Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco believes California needs a change. The Republican wants to shrink the government’s influence and end homelessness. He said he would work with the Trump administration on immigration and eliminate the income tax. NBC 7 Political Reporter Joey Safchik asks him how he plans to do that in this week’s Politically Speaking.

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco is one of the Republicans running for governor of California on a campaign of shrinking government influence and doing away with income tax. In this week’s Politically Speaking, NBC 7’s Joey Safchik asks him how he plans to do accomplish those ideas.

A transcript of the full interview is below.

Safchik: It is the home stretch of the governor’s race. Ballots go out next week. And while Democrats remain divided with six candidates holding out hope, Republicans have really rallied behind two contenders from the start. One of them is Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, who joins us now. Thank you very much, Sheriff, for being here.

Bianco: You’re welcome. Happy to be here.

Safchik: If you are elected and you have the opportunity to change or fix one thing about California, what would that be?

Bianco: The political system. We are being destroyed by an absolutely horrific, failed political agenda that has truly been going on for– one party rule 16 years. But we have to be honest and say that it’s truly been 70 years, and we just have to make a correction change to get Californians’ lives back on track to where it’s even affordable or possible to live here, or raise your kids here, or operate a business here.

Safchik: What would that change look like?

Bianco: Government has to get out of everything. Government has just become the basic, the roadblock of all success. It’s destroying our school system, our education system. It is purposely destroying our cost of living here in California, making it the highest in the country. And it’s done it through regulatory environment, a horrific regulatory environment, worse than any other state in the country. We are oil– we should be oil independent in our state, and instead we buy it from other countries, which costs five times more than doing it ourselves here. We are importing electricity, which we should be moving toward electric, a nuclear electric power supply so we can actually provide us with the electricity we need. We’ve destroyed our water supply. We don’t have a water problem. We have a water management problem that has been ruined by government policy. And we have to get rid of all of those regulations. The environmental activists who have taken over all of the regulatory boards, commissions and positions in California are destroying our ability to survive. Our businesses are being forced out. We can’t afford gas. We can’t afford groceries. It’s horrific. And it is not because of Californians. It’s not because of business owners. It’s because of a failed political agenda in Sacramento that they are doubling down on because they don’t want to admit that it’s failed.

Safchik: So it sounds like you want to shrink the size of California’s government. Does that mean services that Californians rely on would be on the cutting room floor?

Bianco: So the bottom line is Californians should not be relying on government services. That’s the problem of California. We have gone to where 50% of our budget is going towards social programs, basically just obtaining votes for the next election. We have to get back to the reality of what government was designed for. We have to keep people safe. Our business is safe. Our public, our schools safe. Our kids safe. Our businesses safe, us safe in our homes. We have to make crime a crime again. We have to invest in our infrastructure, which we have completely, completely neglected over the last 20, 30, 40 years. Our roads are the worst in the country. They’re just. A study came out that said California is number 50 on quality of roadways and infrastructures in the country, and we are the richest state in the country. We don’t have a money problem. We have a spending problem because California is California government is spending its money where it should not be spending its money. We have to provide the infrastructure. We have to provide the water, the electricity. We have to get out of business’ so business can prosper, businesses can thrive. That brings more jobs, more businesses into California, stimulate the economy like it’s supposed to be done. Government has to get out of the way. Government does not produce anything other than bad results. And we have to realize that.

Safchik: The last time we spoke, when I asked you what the one issue at the heart of your campaign was, you said, “California,” can I ask you to be more specific than now? What is the single issue most fundamental to you?

Bianco: It is. It’s California.

Safchik: What about California? The economy, homelessness, immigration?

Bianco: Everything. It’s everything. How can we say that it’s only one thing, if I say it’s homeless, what if someone is watching this right now and says, well, that’s not my number one issue. What if I say it’s crime? And they say, well, that’s not my number one issue. So I don’t like Sheriff Bianco. That’s the problem with government is we we want to talk about one thing and one thing only when the reality is what’s that gotten us? It’s gotten us a complete failure of California because the government agenda doesn’t care about Californians. I care about people who live in Shasta County the same way. No more, no less than I care about someone that lives in Los Angeles County. Someone that lives in San Francisco is no better than someone that lives in San Diego. So why are we acting like they are different?

Safchik: How do you square though? Wanting to minimize government while tackling all those issues.

