Larry Elder Speech Transcript After California Recall Election

Larry Elder: (00:01)
You know how I can go. First of all, I really want to thank my brilliant campaign staff, my campaign manager, Jeff Corless, my co-chair, Tony Strickland, my campaign chairman Lionel Chetwynd. Lionel, come up here. Give me some love. Give me some love, Lionel, and his significant other, Super Glo, Gloria.

My goodness. Ying Ma, communications director, Jennifer [Olizieri 00:00:38]. Took me awhile to learn how to pronounce that, but I finally developed it.

I hope I don’t leave anybody out, the rest of my campaign staff, Deanne Tate, where’s Deanne? I never have quite understood what Deanne did, every time I say something. She just does a little bit of everything.

But I want to thank the volunteers who knocked on doors, who called people, who e-mailed people. We had over 100,000 people who contributed to our campaign. Thank you.

Thank you, Agnes. Agnes, how are you? I love you more. Don’t tell my girlfriend. She’s kind of territorial.

Mark, how are you? Mark, you were there from day one. God bless you.

Where’s Betty Chu? Is Betty around? Betty?Betty’s what, what is she? My mom would used to tell me, “Never mention a woman’s age.” What are you? 82 years old, 84? First Asian-American to pass the Bar of California, become a lawyer.

You know, our campaign was all … Michael?Michael Horn, how are you? God bless you. I love you more. Yes.

Crowd: (02:09)
We all love you, Larry.

[Nazarene 00:02:10], how are you? Glad to know you. This campaign … Where’s Gloria Romero? I don’t see Gloria Romero anywhere.

There she is, Gloria Romero. Gloria. Let me say something about Gloria Romero. You know who Gloria Romero is? Gloria Romero is a Democrat, I’m hoping, a recovering Democrat, but we’ll see.

She was the Senate Majority Leader. She crossed party lines, she’s still a Democrat, like my mother was still a Democrat, my brother was still a Democrat. I couldn’t get them to change their party, but I got them to vote a lot more sensibly.

Gloria crossed state party lines in supporting my candidacy because of the issue of school choice. As you know, my opponent, Governor Gavin Newsom … Come on. Let’s be gracious. Let’s be gracious in defeat. By the way, we may have lost the battle, but we are going to win the war. Gloria crossed party lines because of the issue of school choice. We’re spending $15,000 every year for students in our government schools in California, notice I don’t call them public schools, I call them government schools.

$15,000 a year, some of the worst reading, reading scores, some of the worst math scores. Only about 15 or 16 states spend more. And the students that are getting the raw end of the deal or the black and brown students who comprise 80% of the government students in our government schools.

They’re getting the worst teachers, the worst principals, the worst administrators, the worst outcomes. What is the route from poverty to middle class? At least finish high school. One presumably where you can read, write and compute at grade level, and that is not happening.

I read a study that said roughly 5% of government teachers across the nation are incompetent. Roughly 5%. I have no idea whether that’s true of California, but let’s assume for a moment that it is.

There were 300,000 public school teachers in California, any given year, 2.2 are fired. If it is true that 5% are incompetent, that means 15,000 are incompetent, 2.2 every year are fired. Again. I’m not saying that applies to California, but assuming it does, imagine if that applied to cops in LA.

I’m in LA. 10,000 force, assuming 15% were incompetent, we’re talking about 500. 500. Doing what? Planting evidence? Engaging in racial profiling? Using excessive force. We wouldn’t put up with it. But we’ll put up with 15,000 incompetent police school teachers.

That is why Gloria and I support school choice. So the money goes into an account, education savings account that the parent can control. Put the kid in a charter school, a private school, a religious school, or God forbid, homeschooling.

The reason started this campaign is because this man, Governor Gavin Newsom, was sitting up there at the French Laundry restaurant, with lobbyists who contributed to his campaign, with the people who drafted the mandates that they were violating, by not wearing masks, by not engaging in social distancing while telling you to do it. Meanwhile, his own kids were enjoying in-person private education.

