Ana

When a friend asked if Tom Steyer could stop by my wife Delilah’s downtown Santa Ana restaurant, I had to explain to her who he was.

It’s not political apathy in my honey’s case. She’s just exhausted from running her small business, Alta Baja Market, in these inflationary times. She’s one of the 16% of undecided voters in a recent California Democratic Party poll — a group that may determine which two candidates for governor face each other in the general election.

Delilah agreed that Steyer could visit on Saturday after I told her that many of our friends support the billionaire’s progressive platform.

“Politics is your job, not mine,” she joked as we drove to Alta Baja and I named the other major candidates. The only ones she had heard of were Antonio Villaraigosa (“I liked him as mayor, but he needed to keep his pants on,” referring to his extramarital affairs) and Katie Porter (“Some of my workers like her, but I don’t know what she’s done”). She might be the last person left in the Golden State who hasn’t seen any of Steyer’s television and YouTube ads.

His campaign seems to have stalled in the polls even as he has spent more than $150 million of his own money amid doubts from some voters about whether they want a billionaire to lead the state.

So a visit to Santa Ana, the heart of Latino Orange County, was a good move. At Alta Baja, he could talk to my Mexican American wife and other blue-collar Latinos.

When rival Xavier Becerra came to O.C. a few weeks ago, on the other hand, he appeared at a private fundraiser attended mostly by professional Latinos.

“I just want someone who tells us where our taxes are going and treats this country like a business, and we’re not wasting money,” Delilah said. She’s a socially liberal and fiscally conservative Democrat who has been especially angered by President Trump’s deportation deluge, which left the streets of downtown Santa Ana empty for months last summer. “Because right now, our government is a hot-ass mess.”

I asked what questions she had for Steyer.

“So insurance had to cover all the disasters that happened with the fires,” Delilah replied. “So why is everybody else having to pay for it? And what are you really gonna do to help the state?”

She paused. “Tom is a Democrat, right?”

Delilah prepared for Steyer’s noontime stop as if it were any other day. She has fed the likes of U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer and former Speaker of the Assembly Anthony Rendon. Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton is a fan of Alta Baja’s blue cornbread; Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee held a meet-and-greet there when she ran for president two years ago.

“You know who should ask questions?” Delilah said after she set the till for the day. “Angela.”

That would be 19-year-old Alta Baja employee Angela Nino, who will be voting in her first election.

“She’ll always be telling me, ‘Did you see the debate? Did you see the debate?’ And I always say, ‘No, I’m too tired to watch.’”

Nino soon clocked in.

“Guess who’s coming, Angela?” Delilah said before looking at me. “Is his name Tim or Tom?”

“It’s like I agree with some of his things, but he’s a billionaire,” said the Orange Coast College student and Santa Ana resident when I asked about Steyer. “His answers at debates have been pretty broad so far.”

Delilah smiled.

“You’re the future, girl, so ask him anything.”

Almost everyone who came in as we waited for Steyer was a campaign worker or volunteer. Former state Controller Betty Yee, who ended her campaign for governor last month and endorsed Steyer, sat at a table with her husband. Orange County Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento, who initiated Steyer’s Santa Ana visit, thanked Delilah for the opportunity. He has known her since the start of his political career on the Santa Ana City Council nearly 20 years ago,

“This is a city where our residents were criminalized because of ICE, our downtown suffered because of construction, and all this on the heels of a pandemic,” he told me. “These are the folks Tom needs to listen to.”

Sarmiento’s staffer got his attention. Steyer was here.

The candidate strolled in with a videographer and photographer. He wore his usual casual billionaire outfit — white-and-cardinal Nikes, jeans, checkered shirt with rolled-up sleeves and a colorful Southwestern-style fabric belt.

Steyer went straight to the counter.

“Are you running for governor?” he cracked while shaking Delilah’s hand.

“I don’t want to,” she replied.

“I knew you were a smart woman!”

He listened with wide eyes and a stern face as Delilah complained about a years-long light-rail project in front of Alta Baja “that has been worse for businesses here than COVID.” Insurance rates have gone up 30% in the last year alone, she said.

“Well, look, that’s my whole thing,” Steyer responded in his low, gravelly voice. “I’m willing to take on the big corporations who are ripping off California. And they’re all spending a lot of money against me.”

It was the Steyer I’ve heard on too many commercials: pugnacious, compassionate but spouting a whole bunch of boilerplate. Delilah smiled weakly.

“I appreciate that,” she said. “And we need more of that.”

Then she waved Nino over. Usually shy, the architecture major now channeled her inner Lesley Stahl.

“Why do you have to be governor in order to do something while you have billions of dollars?” she said.