Bianco: Because California government is causing it. It is the regulatory environment and the taxation environment that is destroying California. And it is because all of those entities, the boards and commissions that control the business environment, the farming environment, the water environment, the electric environment, all of them are run by activists, by activists and their lawyers. And California state government is appeasing activism to the detriment of the 95% of Californians. If Californians want a better California, they’re going to vote for me because Californians are being hindered and punished for living in California. If you want the same status quo, then vote for any any one of those other people that were on that stage the other night, because none of them are going to do anything different for your lives, because all they care about is their own political agenda, or their own private agenda, or their own ideological agenda. And I am simply going to bring back the ability for Californians to be successful in this state.

Safchik: So are you saying it’s the fault of California’s government that we are experiencing this homelessness crisis?

Bianco: 100%. It was caused by the government.

Safchik: So you have promised to end homelessness in California in two years. How do you do that? Why hasn’t that happened yet?

Bianco: Because I care about the homeless people that are dying on our streets. I actually talk to the homeless people that are dying on our streets. I actually interact with the people that are dying on our streets. Every single one of those people that were on that stage with me the other night are liars. They’re being told what to say. They’re being told little, little verbiage and twisted little things to say to make, to play on people’s emotions. So you think they’re going to do something. California’s homeless situation has gotten worse, exponentially worse since 2014. 2012 is when it started and the government did it. AB 109 started at prison realignment, where they dumped all those state prison inmates into county jails and onto our streets. Then Prop 47 and Prop 57, which they lied to the public to get past, made crimes, not a crime which legalized drugs in California. And that is what we are seeing on our streets. And then we just say we’re giving more money, giving more money, giving more money. Everybody’s getting rich off of it. And if you go talk to those people on the streets that are suffering, they’re begging for help.

Safchik: So what do you do? How do you get them off the streets?

Bianco: You, I blame you in the media for not caring about this until today. Why? In the last eight years, have you not said anything about the people dying on Skid Row in Los Angeles?

Safchik: I’ve been covering homelessness since I got to California two and a half years ago, but I’m wondering what you would do to get those people you talked to off the streets.

Bianco: I will tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to stop making people rich off of them. I’m going to stop the assistance that the state is giving them to enable them to buy the drugs and alcohol that’s being provided to them while they’re there. I’m going to give them the treatment for the drug and the alcohol addiction that they are suffering. I’m going to give them the treatment for the mental health issues that they are suffering from, and we’re going to treat something that the state doesn’t allow, and that’s mental health and drug and alcohol abuse at the same time, because that’s where our problem is. And the state purposely set this up to create a homeless industrial complex to funnel all of this money through the homeless industrial complex back into the election cycles. So they keep getting again. And this money continues. The homeless industrial complex will never stop because the people getting that money don’t want that money to end. I want to save the lives of the people that are living on the streets. For 33 years I have done this. I have interacted with them personally. Personally, I have watched them cry. I have watched them beg. I know that there is nothing that I can do to help them, because there is no place for me to put them. If they are suffering from a mental health condition and they don’t want to go personally, they don’t want to say, admit that there’s something wrong. I know that the drug and alcohol addiction that they’re suffering from, they’re going to be kicked right back out on the streets because they’re going to the facility will say they have a mental health condition that they can’t treat them for. So they’ll be right back out on the streets. The money keeps flowing. Government keeps giving money to other places for more, bigger government. It is an absolute waste, fraud and abuse. And I am the only one on that stage who actually has compassion for those people that are dying and rotting in their own skins on our sidewalk.

Safchik: What about when people don’t want to seek treatment?

Bianco: They’re either going to go to jail or they’re going to go to drug and alcohol treatment. We absolutely must change the law to force them into mental health treatment. Because if you ask someone suffering from a mental health condition and you say, hey, can I get you some help? What do you think the answer is going to be?

00:09:44:18 – 00:10:09:28

Speaker 2

Why? Anyone with common sense or reasoning ability? Why would you think they can make a rational decision on whether or not they want treatment? We have to force these people to get the treatment that they need to get stabilized. So then they can make a rational decision to go into treatment facilities, to go into treatment care so we can make them productive members of society again, get them back to the families and the homes that they once had. Stop calling this homeless. It has nothing to do with homes. Homes were to get you emotionally involved, to believe that someone didn’t have a place to live. So they have to live on concrete or on cardboard. Our San Jose mayor is an absolute failure with what he is doing, because he wants you to believe that just by putting a hard roof over somebody’s head that’s now just dying in a shack instead of on the sidewalk was compassion. It is not. It is a symptom, and it is a Band-Aid. We have to get to the root of the problem, which is causing all of this, and it’s drugs and alcohol and mental illness. I’m so over this. I’m so over government. I’m so over politicians. And I’m so over the media. Who wants to take this educational approach instead of a real life approach and start reporting on fact instead of somebody pie in the sky idea of how they’re going to. It’s just the idea of fairies wanting to– with a plan to work when nothing’s going to work. If you don’t start caring about the people that are suffering from these situations.