Now he incurred a $12,000 wine tab. No, I don’t know what they ordered, but I bet you it wasn’t Mad Dog 20/20.

Crime up 41% in LA, and I’m talking about shootings, homicides. Under this governor, 20,000 convicted felons were released early. What could possibly go wrong?

The other day, former Senator Barbara Boxer was mugged in Oakland. You’re not cheering for Barbara boxer being mugged, are you? This is a rough crowd.

Also, I wanted to give some love to Arnie Steinberg, my strategist. Arnie, you were brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

Also, Ginny Sand is here. Ginny, without you. I probably wouldn’t have run. Ginny sand, Pastor Jack Hibbs, Dennis, Dennis Prager, and again, my chairman, Lionel Chetwynd, all of whom advised me to run, but ultimately, I decided to run because I felt that I could do something about the crime. I could do something about the homelessness.

I could do something about the fact that California has now hit $800,000, average price of a home, that’s 150% above the national average. Outrageous, because of the stranglehold the environmental extremists have had over Gavin Newsom, and have had over Sacramento.

Love you more. We have five seasons in California now. The fifth one is fire. Because of the poor forest management. Outgoing governor Jerry Brown had a plan to clear 500,000 acres of fallen trees, dead trees, and dry vegetation.

Our governor claimed that he cleared 90,000 acres, which would have been a drop in the bucket, if it were true, but it wasn’t. According to the LA T.imes, he only cleared 13% of what he said he would, which meant he exaggerated by a factor of seven.

Before the pandemic, half of all third graders in our government schools could not read at state level to proficiency, health. And those levels are low, math scores, even worse.

75% of black boys could not read the state levels of proficiency. Math scores are even worse. Because I care about this, I’ve been called the black face of white supremacy?

We’re running out of water in California. We haven’t added to our water infrastructure in 40 or 50 years when the state was half its size. It’s not like voters don’t know what to do. We pass bond measure after bond measure after bond measure for more reservoirs, to raise dams, for more underground water storage. And yet the water drains right out into the Pacific Ocean.

There is a desert nation in the Middle East. It’s called Israel. Because of desalination, they are now water self-sufficient. They got a little body of water next to them called the Mediterranean. We have a little body of water next to us called the Pacific Ocean, we can’t figure …

We have a little body of water next to us called the Pacific Ocean. We can’t figure this out? Rolling brownouts, are you kidding me?

Rolling brownouts, because we’re forcing our utility companies to invest tens of millions of dollars into weather dependent, unreliable sources of energy called wind and solar, a war on oil and gas. It almost takes an act of Congress to get a permit to drill an oil well, or to drill for natural gas.

Many of the middle-class jobs, working class jobs related to those industries are all now gone, for the first time in our state’s history. Never happened before. What are we? 170 years old.

I think, Arnie, you were there when it first happened, right? First time in our state’s history, people are leaving, a net migration out of California. I love the smile, sir. net migration out of California.

What middle- class people cite as a reason for leaving, the number one reason they cite is, they cannot afford the price of a home. Average price has just hit $800,000, which is 150% above the national average, largely because of the environmental extremists that allow people to file a lawsuit, to stop any development project for any reason, for an indefinite period of time, it is outrageous.

Businesses are leaving. More businesses have left California this year. You left too? You’re leaving soon? You’re leaving soon?

Yeah, more businesses have left California so far this year, then have left all of last year. And the rate at which people are leaving California is nearly twice the rate that they’ve left the last two or three years.

There’s a magazine called CEO Magazine. You know I’ve mentioned that magazine, been around for 17 years, 17 years. They’ve asked CEOs, which is the worst state in which to do business, based upon taxes, based upon spending, based upon the power of the public sector unions, based upon whether or not the state has a pro-business or an anti-business attitude? For 17 consecutive years, California has been determined to be the worst state in which to do business.

Now, “nobody cares about millionaires and billionaires,” to quote Bernie Sanders. Highest state income tax in the nation, 13.3%. There are 40 million people living in California. 1% pay half of the state income taxes, and their state income taxes are the largest source of revenue.

