Inside Golden State Politics

Cage Fight Politics Hits Home

• Nancy Boyarsky

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0:00 | 30:44

Trump applies cage fight politics to a prime foe, California Gov. Gavin Newsom. And we apply cage fight politics to each other, arguing over California's slow vote count.

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Welcome to another episode of Inside Golden State Politics. I'm Bill Boyarsky, former city editor and columnist for The Los Angeles Times, and with me is our producer director, Nancy Boyarsky

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And I'm Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, political analyst and self-styled media maven, coming to you revisiting the classic Aesop's fable, The Boy Who Cried Wolf. It's a morality tale that teaches the importance of and the consequences of lying. The story is about a young shepherd who repeatedly tricks the townspeople who rush to his rescue by falsely claiming that a wolf is attacking his flock. a real wolf appears, and the boy once again cries out for help, one believes him he's lost their trust. Why did no one come to help? A villager explains why to the distraught young shepherd. Quote, believes a liar, even when he's telling the truth." Unquote. It all sounds to me like where Donald Trump finds himself the world waits querulously more for the final iteration of a US-Iran deal to end that awful war. We'll see whether Trump read Fable, or maybe somebody read it to him and whether he got the moral of the story, but not yet. Over to you, Bill

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sheri, the Trump administration, the Justice Department either is going after the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom. The dreaded knock on the door is coming to their house. The search through their papers, the effort to pin something crooked on them, the effort to destroy Newsom before he can become a viable presidential candidate. And newsom is fighting back in a way that is pretty admirable. What he did was on Monday, as the story was breaking, he went on the air and he revealed what the Justice Department was doing and stared them to come after him, come after his family. I think that he's not gonna go down quietly, and I think it's gonna be a hell of a fight

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Yeah.

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three or four months

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be helpful to Newsom, I think, politically. Unless, of course, something wrong discovered by what appears to be just a wide-ranging investigation of every piece of paper that the FBI and the Department of Justice can get a hold of. just think, this guy who really came into true national prominence becoming the leader of the anti-Trump movement has added yet another feather his cap. He, it... And it is a smart thing for him to do politically. He gets out front. He shapes the debate. Lanny Davis, who was Bill Clinton's attorney during Clinton's impeachment events, had a mantra which really applied then which applies here. And it was, "Tell it all, tell it early, and tell it yourself." that's what Newsom has done. I think it's the smart thing to do politically. I think is some risk involved in his doing that, but by and large, at least insofar as the Democratic nomination for president is concerned, it's a pretty good deal the, that Gavin Newsom did this. And let's not forget that Newton- Newsom defended his wife, the first partner, California's partner, and that will get him some credit. He's basically underscoring the sexism the route that Trump is taking. Newsom said, "Come after me. Don't get to me through my wife."

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Or my children

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Yeah, that too. Or my children.

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Yeah

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there are two investigations Jennifer Newsom has her very own

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Yeah. Much is important about this, but something that in the course of all of this, Newsom said that he was running for president, right?

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He intimated that he said he was thinking of running for president,

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So he's, this is his

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but that's more than he's said so far. He

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this is

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it out loud

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the closest he's come to saying that he was going to run. And by doing that he's switched the dynamics of this whole fight. So now it is Trump trying to knock out Newsom. Knock him out so that he can take o- continue being president. So he can continue in the office, he can beat down Newsom.

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are we talking about? We're

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We're talking about Trump trying to destroy Newsom

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Because

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Because he doesn't wanna run against him for president. That's why.

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Then that Trump is gonna try to make it three. Is

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Oh, of course he, of course I think Trump's...

