Yes, you read that headline correctly, according to “The Hill,” and most observer’s I have spoken to, California’s Democrats are looking to turn farther and harder left.

For a quarter century, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) has built a career as an effective liberal legislator, the author of a federal assault weapons ban and a warrior for civil and gay rights who collaborated with Republicans on energy and health-care bills.

But to a generation of ambitious California Democrats intent on challenging President Trump at every turn, her record is no longer sufficiently liberal.

The attempt of the Reid Wilson authored piece is to parallel the California youth movement to Tea Party movements of a decade ago, but is also at pains to point out the uncompromising nature of this left turn.

“There’s a difference between progressive ideology and pragmatic leadership and sometimes people seem to be getting these confused,” said Gale Kaufman, a longtime Democratic strategist in Sacramento.

There is also a difference between the right turn, in reality a turn back towards the middle, represented by the Tea Party (even if it advocated at some times and in some expressions for extremist right views) and this left turn which is a turn further away from the middle.  This left turn clearly appeals to the deep pockets of the Bay Area and LA’s West Side that fund the Democrat party in California, but at some point the rank-and-file that vote them in time-after-time are going to call enough.

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Vice President Mike Pence joined me from my broadcast from the Old Executive Office Building this morning:

Audio:

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Transcript:

HH: Mr. Vice President, an honor to have you, sir. Vice President Mike Pence back live on the Hugh Hewitt Show, great to have you.

MP: Great to be here, Hugh, welcome back to the White House.

HH: It is good to be back in the Old EOB. It’s been a while. In my years, I was down on the first floor with Fred and those gangs, but let’s get serious, Mr. Vice President.

MP: You bet.

HH: Have you had a chance to talk with the President and the Secretary of Defense, yet, about Kurdistan?

MP: We’ve had discussions on an ongoing basis about the progress that we’ve been making in the region. And first and foremost, I think every American should be encouraged that working with Iraqi forces, working with the Peshmerga in the Kurdish region, that ISIS is on the run. We are very close to achieving the objective that President Trump set out in the campaign last year, which was to crush ISIS and completely eliminate their capacity to threaten people of this country, to threaten our allies in the region. And we couldn’t be more proud of the American soldier in the field and all of our allies.

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White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders joined me this morning from the OEOB:

Audio:

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Transcript:

HH: Welcome back, and sitting in front of me, you see her every day that they have a briefing on television, Sarah Huckabee Sanders is, of course, the press secretary in the White House. Sarah, welcome to the Hugh Hewitt Show. It’s great to have you back on.

SHS: Good morning, thanks so much for having us, and thanks for being at the White House today.

HH: I’m glad to help move tax reform along. We going to win this? Is this going to happen?

SHS: I think so. I mean, I think look, the Senate and the House are desperate for a win, and frankly, America is desperate for them to do something. I think this is a great opportunity for them to step up and show that they’re willing to do the hard work they were elected to do. You’ve got Leader McConnell that was here yesterday. He is very committed to making sure this gets through the Senate, and I think we’re going to get there.

HH: All right, we’ll come back to that in a second. I’ve got to ask you, last time I saw you was in Cleveland. Now I believe that as a matter of good luck, President Trump needs to return to Cleveland for his re-nomination. Is there any conversation, yet, about going back to Cleveland for a convention? That’s what Nixon did in Miami. That’s what happened before when you want to win two times in a row.

SHS: You know, I don’t know if that’s even being talked about, yet, but I have a lot of confidence that that shouldn’t be an issue for the President to be re-nominated. He’s had an incredibly successful first nine months in office, and I think the next three and a half, or two and a half, three years are going to be equally as successful, including getting tax reform done, which is going to be a big deal, and make a really big impact on most Americans, and they’re going to be begging for four more years of President Trump.

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The audio:

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The transcript:

HH: Kevin Hassett is the chairman on the Council of Economic Advisors. Dr. Hassett got his PhD from Penn. I’m trying to figure out how he was the research assistant to my old friend, Jim Poterba and Nancy Poterba at MIT. How can that be? Everybody knows everybody in Washington. But how could you have been Jim Poterba’s research assistant?

KH: Well, Jim Poterba was working on a paper with Alan Auerbach, who was my dissertation advisor at Penn, and so I worked on a paper for them back that year of grad school.

HH: It is very interesting.

KH: It’s a very small world.

HH: All economists know each other. What do most economists think of this tax plan?

KH: You know, I haven’t polled a lot of people, but I think that people who look at the literature are going to think that this is a big step forward for America, and especially for America’s workers.

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