Safchik: One of your principal campaign promises is to eliminate income taxes. How do you do that?

Bianco: Absolutely. The same way ten other states did it. Don’t say it’s impossible when ten other states did it and the ten other states are thriving, and now you just think of where everybody’s moving to. Where’s your favorite business moving to? Where are your favorite relatives or your friends moving to? It’s one of those ten states. They are thriving because they took away the government regulations and the government environment that was preventing them from thriving. We have to get rid of the regulatory environment that brings businesses back to this state. We have to get rid of the regulatory cost of living drive up environment that the attack on the oil industry and gas industry, the attack on the electric industry. We have to start removing these regulations and restrictions and taxes that are preventing those industries from thriving and giving us the services that they are supposed to be providing us when we get past that garbage. We are going to get rid of the waste, fraud and abuse that we all know exists in every use.

Safchik: You’ve mentioned the waste, fraud and abuse a few times. Can you give me an example?

Bianco: No, I’m not giving you example, if this is what we’re going to talk about and you don’t know that there’s there’s medical there’s medical fraud, there’s homeless fraud, there’s government fraud, there’s building fraud. California government is rife with fraud. And you’re the reason, if you’re asking me what it is because you don’t already know you’re supposed to be the the journalist, the investigative journalism that’s informing the public. And you all are failing because you just keep repeating government officials talking points to keep this going based on emotions. Use common sense, reality and reasoning ability to realize that government is absolutely broken in this state. We are the richest state in the country and we are suffering from everything that government is supposed to be making good in California.

Safchik: The same way you’re asking us to hold the current elected officials accountable and not take them at face value, I’m asking you– if you’re going to claim waste, fraud and abuse. Just for an example.

Bianco: The medical industry, the building industry, the homeless industry, the gas industry, the bullet train to nowhere, what more do you want? All you have to do is walk out your front door. Why do we spend more on roads in California than any other country? And we are number 50 out of road quality in the entire country. This is us. Talking like this during an election year is why California fails. Because we don’t want to look at reality and we don’t want to look at the fact that Democrats have run California’s Sacramento government since the 1950s, and they had a supermajority since 2014. For 16 years they have–that was bad math. 2010. For 16 years they have had a supermajority in California. If the Democrat agenda wanted your life to be better, we would be the best in everything. They can’t point to one single thing in California that is working because there is nothing. So they just keep blaming Trump and the federal government for all of our issues.

Safchik: Let’s get back to income taxes really quickly. We have a lot of ground to cover. I do want to ask. Income taxes are the state’s single largest source of revenue. So how would you be able to compensate for those $100 billion?

Bianco: Do you realize that if we went, we’re the highest taxed in the entire country, 13%? There’s only 140,000 people, 140,000 people pay 51% of the taxes in this state. We are losing a million people every year. We are one day away from those 140,000 people leaving to a better state, and then California bankrupt, absolutely bankrupt in one day. That’s the possibility. That’s the danger where we are. We are on a fiscal cliff because of bad Democrat policies in Sacramento. And if we don’t change this taxation environment, in this regulatory environment, we are going to fail. If you just on day one today, if you take all our tax codes, completely scrap them and go to a 5% income flat income tax, just a 5% flat income tax, we’re only short $30 billion. We have $30 billion that we are wasting on health care and services to people who are in this country illegally. You stop that on day one. You. Now it’s a 5% tax instead of 13 and we’re better off anyway. But I’m going one step further and I’m going to eliminate the waste from the abuse in this state. I am going to be oil independent. Do you realize we are the number two user of oil in the country? And that’s never going to change. I don’t care about your ridiculous arguments about green. It’s never going to happen. Wind and solar will never provide us the electricity that we need. It absolutely must be nuclear. We absolutely must. We need gas and oil right this second. The entire world does. It’s five times more expensive to import that oil than from drilling our own oil and using our own oil in California.

Safchik: So you’re not worried about environmental consequences at all?

Bianco: We– What did you just say?

Safchik: You’re not worried about the environmental consequences?

