On this episode, I am joined by Natalie, a native Los Angelino, to discuss the latest debate between the candidates running for Mayor of Los Angeles.
The top five polling candidates; Karen Bass, Rick Caruso, Joe Buscaino, Kevin DeLeon, and Mike Feur, appeared on stage at USC to discuss topics plaguing LA such as homelessness, crime, and COVID.
We break down their talking points as well as why they sound a lot like Moderate Republicans.
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If you're a California, conservative a Libertarian, a
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moderate Democrat. Believe in common sense or just
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the same person. This is the political podcast
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for you. It's the California underground
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podcast. What's going on everybody?
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Thank you for tuning in to another episode of California on
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the ground I have with me - Angelina Los Angeles resident
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Natalie, who I was like This debate came up and I said,
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there's only one person I think that would really be able to
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weigh in on this, because she's going through right now.
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So I said Valley, would you like to come on and review this
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debate? I mean, it's a long debate.
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So we're only going to get it to like four subjects out of all of
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it. But how are you doing today now?
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Like good. Thank you for having me.
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Glad to be here, great. Yeah, so yeah, it's a long
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debate. It about an hour and a half, I
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sat through all of it, so We could save you the nonsense and
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just kind of filter it out for you guys.
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And what's the most important? So we're going to hop onto a
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couple of different subjects, kind of comment on them and
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that's basically it. And I will say this, they're all
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Democrats. So people who are tuning in,
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there is not one Republican on the stage, it's all Democrats.
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However, I'll give you my thoughts on how why they sound
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so different. It seems like they're kind of
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like jockeying for like the middle position but we can talk
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about that a little bit. - is that new democrat?
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Right? Or a newcomers username
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Democrat? Yeah, he will is independent or
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he was Republican. Then he went independent and now
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he's officially a Democrat. So, we'll see.
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Maybe he's a dino. Like I like to call him like a
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democrat in name only and will see that if that's a path that
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you can run and win the first comment right out of the box,
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though. I don't know why looking at
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these two moderators right now? I feels like I'm starving.
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It's like an SNL skit. Right off the top.
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Does that feel like well I are Chris Smith is responsible for
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the black face of white supremacy.
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So we do have to she's the one who wrote that article on high
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Elder. So yes, I appreciate her for
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that good. Hey, Buffalo Wi-Fi, Gatson else
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get, I got ya. Yeah, I feel like I was like,
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the lighting looks like, it's like an SNL skit right off the
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bat. And I don't know, and the lone
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woman in the bathtub back there. I like that people weren't mess.
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Oh, I didn't even notice that. Just the one.
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Yeah. She's got a brand new blue mask
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on. She's kind of I was like, I
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can't believe the rest of you aren't wearing.
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Probably. So, our first topic up, let's
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jump right into it. They think about homeless.
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So I'll hit play. And whenever you want me to
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pause, just let me know. We'll go from there.
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Yeah, Vic tangible thing that you can actually accomplish as
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LA mayor, when it comes to homelessness, how much is it
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going to cost? And you have to raise taxes to
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pay for it. First of all, thank you for the
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opportunity to be here with you today.
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The Crisis. We have 40 people on our
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streets, I would declare a state of emergency on day one locally,
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but we also need the state and the federal government involved.
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I want to build 15 or house 15 people by the end of the
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first year and that's 15 above the ones that will be
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housed at our part already. And we can use a lot of existing
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money because there is money from the state, there's money
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from the federal government, we need to expedite the process.
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We need to have everything being expedited.
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If you're going to build affordable housing on day one, I
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would appoint a chief. That person would report
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directly to me. I would access the resources
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that I have within the federal government and the state
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government that housing Chief would bring together.
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All of the department heads, and we would make sure that this is
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the number one problem, because it is a public health, she would
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know about Federal because she, the, if you're not watching the
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person speaking is Karen bass. Who Is the also the lone female
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on stage. She is congresswoman right now,
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from California. So she would know a lot about
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where all the federal money is going in terms of where that's
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all coming from an overall should.
