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"You Should Be Preparing Your Criminal Defense": Becerra Feels The Heat In Final California Governor's Debate

Authored by Susan Crabtree via RealClearPolitics,

Seven candidates vying for California’s governorship squared off Thursday in their fifth and final debate, with frontrunner Xavier Becerra facing down an onslaught of attacks from the right and the left over his policy record, a campaign fraud scandal, and what rivals described as a deceptive flip-flop on healthcare policy.

“This is what happens when you take the lead in polls,” remarked the former Biden Health and Human Services secretary after several heated attacks from his rivals.

Becerra’s recent surge to the top of the pack and his record spanning more than three decades in office made him a top target, continuing a theme from the last few debates over the last month.

An Emerson College poll released Wednesday showed Becerra as the top choice of just 19% of voters, compared to 17% each for Republican Steve Hilton and Democrat Tom Steyer – a razor-thin margin that underscores just how volatile and wide open this race remains with just a few weeks of voting left in the primary. Another 12.1% of respondents still remain undecided.

The debate, co-hosted by the San Francisco Examiner and CBS News California, focused largely on affordability as poll after poll shows Californians sounding the alarm and voting with their feet. UC Berkeley researchers recently found that California lost a net 150,000 residents in 2025, concluding that the state's affordability crisis is likely responsible for the exodus.

Fraud Scandal Clouds Campaign

The debate came on the same day Becerra’s former political adviser, Dana Williamson, pleaded guilty to three felonies tied to a scheme to steal $225,000 from one of his campaign accounts. The connection runs deep in California Democratic circles – Williamson most recently served as Gov. Gavin Newsom's chief of staff. Two other Becerra associates – former chief of staff Sean McCluskie and Sacramento lobbyist Greg Campbell – pleaded guilty last year.

Republican candidate Steve Hilton, a former Fox News host, did not mince words, pointing to reports that new evidence shows McCluskie informed Williamson that he had told Becerra about the scheme to use funds from a dormant campaign account to pay for his wife's employment.

“You shouldn’t be in this race; you should be preparing your criminal defense,” Hilton told Becerra as the audience erupted in gasps.

Steve Hilton takes aim at Xavier Becerra (British-ly):

"We learned today that Xavier is implicated in this corruption scandal…that he knew about illegal and improper payments from his campaign account to his former chief of staff…You should be preparing your criminal defense." pic.twitter.com/Hlgazh86Jd

— Brendan Hartnett (@BrendanHartnett) May 15, 2026

Becerra took issue with Hilton’s assertion that the talk show host lacks a law degree – at which point Rep. Katie Porter interjected that she is a lawyer and backs her GOP rival’s legal analysis. Just because Becerra isn’t implicated in the charging document doesn’t mean he won’t be in the future, she argued.

“You know that does not preclude an indictment from being issued against you,” Porter said. “We do not know what Dana Williamson said about your involvement.”

Katie Porter continued to rail on fellow Democratic candidate Xavier Becerra about a perceived lack of details for using state tax revenue to fund proposed projects at the final California governor’s primary debate. pic.twitter.com/tXkrCtxBnR

— CBS Sacramento (@CBSSacramento) May 15, 2026

Steyer also posted on X.com Thursday that Becerra “likely broke state law, and now he’s at the center of an ongoing criminal investigation.”

Becerra pushed back, insisting he “did nothing wrong” while repeatedly citing a U.S. Department of Justice spokesperson who stated that “no candidate running for governor has been implicated” in the scheme.

Becerra’s Single-Payer Flip-Flop

Becerra, who served as California attorney general after Kamala Harris, also found himself on the defensive over allegations that he privately told California's largest medical lobbying group that he opposed single-payer healthcare – directly contradicting his public position.

Democratic billionaire Tom Steyer confronted Becerra on stage, noting that the California Medical Association’s president claimed Becerra told doctors in a private meeting he was “very clearly” not supportive of the policy. The group subsequently endorsed Becerra and donated the maximum allowable amount to his campaign.

"So, are they lying?" Steyer pressed, repeatedly questioning whether Becerra was willing to tell one thing to powerful interest groups behind closed doors while publicly endorsing the opposite position.