1% account for half of all the state income taxes. So when a millionaire or billionaire leaves California, he or she has taken that massive tax base with them, leaving less money for the things government is supposed to do.

This is what we’re facing. Rising crime. Declining quality of our public schools. Shut down the state to the point where a third of all small businesses are now gone forever. We’ve only recovered half of our jobs pre-pandemic, as opposed to two-thirds of the rest of the nation, because we’re paying people not to work.

Rolling brownouts. Water shortages. Farmers in Kern County tell me now they are rationing water. I can’t think of anything that this man has done in the last two years that suggests he deserves another day in office.

However, we recognize that we lost the battle, but we are certainly going to win the war. We are forcing them now to pay attention to the problem of homelessness. We are forcing them now to do a better job on schools. We are forcing them now to do a better job on clearing our forests. We’re forcing them now to do a better job about energy. We are forcing them now to pay attention to the things they should have paid attention to two years ago.

I know that I want to say something about my mom and my dad, because they’re looking at me right now. My dad came here in 1945, didn’t have two nickels to rub together, eighth grade dropout who did not know who his biological father is.

Cleaned toilets full-time, two jobs, one for Nabisco brand bread, and one for Barbara Ann Bread. Saved up enough nickels and dimes to start a little cafe in an area of LA called Pico Union. Bought a house Uptown in South Central that is now worth $700,000.

I only mention that, because it’s still in our family, wonderful for us, but somebody who had an eighth grade dropout education who worked three or four jobs could not have a stay at home wife, as my dad did, educating three boys, until the last of us went to middle school, could not duplicate that path, because of the outrageous cost of living in California, largely driven by these environmental extremists that have had a stranglehold over Gavin Newsom, and it had a stranglehold over Sacramento. We’re going to turn that around.

They’re going to have to pay attention to that now. They weren’t going to before, but now, because of us, because of you, they’re going to have to pay attention to that. We have lost a battle, but we are absolutely going to win the war. You have to believe.

Speaker 1: (15:38)
Larry, Larry, Larry, Larry, Larry, Larry, Larry, Larry.

My mother would not have put up with this, the racial division that we’re having right now. Critical race theory, reparations, dividing us by race. Notice that all these people, whether they were Barack Obama, or Elizabeth Warren, or Bernie Sanders, all of whom cut a commercial for Gavin Newsom, notice they never said the following words. “Gavin Newsom has done a good job for the people of California.”

“It’s a Republican takeover. White supremacists. Say hello to the black face of white supremacy.” Hey, don’t laugh. Don’t laugh, I worked hard for that title.

What do you think would have happened if a candidate such as Barack Obama, running for President, had a white woman in a gorilla mask throw an egg at him? What would have happened?

Front page news, Washington Post, front page news, New York Times, Systemic Racism Alive and Well in America. They would have been talking about it in Bangladesh, but with me, nothing.

Now, let’s analyze this. Maybe the lady who threw the egg was one of the 20,000 convicted felons that Gavin Newsom released early, I don’t know. Maybe she would have been in jail, had we not had a soft on crime DA, who was backed by Gavin Newsom, who believes in cashless bail. Maybe she would have been in jail.

Now I was called sexist, so I want to be very careful about this. People have told me that this white woman had a gorilla mask, and I’ve said to my friends, “How do you know it was a mask?” I don’t know.

I have never suggested that anybody should vote for me because I’m black, or against me because I’m black. I don’t go there. As far as I’m concerned, after we elected the first black President, everything else after that is anticlimactic, okay? Okay?

But, front page article in the New York Times, it was negative, all about me, never once mentioning my race, that I’m black, never once mentioning that if I were to win, I’d be the first black governor of California. Now, I’m fine with that. I’m fine with that. But on the same page, equally long article about “the first female governor of New York.” Now she had a D at the end of her name, so it’s relevant she’s the first.

