Are Californians Actually Brainwashed? | Phil Mauriello Jr.

0:00Some things not right here. Crime is up all over the state. The homelessness in the city and out of control, the economy is sick. Access or high? Housing is expensive and businesses are leaving. Leaving. California needs fixing. And John Phillips is just the man to leave the charge. It's the fixed California hour with John Phillips and Randy Wang. And we continue at 105 in the afternoon on the John Phillips show broadcasting live from Chicago today. And Randy, what do you think I'd look like if I came back with some of those hairy carried glasses? Sure. I could figure out some kind of AI filter to have you look like that right now. Everyone who's in the chat, I'm going to need you for the next hour and 54 minutes to have your fingers crossed that the rest of this broadcast goes without a hitch because we've had some interesting issues today. But hey, we're broadcasting on the radio at 790 K ABC in Southern California and 810 K

1:04SFO in the Bay. And we're also broadcasting live on YouTube. Most of the time it works perfect at johnny. Don't like.com. That's Johnny with a Y Johnny. Don't like. Don't like.com. Hit the like button. Hit subscribe. We're at almost 7400 subscribers, growing every single day. All right. It is our pleasure to welcome our next guest to the program. He is the founder and host of the California Underground podcast and author of the book, The Guilded State. How California went from American Dream to the American Nightmare available online at Amazon .com. You can get him online at California Underground dot live and follow him on x at see a underground Phil Morello Jr. Welcome. Hey, John. How's it going? Thanks for having me on. Good. Thanks so much for stopping by. So let's start out by talking about that debate that took place earlier this week on CNN between Republican Steve Hilton and Democrat Javier Bacero.

2:08Why take away on that debate is that Bacero wanted to spend the entire time talking about Trump in part because Democratic rule in California over the last 16 years is not something that's defensible. And it's not something that puts him in a good light. So why talk about it? Donald Trump lost the state three times. He's underwater and is approval rating here. So let's shift the focus from Democratic rule to Donald Trump. But two things were very, very clear to me while watching him debate. One is that he has no charisma and two is that he has no ideas. And it's sad to see polls that show someone with no charisma and no ideas. Twenty points ahead. Your thoughts? Yeah, and I watched that debate. I audibly out loud every time he kept saying the word Donald Trump this, Donald Trump that and Donald Trump's billionaire buddy that kept saying out loud, like just get to a point

3:09or just exasperation. And the fact that you almost knew this tactic was coming. You know, Democrats, especially in California when they have nothing to run on, just pull that lever of let's just fear monger about Donald Trump. When in reality, it doesn't get to the issues of what's happening here in California. It doesn't get to the affordability issue. It doesn't get the gas prices. It doesn't get the homelessness or crime or anything like that. It's all Donald Trump's fault. You know, Donald Trump somehow has had all this control over California for the past 20, 30 years. And he's only been president for about six years now. So they love to pull that lever about Donald Trump. And it was so apparent he had no specifics about any sort of policy. He just said, well, I'm going to build more housing and I'm going to help out working families. But he never once gave any substantive policy proposal as to how he was actually going to do it. This seems to be the new tactic. And I don't know if it is out of necessity because you can't defend your own record and

4:10you can't defend the condition of the state or the consultants in Sacramento are telling them to do that. But whether it's obvious or Basera or it's Rob Bonta or other politicians right now in California. The bucket full of cliches is the answer to everything. How are you going to fix the bullet train? Well, I'm going to roll up my sleeves and get things done. What are you going to do about homelessness? I'm going to put on my work clothes and I'm going to make things better. What are you going to do that's different than Gavin? I'm going to make it happen faster. It's like it's all empty words. It's words that mean nothing. And it seems to be acceptable to two thirds of the electorate. Yeah, going back to the debate, like Steve Hilton made a really good point about how Karen Bass had mentioned that the run is over. We're going to have Xavier Bissar as a governor. There's no reason to have an election. And he made a good point about how this is how Democrats just take advantage of the voting electorate. They don't really have to come up with new ideas.

