Trump looms over Becerra-Hilton debate in deep-blue California

Por Jeremy B. White and Blake Jones — POLITICO – TOP Stories

SACRAMENTO, California — Xavier Becerra cast himself as a leading opponent of the Trump administration in California’s gubernatorial debate on Wednesday, while tethering his longshot Republican opponent, Steve Hilton, to the president who has endorsed him.

In an early swing at the frontrunner’s relatively quiet campaign schedule, Hilton said, “Thank you to CNN for bringing Xavier back out of hiding.”

The stakes of the debate, likely the only faceoff before the November election, were markedly different for the candidates. For Becerra, the Democrat heavily favored to win in deep-blue California, it was an opening to reintroduce himself to a national audience — not as the Biden-era health secretary or state attorney general, but as the likely next governor of the nation’s most populous state. For Hilton, the former Fox News personality, it was a chance not only to make the case against Becerra, but to offer an indictment of California’s one-party rule — what Hilton’s ads call “The Machine.”

Here are five takeaways from a CNN debate that was as much about Donald Trump and the condition of California as it was about who will be the state’s next governor:

Trump versus Democrats: Becerra invoked Trump repeatedly, as prominent California Democrats have to their advantage for years, arguing that Hilton’s fiscal policy amounted to a retread of Trump’s tax cuts. “Believing you’re getting better results than Trump has gotten to date,” he said, “is insane in the same way as doing the same thing and expecting different results.”

Hilton gleefully threw that back at Becerra: In that case, why keep voting for Democrats? Every California Republican in the Trump era has faced the same bind: They need Trump to consolidate the GOP vote to get through a primary, even as the president remains deeply unpopular here. All Hilton could do was cast Becerra as overly focused on the president.

“All you ever say is Trump, Trump, Trump, and that’s nothing but an insult to every Californian,” Hilton said.

“You chased his endorsement,” Becerra responded..

Immigration showdown: Becerra made much of Hilton’s previous comments in favor of Trump’s sweeping immigration crackdown, telling the British-born Hilton “you seem to welcome immigrants who look like you but deport immigrants who look like me.”

Hilton argued he wanted to “lower the temperature” and said he would enforce California’s “sanctuary law,” which limits federal-state cooperation, while taking advantage of the situations in which it permits coordination around serious crimes.

But the Trump administration’s immigration agenda has met with fierce resistance in California, serving as a galvanizing force for Democrats. Becerra — a child of Mexican immigrants who would be California’s first Latino governor in modern history — clearly saw this as a losing issue for his opponent, who had to square his alignment with Trump with ICE’s deep unpopularity in California.

“I am for recognizing that immigrants lift up our state,” Becerra said.

Hilton’s hits: Hilton went hard at Becerra, flogging him for his handling of a child migrant crisis as health secretary and recalling the way Becerra’s former colleague Susan Rice reportedly called him a “bitch ass” and an “idiot.” He relentlessly tied the frontrunner to a status quo that he derided for having excessive taxes and some of the nation’s highest unemployment and costs of living.

Yet it’s difficult to imagine any debate performance could have been vigorous enough to dig Hilton out of an 18-point polling deficit.

Becerra frequently reminded viewers that his opponent is endorsed by Trump, a president so unpopular in California that Hilton’s association with him is considered an electoral death knell. And though Hilton has widely been viewed as debating more stylishly than Becerra since their primary faceoffs — flexing rhetorical skills he honed as a Fox News host — the understated Becerra avoided any calamitous mistakes.

The vaccine debate returns: In one of the more contentious exchanges of the night, Hilton accused Becerra of having pushed mandatory childhood vaccination when he was health secretary, arguing Becerra “went along with the politics and the groupthink” and “bullied” parents.

Hilton didn’t say he’d overturn California’s hard-won vaccine requirements. But Becerra warned Hilton was embracing a dangerous ideology that mirrored Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s controversial HHS oversight, pointing to a resurgence in measles cases. “That’s what happens when vaccine deniers take over,” Becerra said, “and this is what will happen to California if you let someone who’s willing to promote that kind of attitude take over.”

Parting advice: Outgoing Gov. Gavin Newsom told reporters Wednesday he “enthusiastically” had no plans to watch — instead, he’d be sitting for a documentary interview about former NFL star and friend Marshawn Lynch.

Newsom said his lack of interest made him feel he was “turning into Jerry Brown,” his famously gruff and iconoclastic predecessor. And he offered his successor some candid insight as he described contending with a raft of legislation, some of which he cast as so voluminous and inconsequential it “had the force and effect of fog.”

“They test you all the time,” Newsom said of lawmakers and lobbyists, “and they’ll test the next governor.”

Fonte: POLITICO – TOP Stories