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I, I was about to say pause, but as she, I appreciate, she's
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really the only, the only one and I went on their websites to
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who kind of even mentions, how we would pay for this.
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I still don't totally trust it, but no one else really
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specifies? Are we raising?
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Taxes or where's the money come? But in general and I know
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debates are limited on time and all that.
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But she is in my opinion should really misses the mark on how
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complex of an issue homelessness has specially in La.
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She seems to think that it's just a bunch of people who can't
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afford rent, and let's just build them some beds and units
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and the problem solved and she has more opportunities
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throughout. I don't know how long we'll get
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into it, but and she really never addresses any other sides
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of the issue. And I think that's a huge
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problem. And a public safety emergency
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and up until now it has not been addressed like that.
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Councilmember Delhi, own one specific tangible thing.
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You can actually accomplish as LA mayor, let me say this.
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I'm the youngest child of a single immigrant mother with a
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third grade education. My mother worked her fingers to
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the Bone spending, the vast majority of her life, taking
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care of the very wealthy. Now I know what housing
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insecurity feels like because in my early 20s, I was homeless
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anyone on this stage. Can make Big Bowl pronouncements
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on. Issue of homelessness but
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there's one major difference that difference is that I'm
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already doing something about it.
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I built more housing opportunities in Los Angeles for
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unhoused Neighbors. In the past year, I built the
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largest tiny home Village. Just want to point out that I
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think he also went to the same school of public speaking.
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That Gavin Newsom Obama. Grrrr, he likes the finger thing
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so that always out to me when I see politicians doing this
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finger thing like up, they all went to the same exact school or
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they're just all copy and I live right by his Tiny Village.
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I didn't know that I live in Highland Park.
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That's where it really. I had no idea.
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I still don't know where it is. To be honest.
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I looked into it a little bit. Yeah.
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And the Tiny Village is like so explain that it's like These
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tiny little, they're kind of like, just big porta-potties.
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Like, there's like, you can fit a bad and you can fit like a
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little bit of what running water, right.
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I think so. Yeah, I didn't.
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I mean, from what? I could, could tell and I still
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have not seen it in person, so I don't really know where it is,
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or how big this Village is, but it's in my neighborhood.
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Apparently, there's still a lot of homeless people, though.
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I will say that. Maybe it's so tiny.
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You can't even find it. That's why you can't find it.
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Maybe? So yes.
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In the United States of America and I've brought over 700
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million dollars, in might no place like home to the Sea Los
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Angeles, the bottom line is this is we can build football
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stadiums and basketball Arenas. We ensures can help to build
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housing for and house. Neighbors.
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I'm not a talker. I'm a doer on this issue.
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I'm about action on this issue and I know that the together
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Ella can come together, so we can provide the roof so they had
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listen, we got 12 billion dollars.
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A surplus about 2 billion or coming to La.
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We got no place like home. My money would just have a
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hundred million dollars. From the federal government to
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get down to the city of La because this is the epicenter of
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whole chinois by Rousseau one tangible thing.
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As mayor, you can actually do. Thank you for having me.
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I'm excited to be here. The tangible thing we can do is
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in my plan and if you go to Caruso can't.com is very well
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detailed. And we have it posted because
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it's a very comprehensive plan and concrete that's real quick.
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I will say, his website is very detailed if anyone wants to look
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further, Is the most detailed and I disagree with him on a
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lot, but I appreciate that. So, he's not wrong about that
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because debates only cover so much.
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Obviously, this is than that, And this is the guy that yeah, I
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mean, we talked about the beginning, he flipped from
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Republican all the way over Democrat.
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He's the big-money guy. He's the big landowners.
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He has luxury apartments and he owned the Grove.
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I guess he gets compared to Trump, but I'm pretty sure he
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banned Trump from The Grove. So as I'm sure Trump is really
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upset about that. Seemed to go to my grandma's.