I have an R at the end of my name, and suddenly I’m no longer black. It’s amazing how that happens. It’s astonishing how that happens. How astonishing how that happens. They try to divide us on race.

They want black people not to think about the fact that families have been destroyed because of the welfare state. They don’t want black people to think about the decline in the quality of public education. They don’t want black people think about jobs.

All they want is black people to think about oppression, that you are under siege, you are a victim. Really? In 2021, after we elected the first black President, who got a higher percentage of the white vote than John Kerry did four years earlier?

Knock it off, knock it off, knock it off. It divides us by race. We believe in the dream of MLK, judging people by content of character, not color of skin. And let me tell you something.

To the extent that it is humanly possible, America has achieved that dream. Come on. “Larry, the headlines are going to be,” I’ll speak slowly, because I know CNN is here. Headline …

Come on. Headline’s going to be, “Larry Elder says there’s no racism in America.” No, I didn’t say that. Hell, 80% of Americans believe Elvis is still alive. I don’t know what to tell you, but to the extent that it is humanly possible, we have achieved the dream of Martin Luther King where people are being evaluated by content of character and not color of skin. Knock it off.

Obama’s running in 2007. He was running against Hillary for the nomination. Mitt Romney was running against John McCain for republican nomination. Right? Gallup decides to ask which of these four candidates had the biggest hurdle. They asked Americans, “What percentage of you would never vote for a black person for president?” 5%. 2007. What percentage would never vote for a female president? 11%. What percentage would never vote for a Mormon, referring to Mitt Romney? 24%. What percentage would never vote for somebody who would be 72 years old when he became president, referring to John McCain? 42%. Obama had a lower hurdle than these three white politicians. Knock it off. Knock it off. Speaking of the former president, when he was running for the nomination against Hillary, he hadn’t caught her yet, he was invited on 60 Minutes. Steve Kroft, said, “Senator, if you don’t get the nomination, will it be because of your race?” I’m at home by myself. Nina wasn’t there. I said, “Let me see what this man says.” He said, “No. If I don’t get the nomination, it will be because I have not articulated a vision that the American people can embrace.” I said, “Hallelujah. He’s not what I call a victocrat. He’s not Sharpton. He’s not Jesse Jackson. He’s not dividing us.”

Speaker 2: (22:15)
He wasn’t. He is now.

Fast forward. He gets in. By the way, when he walked into office, he had 70% approval, which meant a whole bunch of people who didn’t vote for him, because he got about 52%, said, “Okay. All right. I don’t agree with taxing and spending and regulations and soft on the borders and soft on national security, but at least he will be a racial reconciliator.” What did he do? He divided us time and time and time again. The Cambridge Police acted stupidly. Remember that? His good friend Skip Gates who’s a professor at Harvard of African-American studies comes back from vacation, forgets his door key. He and the cab driver break into his house. Neighbor sees this, doesn’t recognize him, Cambridge, and calls 911. Don’t you want your neighbors to do that?

Audience: (23:07)
Yeah.

White cop shows up, very politely says… Sees him in the house. Doesn’t know he belongs to the house. Says, “Sir, please come out and show ID.” What did Gates say? “I’ll come out if your mama tells me to come out.” What Obama should’ve said, what Obama should’ve said, this is early in his presidency when he should’ve set the table, Obama should’ve said, “Last night, I talked to my friend, Skip Gates. I’ve known him for a number of years. I said, ‘Skip, Skip, come on. Come on. You’re a Harvard professor. You’re tenured.’ A lot of these high profile killings, shootings, would’ve been avoided if the suspect/civilian had just complied. I told him, ‘I said knock it off. Knock it off. You should’ve just come out and showed some ID. Incident would’ve been over, but you copped an attitude.'”

