When former Fox News host Steve Hilton visited the Hillel at University of California, Los Angeles a few months ago, he was “shocked” at the stories he heard from students at the public school and local high schools and from local leaders about “what the daily reality is.”
“People having to pay for extra security, for community events, for family events—it’s just completely unacceptable to me,” Hilton, who is running as a Republican in California’s gubernatorial race, told JNS.
“As governor, I won’t accept that,” he said. “We cannot have part of our community in California fearing to show their identity in public because of the threat of violence. It’s just not OK.”
Marissa Streit, CEO of PragerU, moderated a discussion with Hilton on Sunday at the Jewish American Summit, which some 1,000 attended in Los Angeles.
Hilton told JNS before he came out on stage that to fight antisemitic hate crimes in the state, California laws must be enforced “for everyone, and not turn a blind eye when it’s certain people that maybe, for whatever ideological reasons, aren’t treated the same way.”
“You’ve got to treat everyone the same. You’ve got to enforce the law, and you’ve got to ensure people’s safety and community safety,” he said. “Somehow, we’ve got to the point where it has become a contested issue. That’s crazy to me.”
On the campaign trail, Hilton believes he is “closing the gap” with Xavier Becerra, a former U.S. secretary of health and human services and the Democrat whom Hilton is facing in the general election.
Hilton said that he was 25 points behind Becerra right after the primary but has whittled the gap down to eight.
“This is a winnable race,” Hilton told JNS. “People are sick of what’s going on and they want change.”
Gas prices and electric bills have doubled in the last decade, and California has the “highest housing costs in the country,” he said.
“If you run a small business, it’s a total nightmare. The endless rules and regulations and hassle and cost,” Hilton told JNS. “It’s enough for people. They’ve had enough, and that’s what we are speaking to: positive, practical plans to make life, as I put it, Cali-ffordable.”
