Larry Elder on Race Relations, the Nuclear Family, and Running for Office
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Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds with your host Chuck Warren and Sam Stone. Folks, we have a banger of a show for you today. We are very excited to have in studio with us

The great Elderski. Larry Elder, welcome to the program. Thank you for having me. Banger? Isn't that a little vulgar? Well, it's a Christian station, so I have to be a little bit careful, but I think I'm okay with that one. And I'm also the black face of white supremacy. Don't forget that. Wait, wait. Didn't that title get usurped like two days ago? Well, actually, you're talking about Byron Donald. Yeah. And Cori Bush said that he was pursuing a white supremacist agenda.

So I still have the title. I worked hard for the title. You are the champ. Did you trademark it? Not yet, but it's a great idea. Write that down. Trump tried to trademark rigged elections, so why can't you do that one? It's really quite insane. If you are a black conservative, by definition, you are a white supremacist pursuing a white racist agenda.

By the way, the woman that called me that, her initials are Erica D. Smith. Oops. I invited her on my radio show to defend the slur, and she refused to come on. Of course she did. Shockingly. Yeah. Yeah. What did you? And the reason basically she says that is because she believes that I unfairly defend the police against the assertion that the police are engaging in systemic racism, when in fact they are not engaging in systemic racism. There are every now and then some bad cops. And by the way, however you feel about Derek Chauvin,

There is zero evidence that what he did to George Floyd was motivated by George Floyd's race. The lead prosecutor was a black man. And in the opening statement, he took pains to say the police in general were not on trial. The Minneapolis PD in general was not on trial. This individual was on trial. He wasn't even charged with a hate crime. And yet you had four months of protests in the streets where people were killed, property burned, looted, officers injured, all because of this

assumption that what Derek Chauvin did was motivated by George Floyd's race when there's no evidence of that whatsoever. By the way, there were four cops that were there. Two of them were white, including Chauvin. One of them was Hmong, H-M-O-N-G. The other one had a father from Nigeria. Hello, is this thing on? Really? Oh, no. I mean, completely ridiculous. We had then-sheriff, now-governor Joe Lombardo on the show before the election, and he said something I thought...

needs to be repeated a lot more. We hire police officers from the human population. That's right. And almost every officer I've ever talked to has gone into the profession because they care. You don't go there to get rich. You do that because you care. And it turns out that the cops, if anything, are more hesitant, more reluctant to pull the trigger on a black person than a white person. There is a Harvard economist, black guy named Roland Fryer,

From the hood in Baltimore. And he just knew that cops were mowing down black people just because they were black. You know, these high-profile deaths, whether it's Freddie Gray or Michael Brown or the guy that had the Lucys in New York. He assumed it and did a study and found out it was the most shocking finding, Sam, with my professional career. Not only were the police not mowing down black people just because they were black, they were more hesitant, more reluctant to pull the trigger on a black suspect than a white suspect. And it's not just...

It's ignorance that has an impact because the cops pull back, and as a result, more people are killed because the police are not engaging in proactive policing. And that professor has had his tenure attacked. I mean, he had colleagues go after him. I mean, he was the rising star. He was. Does this study, and they went after him hard. And when the study came out, Chuck, I tried to get him to come on my radio show. He wouldn't come on.

He gave me excuse after excuse. I went, wow, this guy is afraid to defend his results because he's afraid of being canceled. Well, it's an interesting point. So yesterday on a plane back out here from Florida, I had a gentleman sit next to me, and he's in the oil industry. He's up at Anchorage lot, North Dakota, in Texas. And through the conversation, for literally the first 10 minutes, he goes, I don't want to get too political here. I don't want to get too political here. And I've had this happen more than once, and I just looked at him and said –

You can be political with me. I'm not going to be offended. And he was very conservative. And it reminded me of this gentleman that was because he was so scared of his job and his tenure that he's unwilling to go out and just talk about it. Malcolm X said, I'm for the truth, no matter who's telling it. There's a guy named Isaac Kriegman, white guy. He worked for Thomson Reuters. He was a data scientist, went to Harvard, also has a law degree.

And he supported Black Lives Matter at first and then did a study, put it on their internal bulletin board.

And he documented thousands of what he called were excess deaths in Baltimore, in Chicago, in New York, in L.A. as a result of the police pulling back. It's called the Ferguson effect. And these excess deaths were primarily black and brown people living in the inner city. They call him into the office and they said, we need you to change your conclusions. He said, I'm a data scientist. I supported Black Lives Matter. Now I have second thoughts. They said, either you change your conclusion or you're fired. He refused. He got fired.

That's just – you were a radio host during the Rodney King, right? Oh, yes. Is that correct? Is there any difference between what happened then and then what happened with – what happened in 2020, George Floyd? Yeah. Well, there's a lot of evidence that what happened with Rodney King had to do with Rodney King's race. Although I will tell you there were two black people in the car.

One of them listened and got out. He didn't get beaten up. And Rodney King did. So however, again, you feel about all of this, the real lesson is comply. You won't die. Yeah. Maybe maybe also try not committing felonies in the first place. I mean, no, it's very true. Very true. Comply. You won't die. The when Obama became president.

He walks into the Oval Office with 70% approval, even though he only got elected with 52%. Because most people thought, okay, I didn't vote for the guy. I don't want Obamacare. But at least he'll put a fork in the nonsense that America is systemically racist. And he did the opposite. The time he had a chance to do something about it was a golden opportunity. He gets president and his good friend from Harvard, Henry Louis Skip Gates from Cambridge, comes back from vacation, forgets his door key, and he and the driver broke into his house.

A neighbor saw this, didn't recognize him, calls 911, which is just what you want your neighbors to do. A white cop shows up very politely and says, sir, would you please come out, identify yourself so I know you belong to the house. Instead of doing that, the guy copped an attitude, briefly got arrested. What Obama could have said and should have said is, you know, I talked to my friend Henry Louis Skip Gates last night. That's his nickname, Skip. And I said, Skip, dude.