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Yeah. I'm sure Trump wants to walk
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around the Grove and go shopping for at the Sketcher store or
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something like that. But yeah, he's the guy that I
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think they're all. I don't know if they're worried
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about because he's the outsider or because he has the most
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money, but it seems like there's a lot of people who attacked him
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specifically in this debate. It a lot of people went after
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him got more air time because of that, you know.
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So because you get to respond for 30 seconds, what I want to
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talk to you so he kind of stole the show but A little bit and he
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had some good quips. I thought he was pretty quick on
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his feet, so he's pretty, it was pretty funny.
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Well, keep going first year 44, people are living on the
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streets, they're living in their own waste.
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It's a terrible situation that we have.
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We have 14 beds already in the city so that would get
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everybody. A clean dry bed course, we got a
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triage and get into a lot of other details.
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But let me just say this My grandparents showed up on these
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shores without any money and without knowing the language.
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But they did have was something much more important.
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They had the American dream, they moved to Boyle Heights and
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this city, they felt gave them the opportunity to realize that
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dream when you have homelessness, when you have
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crime and when you have corruption your dampening, those
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dreams and that's what's happening to the city.
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That's why I'm in the race because my interest is to do
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what's best for the residents of Los Angeles County.
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Member who Sky a new thank you. Cific tan.
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Yeah. Thank you also for having me and
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it's great to see Rick Russo here.
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Finally, for joining us, Rick listen let's let.
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So the comment I guess is that he didn't appear at the last
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couple debate. So it's like the first one.
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He's appeared at. Yeah, and I guess this is it,
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what's that? I think that they go back and
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forth Blue Sky you know, and corrosion I think there's an
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Italian Feud going on there or something.
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I think this is the first survey also.
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They were able to have without being like shut down by
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protesters or something so that's good I guess.
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But this guy you know, I people are protesting the Mayoral race.
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Well a lot of homelessness activists are against all of
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them even de Leon apparently. They these people in La I lived
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right by Echo Park. When they clean up Echo Park.
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This Time last year and there were activists out there
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complaining about it. So there's citizens who just get
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upset. When anyone cleaned anything up,
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Cuz those everything has to be a win-win.
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There's never like the best option.
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It's always has to be a win-win where everybody walks away.
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Happy. Let's be honest what we've done
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in my district, I plan on doing with the rest of the city.
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I've solved, 40 percent of the homeless are now housed in my
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district and the tangible thing that I can do is Mayor is
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activate the Emergency Response Center.
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Could we have an emergency crisis would be dealing with
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this crisis 24/7, instead of 9 to 5, and at the same time, we
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are going to build enough intron beds.
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My plan is to give the city council within the first 60
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days. He's a planet 9, 2008 mediate
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shelter beds, and at the same time, move on a, no camping law
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Citywide, we have to have both but let's stop talking about the
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issue of housing. Okay.
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It's irresponsible to say homeless issue is only about
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housing, we have a drug addiction epidemic, dangerous
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meth people are not in the right mind frame, to say, yes to help.
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And let's focus on public health and public safety issue facing
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our streets today and that's drug addiction That's why thank
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you and we'll talk more about that threat.
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I think I was attacked. Well, it felt like an attack the
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light one. Well, my flight was a light
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attack but I guess, first attack of the night is, if you, if you
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want to go there is, you know, that you haven't been to some of
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these other forms or debates that have been that have been
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happening and your, we appreciate that you're here.
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Now, what is your response to that?
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Well, listen, Joe, I appreciate the efforts you've been taking
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on the city council but The reality is that I'm sorry I
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don't have notes, I didn't realize we were able to bring
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notes here, but the fact is Since You've Been A city,
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councilman there's 700 more people on the streets in your
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District alone. So I don't know how you quantify
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success when the problem has gotten worse under your
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leadership. So let's just focus on the
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issues instead of attacking. You got crime problems that we
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have to deal with. You have corruption in City Hall
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and we got homeless problems. I think that's what the people
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of Los Angeles. Want to hear his talk.
