Becerra Finally Agrees to CNN Debate With Hilton

Xavier Becerra has finally agreed to debate Republican Steve Hilton, as first reported by the Los Angeles Times. The Democratic frontrunner and former Biden Health and Human Services secretary will face the conservative commentator and author of Califailure on Sept. 30 on CNN, with Dana Bash and Jake Tapper moderating. 

Hilton announced the matchup Tuesday morning after weeks of accusing Becerra of running out the clock in a race to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom.“After months in hiding, Becerra’s agreed to debate,” Hilton wrote on X. “I wonder what changed… Hilton vs. Becerra: September 30 on CNN.”

After months in hiding, Becerra's agreed to debate.

I wonder what changed…

Hilton vs. Becerra: September 30 on CNN. pic.twitter.com/DtPKplNFBf

— Steve Hilton (@SteveHiltonx) September 8, 2026

Less than a week after the debate, California counties must send mail ballots by Oct. 5.

Becerra’s campaign had insisted last week that he was not refusing to debate and that dates would be announced soon. On Tuesday, spokesman Jonathan Underland offered a different tone: “If debates reward substance, it’s going to be a rough night for Trump’s lapdog — an empty British blazer running on fantasies and cable-news catchphrases. At least he’ll be wearing shoes.”

Hilton has said at least eight debate invitations went unanswered. “He can’t have a scheduling conflict for everything,” he told The Post last week.

Becerra and Hilton advanced from the June 2 top-two primary. Since then, Becerra has run a relatively low-profile campaign while Newsom’s endorsement and California’s partisan registration advantage did much of the work. 

The California Globe has documented the record Becerra now has to defend on a national stage.

In June, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tore into Becerra’s tenure in a lengthy response to a New York Times piece, writing that Becerra’s “only notable accomplishments” at HHS were “losing 300,000 children, referred to HHS for custody and care, to human traffickers and drug runners,” promoting transgender surgeries, and “disabling the entire program-integrity apparatus.”

Kennedy added that he had “set out to find the children Becerra lost” and that Becerra “reportedly spent most of his term as HHS Secretary in California” and “almost never showed up for work.” In August, Kennedy accused Becerra of gutting program-integrity staffing over a $2.2 trillion annual payment system. “He let the people steal the money,” Kennedy said. 

Hilton has used videos of trafficking survivors to press the same unaccompanied-minors failure on the campaign trail. 

Last month, Becerra rolled out “Power Hour,” a promise of up to two hours of “free” electricity a day.

The Globe has extensively documented the sky-high electricity costs that make such giveaways politically tempting. Residential rates in the Golden State hover around 32–36 cents per kilowatt-hour—nearly double the national average and the second highest rates in the country. Californians are now paying 93% more for electricity than people in the rest of the U.S.

Hilton’s own energy pitch has been the opposite: roll back CARB rules, cap-and-trade costs, and refinery restrictions and fire CARB leadership on day one in a bid for $3 gas. 

Hilton has also alleged that the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) is using illegal immigrants in field work for Becerra, amplifying illegal immigration and NGO partisan politics a general-election issue.

This isn’t the first time CHIRLA has been in the headlines. Last year the U.S. House Judiciary Committee announced that they were investigating whether CHIRLA, which they called an “activist organization with ties to the Democratic Party that received nearly $1 million in grants under the Biden administration used the funds to foment the anti-ICE riots that ripped through Los Angeles earlier this month.”

Becerra is a 36-year career politician: Stanford-trained lawyer, longtime congressman, California attorney general who sued the first Trump administration more than 100 times, then Biden HHS secretary. He sells more of the same Newsom-era California and a federal health-care resumé.

Hilton sells a reset and an end to one-party rule. British-born, now a U.S. citizen, former David Cameron adviser and Fox News host, he entered the race as an outsider promising to “Make California Golden Again,” named former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero as his preferred lieutenant governor running mate, and has spent the year attacking homelessness, crime, energy costs, and what he calls one-party failure in Sacramento. 

Whether Sept. 30 is the only debate is an open question. Mail ballots will be in voters’ hands within days of the CNN broadcast. Hilton spent weeks arguing that Becerra did not want to answer questions about migrant children, HHS oversight, or the cost of living. Becerra’s camp spent those same weeks arguing the charge was false.

On Sept. 30, both men will have to make the argument in the same room.