5:10They don't have to come up with proposals. They don't have to come up with solutions. They can just bash Donald Trump, come up with these kind of flimsy political rhetoric, and I'm going to get in there. I'm going to get tough on this stuff. But they know in reality that they have a huge support base here that they're most likely going to win odds on favors that they're going to win. So they just take voters for granted. And I always wonder when our voters are just going to wake up and get really angry at the fact that Democrats and Sacramento don't seem to care about our problems and don't seem to want to address them and just continue to take us for granted here. What's wild to me is that in a one party state like California where the Democrats are in charge of everything, they have their pick. They can pick literally anyone in the state and make them the governor. They can pick anyone in the state and make them the mayor of Los Angeles or the attorney general or the mayor of Oakland or fill in the blank. And instead of finding their best and brightest, instead of finding people who they think have

6:14the best ideas where they can use California as the Petri dish and they can show the rest of the country that their ideas are great because it's working in California and don't you want your state run like California too. Instead of doing that, they find the most remedial, embarrassing people possible and they put them in the most sensitive positions and they barely get by. Why in the world when you could do anything you want is that what you choose? It's amazing that this is sort of where we are with the governor's race and in the AL, my LA mayoral race. I made this comparison on the show this past week about the horrible choices that poor people in LA have to make between Nithia, Rahman and Karen Bass. And you're right, we have a shirt that says progressive policies work, California would be a utopia. And they've had the levers of power for 20 something years now. Every state office, they've had the legislature on lockdown, they've had the governor for

7:14all these years. Nothing has been impeding them. Republicans don't even have enough numbers in the legislature to stop anything. Yet they haven't solved anything and everything continues to get worse. And you're right, why are we stuck with choices like Katie Porter or Eric Stwawell? This is the best the Democrats can remember. Karen Bass and Nithia Rahman, like should it be the most charismatic people to get out there and win these races handedly and show everyone, oh, this is what really progressive, you know, Democrat progressive of them is all about, we should all follow it. But for some reason, I guess maybe they're just not that impressive in real life. When I talk to friends of mine who are partisan Democrats and people who are well-read, people who understand what's going on, how the state has failed, and we talk about the bullet train, or we talk about retail theft, or we talk about the fires, or we talk about homelessness, or we talk about the state budget, or any of the issues that are not defensible.

8:16I go, you're smarter than this. How can you keep voting for these people? What they do is they take an issue that's performative that really means nothing like the answers that Rob Bonta gives and that Javier Bassera gives, and they go, well, Bassera is good on climate change. He's good on democracy. He's good on protecting our right to vote. He's good. I don't even know what any of that means, but that's what they hang their hat on. I go, yeah, but you have all of these subjects that really do make your life worse, like your right aid just went out of business because of retail theft, or I guess right aid, you can't blame that on, but you get the idea, your roads haven't been repaved. You're willing to put up with that because he's quote unquote, good on democracy, and that's the answer that they give, and it seems to be good enough for them. I mean, I've had the same experience where he talked to people and they've just polluted

9:18the idea of voting for somebody other than Democrat that somehow you're this fascist who hates all foreigners and you're just the worst person ever. They in their mind have created this, well, I have to vote for a Democrat because they're way better than the alternative. When a reality, most of the time, the alternative is proposing actual solutions to our issues, but they've been so sort of brainwashed with more and more propaganda that they just assume the other side is so bad and the alternative is pure evil. I can't not vote for Democrats. They have to come up with these reasons as to, well, he's good on democracy and he's good on immigration and all this stuff and justice and all that. Not that there's anything wrong with justice or immigration, it's just their fluffy terms at the end of the day. Most Californians aren't struggling with to help put food on the table or pay their mortgage or pay their electric for that matter. It's not even just that they get it wrong in the general election though. They get it wrong in the primary too.