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And this

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Of course I

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me

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gonna try to make it three. And everything that happens between now and the November election and beyond that has to be viewed from the standpoint of a president who is desperately trying to hold onto his job, surrounded by his clack of people who are desperately trying to keep him in the job. And that's what it's all about, I think

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I, I think it's a very personal for Trump. It's another one of many revenge actions on the part of the president who has been almost systematically, but very going after his-- what he perceives to be, who he perceives to be his political opponents. I'm not at all sure I can figure out that it's because he doesn't wanna run against Newsom for president. I... My, my theory is if he wants to be president, and of course it is unconstitutional go for a third term, there are other means by which he could accomplish it, but he hates California. He literally hates California. California hasn't been that kind to Donald Trump, and he's taking it out on us. And then, talking about being a personal vendetta Newsom hasn't been very kind to Donald Trump, And Donald Trump, as he is wont to do, and has done several times, hitting back. And in this case, he's got more power than his opponents. Sometimes the courts get involved and sometimes they halt vendetta. But who knows with regard to Gavin Newsom. We don't even know what the whole investigation is about

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Newsom's problem with this as it unfolds is that, His former chief of staff a woman named Dana

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Williamson

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Was involved in a complex scheme of taking money from the campaign account of,

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Storm it campaign to camp. That's important

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of Xavier Becerra, who's now the favorite to become Newsom's successor, the next governor of California. She pleaded guilty to committing bank and wire fraud filing for false tax re-returns, and making false statements to a federal agent. So

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That's called lying. That's the technical term

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so she's there. That is something that N- Newsom is going to have to deal with. He's gonna have to answer questions.

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Why? He's

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Why does he have to-

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Apparently, it's been that he's not involved in that particular investigation. She was at one point Newsom's chief of staff, but even she, when questioned by the feds, said, "I can't really help you in this investigation because I've never seen any illegal activity on the part of the governor." I'm sure the opponents will bring it up, but I would say another politician who might be a little nervous about this is Xavier Becerra, because the siphoning off of funds from the dormant campaign account from Xavier Becerra's dormant funds. Nothing to do with Newsom. And you know the way things have been going politically this country and in California, that's not gonna stop, the Republicans from using that and trying to attack Becerra and connect him to the investigation of the indictment of Dana Williamson. I think probably in this case, it's gotta be more nervous making for Becerra, this particular issue, to Newsom.

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Newsom was pretty cool on the way he handled this. He on his television spot all of his replies he's acted as though he is in charge of this whole thing and not at all

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He

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fl- and not at all flustered by it. And I think this is the kind of thing that drives Trump nuts. What what Trump likes is a victim who won't fight back or who can't fight back, and he doesn't quite know how to handle him. He had the same trouble trying to get rid of the president of the Federal Reserve.

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Chairman

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Tried to s- accused him of malfeasance in office and making various shady things that he didn't do. But the chairman of the Federal Reserve fought back immediately, did not wait.

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Jerome

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And and I see that Newsom is following that that pattern

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Again it has to do with the timing. Get out in front. Now the response will have to come from the Department of Justice, from FBI, and from Donald Trump. And Newsom, I think again, very smart strategically, will keep the spotlight on Donald Trump. And right now, Donald Trump's approval rating is in the tank. It's in the 30s. He... Nobody... it's a little bit like the boy who cried wolf. Nobody's believing him on a lot of this stuff now. He's lost the trust of even a significant portion his own base

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think so. His explanation of the Iranian deal, as he calls it,

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yes. What's your deal

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doesn't make a lot of sense. And his critics nail him on that, but he doesn't seem to have any firm grip on what we've agreed with Iran, what we're gonna do. Has there been a deal made? What was in this memorandum of understanding? He he just seems out of it when he's discussing this matter

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He's tired. He's tired, you can tell. What can you say when all you have to speak about 14 points, a page and a half memorandum? Somebody forgot to brief him with a bit more detail, I would say

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So what's gonna happen?

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That's a good question. notably, it's been reported that i- it's such a short memorandum anyway, but it's been reported that if nuclear is mentioned at all, not mentioned very often. And the major reason Trump argued that he got involved is so that Iran could never have a nuclear weapon. There's nothing that I can see yet, and remember, this isn't final at this point, but there's nothing I can see that would prevent Iran from using the money that Trump appears to want to release, to take that money and a nuclear weapon. It's crazy. It is absolutely What do you think?