Obama didn’t say that. What did he say? “The Cambridge Police acted stupidly.” No, they didn’t. They did their job. If I had a son that looked like Treyvon. What does that mean? There’s a place called Ferguson where we have our own problems. It was a lie. Michael Brown did not have his hands up, did not say, “Don’t shoot.” It was a lie. He invited Al Sharpton, the nation’s most notorious race card hustler into the White House over 70 times. He embraces bogus Black Lives Matter movement. He made things worse. I’m a uniter. We are uniting. We are going to bring this country together. We are going to bring this country together. Because, we know what the real problems are, and they have nothing whatever to do with racism.

I was talking to a black reporter about all of this. He says, “You don’t believe in systemic racism?” I said, “No, I don’t.” I said, “Study after study after study has shown that if cops, if anything, they are more hesitant, more reluctant to pull the trigger on a black suspect than a white suspect. In fact, more unarmed whites are killed every year than unarmed blacks.” I said, “Name one unarmed white.” He couldn’t do it, because CNN doesn’t care. MSNB Hee-Haw doesn’t care. Anderson Cooper doesn’t care. They only care if an unarmed black person’s killed. More unarmed whites killed every year than unarmed blacks. “It is a lie,” I said to him. He still wasn’t feeling me. I’m a Uncle Tom. I’m a sellout. I’m a bootlicker. I’m the black face of white supremacy. I said, “By far, the biggest problem in our society in general, the biggest problem in the black community in particular is a large number of children who enter the world without a father married to the mother.”

Let’s be real here. Let’s be real. He didn’t want to hear it. I said, “All right, let’s do this. Get out your magic wand.” Steven [Sachs 00:25:58], much love. Zana. ” Get out your magic wand.” Steven Sachs, I’ve known him for a number of years from South Africa. He can tell you what apartheid is really like. We’re in an apartheid state, America. Really? I said, “Get out your magic wand. Wave it over America. Remove every smidgen of racism from the hearts of white people. Now, everybody in America who’s white thinks like Mother Teresa,” I said to him. “Do we still have the phenomenon where 70% of black children enter the world without a father married to the mother?” Forget about Elder. I love to quote left wing people whenever I can. Barack Obama once said… he only said it once. He got hammered. Doesn’t say it anymore. A kid raised by the father is five times more likely to be poor and commit crime, nine times more likely to drop out of school, 20 times more likely to end up in jail. Now, 25% of black children enter the world without a father married to the mother in 1965.

Now, the number is 70%. I said, “Do we still have that phenomenon?” By the way, 25% of white kids now enter the world today without a father married to the mother. Half of all Hispanic kids enter the world without a father married to the mother. 40% of all children do, because when Lyndon Johnson launched the so-called war on poverty, 20 trillion dollars later, we are incentivizing women to marry the government and incentivizing men to abandon their financial and moral responsibility.

I said to him, “After you wave this wand, do we still have the situation where the number one cause of preventable death for young white men is accidents?” Like, car accidents or drownings. Whereas the number one cause for preventable death for young black men is homicide, almost always at the hands of another young black man. “Do we still have the phenomenon,” I told him, “Where of the 15,000 annual homicides every year, half of the victims are black, even though blacks are only 13% of the population? Do we still have that phenomenon? Do we still have the phenomenon where a young black man is eight times more likely to be killed than a young white man?”

I said, “If the answer to that series of questions is true, then I submit to you that systemic racism is not the problem, and critical race theory and reparations are not the answer.” Knock it off. Knock it off. Our movement is about bringing people together and dealing with the problems that they have. Of crime. Of homelessness. Of people leaving the state because of the high cost of living, because we have the highest state income tax in the nation, because we have high regulation, because we’re not managing our forests properly, because we’re not managing our energy grid properly, and we are not investing in our water infrastructure. These are the kinds of things that we’re going to deal with. It’s not about race. Knock it off. My father came here in 1945, two nickels to rub together, worked two full time jobs cleaning toilets. Started a little café, Pico Union area. Became a Marine. World War II Marine.

Speaker 4: (29:17)
Hoo-rah.

Thank you, sir. By the way, when I asked my dad why he became a Marine, he said, “Two reasons.” You know what I’m going to say. “They go where the action is, and I love the uniforms.”

Speaker 3: (29:29)
Me too.