10:20I mean, Jane Kim did better than everyone else on the primary ballot for insurance commissioner and she is a DSA socialist. She wants a state of California to sell you your insurance policy. Look at what happened in the LA mayor's race where you have the two worst candidates or the one who made it on the November ballot and they had other options like Spencer Pratt in the primary or look at just the Democrats who ran for governor in California where you do have a mayor who's a successful mayor, the mayor of San Diego who was a candidate in that primary and they had zero interest in voting for him. Even though he hates Trump just as much as they do, it still wasn't good enough for them. I think that goes back to the debate and how Democrats take advantage of the fact that they can keep attaching Donald Trump to California politics even though it has nothing to do with it. I think it's the challenge for Republicans who are running in these races is to be a little

11:21bit bolder and brashier in terms of solutions that stand out and kind of push the whole Trump message aside. No, no, we're not talking about Trump. We're talking about California and how I can help and what I'm here to do and those are the ways you cut through the noise is specific numbers. Things that are catchy like Steve Hilton's plan of cutting income tax for everybody under 150,000. That's easy to remember and that's a number that sticks with people. Those are solutions that people can hear or we're going to get rid of the DMV so we can stop paying these outrageous car registrations of $700, $700, $1000 every year when Arizona's paying $75. These are things that Republicans have to get really much better at speaking to and kind of side stepping all the Trump attacks and really speaking to Californians. One candidate down here who's doing a really good job. He's not running as a Republican. He is a Republican but he's running as an independent, is Richard Bailey. He's had these amazing turnouts where he is basically the name of the event is policy

12:24over politics where he talks about city politics, what's wrong with it, where are the spending going. For a city council member, Ron, they're being attended by about 150 people which is very impressive. That's sort of the blueprint of how you start to break people out of this voting pattern. It's going to be soul crushing for a lot of people in the state if Steve Hilton loses by 20 points because unlike prior candidates who have run for governor, people like Brian Dolly and John Cox, Steve Hilton is out there. He shows up to the opening of an envelope. You have an event he's there. You have a radio show he's on it. You have a television program he's there, a podcast he's there, cable news, whatever. He is working as keyster off traveling up and down the state doing all of the things that candidates should do to win an election. Bacerra is in the witness protection program. If you have someone who's throwing the ball, catching the ball, hitting the ball, not making many mistakes and one person who doesn't even get out of bed to go to the stadium and

13:30that person wins by 20 points, it's just going to be deflating for a lot of people. I hear from listeners and follow us all the time about how demoralizing it is that they feel like the race has already been called before it has even started. It clocked the polls close and they already called the Democrat for a winner. A lot of times I have to explain that politics is a long-term game. We saw Brian Dolly chipped away at the lead, had the most Republican votes since I believe it was Ronald Reagan or Arnold Schwarzenegger. You have to see how we chip away at stuff. You have to look at 2024. More counties went red than ever before and started to chip away at that whole blue hierarchy of the belief that California is just this solid blue state. More people voted for Donald Trump and went red in 2024. These are things that when I read the T-Leaves after an election, even if you lost, you have to look at and go, did he perform better with this? Did he perform better with that? Did he close the gap a little bit? Did he do better with Hispanics or women or mothers or like independence?

14:34Those are the things that I think. You have to look at the long term of this. It's not going to change overnight, but if you see indicators of things getting better or changing, those are things you have to hang your hat on and kind of take with you to the next election cycle. Not long ago we had Ryan Gerdeski on the program, the political demographer. He said one of the problems that California Republicans are facing is that it's not just California Republicans who are leaving the state for Arizona, Nevada, Texas, Florida, Idaho, you name it. So are conservative Democrats, moderate Democrats, and even just standard partisan Democrats, but non-DSA regular partisan Democrats. They're also leaving the state. And they're being replaced by what he described as the blue haired demons. People who are getting their master's degrees in women's studies, they don't feel safe in Iowa, so they moved to California. And we're getting this influx of people who are downward-reliable, overeducated, very,