Many of these high profile shootings would have been avoided if the suspect civilian had simply complied. Here you are, a Harvard tenured professor. This is how you behave. You're a role model for crying out loud. What did Obama say? The Cambridge police acted stupidly. No, they did not. And it ticked off every single cop in this country. And Obama did it again and again and again. Embraced Black Lives Matter. Embraced Al Sharpton. Said that America is a country with racism in its DNA.

invoked Ferguson at a United Nations speech. He did the opposite to the point where when he entered Oval Office, both blacks and whites felt race relations would improve. When he left, both blacks and whites thought race relations deteriorated. And in his second term, there were three instances. Two New York police officers sitting in their squad cars were killed execution style, officers Lou and Ramos, by a black guy who told friends or posted on social media that he was angry over systemic racism by the police.

Three Baton Rouge police officers killed execution style by another black guy who said the same thing. Five cops killed in Dallas by another black guy who said the same thing. So what Obama did was make things worse racially.

Well, I want to throw out something else here. When he was facing his reelection, I believe his reelection campaign was maybe one of the most damaging things in the history of this country because he had had that high of support from everybody. It had eroded with bad policy and bad outcomes. And I truly believe that he went out and unleashed the forces of CRT and these darkest corners of academia and

that have now overtaken so much of mainstream society deliberately to drive racial animus and turnout for that election to be reelected. A hundred percent. And he also had Eric Holder as his AG. He gave a speech once.

Remember when Donald Sterling made those comments about Maggie Johnson in his own home, ended up losing his team. He gave a speech Eric Holder did around that time. And he said, you know, when it's blatant racism like Donald Sterling, we got that. We can handle that. It's the pernicious racism in America that we need to deal with. And he gave three examples. Example number one, the push for voter I.D. Most blacks want voter I.D.,

Second one, he said, And that is true. He cited the U.S. Sentencing Commission. What he didn't tell you is that the Sentencing Commission also said the reason for this is that the average black criminal has more convictions than the average white criminal, and judges take that into consideration, including black judges, by the way, and give the black criminal defendant a longer sentence. The third one is, he said,

Black boys are kicked out disproportionately on a high school or middle school campus compared to the other races in that school. It's also true. What he didn't tell you is that to that end, he sued the Decatur, Illinois, school board because they kicked out a bunch of black kids who were fighting after a football game, sued them for racism.

the Decatur School Board was all white. However, irrespective of the composition of the school board, whether the school board is mostly people of color as in Oakland, whether the teacher is black, the teacher is Hispanic, all around the country, black boys are disproportionately kicked out compared to white boys. And the reason has to do with the fact that 70% of black kids enter the world without a father married to the mother in the home. And that has all sorts of social negative ramifications. And Obama even once said in a lucid moment,

A kid raised without a father is five times more likely to be poor and commit crime, nine times more likely to drop out of school, and 20 times more likely to end up in jail. We ought to be talking about what's happened to the black family. In 1965, 25% of black kids entered the world without a father in the home, married to the mother. Now it's 70%. You're telling me things are more racist now than it was back in 65? And the answer is the welfare state.

Well, it's just numbers. They had a study out last week that if you're a woman and you're married, you're more likely to create wealth and have financial security. I mean, it was like 90% of married women. It's the biggest poverty fighter there is. It's called marriage. So we're talking about a father. You wrote a great piece, New Year's, about the wisdom of your father. There's a couple of things that stood out to me there. One, you said, if you believe you have more than two or three truly good friends,

Your judgment is bad. I agree with that. What have you learned about that in your life? And did it make sense to you when you were a kid? Boy, my father and I had a very difficult relationship coming up. I intensely disliked the man. I thought he spanked us too hard for reasons that I thought were trivial. My father and I had this big fight when I was 15 years old. We didn't speak really for 10 years. By that, I mean any real conversation. So I'm 25 years old. I sit down for what I thought would be a five minute conversation with the SOB. We talked for eight hours.

And I found out that my dad doesn't know his biological father. My last name Elder is the name of some dude who was in his life the longest. He was kicked out of the house when he was 13 years old by his irresponsible mother and her then boyfriend, never to return. He picked up trash. He became a Pullman porter for the trains. He joined the military, became a Marine, a Montford Point Marine. They were the first black Marines. He comes out, gets him a job, tried to get a job as a cook because he was in charge of cooking for the colored soldiers there.

And nobody would hire him because we don't hire N-words. My dad comes to L.A., walks around. They won't hire him because he has no references. He ends up two full-time job cleaning toilets, starts a little cafe in his late 40s and runs until his early 80s. And my father was a lifelong Republican. And he always said Democrats want to give you something for nothing. When you're trying to get something for nothing, you almost always end up getting nothing for something.

And my father always said, hard work wins. You got to life what you put into it. You can't control the outcome, but you are 100 percent in control of the effort. And before you moan about what somebody did to you, go to the nearest mirror, look at it and ask yourself, what could I have done to change the outcome? And finally, my dad said, no matter how hard you work, how good you are, bad things are going to happen. How you deal with those bad things will tell your mother and me if we raised a man.

Boy, is that fantastic. To which I'd always say, not too much pressure, Dad. Boy, and that would trigger a lot of people today, that last statement. Yeah, absolutely would. Breaking Battlegrounds will be coming back in just a moment with more from the great Elderski, Larry Elder. On behalf of Chuck Warren, I'm Sam Stone. We'll be right back. Well, Chuck, it has been another Biden magic week on the stock market. Yeah.

Every time I get up in the morning, I check my portfolio because we live out here in the West, right? So they've been open for like an hour. And I have told you – how many times have I told you not to do that anymore? Yeah, I'm ruining my day way too often since this presidency began. At least you have a portfolio. Not much anymore. It's looking ugly.

