Tipsheet

Here's More From Xavier Becerra's Embarrassing Interview With KTLA

Amy Curtis
Amy Curtis  |  May 13, 2026 4:30 PM

Last week, former Biden Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra participated in a debate for the California governor's race with his fellow Democrats. During that debate, Becerra said there were no lost kids under the Biden administration, despite the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General saying that more than 448,000 unaccompanied minors were handed to Becerra's department, with hundreds of thousands being unmonitored with bad addresses, no court notices, and other problems.

The Trump administration has found thousands of those children, many of them sex trafficked or otherwise abused.

Becerra also sat down with KTLA, and they may have just ended his campaign for governor over the issue. The interview didn't go well for Becerra at all, but one exchange about missing children was particularly bad.

"During your time as HHS Secretary, a New York Times investigation found the health department couldn't find some 85,000 children it had released," said reporter Annie Rose Ramos.

"That's not accurate," Bercerra interrupted. "What you just read is not accurate. First, that's what I'll say. Because it was never the case that we could not find kids. You're ... I don't know if you got those talking points from Donald Trump."

"It's from a New York Times article," Ramos replied. 

"That's not what the New York Times article said," Becerra continued. "The New York Times said that individuals, that the children and their sponsors did not respond to calls they didn't say we couldn't find kids."

KTLA then showed a screenshot from the article that read, "While HHS checks on all minors by calling them a month after they begin living with their sponsors, data obtained by the Times showed that over the last two years, the agency could not reach more than 85,000 children. Overall, the agency lost immediate contact with a third of migrant children."

"Working overnight in slaughterhouses, replacing roofs, operating machinery in factories. Children as young as 14 years old," Ramos read from the report. 

"That part occurred after these children had left the care of the Department of Health and Human Services," Becerra said.

"Do you let these children go into those individual sponsors, and their responsibilities?" Ramos asked.

"Some of these kids, probably because they needed to earn some money, started working places that were very exploitative," Becerra replied.

Becerra urged HHS employees to rush children out of the agencies care, despite warnings they'd be trafficked.

They were warned, and Becerra knows this. But his default is to call these facts talking points from Donald Trump.

His time as HHS Secretary should have ended his political career.

It was refreshing to see a reporter actually ask a Democrat tough questions and hold them accountable.