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I think that He really was on the edge with this war, and his efforts to get us out of this war are really falling short. We really don't know if ships are passing through the straits. We don't know how many American troops are involved. We don't know what they're going to be doing. He's at a state now where in his mind he can do no wrong which is a dangerous place for the president to be even a even a competent president. So I am very

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the company president would be there

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So I'm afraid of what's gonna happen in the next three or four months and and I'm afraid exactly what he's gonna do. Which brings us to another one of his projects, and that's the Election Day project

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Okay. And?

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He's going to attempt to discredit the coming election and the November election. The campaign will start and he will go on a constant campaign of putting down, trying to discredit raising doubt about the November election. And that will be a constant theme of his as we approach the November election day. Now, this is extremely serious for the country because elections keep the whole thing going, right? If you start screwing around-

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part of the definition of democracy, yes, of course

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If you start screwing around with elections you're in a lot of trouble. And and

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Maybe.

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afraid that's what he wants to do. He can do that in any number of ways. The way I was thinking about just recently is he can put troops at polling places calling for a national emergency which his administration discussed. He could use the ICE people at polling places to examine voters. He could do any number of things to slow up the election process

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don't know 'cause I'm not an attorney, but... And I don't know whether politically there will be permission finally from Congress for him to continue to do these lunatic things without even talking to Republicans who are up for election and re-election in November. But you're right, he could. He's done it before. He just goes and does something, not even calculating That comes later

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The question people ask is why is vote counting in California so slow?

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Yes.

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Why?

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Good reasons. Have a huge electorate. We have a deliberate certification About of the votes in this huge state with this huge diverse electorate by mail in this election. We have been very slow and very deliberate in counting our votes for a very long time. The difference... Why is everybody asking this? Because of the claims by the President of the United States and MAGA that the election was rigged. And because it takes a bit of time to certify the election, results, it may look like somebody's playing with them, and that's why it's taking so much longer than almost any other state in the union. And as critics are yelling, nations. we're bigger than many nations, and certainly bigger than most of the states. There's one other thing, and this is the practical answer, and this is what people are saying. "Oh let's just get it faster." Oh, fine. How do you do that? buy new equipment. You hire a whole lot more people. may wanna consider going back to the way California treated mail-in or absentee votings until, it was the early '80s, which is you can't get a mail-in ballot unless you have a valid excuse, unless you apply for one. That seems to me you're taking away the right to vote from a whole lot of people. And interestingly, early on, when that was the norm in California, that tended to help Republicans. And now it's more likely to help Democrats.

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There's one factor that changed this from previous elections, and that's the Trump.

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Donald Trump.

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that's the Trump factor. We've never had an election where the President of the United States or the governor of a state has gone on a systematic campaign to discredit election day. And it's particularly effective with Trump because Trump has, command of the internet, command of this. He is a powerful voice. Every day he's gonna bang away that this election is fixed, it's phony. Don't... we can't follow it, ignore it. And we've never had that before. We've never had that loud of a voice, and we've never had a media that's so willing to bend before him and give him his way. That's new also, I think

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There's a point there. What's wrong with waiting a week or two for election results when at... That is-- It should not erode trust in election. California ought to be educating people and educating the media so that the media could educate people that this is a greater accountability this time. And who cares if it's a week late when the winners don't even take office until about two months after It-- whole thing is so bogus. one catalyst, you mentioned, is Donald Trump. Never had this kind of bashing before, really. The Republicans were criticizing LA mayor's race results because Spencer Pratt started out ahead of Nithya Raman, but by the end of election night, things were changing, and Raman made it to the runoff against Karen Bass. Must be rigged. In 2022, Rick Caruso started way ahead of Karen Bass in the early returns, and he didn't make it. He didn't make it as mayor

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One of the differences between the reporting of elections now and the way they were reported a few years ago is the incredible speed and you've talked about this a lot, of how online voting, campaigning has changed the political structure of our country. And so one of the things that has changed is this emphasis on we've gotta have the results now. We've gotta get them right away.