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YRefi24. That's investyrefie.com or call 888-YRefi24. Make sure you tell them Chuck and Sam sent you. And Larry. And Larry. And Larry, too. Larry, too. So, Larry, let's talk about something. So we have these heinous murders in Moscow, Idaho. Yes. But we just never talk about the daily riots.

rampage going on in Chicago, Cleveland, New York, other cities, St. Louis. Some of our inner cities, about four or five of them, if you compared them, would have the highest murder rate in the world if they were a country. So why is that? You've been in this business a long time. Why does it get ignored? I tweeted about that probably a week or two ago, and I said, since the four heinous killings in Moscow, Idaho, how many people have been murdered in Baltimore, in St. Louis, in Chicago, in New York,

And by the way, we talk about Chicago being the murder capital of the world. It's not. No. Absolute numbers. But in terms of per capita murders, Baltimore, St. Louis are probably three times worse. Right. Yep. Baltimore is, I think, the top of the list right now. But why do they avoid talking about it? It's unpleasant and...

It then causes you to say, why is this going on? Which causes you to then talk about the breakdown of the nuclear family, and the left doesn't want to talk about that. Well, what's amazing, this is, you know, look, there's a lot of good and bad with social media. I think social media has definitely highlighted this inner city crisis.

and murder and assaults, which is happening because a lot of people don't even know about it because it just doesn't get covered by corporate or mainstream media. Well, but it doesn't get covered in the media. You cut on CNN. They're all over this, the four students that were killed in Moscow, Idaho. And of course, it's a newsworthy story. But how about a little bit of tension going on in the weekend in Chicago where more people are killed in the typical

weekend than happened then. What about what's going on in Baltimore, St. Louis, other places? Well, matter of fact, it's unpleasant. Matter of fact, in the Moscow, Idaho situation, it's another interesting point. Remember, it sounds like they did fantastic police work.

But for the first month, they were all these country bumpkins. The city was too small. These cops are dumb. And, you know, they have laid out a case. It sounds like it was very methodical. It was very well thought out. They were putting the piece of the puzzle together. And it's been amazing to watch the reaction to it. I have not heard any mea culpa from anybody who called these guys country bumpkins.

They're used to watching Columbo. Right, right. Solve the thing in about an hour. Come on. With commercial breaks. 42 minutes. And Larry, you're aging all of us with the Columbo reference, right? When you think something a little more... And unfortunately, every single person in the studio... I stopped watching television in the 60s, so I just... You know, but what's going on in our inner cities is really an indictment, frankly, of every single policy Democrats have forwarded and successfully implemented in the last

20 years. I mean, when you look at welfare, when you look at crime, from one thing to transportation, housing, over and over and over, liberals have gotten their way with inner city politics locally and nationally, and they have failed. And the schools. Yes. National test, 85% of black eighth graders, these are people who are 13 years old, are neither math nor reading proficient. Half of them aren't even basic reading proficient.

You've got 13 public high schools in Baltimore where 0% are math proficient, 13. And another half a dozen where only 1% is. So you're talking about half of the public high schools in Baltimore where either 1% or 0% of the kids are math proficient. I think in 2019, Baltimore public schools did not have a single graduating senior who was proficient in math. Yeah. No, I think that's right. So you've talked about running for president.

Not to change the subject. That was a smooth transition, Chuck. It seems like a natural segue. You've been doing this a long time.

So Larry, when you become president, what the hell are you going to do about it? What can a president do? I mean, these are local issues, but what can a president do? For example, you made a point earlier about Obama won with 51%, but had like 70% approval. There was a time, I remember when Obama got elected and a major donor for McCain was in the elevator with me. He said, look, he lost. I'm not happy about it, but he's my president. I'm praying for his success. And he was sincere about it. It wasn't a line. I want to be successful. I don't feel that happens anymore. It's just like,

No, he's an SOB or she's an SOB, and I'm just not going to be any more supportive of it. What do we do to change the tone in this country? Well, I think you're right. I think now half the country believes the other side is not just wrong but evil. Correct. And I believe that –

That's how left thinks of us. I don't think we feel that way about them. But they do. And polling shows we don't. I mean, look at the – Yeah, but there's lots of surveys saying that Democrats would not date someone who voted for Trump. Right. It's reversed for Republicans. And I saw a study about the freshmen at Dartmouth that described themselves as liberal. Would you have a conservative roommate? And conservatives, would you have a liberal roommate? And the ones who are liberals said, hell no. And the conservatives said, we don't care. Right. Yeah.

I think the difference is that as a conservative at this point, you can defend and articulate your ideology. But Democrats, as far as I can tell, they don't have any new programs. Everything they're doing is not working. So I think that kind of animus is the only bastion they have left in politics. Well, the answer is I just think talking to people like they're human beings is

and demanding that we have a discussion as adults about the various issues without name-calling. Well, so you're friends with Gloria Allred, correct? I am. I've been with her for years. And so I imagine that you probably don't agree on much. Maybe lunch sometimes we're to order, but you're not agreeing much. And even not on that. Not even on the temperature. At one time she was on radio. In those days, KBC had a blend of liberals and conservatives.

And she was on two hours before I was on. I walk in and the studio is hot. By that, I'm talking about temperature hot, like 80 degrees. And I said, what is this? Oh, I like it warm. So we couldn't even agree on temperature. But I'll tell you something. Gloria got fired.

And I took over her show. They doubled my show from two hours to four hours, took over her two hours. And Gloria loved doing talk radio. And so the day she got fired, I walk in and Gloria said, I'm not going to pretend I'm happy about being fired. However, if I were the station manager, I would have done the same thing. Your show is terrific. And I would have put you on because your ratings are higher than mine. Who says that in our profession? Nobody. Nobody does.