Bianco: You are proving to me that you are. You’re nothing but a talking point. The environmental consequences. California oil and gas in California is the cleanest, safest in the entire world. You don’t care that we are getting all of our oil and gas from the Middle East. Who is the worst in the entire world? That it is ten times worse for the environment, 100 times worse for the environment to get it from another country? You are a talking point. That is a talking point that you’re repeating to your listeners that is destroying California. We are going to be oil independent in California. The revenue that is generated from using our own oil instead of making the Middle East rich, instead of making other countries rich, we are going to make California rich. And then I don’t need your income tax. Other states do it. Don’t act like we can’t. Other states are doing it far better than us and they are thriving.

Safchik: Okay, I would like to talk about immigration. Would you work with the Trump administration to deport undocumented people from California?

Bianco: Yes. Yes. It is the federal government’s role to run immigration and immigration enforcement. What I will make sure of is sanctuary state is absolutely gone, because it is making you less safe. And more importantly, it is making the immigrant community in this country less safe. And it absolutely must be taken away. We have to get rid of sanctuary state immigration officials must be allowed inside our jails to deport every single person in this country illegally. Who ends up in our jail system absolutely must be deported.

Safchik: So you want to overturn SB 54?

Bianco: I’m going to overturn SB 54 one way or the other, either with my current lawsuit or after the state elects me as governor because it is harming California.

Safchik: How would you work with Democrats in the state legislature?

Bianco: California is putting me in that office to fix what Democrats in the state legislature have broken. So what they need to start asking themselves, and what you need to take a different look at it, how are they going to work with me for the will of California? Because I am going to fix what they broke. Why would I work with them? They are going to work with me to fix California what they have broken, or I’m going to expose them to all of you and you cannot vote for them in two years, but one way or the other. California is going to be much better with me as your governor, with a government, with a government that actually works to make our lives better instead of special interests and government bigger and better.

Safchik: But if they maintain the supermajority in the statehouse. Wouldn’t you need to work to find compromise otherwise? Why don’t you just encounter stalemates and gridlock?

Bianco: If I go every single day and tell the state of California, these are the legislators who are standing in the way of you not paying state income tax. How long do you think that person’s going to be there before they get unelected, either recalled or voted out in their two year election? They come up for election every two years. So stop with the pessimism. How about we just get to fixing what’s broken in California? I can tell your political leanings any way. Just point to me something that’s working in California. One thing.

Safchik: I ask tough questions of members of both parties.

Bianco: I don’t think you do. There is nothing working in California for Californians. Nothing. There is nothing working in our favor. I came here 37 years ago for a better life, and I was able to achieve it because I worked my butt off and it was available to me. It is no longer available to my kids. It certainly is not available to my grandkids and to tens of millions of other Californians. It is no longer attainable. Not because we changed, but because the environment in Sacramento changed on a government policy, a government agenda, an ideological agenda towards socialism that does not work has never worked, and Americans don’t want it. We are broken in this state because of government. And if you want the same thing, vote for the same people. If you want California, a government that works for you to make your life easier, then you’re going to have to vote for an outsider, a person that wants to go in and send people to prison for victimizing you and fix the the corruption, the fraud, the waste, the abuse and the brokenness of government.

Safchik: Would you declare a state of emergency over the Tijuana sewage crisis?

Bianco: The moment I get there. This is proof that the Democrat Party does not care one bit about Californians or the environment. Where in the world is the California Coastal Commission? In this disaster in San Diego. Where is your governor? Where is the legislature? They don’t care about you, San Diego. They don’t care about you. Anyone near the beach. They don’t care about Americans. They care about nothing but their environmental activism that benefits them in preventing growth. They couldn’t care less about the environment or your life.

Safchik: And will you accept the certified election results in June, whether you advance to the general or not?

Bianco: That’s a– that’s the most stupid question that you can ever ask anybody that we have elections for for a reason. Do we know there is fraud? Of course we do. Do we accept the fraud when we lose? Of course we do. It’s only Democrats that don’t accept things. I’m so sick of this. I’m not even talking about these things. I’m sick of talking about these things that don’t matter, that haven’t broken California.

Safchik: Is that a yes?

Bianco: Use the election, I already answered you yes. That’s what we do. We’re in America. The only people that don’t accept it are Democrats. And they– death threats. They threaten death. They actually try and kill people. This is why we are so broken. And unfortunately, media like this is the reason why we’re broken. Because we won’t call out the complete B.S. that’s happening in our political system. We just keep going over and over. Hopefully we can get some headlines. Hopefully we can get some one liners and we just keep going over and over and over. Click bait, race bait, hate bait, political speech, all of those things. And it’s destroying Californians.

Safchik: All right, Sheriff Bianco, thank you very much for your time this morning.

Bianco: Absolutely.