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Yeah, instant gratification

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Now that's gonna be there. Now should we delay the vote count? How do you handle

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what do you mean

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people are gonna be demanding results

squadcaster-7518_2_06-17-2026_150429

Too bad, babes. Gotta, we've gotta, our state has to determine what our state wants to do. I'm not an attorney, and I think we need to invite our attorney f- our attorney friends back. But the last time I read Article 1, Section 6, the states were in charge of elections. Here, let me see if I can find this here. The time... This is Section 1 of the Constitution, Section 4 of the Constitution of Article 1. "The times, place, and manner of holding elections for senator and representatives shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof." I'm sure there have been amendments, but I haven't seen them. "The Congress may, at any time, except," this is really crazy, "as to the places choosing senators." This is really lunatic. They can deal with that, but that's about all. It seems to me that the perception has long been, if not the reality, that the states are in charge shaping the elections

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I don't agree. I think that these delays in vote counting stretching over day

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If it's making it more accurate, I'm

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it

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with it

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Creates an oppor- creates an opportunity for mischief, creates an opportunity...

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of course, everything does. Really, Bill, come on.

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What? What?

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And it-- That's always been the case, but

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No,

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we've never

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it ha-

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so

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it, it has not. It has not always been there. There's always been,

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a

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there's always

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It always has the potential to be a problem. That it's always

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there's always been a slow count in California. It's,

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Pardon me?

host-4ha0_2_06-17-2026_150430

it's endemic to the state. Perhaps it's the water from the water project. But it's always been a slow count in California.

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Oh yeah,

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And

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doesn't mean

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I have... can I just say, can I just say

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has to

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can I say about

squadcaster-7518_2_06-17-2026_150429

No

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three, three words?

squadcaster-7518_2_06-17-2026_150429

You've drunk the Kool-Aid, my dear

host-4ha0_2_06-17-2026_150430

I, oh, I can speak Thank you.

squadcaster-7518_2_06-17-2026_150429

of the opponents To the,

host-4ha0_2_06-17-2026_150430

thank you very much.

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End

host-4ha0_2_06-17-2026_150430

thank you so much. I have been writing election stories for decades, and the California count has always been slow, and I'm not arguing that it it was... and it's

squadcaster-7518_2_06-17-2026_150429

What I

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not been good. But what's happened now,

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reason

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happened now is that it's incredibly slow in a society that's all

squadcaster-7518_2_06-17-2026_150429

not

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and that's all speed. And so what we have is an opportunity for instance, the president with the slow count in in the city elections and the county elections have the president to say that this election was invalidated. The election was phony. It was busted. That's gonna be,

squadcaster-7518_2_06-17-2026_150429

through

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but

squadcaster-7518_2_06-17-2026_150429

him

host-4ha0_2_06-17-2026_150430

it wasn't at all. But that is going to be the discussion and the debate. I admire your your devotion to to the good old days.

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Accuracy

host-4ha0_2_06-17-2026_150430

I ad- I admire your discussion to the good old days, but I think, Sherry, get with it. Get into this century. Come on

squadcaster-7518_2_06-17-2026_150429

Boyarsky. Listen to you. I will not stumble behind these stupid fallacious reasons for just simply speeding up the vote. And don't remember, Gabby, just don't forget, to do that requires a lot of money. People say, "Oh, it's just a drop in the bucket that's, like maybe $50 million." Hello, we are cutting programs in response to what the feds are doing to social programs, and because the city and county don't have that kind of money either. So what are you gonna do? it away from homeless programs that would... Some would say, "Oh yeah," health programs. And just because people are whining about taking seven days or so Determine an accurate count,

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what about

squadcaster-7518_2_06-17-2026_150429

that

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states like Arizona that are faster, faster than we are?

squadcaster-7518_2_06-17-2026_150429

thimbleful of Califor- don't do that. You know that's the, that's apples and oranges. You know that's apple and

host-4ha0_2_06-17-2026_150430

It's not apples and oranges, it's oranges and oranges.

squadcaster-7518_2_06-17-2026_150429

Yep.