No, that really is almost a relic of the past. So, for example, you have this relationship. How do you maintain it when you probably disagree on so many items? Maybe except it's a nice pretty day in L.A. We have one minute here before we go to break. Well, we've always liked each other as people.

and will yell and scream when the mic is on and when it's off, we become civil human beings again. Remember Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg? They traveled together. They went to opera together. They didn't agree on anything, but somehow they had a wonderful relationship. Why can't we do that? Why isn't that possible? Well, as long as politics does not become your religion, I believe that is possible, but the left has turned politics into their religion. My mother was a lifelong Democrat. My brother, who was my best friend, my late brother,

lifelong Democrat. I had both of them on the show regularly. We would talk and argue about politics. But at the end of the day, I knew that they wanted the same thing I wanted, which is for people to realize their God-given potential. Amen to that. Breaking Battlegrounds will be coming back in just a moment with more from Larry Elder for Chuck Warren, Sam Stone. We're out and coming back. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your hosts Sam Stone and Chuck Warren in studio with us today. And thank you so much for joining us. Larry Elder, the great Eldersky friend

We were talking before, you might actually be ready to step up and run for the highest office in the land. Well, I'm thinking about it. When I ran for governor of California, I didn't get in until there were seven and a half weeks left because I wasn't sure I wanted to do it. I never run for anything in my life except for third grade class president. Chuck, you're going to ask me if I won the race. Yes, I did. Okay. I wanted to know that. So I'm batting 500. And in seven and a half weeks, I raised $22 million. 150,000 individual donors. Half of them were from outside of California.

I carried on the replacement side 57 of 58 counties. The only one I lost was San Francisco, and I lost that by 134 votes. And we didn't spend one dime or one moment campaigning there. It was an extraordinary race. I got 3.5 million votes. The guy that ran against Gavin Newsom just now for his reelection got 2.4 million. So when the race is over, my girlfriend Nina and I go to Key West.

And half the people we ran into who came up to us said, what are you going to do now? I don't know. And very articulate. And they said, you ought to think about running for president. It would be easier for you to get elected president than be elected governor of California. So true. It's so true. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought about it. And, you know, in California –

the first and only Democrat governor was recalled in 2003. Arnold Schwarzenegger became governor. Since then, 5% more registered Democrats, 33% fewer registered Republicans. They've all come to Arizona. And half, and 50% more registered independents. Independents in California vote Democrat. It's almost impossible. There hasn't been a Republican elected statewide in California since 2006. You ran what I consider to be for the toughest seat in the country, major seat in the country for a Republican to run for. It's probably easier to win New York. Oh,

Oh, without a doubt, it's easier to win New York. So when you entered the field, Darrell Issa said you doubled the intelligence of the field. Right. Okay? Yeah. And there were a lot of people running, and that's still fair. What surprised you about running for office? Because you've been in this business a long time, but-

There's a difference between theory and reality. The viciousness did not surprise me. Being called the black face of white supremacy did not surprise me. I have such a low regard for the media. None of that surprised me. What did surprise me was the failure of the Republican establishment to get behind me to some degree. They wanted a guy named Kevin Faulkner, who was a two-term mayor of San Diego. By they, I'm talking about the party, state party, and national party, Kevin McCarthy. He and Kevin McCarthy are friends. And when it was obvious when I got in that the grassroots wanted me,

Rather than get behind Elder, at least verbally, if not financially, he told the Republican congressional delegation to stay out of it. That surprised me. Two of them broke rank. One named Doug Lamoff, who I'd even heard of until then. He's a Republican up north in Sacramento. And a woman named Michelle Steele, whose husband I've known for a long time. They both endorsed me publicly. Outside of that, even Daryl Issa, who made positive comments, did not endorse me officially.

That surprised me. And I carried, by the way, San Diego County by 30 points. I mean, looking at that, just saying you were the one I thought if there's anyone who's going to have a chance to make that race competitive against Gavin Newsom, it was going to be you. And that was pretty clear and obvious from the outside. I think another thing to Chuck to answer your question that surprised me is the extent to which all you had to say was stop the Republican takeover.

Crime through the roof, homelessness through the roof, people leaving California for the first time, poor water management, poor fire management, crappy schools. You have Gavin Newsom sitting up there at the French Laundry not wearing a mask, not engaging in social distancing, his own kid in person education while kids in the public schools in California denied that. 80% of the public school kids in California are black and brown.

I thought that those issues would at least make the race tighter. All they did was show commercial after commercial after commercial with Elder standing next to Donald Trump. Both of our thumbs up and the tagline was Stop Republican Takeover. Nobody said Gavin Newsom is doing a great job. In came Joe Biden. Larry Elder is more Trump than Trump. Barack Obama, Stop Republican Takeover. All these people. Nobody said Gavin Newsom is doing a good job for the people of California. I guess I have to say I'm surprised that that worked.

To the degree that it did. We only have a minute and a half left in this segment here, but I got to ask because I kind of run into some of this. I'm running for the Phoenix City Council, which obviously is nowhere near the governor of California, but you're kind of up against the same liberal mechanisms. And by the way, before you say it,

I applaud people that run. You know what it's like. And I've never been one of those who demean politicians, but I have even more respect I have for them right now. I was watching a press conference with the doctors that treated Damar Hamlin.

And the report is all started out with, thank you so much, doctors, for having this press conference and for what you've done for DeMar. Now, I want to ask you, blah, blah, blah. Nobody says, thank you so much, Sam, for running. I know it's going to be hard on you financially and your private life will be exposed. But here's what I want to ask you. They never say that. How about a little respect?

No. Have a little something. That is definitely not on the agenda. When we come back, one of the things I want to ask about is- Thank you for running, Larry. You left talk radio. You're not making anything right now. Let me say it. Thank you for running, Larry. Your private life has been raked over. But here's my question. Nobody did that. No. Nobody. No.

No, absolutely not. We're going to be going to break here in just a moment. But when we come back, I did want to ask what sort of what would be your primary agenda in office? Because I think part of this deficit you're talking about is that Republicans have been good at opposing things. Right. We haven't always been good at promoting. We haven't since the 80s and 90s. Breaking Battlegrounds back in just a moment.

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Folks, are you concerned with stock market volatility, especially with Joe Biden in office? If you're not, you freaking well should be. It's a mess. This man is destroying our economy as fast as you can. There are not many good vehicles for you to put your money in and guarantee a safe.

Hi, everyone.

This is a secure, collateralized portfolio that delivers a high fixed interest rate. And what if by investing, you could do well by doing good? Talk to our friends at Y Refi. They're local. You can meet with them. They're trustworthy and honest.

