California’s governor’s race heated up during its first debate, with GOP candidate Steve Hilton criticizing fellow Republican gubernatorial candidate Sheriff Chad Bianco over leftist protests and urging him to drop out.
With the state’s upcoming jungle primary just under five months away, Republican and Democratic candidates gathered Tuesday evening to lay out their plans if elected. During his remarks, Hilton took aim at Bianco, who was not in attendance, over accusations that he kneeled with Black Lives Matter (BLM) in 2020, telling the audience to watch the video for themselves.
“Before we go on, I really think I need to address the elephant in the room, or perhaps, as some might say, the RINO who’s not in the room. My Republican colleague, Chad Bianco, is not here tonight to face these Democrats or his record. In 2020, during the Black Lives Matter riots, he took a knee when told to by BLM. Now he says he was praying,” Hilton said.
“Well, watch the video for yourself at blmbianco.org. We cannot risk splitting the Republican vote and letting the Democrats in. Chad Bianco has got more baggage than LAX. We cannot have BLM Bianco, the shifty sheriff, as our candidate,” Hilton added. “Chad Bianco, he needs to drop out of this race, just as he dropped out of tonight’s debate.”
The resurfaced 2020 video shows Bianco on duty with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department during a large protest over George Floyd. According to a KABC report at the time, Bianco and other deputies nearby were seen taking a knee in front of protesters as he called on the crowd to work with him to make a change.
“We want you all to be here. We want you all to have this. We want your voices to be heard. We want to be heard together,” Bianco stated at the time.
However, during a 2024 gathering of the California Republican Assembly, Bianco was recorded giving a speech in which he argued that he was not kneeling, but instead attempting to pray with the group.
Bianco stated that he had been friends with the organizer of the protests, adding he was “a good guy.”
“At the time, I’m right in the middle of what turned into a riot. On the front line. Actually, my deputies were behind me and I was in front of them. We were talking. He was identifying the hot spots in his own group,” Bianco said. “So we knew what we had to concentrate on. He was helping us. He asked all of us right there.”
“He’s like, ‘I want this to go well. I want us to be able to protest. Thank you for allowing us to do this. Can we all pray?’ And I said, ‘Well, I’ll pray with you, but I can’t make my deputies pray.’ So he said, ‘Can you ask them?’ So I asked them. I yelled at everybody there, ‘If any of you are willing to pray, we’re going to pray that this all comes out good,’” Bianco added. “So we started to pray and he took off. Then it was me sitting there with several deputies behind me that were kneeling to pray. And that was what the camera saw.”
The Riverside sheriff continued to state he never felt the need to address the confrontation, but noted how he’s received hate over it.
“If you don’t believe me, there were chiefs and sheriffs across the country who kneel. And what I’m going to ask you is go find out what their departments think of that person,” Bianco stated.
“Find out if the morale is good in the organization,” Bianco continued. “Find out if they stand behind their chief. Find out if LAPD stood behind their chief. Then go ask one of my deputies about me.”
Bianco did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
Despite recent attacks over the incident, polls have consistently shown the GOP gubernatorial candidate leading Hilton and other Democratic candidates.
According to a statewide poll conducted by the Independent Voter Project in January, Bianco held 26% support among more than 1,700 California No Party Preference (NPP) registered voters. Hilton followed with 23.8%, while 22.3% selected “none of the above.”
Hilton’s call for Bianco to drop out of the race is not the first demand for a candidate to step aside, as Democratic gubernatorial candidate Antonio Villaraigosa recently called for Hilton to withdraw after his name appeared in newly released files tied to deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
In a 2011 email, a former colleague of Hilton’s, Rohan Silva, asked someone named Ian Osborne if he knew anyone who could connect them with Hollywood director Woody Allen. Osborne then forwarded the email to Epstein, adding, “just in case your friend Woody Allen is interested.”
Hilton’s spokesperson told FOX40 on Tuesday that Hilton has never met or communicated personally with Epstein, nor did he attend any meeting involving Allen and Silva.
Notably, other Democratic California gubernatorial candidates also appear in the files, according to FOX40, with most mentions tied to news articles.
Villaraigosa was also referenced in an email from Hollywood publicist Peggy Siegal to Epstein regarding the 2010 Hollywood Reporter Nominees’ Night Cocktail Party, which the former Los Angeles mayor hosted at the time.
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