Attorney General Xavier Becerra speaking at the 2019 California Democratic Party State Convention at the George R. Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco. (Photo: Gage Skidmore)
Becerra Cancels LA Times Debate as Family Story Collapses
Republican Steve Hilton calls the no-show pathetic; Independent reporter Anthony Cabassa says Becerra did not want to be asked why he lied about his family’s history
By Megan Barth, October 5, 2026 3:38 pm
Democrat Xavier Becerra has pulled out of a scheduled Los Angeles Times debate with Republican rival Steve Hilton, Hilton announced Monday, a retreat that comes on the heels of independent reporter Anthony Cabassa’s exposure and challenge of Becerra’s claim that his parents arrived as immigrants with twelve dollars in their pockets.
Hilton posted the announcement on X Monday afternoon, calling the withdrawal a break from a pledge Becerra made in August to participate in multiple debates.
“Becerra PULLS OUT of tomorrow’s LA Times debate,” Hilton wrote. “The move comes after a new poll found CNN debate viewers favored Hilton 74% to 20%. In August, Becerra promised MULTIPLE debates. Now after losing the first, he’s back in hiding—taking voters for granted. Pathetic!”
The only televised matchup between the two nominees so far was CNN’s California gubernatorial debate on Sept. 30 in Burbank. During that hour, Becerra repeatedly tied Hilton to President Donald Trump. Hilton answered that the Democratic nominee was offering “more of the same” after years of one-party rule in Sacramento.
On that same stage, Hilton charged that as Health and Human Services secretary, Becerra was responsible for hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied migrant children and had weakened the vetting of the sponsors who took them. Hilton said thousands were sent to sex and labor traffickers and that many children the department placed are still missing. Becerra brushed the charge off as a Trump talking point. Hilton shot back that the reporting came from the New York Times, which won a Pulitzer Prize for it.
Cabassa, whose Oct. 4 thread on the family story drew tens of thousands of engagements, connected the cancellation directly to that reporting. “Following my viral report that Xavier Becerra LIED about his family’s immigrant story, Xavier Becerra has abruptly CANCELLED his debate with @SteveHiltonx tomorrow with @latimes,” Cabassa wrote Monday evening. “I guess he didn’t want to be asked why he lied to millions about his family’s history.”
The timing is hard to separate from the claim Becerra repeated on the CNN stage.
Cabassa’s original reporting found that Becerra told debate viewers his parents “came to this country with $12,” a line he has used throughout the general-election campaign. Cabassa traced the wording to an April 2, 2025, Contra Costa News press release issued the day Becerra announced for governor: “My parents came to California with $12 in their pockets. They built a life they were proud of.”
His review found no earlier recorded use of the line in Becerra’s years in Congress, as California attorney general, or as U.S. Health and Human Services secretary under President Joe Biden.
The paper trail Cabassa published does not match Becerra’s pitch. An obituary for Becerra’s father, Manuel Guerrero Becerra, who died in 2020, states that he was born in Sacramento on July 14, 1928—in California, not Mexico—the eldest of eight children.
The same obituary says the family later moved to Tijuana and that Manuel returned to California as a young teenager, not as an adult immigrant arriving with a wife and a few dollars. It further states that he worked on the railroad for several years before marrying a woman he met in Jalisco, Mexico, bringing her to California, and that the couple purchased a home soon after the wedding.
Cabassa reported that he contacted Becerra’s campaign press team and that staff declined to comment after asking which outlet he represented.
Becerra finished first in the June 2 top-two primary with about 28%of the vote. Hilton, a former Fox News host endorsed by Trump, took the second spot with roughly 25%, ahead of Democrat Tom Steyer. A UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll conducted Sept. 15–20 and sponsored by the Los Angeles Times still showed Becerra leading Hilton 58% to 33% among likely voters.
Hilton’s campaign has pointed to post-debate viewer surveys and its own polling as evidence the race tightened after the CNN broadcast.
Hilton has spent the general election casting Becerra as the “ultimate career politician” and arguing that California’s highest-in-the-nation costs are the product of the Democratic machine Becerra has served for decades.
Monday’s announcement frames the next week as a test of whether Becerra will face those attacks, and Cabassa’s questions about the origin story, on a debate stage, or keep running on the lead public polls still give him while avoiding reporters.