And Y Refi is a due diligence approved firm. You can earn up to a 10.25% rate of return. That's right. 10.25% is much better than Sam's portfolio this year, Chuck. Just log in to investyrefie.com. That's invest the letter Y, then refie.com or call them at 888-Y-REFI-24 and tell them Chuck and Sam sent you. Let me ask you this about your campaign. Is there a voter or two that shared a story with you that just was tattooed on your mind?

There were several. A lot of people came up to me crying and saying, if you win, I'm not going to leave the state. If you lose, I'm out of here. I can't take the taxes. I can't take the spending. I can't take how bad the schools are. A number of people told me that you inspired me to run for office. You inspired me to run for city council. You inspired me to run for school board. So that was just so gratifying.

That's wonderful. I was treated like a rock star. I really was. I've got footage of this. I want to always remember this. And it was just a remarkable thing. I had no blooming idea that I'd become the frontrunner when I got into the race. I didn't have the highest name recognition. Caitlyn Jenner did. So when people say, well, Larry had a high name. Caitlyn Jenner has 14 million people on Twitter. I've got a little under 1.3 or so on Twitter.

She lost. She had two percent of the vote. And she had a really high powered social media team and production team and all that kind of stuff. I got forty nine percent of the vote more than almost all the other forty five replacement candidates combined. Faulkner, the guy I mentioned, got around seven percent. She got around two percent.

That surprised me. It shocked me. I went wire to wire. How was she dealing with it? Did you enjoy coming across her on the trail at all? Well, thank you for bringing this up. Very comfortable. Chuck, you always walk our guests into the most dangerous ground. He's always doing that. If there's quicksand to be found, Chuck will take you there. Chuck will find it.

Well, I didn't say a single negative thing about any of my Republican rivals. Not one thing. I said nothing negative about Faulkner, about Kevin Kiley, who was also an assemblyman that a lot of people wanted. John Cox ran against Gavin Newsom the first time he ran in the recall election. A guy named Doug Osi, a former House member. I said not a single negative thing about any of my Republican rivals because my argument was Gavin Newsom's the issue. Right. Right.

Right. Let's talk about what Gavin Newsom's done to the state, done to housing, how he's been in bed with the environmentalists so that we're under building homes to the tune of almost a million million units. The average price of a home in California costs 175 percent above the national average job, blah, blah, blah, blah. Let's talk about that. But they did not return the favor. As it became clear, I became the front runner. They start taking shots at me, but I never returned the fire. And when and if I run for president, I'm going to adhere to the same same policy.

And it will serve you very well. I think people are really sick of the Republican.

The breakdown of the nuclear family and the lie that America is systemically racist. I can do that in a more compelling way and a more authentic way, I think, than the other candidates can. Without a doubt on that. Sam, you had a question you wanted to bring up? Well, so if you're successful, let's say you become president, what is priority one for you? As William H. Buckley said, I'll demand a recount. And you would be right, too, because I think that's one of the worst jobs in America. Trust me, someone will. It'll be 2024. I know.

This is what we do now. Well, it's the spending. Of course, the other issues are borders, inflation. We're no longer energy independent. We should have investigations into the DOJ and the FBI being in bed with the social media platforms, the suppression of conservative content and conservative ideas, the failure to talk about the dissenting point of view on COVID, which put a lot of people in poverty and killed a lot of people unnecessarily. All those issues. But the spending. Under Ronald Reagan,

government grew under George W. Bush government grew under George Herbert Walker Bush it grew under Donald Trump it grew until we shackle both parties we're still going to have bigger and bigger and bigger government we need an amendment to fix spending to a certain percentage of the GDP with exceptions for war and for natural disasters until unless we do that government's going to get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger

Well, I mean, you look at it now, I think, if I remember the statistic right, federal workforce is now larger than one-third of the nations on Earth in terms of the population. So maybe, can we suggest Elon Musk as your VP and a 50% reduction across the board? He's from Africa. He's from Africa, so I don't think he can do it. But, you know, I was on Fox and Friends one time a few years ago, and I said, you know, in 1900, at all three levels of government, federal, state, and local...

They took less than 10% from the American people. Today it's about 35%. So I get home, phone rings. I'm going to have to get my phone number at one of these left-wing fact-check organizations. You were on Fox & Friends today. You said in 1900 government at all three levels took 10%? That's actually closer to 9%.

And now they take about 30. Do you have any source for that? I said, no, I just pulled it out of my you-know-what. So I didn't say you-know-what. And so I gave them a source, and they wrote a piece. And on that point, they said, oh, there's right. And my point is they were gobsmacked by that. That's how much bigger government has gotten since 1900. And are we better off? A perfect example is the job report. So the last couple job reports, you know, they came out a new job report today. It's good.

But if we all look into it like we have in the previous ones, about 50,000 to 100,000 of those new jobs are going to be government jobs. I mean, that should not be part of a job creation. Also, and the labor force participation rate has gone down. These are able-bodied people and able-minded people who are either working or looking for work because we paid off a lot of people not to work.

It's amazing. No, look, I've said for years now the idea, the argument that people are coming to this country to do jobs Americans won't do is completely wrong. They're coming here to do jobs Americans are paid by our federal government not to do. So there's the old quote, own the morning, own the day. Own the day. You're a successful person. We have a lot of people listening who are starting their careers.

What advice would you give them? What's a day of Larry Elder like that you go and you keep moving forward? You still have excitement for your life and your career. What advice would you give people about starting the day off right or starting the year off right? Well, there are think tanks on the left like the Brookings Institution. Correct. And on the right like American Enterprise. The formula they give to escape poverty is the same. They don't agree on very much. First is to at least finish high school.

One, presumably, where you can read, write, and compute at grade level, which is why I went school choice. Secondly, don't have a kid until you're 20 years old. Third, get married before you have that kid. Next, avoid the criminal justice system. And finally, get a job, keep that job, don't quit that job until you get another job. You will not be poor. If you're trying to escape poverty, that's a very simple formula to follow. I'm not saying it's easy, but it's a simple formula to follow.