Housing Crisis Takes Center Stage

California’s housing emergency was a top focus during Thursday's debate. The state needs roughly 2.5 million more homes to meet current demand, according to a 2025 state housing assessment, while the median home price has topped $800,000 – double the national median – and asking rents are approaching a $2,900 average statewide, the highest in the nation.

The candidates offered sharply different prescriptions. Becerra has campaigned on an insurance rate freeze and said he would declare a state of emergency to cut through the red tape strangling new construction, while Villaraigosa pledged to streamline the permitting and ordinance bottlenecks that have made building in California so costly and slow.

Porter focused on the mental health dimension of the homelessness crisis, calling for stronger care courts to get people off the streets and into treatment. Bianco defended his office’s practice of arresting homeless individuals, arguing that Riverside County pairs enforcement with meaningful mental health services.

And Mahan – whose work on housing and homelessness in San José has been cited by several of his rivals as a model – took the opportunity to turn the tables on Becerra, noting pointedly that the frontrunner still cannot explain how he would actually pay for his housing plan.

Gas Prices and Energy Policy

With California's average gas price surpassing $6 a gallon Thursday, Hilton made the case for expanding domestic oil production off the state’s coast – a proposal long supported by the Trump administration but rejected by all the California Democrats in the race.

“The price is the highest in the country because instead of getting oil and gas from our own oil production here in California, we are shipping it 7,500 miles in giant supertankers, spewing out carbon emissions,” Hilton said. “In the name of climate, we are increasing carbon emissions. We need some common sense here.”

The candidates were sharply divided on energy policy, with the fault lines falling largely along partisan and ideological lines. Becerra noted that he has sued oil and gas companies in the past as state attorney general. Steyer, meanwhile, focused on accelerating the shift away from fossil fuels and criticized oil companies’ pricing practices, arguing that energy companies are “overcharging us dramatically” and that California should restructure the market and expand alternative fuel sources, including importing refined fuel if necessary.

When asked whether they support reopening California to offshore drilling, all the Democrats said no, while Hilton and Bianco said yes.

Abortion Extradition Becomes Flashpoint

One of the debate’s sharpest exchanges centered on whether a California governor should hand over a state doctor to Louisiana to face criminal prosecution for prescribing abortion medication across state lines.

Extradition would require Newsom’s approval – something he said he won’t do. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul rejected a similar Louisiana extradition request last year, setting up an ongoing interstate clash over abortion enforcement.

Both Hilton and Bianco said they would – a position that puts them squarely at odds with California’s current leadership and its sweeping reproductive health shield laws.

“This is not about abortion rights,” Hilton argued. “This is about one trying to undermine another state’s laws. We have a federal system.”

Becerra Denies Fraud – Despite $267 Million Scheme Exposed Last Month

Perhaps the most jarring moment of the night came when Becerra was asked how he would combat Medicare fraud as governor. Rather than offering a substantive plan, Becerra appeared to deny that fraud in California has been proven – a stunning claim given that just last month, Attorney General Rob Bonta announced charges against 21 suspects and the dismantling of a major hospice fraud scheme that defrauded the state of $267 million.

Becerra’s remarks seemed more focused on deflecting blame onto the Trump administration than addressing the very real fraud happening on California’s watch.

“Trump is now trying to deprive California of another billion dollars in health care for Medi-Cal,” he said. “He doesn't have the right to do that. You still have to prove the fraud – he’s taking money, even though he hasn’t proven in court what’s been done.”

The Frontrunner Newsom and Others Won’t Endorse

Perhaps more telling than anything said during the debate is what prominent Democrats are refusing to say outside of it. Gov. Gavin Newsom, former DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and Rep. Pete Aguilar all awkwardly declined to endorse Becerra this week despite his frontrunner status – and, given that Williamson served as Newsom’s chief of staff, the governor’s silence carries particular weight.

The reluctance of high-profile Democrats to throw their weight behind their own party’s leading candidate suggests either a lack of confidence in Becerra’s ability to close the deal – or, more cynically, a calculated decision to keep their distance until the full scope of the scandal becomes clear.

