from voting? Because

Donald Trump fears that he's about to lose his majority.

Donald Trump fears that people have seen behind him and

don't like it. And what he's going to do? He's

going to try to make it harder for you to vote.

He's not trying to make it harder for billionaires to vote.

He's trying to make it harder for you to vote.

And we've got to oppose 39. We're going to do

everything we can to defeat 39 because if we don't

defeat 39... He defeats us in the polls by keeping

us from voting.

Speaker 1: I got a minute to go. There is no question here.

This is your final statement, at least. I suspect this

is the last time I'll talk to you between now

and Election Day. Afterwards, I hope to talk to you

many more times, of course, as we have over the years.

The last minute belongs to you.

Speaker 3: Tavis, new sheriff in town. And I hope I can

prove to folks that, for me, what this is about

is making sure we keep our taxpayer dollars in our

community schools, not in some for-profit private school. For me,

it's important that healthcare be available, not just to wealthy

people who can afford it, but to everybody who works hard.

To me, it's important that you have a home that's clean, safe,

and that you can afford because you work in California,

you lift it up. For me, it's important to say

that I will fight for justice. And if someone tells

me they don't like me to use the word diversity,

they shouldn't just come to California because we're going to

do everything we can to give all families who work hard,

a place that they can call home in California.

Speaker 1: He said he'd come in studio, and he did just that.

You've been listening for the last 30 minutes to Javier Becerra,

former Secretary of Health and Human Services, former Attorney General

here in the state of California, former Congressman, and now,

and if the polls hold up, the likely next governor

of the state of California, Javier Becerra.

Speaker 2: Thank you for coming in, my friend. All the best

to you.

Speaker 3: Thank you, Travis.

Speaker 2: More of Travis Smiley when we come home.