California gubernatorial hopeful Caitlyn Jenner struck a Trumpian tone during a wide-ranging interview with CNN on Monday, essentially imitating former President Donald Trump by boasting that she’ll manage California’s huge economy by surrounding herself “with some really great people.”
Jenner, who is being advised by former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale, sat down with CNN anchor Dana Bash at her Malibu home and attempted to explain why Californians should recall Gov. Gavin Newsom and place her in charge of the state. In doing so, she sounded awfully similar to another one-time reality TV star with no prior political or government experience.
“This state, this is the fifth-largest economy in the world,” Bash asked the former Olympic champion. “You feel qualified to take that on?”
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“Yes, because I’m going to surround myself with some really great people,” Jenner declared. “I had meetings this week with budget people—I just was so impressed.”
The CNN host then asked Jenner if she would be willing to share the names of any of the people she’s met with. The long-shot candidate demurred.
“No, we’ll just leave it as budget people,” the I Am Cait star replied. “We’ll leave it there. I don’t want to expose anybody.”
After echoing Trump’s “all the best people” mantra, Jenner went on a Trump-like tangent while describing one of the people she purportedly discussed economic policy with.
“I had meetings on regulations, with the Hoover Institution, and this one guy, Lee, was just, like, the best, so smart, been working on regulations in this state for the last 10 years, has solutions,” she said. “I said, ‘Oh my God, you’re, like, my new best friend, OK?’ I learned so much from him in such a short amount of time, but it’s people like that that I feel like I have the ability to attract to Sacramento, that can make a difference.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Jenner tried to have it both ways on Trump’s “Big Lie” that he only lost the election due to widespread voter fraud. While Jenner said she doesn’t believe the election was “stolen,” she did argue that “we need to have integrity in our election system.”
Perhaps cognizant of the fact that Democrats outnumber Republicans two-to-one in California, Jenner rejected the label of Republican, claiming that she might be a libertarian or something “in the middle” due to her supposed progressive stance on social issues. She also tried to argue that Americans are now in a “post-Trump era” and “have moved forward.”
“I don’t think he believes that,” Bash said of the ex-president.