15:38very, very, very, very extreme in their politics, very left-wing. And it's a different breed of cat because they're resentful, not just at conservatives and capitalists and Republicans, but they're resentful of boomers of all political stripes because they regard them as owning the property and owning the wealth and not sharing it with the younger generations. And they have an anger and they want to take what other people have and give it to themselves and people like them. And that's just the way they see the world. And the old ways of doing business for Democratic candidates doesn't appeal to them. If you're a Democrat and your job, you think, is to deliver for the unions, well, okay, you're going to give the police a great pension and you're going to give the firefighters a great pension and you're going to give the architects and engineers more money. These people with blue hair hate those people because they regard them as the boomers that are making it unaffordable for them.

16:39And it's making it not just harder for Democrats to beat DSA candidates when they face off with one another. If you're a Republican, you can make the argument to a great Davis voter that it doesn't have to be this way, that the state doesn't have to be in this condition. And if you vote differently, maybe you can bring it back to the way it used to be. I don't think that a Republican candidate can make any argument to a blue hair demon to get them to change the way they vote. I just don't see that as being possible. Yeah, I think the key to all of these elections that we haven't brought up yet is independence. California has a large amount of independence. I think it's about 2325%. We had a link, Caladi Amlin, she was running for governor and the growing amount of independence in California is something to kind of think of because independence mean I'm done with both parties. I'm fed up with both parties and fed up with both institutions. And if you're the Republicans and you're trying to grow your base, you should really be

17:42looking at why are people becoming independent? Why are they frustrated with your party? Why are they frustrated with the Democrats? Why are they just giving up on being either Republican or Democrat? And that's something that people need to look into. They're a large swath of voters who have eschewed both sides. Now, Republicans are never going to win over the blue hair demons. Those are just impossible to win over. But you can reach out to the independence and start to bring them over or at least get them to support you and your plans to kind of turn the state around. And that's something that I haven't heard a lot of people talk about is how do you go win that independent vote? And Hillary is probably working on that, trying to get out there, he's trying to put these ads out there, he's doing a good job trying to get his message out there. But that's so important is that people just forget there is a large swath of independence just sitting there waiting to be courted by either party, but they both hate both sides. So it's important that you sell them and bowl them over with your solutions. The problem with independence is that many of them aren't actually independent-minded

18:44at all. People are independence for a variety of different reasons. But typically what you're dealing with is you're dealing with a Republican or a Democrat who doesn't feel comfortable associating with the party that they vote for for one reason or another. You could be an independent because you're a socialist and you don't want to affiliate yourself with a Democratic party which claims to be capitalist. Even though you go out and you vote for them down the line, most independence have a political philosophy. There's just one deal breaker or another that won't allow them to associate with that party even though they go out and they vote for them every time they cast a ballot. And about two-thirds of them are left-wing in California. Yeah, I mean, that's true that everybody who's an independent has some political leaning. But the question is that there is something deep down that made them ask you most of them say, I don't want to be a part of either it. Some don't want to be a part of it because of job or work or public perception.

19:46But I think there's still something deep down there where they go, I'm not going to be a tribalist and join one party over the other or whatever political tribe I think I should be a part of. I'm going to wave my own flag. And I think that's something that really needs to be looked at here in California. And most people probably have views from both sides and maybe that's why they ended up independent. And that's California's. We're kind of a different state when it comes to political alignment. So it's up to Republicans if they're going to go out and get those votes to really examine how do you get those votes? What are they looking for and kind of deliver those solutions? All right, we're going to have to leave it there. Phil Morello, Jr., founder and host of the California Underground Podcast and author of the book, The Guilded State. Now California went from the American Dream to the American Nightmare, available online at Amazon.com. You can follow him on x at cate underground. Phil, thanks so much for stopping by. Thanks for having me, John. What would you do if your online store converted 36% more shoppers? You could take 36% more vacation.