Becerra Repeats Pledge To Fight Trump

If you closed your eyes Thursday night, you might have thought Donald Trump was on the ballot for California governor. Becerra invoked Trump’s name more than any other candidate on stage – cramming references to Trump into a single 60-second answer six times.

The Trump fixation produced some of the night’s more eyebrow-raising moments. While defending his tenure as HHS secretary, Becerra turned to Hilton and boasted that he had worked to expand healthcare coverage to 300 million Americans – “far beyond what Donald Trump, your daddy, gave us.” Hilton, however, declined to take the bait, coolly noting he had no interest in “silly name-calling.”

When asked whom he would support if he failed to make the November ballot, Becerra – like most of his Democratic rivals – said he would back any Democrat on stage. But he quickly added that he could never support any Trump-endorsed candidate, taking a direct shot at Hilton.

“Because we would have a Donald Trump look-alike in the governor’s office,” he said, “and we can’t afford to do that.”

In California, tarring Republicans with the Trump label is a well-worn and successful path to victory. But Becerra’s over-reliance on it during the debate renewed questions about his ability to think on his feet and whether he has the energy and vision to carry a grueling general election campaign. He came across as notably flat throughout much of the evening, repeatedly falling back on the talking point that he sued the Trump administration more than a hundred times during his tenure as California’s attorney general.

While those lawsuits produced some court victories, repeatedly falling back on them doesn’t suggest someone looking to provide bold and innovative solutions to California’s crises.

It has been a punishing week for Becerra – a gaffe with a reporter that went viral, a guilty plea from a former aide in the campaign money scandal, and now a debate performance that failed to seal the deal. Whether voters ultimately care about any of these individual stumbles remains to be seen, but taken together, they paint a picture of a frontrunner who is treading water rather than pulling away.

Big Promises, Thin Plans

The debate’s sharpest back-and-forth on policy substance may have come when candidates turned their fire on what they characterized as Becerra’s chronically vague economic platform. At one point, Porter held up her notebook on stage and pointedly demanded that Becerra explain how he would actually generate the revenue to pay for his proposals – a theatrical move reminiscent of the whiteboard moments that went viral during her time in Congress.

As previously stated, Mahan piled on, noting that Becerra had not even released a comprehensive housing plan until just one week ago.

Becerra’s response was telling. Rather than laying out a concrete revenue strategy, he pointed to Newsom’s revised May budget, released Thursday, as a model for how he would handle fiscal matters. He then pivoted, as he has done repeatedly throughout the campaign, to his legal battles with the Trump administration.

“We fought, and we won,” he said. “We’re going to do the same thing again.”

It’s a line that plays well with the Democratic base but does nothing to answer the fundamental question Porter was asking: How, specifically, does Becerra plan to pay for anything?

Steyer had a mixed night of his own, making some forceful, clear points and positioning himself as the field’s leading progressive change agent, particularly on energy policy and moving California away from fossil fuels.

But he also delivered several convoluted answers that failed to land, leaving undecided voters with little new to work with. His debate performance, like Becerra's, was unlikely to dramatically reshape the race – though with just two points separating them in the latest polling, even a slight shift in momentum could prove decisive.

The debate’s most memorable moment may have come during a discussion of California’s struggling public education system. Steyer, perhaps unknowingly, handed Hilton the perfect setup when he invoked a familiar adage: “There’s an old saying: If you keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome, that's insanity.”

Hilton didn't hesitate. “Then don’t vote Democrat.”

Final statements from the final California governor's primary debate.

On the debate stage were Democrats Xavier Becerra, Matt Mahan, Katie Porter, Tom Steyer, and Antonio Villaraigosa, and Republicans Chad Bianco and Steve Hilton. pic.twitter.com/kjeTEdZsnL

— CBS Sacramento (@CBSSacramento) May 15, 2026

Susan Crabtree is RealClearPolitics' national political correspondent.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/16/2026 - 15:10

The allegedly drunken driver who killed two men and hurt three others after smashing onto a crowded sidewalk was just two blocks from home when the crash occurred, police said.

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