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You will not find one dangerous. Larger, All right, we're gonna
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start today. Okay.
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We're going to go to City attorney.
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Mike. Feuer 110.
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I thought that was a, I don't know if he actually didn't know,
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you could not bring Vote or bring notes to it or if that was
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just the thing he said, but I thought that was a good
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response. I think he kind of already went
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in. So like I don't people want to
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be attacking it. They want people in Los Angeles,
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want Solutions, and you're already attacking.
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So, I don't know where boost guy.
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He knows coming off from no. He's I, he's the one.
00:14:05
I agreed with most, Overall, in the things he said even though
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I'm not thrilled with any of them but he's very unlikable.
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He's I don't think he has a chance there's nothing about it
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that's appealing is that boost got you know or Carew boost guy
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you know. Oh I think he has good things to
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say kind of but yeah, don't like him, he comes off very, he's
00:14:31
like a robot, he's very like, I don't know.
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He seems very like that that and he's like, very, I don't know.
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He doesn't come off as personable at all.
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He had good answers. You're right.
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And a lot of people respect that he was a former LAPD officer,
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but he does come off a little stiff and almost too political.
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And that's And herbal thing. Attacks would be accomplished as
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mayor of Los Angeles on homelessness.
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Alex, thank you so much and I also want to thank your mother
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for the brownies everybody. That's that's right.
00:15:04
You should be happy and very much, very good when he talks
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with me already, that's very good.
00:15:08
So, I wrote a piece for years ago for the LA Times.
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That said, if we had a natural disaster we have a FEMA Field
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General here on the ground in charge of recovery.
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I wrote we have the equivalent of that disaster as homelessness
00:15:20
and there's no one in Charge my first day, that changes
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reporting directly to me. Now, Mike hit by opponents of
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borrowed from that. Let's go deeper.
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What does it mean to have an emergency response like as
00:15:30
though we're an earthquake? Well, it means having pop-up
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locations around Los Angeles. Where you have multiple services
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available? No more shopping around the
00:15:39
whole city for a person experiencing homelessness, and
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I've done this as City attorney. That's the thing about this race
00:15:45
experience counts. Other things went to change our
00:15:48
street engagement strategies, we should be saying to people
00:15:50
experiencing homelessness, The streets are dangerous for you is
00:15:53
no place for you to live. We have a place for you but
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there's going to be a choice date after we can't stay here
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because our public space is need to be safe and accessible for
00:16:02
everyone. Okay.
00:16:03
Thank you very much, mr. City attorney Erica to you?
00:16:05
Yes, actually, I'm going to stick with the issue of
00:16:07
homelessness and I was a big surprise to everyone, but so all
00:16:10
of you on the campaign Trail have talked about in can't fence
00:16:13
and the need to get people off the streets and into housing and
00:16:15
into shelter. But as we've seen particularly
00:16:18
with some of the more recent cleanups, not everybody is ready
00:16:20
to go. So so in those instances, do you
00:16:23
support, what would you do? And I'm gonna start with you mr.
00:16:25
Caruso because I believed in an interview with my colleague.
00:16:28
Alex, you mentioned that you'd be willing to use police
00:16:30
officers to clear. Encampments, can you talk a
00:16:32
little bit about Using police officers, I think Russo and
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biscaia are the only ones who are willing to go there and like
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understand the need for it? It's a, I mean, I don't even
00:16:47
know what the rest of them are saying.
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You're just going to go around and let them know the streets
00:16:50
are dangerous for them. That is not.
00:16:53
I bet it's like, they don't live in LA.
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I don't know where they live. No, I think they're trying to do
00:16:59
the like warm and fuzzy like will send out a social worker
00:17:03
and that'll work and they'll just give them a path.