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21:55Sanctuary of hope. Real help. Real hope. Sponsored by Hageem Ministries. From kickoff to the final whistle, trade the biggest moments in football on Kowshi. America's number one prediction market platform. Carolina is currently trading at 42% to upset Detroit, meaning a $100 trade pays out $213 dollars if they win. Download Kowshi, use code music to get $25 when you trade $25. KALSHI, Kowshi, trade on anything. 18-plus-only restrictions and eligibility requirements apply. Event contract trading involves risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Kowshi products are not available in all jurisdictions. Prices, values and available markets may differ from those mentioned. For more information, see kowshi.com slash regulatory. If you'd like to email the program, you can do so at johnny.com.

22:55That's johnny. Don't like show at gmail.com. And johnny, you know what most of the emails are right now? What? Hey johnny, when are you going to do your ballot? Well, I guess we should be happy that it's moved off of. Why are you telling people not to write in Spencer Pratt's name on the ballot? No, we've changed our minds on that one. If you want to write it in Spencer Pratt, go for it. You go right ahead. And if there's no space on that ballot for you to write it in, you just write on top of the ballot anyway. No, you should do like pretend that your ballot is one of those old school scantrons, turn it sideways and just fill in the bubbles in a way that you can make an S and then a P and then an E and be great. There is going to be so many damage ballots. The outcome is going to suck either way. You might as well have fun with it.

23:57If you want to watch this live, go to johnny.com. Participate the chat and click that like button. It really helps push the show far and wide. Let's see how many likes were at it today's show where we haven't even had that much time to plug it. We're at 293. Let's get to 300. We can do that. Have you hit the like button yet? Pop in for a minute, hang out with the chat, say hi, hit the like button and then go back to the radio or stay with us. Tell three, whatever you want to do. And the newest addition of the accountability podcast is really popping. Accountability, accountability, accountability. Yeah, maybe we've hit a nerve here with Daniel Gus in his theory on what he says he's going to do in the November election for LA mayor and that's vote for both Karen Bass and Nithia ramen and cancel out his vote. That episode is it over 9500 views. If you haven't seen it yet, watch it. Tell us how you're going to be voting. If you have already seen it, watch it a second time. And I'm already getting in trouble with certain influencers about Daniel Gus's strategy.

24:59I didn't say it was my strategy, but I still know what I'm going to do. But Elizabeth Barkahana has pissed at me. Well, we need to have one of them on and just have the fight on the air because they're wrong and we're right. I just can't take the argument seriously that Karen Bass is the lesser of two evils. I believe they are equally bad at everything. I think the argument that they're making is that the issue is Israel because at the forum that both of them participated in recently, that was the subject where there was the biggest difference. But the mayor of LA has nothing to do with foreign policy. So what does it matter? And if you're argument as well, it'll spike anti-semitism while anti-semitism is spiked under bass. So what does that mean? Yeah. And before people start sending us emails going, well, it's not anti-Semitic to be angry

25:59at the government in Israel. Fine, you can hate all the politicians you want. I don't have a problem with that. But when you go desecrate a school or a synagogue or a deli or something like that, then yeah, that is anti-semitism because the deli had nothing to do with what the Israeli government did. Barry's writing it in the chat. Can I write in Spencer Pratt on a Santa Monica ballot? Sure. Go for it. I want to go one step further too, Randy. The deli has never killed anyone except for maybe James Gandalfini. Well, it is a Friday show, isn't it? Did I mention we're going to Long Beach? I don't think we've mentioned that yet. It's a week from today. And knock on what will have way better. We're not going to have any tech issues. Barbara Ferrer, we're not going to have any tech issues. No, we've we've pinpointed the issue.