What I try to do every single day is to be somewhat better than I was the day before. And that's to invest in myself, whether it's reading, whether it's reflecting, whether it's talking to somebody who's wiser than I am. That's what I try and do, be somewhat better than I was the day before. Fantastic. It's a heck of a life philosophy. I wish everyone would adopt, quite frankly, because if people started doing that just a little bit more, and especially right now, also opening their mind a little bit, because you've talked about how the

The other side won't talk to us. We have people on here just like you from any part of the aisle. Chuck and I are conservative, but we'll talk to anybody in the studio. And they won't come on. They won't come on. Well, AP won't allow the reporters to come on. Yeah, New York Times, we can't get them anymore. Unless it's international. They're pretty good about their international reporters coming on. I was on the radio for 30 years before I went into television. And I...

Over that time, I invited Maxine Waters on probably 50 times. Pretty soon she stopped returning my phone call. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan. The only so-called black leader, a term I don't much like, who came on my show of prominence is Kowaisi Mfume, who at the time was the president of the NAACP. He was in Congress before that. He's in Congress again.

And my first question to him was, Mr. Mfume, as between the presence of white racism or the absence of black fathers, which poses a bigger threat to the black community, without missing a beat, he said the absence of black fathers. And this is a guy who had three or four kids with three or four different women before he turned around, cleaned his life up. So he knows what I'm talking about. And if you look at Jesse Jackson,

He was raised by his teenage mom who was impregnated by the married man who lived next door. Jackson grew up in South Carolina. At the time, that was unusual to not have a father in the home. And he was taunted. Jesse ain't got no daddy. Jesse ain't got no daddy. Al Sharpton had a nice middle class life. Father ran away with another woman. Down to the hood he goes. Farrakhan. Farrakhan's

mother was estranged from her husband, had a boyfriend, took back up with the husband briefly, got pregnant, didn't want the boyfriend to know, and tried to abort Farrakhan with a coat hanger. And you read Obama's first book, Dreams of My Father, it was all about the angst he felt from not having a dad in his life. The last time he saw his biological father, he was 10 years old. So these are the four most prominent black leaders you can make an

make a case for, all of whom either had no relationship with their own biological fathers or a bad one. Yet they don't talk about the number one issue facing America, the 800-pound elephant in the room, which is the large number of kids, 40% of all American kids now enter the world without a father in the home married to the mother. You know, one of the things that we've talked about before in that regard is that our welfare systems are designed to prevent fatherhood.

I mean, if you're a mother with a couple of kids and you're on welfare, Section 8 housing, all these things, you get married. If you get married, you lose your benefits. Your husband makes any money at all, you lose your benefits. That's why I've often said the welfare state has incentivized women to marry the government and incentivized men to abandon their financial and moral responsibilities. 86, LA Times asked poor people whether welfare was a crutch or...

that caused dependency or whether it was a stopgap that gave you independence. More said crutch than said stopgap that gives you independence. And these are people who are poor telling you this. So people are poor telling you this. This is hurting us.

Well, it's one of the things that you see, I think, frankly, with Hispanic immigrants to this country and immigrants in general, right? First generation immigrants right now are doing exceptionally well. Legal immigrants, I mean, in this country are doing exceptionally well across the board by race, no matter where they come from. Unbelievably well. Well, they're largely they're not coming here for those programs. No, they're coming here to work. They are the only demographic.

who a majority of them believe in the American dream. Right. More fervently than Americans born here. As a matter of fact, we don't, a lot of people. They don't believe that, but they come here, they believe in the American dream. And that is where Republicans and conservatives are really, we should be dominating the Hispanic vote, the Asian vote on those issues alone. I think we're beginning to do much better with Hispanics and also with Asian Americans. Yes. These are people who are being discriminated against in terms of admissions into schools.

Look at Harvard. There's a school in California called Lowell High. It turns out if you are an Asian American, you have to have a higher score to get in than if you are white, than if you are Hispanic, than if you are black.

I'll tell you two groups that I would tell every, and I'm doing it right now for my race, that I would tell every Republican candidate in this country to reach out to in a big way. Our first generation African immigrants and Indian and Pakistani. Yes. Because you meet them, they all are, they're all starting a business. They've all got two side hustles on top of it. These folks are desperate to succeed on their own and they don't need a hand up. They just need people to get out of the way and let it happen. Your,

You're president. You're elected first term. What are the two issues you think are paramount that you get fixed? School choice, as I mentioned. I would be advocating that the money follow the child rather than the other way around. And I would also lower taxes.

Americans are taxed too high. Every single time we've had a serious tax cut, whether it's Calvin Coolidge, whether it's JFK, whether it's George W. Bush, whether it's Donald Trump, the economy has taken off. And those who benefit are disproportionately the people at the very bottom, many of whom are black and brown. Most people don't realize, right, Larry, that the highest rate of wage growth under Trump was in the bottom quintile. The bottom 20 percent gained

Gained economically faster than everyone else in those four years. John Kennedy said a wave lifts all boats. Higher wave lifts all boats. One minute left.

Are America's best days ahead? Oh, God, yes. They're still, yeah. We're still the best country, a country where, to the greatest extent possible, you can realize your God-given potential within one generation. That's why people are coming here. There are 8 billion people in the world. I dare say most of them would come here if they could. Right now, you have Cubans braving shark-infected water to get here. You have Haitians lining up to get a lottery to come to this country. It is still the shining city on a hill, as Ronald Reagan put it.

Well, Larry, thanks for joining us today. It is my pleasure. Absolutely. Pleasure having you in the studio this morning and best of luck going forward. I think we would both be very excited to see your run and what comes of it. I appreciate it. Thanks, guys. Thank you.

For Chuck Warren, I'm Sam Stone. Breaking Battlegrounds will be back on the air next week. But folks, make sure you tune in and download our podcast-only segment. We are on Substack, Spotify, Apple, everywhere you can find a podcast. And we always throw in a little bit extra there for you. Thank you. Welcome to the podcast-only segment of Breaking Battlegrounds. Huge thank you to Larry Elder for joining us in studio today. Fantastic to talk with him.