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they're both citrus producing states, California and Arizona

squadcaster-7518_2_06-17-2026_150429

to do with voting. No try to slip out of that one, Boyarski. You know you can't make that kind of comparison.

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I'm afraid that, I'm afraid that,

squadcaster-7518_2_06-17-2026_150429

is Justice Barrett

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happen in November, there'll be the usual California slow count, and we'll go through this whole thing again. And and,

squadcaster-7518_2_06-17-2026_150429

been motivated

host-4ha0_2_06-17-2026_150430

And perhaps in mid-November we'll find out who was elected to what. And it'll be eagerly anticipated

squadcaster-7518_2_06-17-2026_150429

In California in particular, because we have more members of Congress in particular because we have a many districts will require a slow count because they're so close. Because all of this, gonna have to go slow Arizona has had some close races, but they don't have as many races period, let alone slow ra- close races. This is crazy. I'm sorry. And we are really letting Donald Trump and his acolytes take over the electoral process, and I don't believe anything they've done so far is positive. What they have done was increase the cynicism of the voter, the lack of trust in the electoral System by the voter

host-4ha0_2_06-17-2026_150430

the delays and the slow count increases the cynicism of the voters

squadcaster-7518_2_06-17-2026_150429

Maybe. But who the hell

host-4ha0_2_06-17-2026_150430

But you, but

squadcaster-7518_2_06-17-2026_150429

Not our

host-4ha0_2_06-17-2026_150430

your atti- your attitude

squadcaster-7518_2_06-17-2026_150429

not No,

host-4ha0_2_06-17-2026_150430

let him cry

squadcaster-7518_2_06-17-2026_150429

You have drunk the Kool-Aid, Bill Boyarsky. That's

host-4ha0_2_06-17-2026_150430

I haven't drunk the Kool-Aid. I'm, what I'm trying to do is bring a little thought into your on your defense of a system that is,

squadcaster-7518_2_06-17-2026_150429

me? No. I think, unlock your brain, honey. Think about it.

host-4ha0_2_06-17-2026_150430

On a,

squadcaster-7518_2_06-17-2026_150429

ow

host-4ha0_2_06-17-2026_150430

I admire your courage in defending this antiquated,

squadcaster-7518_2_06-17-2026_150429

right.

host-4ha0_2_06-17-2026_150430

antiquated system.

squadcaster-7518_2_06-17-2026_150429

right.

host-4ha0_2_06-17-2026_150430

Huh?

squadcaster-7518_2_06-17-2026_150429

this whole thing is bizarre. It's stupid. Learn something about the dynamics of the electoral process and the difference in, in how it happens in every state, and learn something or remember something about started this brouhaha.

host-4ha0_2_06-17-2026_150430

you learn something.

squadcaster-7518_2_06-17-2026_150429

No, I have! I have! I

host-4ha0_2_06-17-2026_150430

you look,

squadcaster-7518_2_06-17-2026_150429

a

host-4ha0_2_06-17-2026_150430

you, y-

squadcaster-7518_2_06-17-2026_150429

Boyarski.

host-4ha0_2_06-17-2026_150430

don't know, you--

squadcaster-7518_2_06-17-2026_150429

a PhD

host-4ha0_2_06-17-2026_150430

I know it. You know everything.

squadcaster-7518_2_06-17-2026_150429

I do

host-4ha0_2_06-17-2026_150430

Yeah, I know it. Okay. We'll with that with that encouraging words, we'll take it easy for this week, and we'll argue again next week

squadcaster-7518_2_06-17-2026_150429

Oh, goody. I'm ready. We'll have a lot to argue about, I fear. All right, everybody. Cheers.

host-4ha0_2_06-17-2026_150430

to y'all