26:59It's Johnny's hotel cheaped out on the Wi-Fi. Well, it is under construction. I don't even think, no, the elevator's not working. I had to come up in the freight elevator with all my stuff the other day. Oh boy. We're brought, we're going to be broadcasting from one of our favorite places next Friday from noon to three Gladstones in Long Beach and we'll be there with a lot of our friends, including Susan Shelley from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association. Talking proposition 43, the local taxpayer protection act. There's been a lot of loop holes created to weaken prop 13 to make it easier to raise your taxes. This gets rid of those loop holes. The threshold to raise your taxes goes back to two thirds and it makes it harder to raise your taxes. There's a lot of confusing things on the ballot. The one thing that is not confusing that you can tell your friends is prop 43 makes it harder to raise your taxes.

28:00So we're going to be there with that message and having great food and drinks with our buddy John Sengmeister at Gladstones in Long Beach a week from Friday. We'll see you there. Now the chat is filling up. You guys are wrong. Nithia's worse. They're both awful. That's as simple as that. You can't get me to vote for Karen Bass because you think Nithia's worse because Karen Bass has been the worst mayor in my life. Time and I have lived here for 41 years. Karen Bass is not defend defendable. You can't defend her record that is I tried to do it. It didn't work. The city burned down under her watch. She does not get a promotion for me. She does not get a pass for me. Doesn't mean I'm going to vote for Nithia. I don't know what I'm going to do. She may very well be worse, but that doesn't mean I can vote for Karen Bass. You know, Spencer Pratt put that tweet out saying that when he had a conversation with Trump at the White House, Trump told him that Karen Bass is a really nice lady, but she's really, really dim.

29:05The elevator doesn't go to the top floor. And I think I agree with half of what Trump said. I'm not so sure she's a nice lady. I think she's real passive aggressive. Anytime someone does something that she doesn't like, you can tell because she has that look on her face. Like the Joker from Batman, where you can tell she's thinking about all the ways she wants to dismember you. Listen to Matthew writes in the chat, you can write Pratt on a train, win in the rain, and when you're in pain while visiting Spain, but not on a ballot or do it. I don't want to care anymore. I am not here to tell you what to do. If you want to write in Spencer Pratt, even though there's no place to do it, go for it. My favorite was at the beginning when we were telling people, oh, no, you can't do that. Because when it was fresh, when it was new, people don't know the rules. I had to look it up.

30:06I didn't know because typically you can do a write-in on many elections in California. I've done it before. Whenever my idiot supervisor is running for re-election, unopposed, I always write in when he was alive. O.J. Simpson on the ballot. But I have the option to do that. You don't have the option to do that in the November election for mayor. The city prohibits it. It's not allowed. So when we were initially telling people, oh, no, you can't do that. They were fighting with me. Oh, no, no, that's not true. And so what I do, and I had it, that's one of those tabs that's always open on my computer, Randy. I have the actual rule that's there where I would just cut and paste and say, no, here's the, here's the actual rule. You can't do it. And then they'd get angry at me. Like I'm the guy that comes up with the rules. Let me tell you something. If I'm the guy that comes up with the rules, we'd live in a very different place.

31:10For example, no one would be able to go to the bathroom on the sidewalk in Bretwood. If John was the rule man, that wouldn't be happening. No one would be living on top of a bus stop with a shopping cart for some reason in Los Angeles. That wouldn't happen if I'm the rule man, but I'm not the rule man. I just told you what rules they have in that city. And then everyone gets pissed off at me. And people should write an OJ. Well, I mean, it would be difficult for OJ to serve on the Riverside County. Or to supervisors when he was a resident of Nevada. But now that he's dead, that makes it extra tough. What's going on America? The other thing that I just have to point out as people try to convince me that, well, you got to vote for Karen Bess because she's not DSA. Karen Bess is aligned with Hugo and Unisseys.