We are going to switch gears fairly significantly now. And we are bringing, it's been a while since we've actually heard her voice on the radio, the irrepressible Kylie Kepa. And she is our sorority sister consultant and expert. Being a former ASU sorority girl herself. Indeed. So Kylie is a amateur sleuth.

She loves digging into crime and crime podcasts, and she has followed this horrendous savagery. Let's be honest. Kylie's a little morbid. Yeah, a little morbid. Well, the thing is, I don't like watching it because I think that

I like to be able to choose what I'm reading when I read it, usually during the day, because I do get scared very easily, which is the worst part, because I give myself nightmares. So you and I don't like horror movies. Yeah, no, I hate them. That's a funny thing. So we have a colleague named Erin who's just like, if there's anything on about murder, she's watching it. Kylie and I are more of the written word on it. We want to do a little digging. But anyway, Chuck, let's listen.

Aaron worked for me for a year, so I can say this without any trepidation or reservation. That's studying. Yeah, exactly. She's planning for her future. Yeah, exactly. I'll read the 19-page affidavit, but I won't – and I probably will have to watch because the judge has now ordered a gag order on this case, so we're not going to know anything supposedly until the verdict. So I'm going to have to watch the Netflix documentary that comes out.

bullet point at what are things people don't realize about this murder and

about the suspect, things that have surprised you if you've dug into it. And by the way, Kylie's gone down the Reddit rabbit hole, social media. She's read that 19-page affidavit. Facebook groups. Facebook groups, which he was on one, trying to solve the murder and giving people leads. Getting in fights with people when his theory, when someone wouldn't agree with a theory, he would get in fights with people about it. Usually don't get in an argument with the author of something, right? Yeah, no. And he would...

Call in to podcasts and say, try to... You know, why don't we just start at the beginning? All right, that's right. Tell us the facts. We're here to listen. This is the hard part about going in order is because so many things were leaked or told out of order that, you know... But I think...

So he graduated from DeSales University this past May with an undergrad in psychology and criminology, whatever. Then his professor only nominated two people to get their Ph.D. in criminology. His professor came out and said he's a genius at this, which when you read the 19 page affidavit, I feel like you made a lot of common mistakes that we could have probably figured out watching these movies by not taking your own car.

Maybe turn off that cell phone. By the way, doesn't it strike you as odd that he would use his own car? I mean, he's supposedly getting his PhD in criminology. Even Sam and I, who have not considered doing such an act, would not take our own car. Chuck, I don't take my car when I'm parking in shady neighborhoods. Exactly. He turned his phone off during the murders, but not during the entire night. Not anything like that. So when he was driving...

Allegedly, because we don't know if it's him yet, but allegedly when he's driving toward Moscow, because he lives about 15 minutes away at WSU, he turned his phone off in the middle of going the direction of to Moscow, right? Correct. Then an hour later, turns it back on as he's again leaving, going, because they showed a route. If you read the alphabet, they showed his driving route, which he drove south and then kind of back up and made a huge circle around.

So then he turned it on on the 95, which is still in Idaho, which is leaving where he had just murdered. However, allegedly, however, he did not turn his phone off the 12 times prior to stop when he was stalking. Since June. Since June. He his phone was pinged in the area of that house 12 times prior. Well, I think and this is where your sorority sister experience comes in here. I think the one thing that has confused people and I've heard this a lot is how did the two

who survived in that house did not hear what was going on or make a call. And we discussed this before. It sounds like a house that had lots of fun. It sounded like a house that was 24-7. It would be almost the 7-Eleven of housing there in Moscow, Idaho. Yeah.

Um, so is it a point as you a person who's being sororities that you just have some, um, roommates that are just so loud, so spontaneous that you sort of just get used to that noise. So prior to this affidavit being released, I would say yes, not abnormal. A guy who used to live in the house in 2012 came out and said, if you're on the first floor, you really can't hear what's going on in the second and third. But if you're on the second and third, you can hear pretty like the walls are pretty thin. Um,

But yes, there was body cam footage that have come out from the cops reporting to parties, underage drinking, all that kind of stuff where kids have been at the house saying the owners aren't here. So they either have parties and then they leave to go to another party. That's what one of the kids said was like, oh, well, they just left to go to the apartments across the street. And the cops are like, what? So it wasn't abnormal that random people are in this house, which I think.

This is a campus party house. Yes. It has been for years. Where random people are coming in and out of the thing. It's a rotating group of students staying in there. Yes. I think everyone who went to college who had friends remembers one of those houses. Yeah. So everyone was defending the roommate saying, you know, they probably didn't hear anything. They were sleeping. Everyone got home at 2 a.m. They were at frat parties. They were at the bars. So they're drunk, right? Like you can sleep that hard and not hear anything. Until the alpha-diva got released and the roommate was awake during the whole thing and heard things and looked out her door and

And why do you think she did not call 9-1-1? What? Why? I mean, we're only speculating. We're only guessing here. But it seems odd because she had just been in such a tired stupor that night that just she wasn't thinking clearly. What was it? I mean, that's the only explanation because she hurt crying. Well, I mean, drugs. Right. I mean, there's a lot of kids who if they don't know exactly what went on.

And they're not going to go running for the cops when they're all messed up. Well, and the fear of if you did something wrong that night as well, you don't want to go exactly call the cops right away. If you're drinking, if you're underage, I don't know. I think they're 21. What are some things in the affidavit that also surprised you? Mainly the roommate thing surprised me the most because she had opened her door three times. One of the girls that was...

murdered, was awake. She had just gotten DoorDash at 4 a.m. And so based on cameras, this white Hyundai Elantra parked at 4.04 a.m. So she was awake eating DoorDash. And on TikTok, her phone said she stopped watching TikTok at 4.12 a.m. And the car was then leaving the scene at high speeds at 4.20. So he killed between 4.04 and 4.20 four people by stabbing them and was gone in

16 minutes. That's amazing. Yes. So that surprised me. It's really amazing. Is there any other information? I've barely been following this. It's not really my kind of story, but...