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You shouldn't really be here meanwhile like you're talking to
00:17:10
this homeless person and they're like you know you know spaghetti
00:17:15
spaghetti Argentina or something they're like just yelling stuff
00:17:18
at you and you're like, okay so you obviously don't know what's
00:17:21
going on and I don't know what the The answer is funny.
00:17:23
She's right in for corrosive. Yeah.
00:17:26
Yes, you can tell throughout the debate, she kind of doesn't love
00:17:30
him but yeah I don't know what the answer is to homelessness
00:17:32
and I don't want to sit here and point fingers but I don't know.
00:17:35
So many of them, missed the mark for me and this debate and even
00:17:38
on their site. So yeah.
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Yeah let's see how Caruso answers is first kind of
00:17:49
poignant question from Erica about that so what I thank you
00:17:53
for the question what I said was I'm confident I can judge by the
00:17:57
end of the year. We know we can do it.
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It's been done in other parts of the country and other parts of
00:18:00
the world and we'll use best practices to get it done.
00:18:03
I'm the only one on stage. That's a builder that actually
00:18:06
knows how to get things built. So I'm confident I can do it.
00:18:09
We've got a real problem on the streets.
00:18:11
You got drugged you got mental illness.
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That needs to be dealt. It and you've got people that
00:18:14
want a second chance and you have to triage it.
00:18:16
You have to get people on the streets that understand mental
00:18:19
illness and give them the help. They need you need to get on the
00:18:21
streets that help people that are addicted to drugs and give
00:18:25
them the help they need. And you need to have training to
00:18:28
get people back on their feet. What you can't do is say we're
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going to allow certain encampments to be in some parts
00:18:35
of the city in some areas because then you'll never
00:18:38
control it. So once you have a dry bed, warm
00:18:41
food, you have the medical services that they need.
00:18:44
You need to give them an option one time in get a notch, or
00:18:47
maybe a second time, but a third time, you have to move that in
00:18:50
Canton it because you have to protect the communities that are
00:18:54
being impacted by the encampments on the sidewalks.
00:18:57
Congresswoman bass, I'm gonna go to you next.
00:18:59
You've talked about this issue some to as far as using police
00:19:02
and law to break up some of these encampments.
00:19:03
What are your thoughts on that? Well, let me just say first of
00:19:06
all that I don't believe that you should ever criminalize
00:19:08
poverty. I would, you notice how the
00:19:10
question was she lines it up? To be to accuse Rick Russo.
00:19:16
And she's like you've said, in the past that you want to use
00:19:20
police to break up homeless, encampments, and then he gives
00:19:23
his answer, which is good answer.
00:19:26
And then immediately, she goes to congresswoman bass and goes,
00:19:30
as if say, can you believe this freaking guy?
00:19:34
What do you think about this, huh?
00:19:35
Like what give me your thoughts of how you can also attack, Rick
00:19:39
Russo and make him look bad? Like that's such a weird what
00:19:42
she went from like Like hot to cold really quickly in her
00:19:45
question. So, yes, that is the case.
00:19:49
I almost threw out. You can definitely tell ya even
00:19:51
if I didn't know about the microphone, she has a bias.
00:19:56
Yeah. So you can tell she, she's in a
00:19:59
lot of these moderators. Alex is pretty good.
00:20:02
I feel like he does a lot of these debates.
00:20:04
It's usually pretty good. He's right.
00:20:06
He's pretty fair to everybody. But her questions are very much,
00:20:09
like, I'm picking, who I like. And I'm going to help give Them
00:20:13
layups to attack the people. I don't like so.
00:20:16
Yeah, that's very and again, no one's talking about
00:20:18
criminalizing poverty. That's just such like a catchy,
00:20:21
like Progressive way of saying things that's not the whole
00:20:24
issue of homelessness. It's not just a bunch of people
00:20:26
who can't afford rent and became homeless during covid, and they
00:20:30
just really want it. That's their really struggling
00:20:33
and a lot of them are out of their minds.
00:20:35
So it's not just the lies in poverty, but, Overall, she
00:20:39
reminds me of just like Kamala Harris.
