Katie Porter Goes Nuclear on Top Dem Rivals in Scorched Earth CNN Hit: ‘That’s Pretty Explosive!’

Former Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) launched scorched-earth attacks on two of her rivals running for governor of California during a bombastic CNN interview on Monday. Porter heavily suggested that former Biden HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra is implicated in a corruption scandal involving his former chief of staff and accused billionaire Tom Steyer of leaking the viral video of her berating a staffer.

The latest polls show Porter tied for 5th place, behind both Steyer and Becerra going into the June 2nd jungle primary – where the top two voter getters from either party will advance to the November general election.

CNN anchor Dana Bash played Porter a clip from CNN’s recent gubernatorial debate, saying, “Polls are showing support is growing for one of the candidates that you alluded to, the former congressman, state attorney general, and HHS secretary, Xavier Becerra. At CNN’s debate earlier this month, some of your fellow competitors pushed him a little bit on the fact that his former chief of staff pleaded guilty to charges related to stealing money from Becerra’s campaign account. Here’s what he said.”

“If you violate the law, you will be prosecuted. No one is above the law. You will be held accountable. If I had been involved, the U.S. Attorney would have had me in that indictment. I was not involved,” said Becerra in the clip.

“Is that sufficient?” Bash followed up.

“It’s not. Look, there’s still an active investigation going on. Two of the three people who were initially implicated are negotiating plea deals. And in those plea deals, they could name Secretary Becerra. I don’t know if they will, but that is a risk. And so I don’t want to see what happened with Eric Swalwell, happen with Xavier Becerra,” Porter replied, comparing Becerra to the disgraced former congressman. She added:

This race is too close, it’s too chaotic, and there’s no reason to take a risk. Look, the simple fact is, Secretary Becerra cannot promise Californians that he will not be named as a co-conspirator in this corruption charge. It was his campaign account. He signed off on it. It was his 25-year chief of staff who was receiving the money via this scheme. There’s just too much of a risk there for me given the stakes of having the potential to have a Republican in charge of California. We have a top two primary. If we make the wrong choice here, there is no write-in process. You are stuck with the other top two candidate, which looks like it’s going to be Republican Steve Hilton. So I do not think that is a risk Californians should be taking.

“Just to be clear, he has said multiple times, including at CNN’s debate, that he did nothing wrong. Are you saying that you don’t believe that that’s true?” pressed Bash.

Porter replied, “He said if someone has broken the law, they should be held accountable, which is a generic statement of truth that I would agree with. He has said at times that he didn’t know about the money, he had no—quote—no vision into what was going on, and at other times he’s admitted that he signed the papers showing that $10,000 a month was going out for account maintenance.”

“But he had another campaign account where he was paying $1,000 dollars a month for maintenance. Why would you be paying ten times more? It just raises a lot of questions. I do not have the facts here, but the people who are currently negotiating plea deals in Sacramento do. And if they implicate him, I have zero doubt that he will be indicted. So we just don’t know where this is going. It’s still an open issue. And I think at this point, this close to the end of the race with our top two, with no possibility for a write-in, I think it’s too big of a risk to take,” she concluded.

“To sort of make an analogy to Eric Swalwell. That’s pretty explosive,” pushed back Bash.

“Well, look, a lot of the same people who endorsed and supported Eric Swalwell are now endorsing and supporting Xavier Becerra. And as you know, Dana, there were rumors about Eric Swalwell, and people discounted those rumors. There are rumors about what’s going to happen in this plea deal and how it’s going to unfold, what’s going to happen in this ongoing corruption investigation,” Porter replied, arguing:

And I don’t think that’s a risk worth taking. The conduct, the allegations, the risk—completely different. Eric Swalwell was a sexual predator, full stop, very, very different conduct. But look, the stakes here are about whether Californians should risk having a Republican governor. And for me, the answer is unequivocally no. And the plain truth is Secretary Becerra cannot and has not guaranteed or promised the people of California that he will not be named as a co-conspirator and indicted. And if he is, and the top two include him and Steve Hilton, we would wind up with a Republican governor, and that as a mom, as a Democrat, as a woman, is just devastating for Californians. It’s not a risk worth taking.

“There are other Democrats, of course, in this race and doing relatively well, including Tom Steyer. He just did an interview with Pod Save America, where he said he was the only candidate who could stand up to corporate interests. He was asked specifically, ‘Well, what about Katie Porter?’ This is what he said,” Bash continued, playing a clip of Steyer:

She’s hostile to special interests, but she doesn’t have your money to get ads up, right? That’s a real thing. So the question is, can someone win and do this? That is the actual question, Jon, not can someone be good-hearted. There are lots of good-hearted people who I would be happy if they won. The question is can someone actually do this.

“What’s your response to him?” asked Bash.

“Well, given that Tom Steyer is the person who leaked the video with me and the staffer from five years ago, he pretty clearly didn’t think that I—he clearly wanted to be governor badly enough to knock me down to do it,” Porter replied as Bash interjected, “How do you know that?”

“And I’ve apologized for that video many times because I am confident that is the case. I’ve been told by many people it’s a Department of Energy video. It was only held by the Department of Energy, and people can follow the trail to who his campaign staffers are and understand what happened there,” Porter replied, adding:

And the truth is, look, Tom Steyer is a corporate special interest. He’s made his billions off being beholden to corporations, making money off fossil fuel, oil, coal… He is, even in this race, taking corporate contributions. Even in this race, I am the only candidate who is not. So Tom Steyer is in this race for the same reason he was in the presidential.

He’s now spent half a billion dollars trying to get elected. I have no problem with competition. If Tom Steyer wants to run, he should run. But to suggest that somehow he’s in this because there’s nobody else who will stand up to corporate special interests, or that he’s not in this for his own ego, I think everybody who’s seen his face plastered over TV for six months knows that’s probably not the case.

“Congresswoman, thank you for coming on. I should note that there is no evidence that Steyer leaked that video of you. If you have it, please bring it. And also you said some pretty tough stuff about Xavier Becerra. If he wants to come back on the show, he is more than welcome to do so as well. Thank you for being here today. I appreciate it,” Bash concluded.

Watch the clip above via CNN.

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