Steve Hilton shoved a truth grenade into the mainstream media’s soft little echo chamber this week when he appeared on Fox News Live to lampoon the whispered 2028 presidential fantasies of Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris. Hilton didn’t mince words — he framed their musings as the sort of out-of-touch theater Americans have grown exhausted of, reminding voters that talk of coronations from the liberal elite is no substitute for real leadership.
Hilton’s critique matters because he’s not just a TV personality — he’s a declared Republican candidate for California governor who’s been traveling the state and hearing real people’s real grievances about crime, homelessness, and skyrocketing housing costs. His bid is rooted in a common-sense roadmap to restore opportunity to a state hollowed out by 15 years of one-party rule, a point he’s been pushing in interviews and campaign stops.
Calling the 2028 chatter “ridiculous,” Hilton didn’t simply mock the optics; he exposed the deeper arrogance of a political class that treats national ambitions like a hobby while voters rot in the wake of failed policies. Conservatives should cheer that someone on the right is willing to call out luxury-lobbying careerists who cruise from photo-op to photo-op without confronting California’s collapse.
Meanwhile, Gavin Newsom has been quietly positioning himself on the national stage, making forays into early-primary states and testing the water for a potential White House bid — all while refusing to take full responsibility for the mess he helped create at home. That sort of double life, governing for headlines instead of results, is exactly why ordinary Californians are fed up and why Hilton’s bluntness lands.
Kamala Harris has also kept the rumor mill spinning, telling interviewers she’s “not done,” a line Democrats love to package as persistence but conservatives see as more of the same recycled celebrity-politics. Voters remember the last Democrat ticket and the economic and security questions that came with it; they don’t need a reheated version of the same failures in 2028.
This isn’t just political theater — it’s a warning shot. Californians are leaving in droves because left-wing governance has strangled opportunity and safety, and national ambition by Newsom or Harris would only reward the ruling class while ignoring the collapse on the ground. If conservatives want to save the Golden State and send a strong message to the swamp in Washington, they need bold candidates who fight for working families, not polished fundraiser-in-chief types who practice sympathy on live television.
Steve Hilton’s straight talk is the kind of unapologetic conservatism America needs right now: fearless, rooted in reality, and willing to call elites out for putting ambition above duty. If Republican voters everywhere take that message seriously, the next few years won’t be about who can sell the prettiest national narrative — they’ll be about who can actually fix the problems that keep Americans up at night.