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Becerra and Biden are two peas in a pod. Both hide from the media. Both refuse debates. Both are totally incompetent. Both don’t have anything to offer to improve the lives of working citizens.
Radio personality John Phillips mentioned that Hilton’s punch line about Becerra losing 450,000 minors in the mass illegal immigration, should have started with his sources first and then delivered the punch line rather than the other way around. Phillips is right. You often see newscasters do this to politicians they don’t like (usually Republicans). This frames the punch line as fact (even if it isn’t). In Hilton’s case, it was fact.
Trump and Hilton and two peas in a pod. Both are liars and then say they were just making a point. Both have records of making promises and then not accomplishing what they set out to do for the good of all citizens. I’d rather stick with a party that at least does not feed the billionaires while starving the working class-and that’s what Hilton’s party has in store in collusion with Trump. He’s after a power grab and notoriety, not a servant of the people.
Donald Trump’s history is in plain view for ALL or ANY people to trace and verify! He had never lied about where he or his family came from! Where and what he is, is public knowledge. Becerra has lied in so many occasions, no one knows for sure when and how his family came to the USA. BECERRA IS A LIAR. WE CANNOT TRUST HIM!!
So he is just another pocho who is afraid to admit he is Mr. Everyman, who is not qualified to run this state.
Becerra meets the number one qualification for being a Democrat California Governor: he’s a liar.
Hilton should keep the date for the second debate. But instead of appearing on stage with Becerra he should debate an empty $15,000 Armani suit hanging from a hanger on a coatrack.
Kudos to Clint Eastwood for giving me the idea. His cool appearance at the 2012 RNC convention with the empty stool representing the Divider in Chief, Barrry Soetoro was awesome.
I can’t find any confirmation that an LA Times debate was ever scheduled. Did Steve just make this up?
It was probably a sit down interview with the two candidates and the Democrat propagandists at the LA Times? If it had occurred, no doubt the LA Times would have fielded softball questions to Becerra while openly attacking Hilton and cutting him off at every opportunity?
The three LA Times propagandists who covered the Becerra and Hilton debate on CNN (Anita Chabria, Mark Z. Barabak, and Gustavo Arellano) laughably declared Becerra as the clear winner. Chabria called it a “blowout” in Becerra’s favor, Barabak noted he entered and exited the stage as the “overwhelming favorite,” and Arellano said Steve Hilton “came across flat too much of the time.”
The LA Times is just a worthless Democrat propaganda outlet.
You mean The LA Slimes???
Sad what a formerly great newspaper has devolved into…
Kinda like El Lay in general….
I thought the new owner was going to fix the LA Times. Apparently not.
Thanks for the love!
The forum is an opportunity for the community to hear directly from the candidate. An invitation was extended to Democratic candidate Xavier Becerra. He has not responded, but the invitation stands.
Times political reporter Seema Mehta, Times columnist Mark Z. Barabak and
LAist housing reporter David Wagner will ask questions during the forum. Members of the public were invited to submit questions in advance, which will be part of the conversation.
Straight from the LA Times, do research next time .
I’ve tried to contact the LA not so timely Times and out of 8 reporters I was able to leave ONE voice mail about a possible re-scheduling of the debate. No wonder news print is on the way out. No Customer Service.
A poster at California Post noted that a genealogist who happens to be Mexican American, uncovered that Becerra’s maternal grandfather’s last name was Schmidt and that he was born in Berlin and was a full bred German. Becerra’s mother’s last name was Schmidt. Does Becerra have a Nazi in his ancestry?
“ Does Becerra have a Nazi in his ancestry?”. Every Democrat, is a wanna be Nazi. You gotta be half Nazi or half Leninist to be a Democrat these days. It’s disgusting. Asked about the Socialists in their party, the Progressive Dems I know Denied even hearing about the DSA. I SWEAR they are like ducks, they live in their own little world. As long as they can hate Trump…nothing, and I mean NOTHING else matters. It’s hate Trump 24/7/365.
Great Hilton ad:
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1666575451694328/?sfnsn=mo&mibextid=6aamW6
Becerra is a bigger dofuss than Biden, that’s why Biden picked him. Biden couldn’t have anyone smarter than him is his cabinet. I love the fact that Becerra is not “Mexican” at all. His father was from Sacramento, “a gringo whitey” and his mother was German, “probably a Nazi”. LOL Either way Becerra is just another lying stupid Democrap Commie.