Steyer didn’t flinch as he explained how he has funded ballot propositions and nonprofit initiatives to fight for a more equitable California.

“So I’ve been able to do something, but what I see in California — and what Delilah and I were just talking about — is big corporations actually run the state,” he said.

“That’s true,” Nino conceded.

“You have to take on the big corporations that are screwing everybody. And you can really only do that as governor,” Steyer continued.

“You want to tax the billionaires, is that correct?” Nino asked next, as Steyer nodded. “How come on some [campaign disclosure] forms, it shows that your billions are in different [countries] besides in the U.S.?”

The candidate vigorously shook his head.

“I might have investments outside the United States, but there’s nothing I’m doing to not pay — I pay full California and American taxes on everything, promise. There’s a lot of ways I could avoid taxes, but I don’t. And so, anything that I’m doing overseas is not to avoid taxes. … I give you my word.”

One more from Nino!

“And how can the people trust billionaires when currently they have been very disappointing towards us?”

“I understand why people are skeptical,” Steyer replied. “They couldn’t be more skeptical than I am.”

He argued that other moguls “are supporting every other candidate. Those people hate me — like, they think I stand for something really bad, which is making them pay their fair share,” referring to a proposed November ballot initiative that would impose a one-time 5% tax on billionaires like Steyer (he supports the measure).

“And they’re right,” Steyer concluded. “And so it’s like, they hate me, and that’s fine.”

Nino stayed silent. Delilah thanked Steyer, who was off to visit other local businesses owned by friends of ours. He bought a bottle of rosé, posed for photos with Delilah and Sarmiento and went off — but not before a staffer adjusted the back of his collar.

Delilah and Nino went back to prepping lunch orders. What did they think about Steyer?

“To be honest, I’m so skeptical,” Nino said. “I don’t think he has enough experience as some of the other candidates, and I feel like he could have been more into detail about his policies.”

What about you, honey?

“Gracious, very kind and not pompous, which is what I would expect from most politicians,” Delilah said. “I like that he heard out Angela — that’s important [that] politicians listen to the next generation, and I think everybody should be doing that. But I wasn’t satisfied with my insurance question.”

“And we don’t know if this is a performance,” Nino added, drawing a playful gasp from Delilah. “We’ve seen, like, throughout the years, many political people go into, like, regular [businesses] to seem like, ‘Oh, we’re relatable to the people. We know your struggles.’”

“Do they really?” Delilah interjected.

Nino frowned.

They could just be putting on a show for the cameras, she said.

When political commentator Ana Navarro recently arrived at Mercado Little Spain, the José Andrés-owned food hall downstairs from CNN’s New York studios, a seat was ready for her constant companion, a rust-colored miniature poodle named ChaCha.

“I am her service human because I’m servicing her all day,” Navarro said of the well-behaved pooch who has been by her side since the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown.

As Navarro and a reporter order tapas dishes for the next two hours, patrons at nearby tables raise their cellphone cameras. Andrés’ daughter Carlota stops by and gives an update on her father, a Navarro pal. Later, a Spanish-speaking young woman comes over and thanks Navarro, a political exile from Nicaragua, for defending immigrants amid the aggressive deportation efforts of the Trump administration.

In a fragmented media world where critical mass is becoming harder to attain, Navarro has become one of media’s most recognizable political talking heads thanks to her two high-profile TV roles.

She is a co-host of ABC’s “The View,” the No. 1-rated daytime talk show that has become a target in Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr’s efforts to discipline President Trump’s broadcast media critics. She is also a regular panelist on CNN’s roundtable program “NewsNight with Abby Phillip,” which extends its reach far beyond its modest ratings through frequent viral clips on social media.

In February, Navarro, 54, joined the growing list of media personalities who have launched a digital platform to reach consumers no longer watching traditional TV with a weekly podcast for iHeart called “Bleep! With Ana Navarro.”

Navarro is her uncut self on “Bleep!” She interviews guests but can also go into a 30-plus minute monologue without a script when she records at iHeart’s midtown Manhattan studios, where ChaCha looks on from a cushy pillow.

Navarro delivers her arguments against the Trump administration as if she’s schmoozing with friends across a kitchen table. She always appears calm but as the podcast title suggests, she serves up a few four-letter words she doesn’t use on TV.

“Bleep!” gives Navarro her own platform at a time when the legacy media networks she works at are under pressure. Upheaval is expected at CNN if parent company Warner Bros. Discovery becomes a part of Paramount and its Trump-friendly owners David and Larry Ellison.

Carr recently called for an early review of ABC’s TV station licenses. He said its related to an investigation into parent company Disney’s diversity practices but it comes amid the administration’s criticism of the network’s Trump coverage, which has included “The View.”