32:13She's given them everything they want, including not enforcing any kind of homeless encampments. And Hugo's district, including passing out the meth pipes in MacArthur Park. But she's now campaigning on free buses for everybody, which is one of the main DSA tenant. So how is Karen Bess not DSA explain it to me? Well, look what happened in San Francisco with the bar. The moment they cracked down on fair abatement, it became usable again. It became safer. It became cleaner and the cops weren't being called every 20 seconds. And now Los Angeles looks at that and they go, you know what these buses need? More bombs. I mean, look at that. There's a seat that's empty. There's a seat that's empty on this bus. That is a service that we're paying for that's not being used. Wouldn't we all be better off if there was a homeless person going to the bathroom there?

33:14Let's just go ahead and let them do it. It's one of the reasons that we love to cover both LA and San Francisco. Because on so many issues, San Francisco turned the corner and stopped doing the crazy thing. LA looks up at what the Bay Area does and says, now we're going to double and triple down on stupid. It's like LA and Oakland don't get the papers. You know what works and you know what doesn't at this point. Why are we pretending like we need to push this car off a cliff to see what'll happen? I'm going to fly into Oakland when we go to our San Francisco remote because that's the close. That's the easiest flight that I can do out of Burbank. Says if I want to take the bar and have to pay all the bridge tolls on my Uber, I'm going to take the connector to the Coliseum Bart station. What's that going to be like for me? Well, you better make sure that you're a state is planned. You'll know real quickly if I'm at the remote or not on October 30th.

34:18You're going to have lunch on the Hagen burger. It's a nighttime flight. Although my favorite burger place in the Bay Area is originally in Oakland, but now they have a location in Colve Alley near Golden Gate Park. Lovely. It's fantastic. The last time I went up there, I went over to the Taddidge Grill for dinner. My flight was delayed. So I got in a little bit late. I had a reservation. I get in. They start screaming at me for being late because the kitchen closes. I think at nine or nine thirty. I go like I had a choice. Check engine ABS or maintenance light on. Take the guesswork out of your warning lights with O'Reilly Vera scan. The service is free and provides a report with solutions verified by ASE certified master technicians. And if you need help, we could recommend a shop for you. Ask for O'Reilly Vera scan today.

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36:29If you would have watched us perform the show, show live, go to johnnydon'tlike.com. That's johnnydon'tlike.com and click that like button when you're there. Enjoy the show. I couldn't tell if that was you miss speaking or it was another glitch. I'm on edge. We all are Randy. We all are. But hey, the weekend starts in an hour and nine minutes. That's all that really matters. You're not on edge like Dan White on edge, are you? No. All right, glad that we cleared that up. Now, there's a company in Southern California that's been accused of being a bad actor and Christine Lazar of CBS California Investigates shine the light on the bad practices of this company. And today we have an update. Be and co is the company. This is the crooked shop at the Topanga mall that was trying to talk people

37:33who were mentally disabled in debying skincare products and signing up for all kinds of things they didn't need. They are finally getting kicked out of the mall. You think if Shane Tao was shopping in that mall, they'd target her. Aw. That's right. I like that. That was amazing. You just want that person in the chat to say that thing about her again. Absolutely. Absolutely. For more, here is CBS LA and Christine Lazar. I'm Christine Lazar with CBS California Investigates. And our team has been looking into a store at the mall that is accused of predatory business practices against some very vulnerable customers. They took somebody who is mentally disabled and got him to spend all of his accident settlement money unlike Botox Cream. The victims we spoke with say employees coerced them into spending thousands of dollars with no refunds. You're about to see how our investigation unfolded and the impact it's now making.