Any other information that would suggest why he targeted these folks? I don't know why he targeted them. So back to the Reddit thing, because I was on Reddit as well. He was doing... In June, he posted on Reddit, which he used a different name, but he used his DeSales University email address. So that's how everyone's linked it to him of writing his thesis. And so he needed these questions answered, and it was...

If you've committed a murder, what made you choose that target? Did you get away with it? What are steps you did to get away with it? And he said this was all for a thesis. However, I'm not sure. So everyone now speculates, is this just a whole social experiment for him? Because what's he prepping? Like, is this like a twisted, just messed up person? So I don't know how he ended up choosing, but he obviously did because he stalked them. So there was a couple in Oregon killed in a similar fashion.

Are they trying to link him to that? Are they going to look at that? There was also a woman in Washington also, but they say that it's not linked, but...

Well, they haven't caught anybody, so they don't know. I do want to credit the police there. Larry, I think, or Chuck, you mentioned this, but people have been assuming they're kind of bumpkins. They appear to be doing a really, really good job. Well, and I think they had an idea early on, because everyone thinks they didn't have a suspect. But they brought in the FBI pretty quick, which is because it was over state lines because he was in Washington. So now everyone's putting it together. Yeah.

Like they did now. Well, and frankly, they've kept everything generally pretty quiet and under wraps in their investigation. I mean, frankly, I know a lot of departments that aren't very good at that. And you really taint the investigation, the trial and the process when you have leaks from a case, especially one like this.

I think they are to be commended no end for their work. Oh, 100 percent. 100 percent. They seem to have done a very good job so far. And I'm sure they have much more evidence that they did not need to release during the preliminary hearings yesterday. They just had enough to keep them off bail and so forth. And he's pled not guilty and he's excited to clear his name. Oh, I bet. I mean, if he's actually mentally thinking this is an experiment – Yeah.

He's delusional enough, and I'm going to say he did it. He's delusional enough to believe he can get off it because he's so smart. Well, I will say...

and this was a recommendation from Aaron when she was in my office, but, uh, there was a documentary on a bunch of the, you know, serial killers doing long interviews with them. You were talking about some of the smartest human beings anyone will ever meet for the most part. Well, the good thing is in Idaho, my favorite subject, they still have capital punishment up there. So, um,

A death sentence hopefully will be in his future. I hope so, too. I mean, assuming he's guilty and convicted and so forth. A jury of his peers. Let's always throw that caveat in. Because I got to tell you, we have a case here in Arizona. I don't know if you caught this in the paper, where a death row inmate who admits to his crime has asked to be executed. And our newly installed leftist attorney general is saying she may not honor his request. Oh, she I'm telling you right now, everybody talks about Katie Hobbs.

This new AG is going to be a train wreck. Oh, beyond a train wreck. I mean, she's never been in court. She's never litigated a case at all. She is going to be horrible, folks. Just mark my word by it. She is an ASU professor and an academic attorney. Her approval will be at 35% by June. Yes. People are going to hate her. As they probably will end up...

She will deserve the hatred. Absolutely. Frankly. Well, anything else before we sign off on this, um, murder expedition podcast segment we're having today? Uh, no, but I think, you know, we'll circle back on this in two years when we can start getting the information after this trial. Well, in 10 years after that, Chuck Fryamoran will get his way. Yes. One can hope. All right, folks, that's the last word for breaking battlegrounds. We're out. Yesterday,

My first vote for Speaker of the House was for Byron Donalds. Today, I'm rising to nominate Byron Donalds for Speaker of the House of Representatives. Byron is a dear friend, a solid conservative, but most importantly, a family man who loves dearly his wife, Erica, his three children, has a proven track record as a businessman, public service in the Florida legislature, and now as a member of the United States Congress.

Now, here we are, and for the first time in history, there have been two black Americans placed into the nomination for Speaker of the House. However, Madam Speaker, order, or Madam Clerk, order. We do not seek to judge people by the color of their skin, but rather the content of their character. Byron Donalds, Byron Donalds is a good man raised by a single mom who moved past adversity

became a Christian man at the age of 21, and has devoted his life to advancing the cause for his family and for this country. And he has done it admirably. But there's an important reason for nominating Byron, and that is this country needs a change. This country needs leadership that does not reflect this city, this town that is badly broken.

The House of Representatives is the people's house. It represents the entirety of our country, and we each represent some 750,000 people. And we come here, and here we sit in a room filled with those representatives. And my friend, Mr. Gallagher, and he is my friend, and I agree with him on many things, and I agree with almost everything that you were talking about. But we should be in here having this kind of a conversation with this many people in the room,

about Ukraine. And we should debate the merits. And we should debate the ups and downs of being involved. We should debate the $45 billion. We should debate whether it should be more or less. We should debate whether it should be paid for. We should debate what the result we should demand. The only way you're going to get that is if you change the rules and have the leadership to advance the rules to make sure that we can do that. Now...

We've had a conversation for two months to try to advance the ball, and we have had success in doing that. But we're not there. We're not at the place where we need to be to guarantee, to guarantee that we're going to be able to stand up in the face of the swamp that continues to step over the American people on a daily basis and spend money we don't have and to continue to leave our borders open and to continue to fund bureaucrats that are stepping over the freedoms of the American people.

Byron will stand up and do that. Byron has a track record of doing that. And importantly, when we're sitting here today and we continue this debate and we never have a vote, I just ask my friends on this side of the aisle, do you think that the American people support the status quo? Yes or no? Do you think that the American people want us to continue down the road of what we've been doing? Do they want us to continue to fight

Do the things since the leadership that's currently in place have been in place. Do you think they want us to continue down that path? And the argument that I would make is that they want a new face, new vision, new leadership. And I believe that face, vision and new leadership is Byron Donalds. And I'm proud to put his name in denomination and I yield back.

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