My father always told my brothers and me, “Hard work wins. You get out of life what you put into it. You cannot control the outcome, Larry, but you are 100% in control of the effort. Before you complain about what somebody said to you or did to you, go to the nearest mirror, look at it, and say, ‘What could I have done to change the outcome?'” Finally, my father always told this to my brothers and me, “No matter how hard you work, how good you are, sooner or later, bad things are going to happen. How you deal with those bad things will tell your mother and me if we raised a man.”

The things will tell your mother and me if we raised a man. Every day I try to please my mother and my father by trying to convince them that they in fact have raised a man.

So I just want to thank everybody, all my volunteers, all the people who knocked on doors, who rang doorbells, who made phone calls, who went online. I want to thank my wonderful campaign staff. I have been a politician for all of seven or eight weeks. How am I doing?

They are now listening in ways they never listened before. They’re now hearing us in ways they never heard us before then. They’re now going to work our problems the way they’ve never done before. I’m not somebody like my opponent who was born on third base and thought he hit a triple. I’m somebody from the inner city whose parents came here, as I said, with nothing, who worked hard, love you, too, who worked hard, who believed in the American dream. We believe in the American dream. We believe in a country. We believe in the vision of Martin Luther king. We believe in hope, true hope, true unity. We don’t divide by race. We don’t divide by gender. We don’t divide by sexual orientation. We don’t divide by ethnicity. We don’t divide by religion. We unite. My opponent referred to this recall as a move to take over California by white supremacists. Do I look like a white supremacist?

Now, when you consider we don’t blame, we don’t finger point, we don’t roll like that. But when you consider, we were outspent by a factor of five, six, seven to one, I wasn’t running just against Gavin Newsom. I was running against the left wing media. I was running against the newspaper, the LA Times, that referred to me as the black face of white supremacy. I’m running against a newspaper that called me everything but a black David Duke. I’m running against a media that serves as a public relations bureau for the left, and we still scared the bejeezus out of them.

That’s why they brought in Barack Obama. They brought in Bernie Sanders, a socialist who owns three homes, but I digress. They brought in Senator Warren. As I said before, all they did was call this a Republican takeover. I mentioned state Senator Gloria Romero. 63% of Hispanics voted for this man just two years earlier, and Gloria, you know this, the majority of Hispanics now want him out over the issue of school choice. The majority have declined to [inaudible 00:33:24] him just two years ago, now the majority want him out. They’re calling this a Republican takeover? It is insulting to the people of California who signed their petition and who voted yes on the recall. It is insulting, but that’s how they roll. We don’t roll that way. We don’t finger point. We don’t blame. We roll up our sleeves. We get back to it because as I said before, we may have lost the battle, but we sure as hell are going to win the war.

Finally, let me leave you with this. I want to thank all of the religious leaders who backed me. Pastor Joe Paddock of Huntington Hills, Pastor Jack Hibbs, Chino, Pastor Joe Franklin, Fresno, Pastor Paul Chappell, Lancaster. Hope I’m not leaving anybody out. You all got my love and I love you so much. I must tell you, I have been overwhelmed by the support. Men, men, women coming up to me crying, saying that for the first time, you’ve now given me hope that things can turn around.

Now tomorrow I’m going to be asked by all the members of the media what are you going to do next? What happens after this? Christian, thank you for your love. What happens after all of this? As a former radio host, let me just say this. Stay tuned. God bless you. May God bless California. We’ve got a state to save.

Audience: (35:07)
Larry! Larry! [crosstalk 00:35:28]

Jeff Corless and my security team, Nina, Jennifer, come on. Ying Ma, communications. Bill [Baer 00:35:59], my lawyer. [crosstalk 00:36:00] Thank you. Super Joe [inaudible 00:36:03], Desert Storm marine. [Ginny 00:36:12] Sand, one of who convinced me to run. She said, “Larry, you got to go this.” I said, “Who’s this crazy lady?”

Larry Elder Speech Transcript After California Recall Election

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