Ana Navarro on the set of ABC’s “The View.”

(Lou Rocco (ABC))

Navarro was pulled into the fray last year when she was approached by Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Bob Iger at ABC’s upfront advertiser presentation in New York. The huddle led to reports that they discussed the anti-Trump commentary on “The View.”

“We had an honest conversation but I’m not going to tell you what it was,” she said. “Nobody is muscling us. All I’ve got to do is show up and do the same thing that I’ve always done, which is be as truthful, and authentic and informed.”

(On Friday, ABC filed a petition with the FCC over the agency’s recent scrutiny of “The View,” and whether the program qualifies for an exemption from seldom enforced equal time rules for political candidates. The network accused the FCC of actions violating its 1st Amendment right to free speech.)

Navarro has been pounding at Trump for so long, it’s hard to remember that her rise as a TV pundit began 14 years ago when she was a loyal conservative Republican. Jeff Zucker, who ran CNN from 2012 to 2022, said her personal evolution sets her apart from other pundits.

“She’s funny, insightful, knows how to turn a phrase and she’s gone on a political journey,” Zucker said in a recent interview. “So she understands the entire political spectrum as well as anyone.”

Navarro was eight years old in 1980 when her family fled Nicaragua and sought political asylum in the U.S. after the socialist Sandinista National Liberation Front took power. Her father stayed behind to fight with the anti-communist rebel Contras in the country’s civil war.

“Reagan was taking on the Sandinistas when Bernie Sanders wasn’t,” she said.

She was granted amnesty and became a U.S. citizen under the immigration reform bill signed by President Reagan in 1986.

Growing up in Miami, Navarro was part of the enclave of Latinos whose political perspectives were shaped by having fled Fidel’s Castro’s Cuba and other communist regimes in Latin America. She became a political operative in Republican politics, starting in local Miami races and eventually served as national Hispanic chair for 2008 GOP presidential nominee John McCain. Her Cuban-born husband, Al Cardenas, was on Reagan’s transition team and once led the Republican Party in Florida.

Navarro watched in dismay in 2015 when Trump came down the escalator of the midtown Manhattan skyscraper that bears his name to announce he was seeking the Republican presidential nomination. “Calling Mexicans rapists and criminals — that just hurt my heart,” she said.

When Trump mocked a disabled journalist during a campaign rally, Navarro was reminded of family struggles with one of her older brothers, who has non-verbal autism and is self-injurious. “That brought back so much outrage and anger,” she said. “For me that was a line I could never forgive.”

But being an anti-Trump Republican has become a lonelier job in recent years as the party establishment’s support solidified behind Trump during the historically successful campaign in 2024 that returned him to the White House. For Navarro, it has meant the end of many long-standing relationships.

“I’ve lost some very close friends over Donald Trump,” she said. “And I’ve had to make peace with that. They feel that I’ve betrayed the Republican Party. Some of them think I’m an opportunist, doing this for today.”

One of those friends is Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who she’s known her entire adult life. Navarro still has his cell number in her contacts, but it’s been awhile since she’s called. She still respects Rubio‘s credentials in foreign policy but doesn’t see herself ever supporting him if he runs for president.

“Unless he was running against Satan incarnate, no, I would not go over to him,” she said.

Navarro keeps her cool on “NewsNight,” which occasionally erupts into bedlam when guests clash with Scott Jennings, the show’s resident MAGA Republican. But she misses the days of sparring with Democratic operative Donna Brazile when they were on opposing sides on CNN’s Washington set, and then went out for oysters and wine at Old Ebbitt Grill afterward.

“It’s a completely different world than it was,” Navarro said.

The highly self-confident Navarro has always spoken her mind, encouraged by her father and the Sacred Heart nuns who operated her private school in Miami where she still resides. “Those nuns could run Fortune 500 companies,” she said.

She is not afraid to draw on her own painful, personal experiences to deliver a point. Another older brother died of a heart attack at age 38. Her cousin’s son was a fatality at the 2016 Pulse night club shooting in Orlando, Fla.

“I refuse to live in hopelessness and trauma,” she said. “The things I’ve gone through have shaped me into who I am and made me resilient and empathetic. One of the reasons I abhor Donald Trump is because he completely lacks empathy.”

Where Navarro often separates herself from most Democrats is foreign policy. When Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro was ousted and arrested by U.S. forces, Navarro, on holiday in Madrid, joined exiles from the country as they celebrated in Puerta del Sol.

Navarro expects to have the same reaction if Trump makes good on his threats to end Cuba’s communist regime.

“I will go out there with my metal pan and my metal spoon and I will bang the drums in joy,” she said.