38:34A once busy corner of the Westfield Topanga mall stands deserted. Every window is covered and a lock box hangs on the door. Only a faint outline of the B&CO name remains. Well, it's not a good sign that the biggest mall in the San Fernando Valley has a food court that went out of business and the crooked skincare place went out of business. I'm Christine with CBS. We paid a visit just days before to ask the manager about accusations that the store used predatory tactics to coerce vulnerable consumers into buying pricey products. They didn't need or want. Do you feel you're doing anything wrong for months now? We've documented B&CO's employees in local malls, staking out potential customers around the clock, pushing samples and trying to lure shoppers inside. Did you want to spend that much money there? No, I did not. Victor Chism is one of two men we spoke with. Okay. How rough of a day are you having if you're watching this report and you're going

39:37those sales associates picked me out of a crowd and they gave me the hard sell. I wonder what they saw on me. For experience inside this B&CO, both have intellectual disabilities. Like I am very slow with picking up on information. They claim they were lured into B&CO by a pretty girl who gave them samples and compliments. They say one employee. We're talking about the oldest tricks in the book. All the girls would be over you if you buy this Botox cream. He took them into a back room for a face treatment. My God, I'm so sinister. It's like that program director from WKRP when he was on different strokes. And he took Arnold and his friend into the back of the bike shop. Claims she badgered them into buying a total of more than $60,000 in creams and devices. They didn't need or want. They probably didn't even know what they were buying. No. Like she said that she won't take no for an answer.

40:39I didn't know that even strippers aren't this coercive. And strippers only want you $20 at a time. It actually costs all that much. B&CO's parent company, Mizzal Group is based in Chatsworth. Mizzal is linked to many more stores in Southern California and nationwide that operate in malls under different names among them. If you're wondering who's still making a profit in a mall in 2026, it's crooked companies like this. Con artists with names that are meant to deceive you. Intro stem, Rachel's best soaps and the soap tree. This is not what should be going on in our malls. U.S. Congressman Brad Sherman represents the area that whole old is he? He's getting up there. He seemed like he was 50, 50 years ago. Pludes Westfield to Pangamal. Do you think that the state perhaps should look at this? That law enforcement should look at this, that this should potentially be a criminal or a several issue.

41:42This is something I've got to bring to the attention of Ron Bonta. God, he did it. Another one. Another one. So even though he is one of the most prominent elected officials in the state of California, some reporters call him instead of Rob Bonta and Brad Sherman calls him to something I've got to bring to the attention of Ron Bonta. I love that they left it in too. Ronnie Bonta, everybody. All right, Chad. You're going to need a new whole list of nicknames because it's not Bob Bonta anymore. It's Ron Bonta and our state attorney general. We've learned that the LAPD is now investigating Victor Chisim's case. Westfield won't tell us if they kicked B and co out of them all. But in a new statement said they're actively addressing this matter. Topanga closes. Is that the end for you?

42:43I don't think so. No, based on the amount of people have reached out to me. This is something that we're going to keep. Keep after attorney Fred Voitman has known Victor Chisim for years and now represents him. There's a lot of shame and pretty much every person I've talked to broke down crying on the phone about what happened to them. This is beyond how many people were scanned by this skin care company at the mall. It seems like that's what they did. So probably every customer that bought something from them. You know, buyers remorse type of situation. This is fraud and these people are taking advantage of and it's not going to change unless people speak up a day after we talk to Voitman. An attorney representing B and co sent me this letter calling our coverage a one-sided and misleading account of the Chisim matter. What's the other side of you defrauded a mentally disabled man into buying Botox cream at the tune of $50,000? And didn't she reach out to them and they wouldn't talk to her?

43:45Well, now they're getting in a whole lot of trouble. Although it looks like Congress wants to look into this. But as far as we know, Ron Bonta has not looked into this yet. Is it RO Double N or RON short for Ronald? I think it's like Ron Owens, the two ends. In the fight against Alzheimer's, now matters more than ever. Because now we have treatments, treatments that could change everything. But now is no time to stop. Now we've got momentum. So now we use it. Now we seize the moment. Now we turn the tide. Now we make a difference and make some noise. Now is the time to get up, get out and join the movement. At the Alzheimer's Association Walk to End Alzheimer's, held over 600 communities nationwide. And we need you with us. Because now is the time for hope. Join the fight at alz.org slash walk.