00:20:41
She doesn't really say anything. She kind of says it, like sassy
00:20:44
a little bit, like it's cute and it's just no substance, but
00:20:48
that's just my opinion, I guess. Well there's a lot more so we
00:20:52
can get more. No substance answers.
00:20:55
There's a lot of no substance answers.
00:20:57
Yes, the other thing is that people need housing.
00:21:01
They need temporary housing immediately.
00:21:03
I do think that there's just some things that you don't do on
00:21:06
the street and sleeping is one of them.
00:21:08
However, I don't think that you just move people from One
00:21:11
neighborhood to another because if that happens, what that does
00:21:14
going to result in is people who are unhoused, all being moved
00:21:18
into lower income areas areas that don't have.
00:21:21
Have the ability to fight back either legally and the LAPD is
00:21:24
certainly not going to go into those areas.
00:21:27
So you use Street Outreach workers, you work with them.
00:21:30
But if somebody is profoundly mentally ill, they need support.
00:21:34
So you can give them one time. You can give them two times
00:21:37
three times. But if they're hearing voices
00:21:40
because their mental, they're not going to respond to that and
00:21:43
I certainly don't think that you arrest them.
00:21:45
I do think the police might need to be in the background in case
00:21:48
it's a dangerous situation but I don't think you used Police
00:21:51
Department to arrest people who are in encampments.
00:21:54
So she wants to Basically, from what I'm hearing is, she doesn't
00:22:00
want to use the police, but she wants the police there.
00:22:07
Just like to intimidate in the background.
00:22:08
Yeah. What are they gonna do if things
00:22:10
get dangerous, not arrest them. I guess.
00:22:14
So I guess you just like I guess she understands that.
00:22:16
This is a dangerous situation that may be sending social
00:22:19
workers is not the answer, so we'll send social workers with
00:22:24
police officers. So the answer her question.
00:22:28
Yeah. So you still need police to
00:22:31
break up homeless encampment. So basically that's what you
00:22:33
saying. Yes.
00:22:38
The councilman was scared. I want to go to you as a former
00:22:40
LAPD officer. What are your, what are your
00:22:41
thoughts on police almost? Five years ago, I encouraged my
00:22:46
and try to compel my colleagues on the city council that you
00:22:48
need to have a no camping law that has teeth.
00:22:51
Look at our city today and I was, right, we have been a city
00:22:54
that has been enabling this Behavior.
00:22:56
We have been a city, that's been a welcoming mat for the rest of
00:22:59
the country is to come to La pitch, a tent, take drugs in
00:23:04
public, and not be held accountable and and my Plan.
00:23:07
I don't know. A congress member bass, you're
00:23:09
saying that it's criminalizing poverty.
00:23:12
While I'm saying, is it criminalizing poverty to as
00:23:15
connect people to Services is a criminalizing poverty to make
00:23:18
sure our streets and our our sidewalks are in safe of
00:23:23
encampments. Is it criminalizing poverty to
00:23:26
allow people to allow people to sit in there and fill to sit in
00:23:31
human waste? That's not compassionate.
00:23:35
We and my plan is go to safer streets. .L AA.
00:23:38
And you'll see the plan is when a bed is available in the city
00:23:42
of Los Angeles. The sidewalk should not be an
00:23:44
option. Yes.
00:23:47
Congresswoman it is not criminalizing poverty.
00:23:50
What is criminalizing poverty? Is I believe your plan that
00:23:54
says, I'm going to give somebody three opportunities and if after
00:23:57
the third opportunity, they don't take it.
00:24:00
Then what happens to me? The only alternative is then
00:24:03
they're either going to be physically moved and then
00:24:04
they'll just be moved to another neighborhood or they'll be a My
00:24:08
point is is that we know that close to 50% of the people who
00:24:11
are on the streets are suffering from health conditions.
00:24:15
And so for somebody who is mentally ill, I don't believe
00:24:18
that that is a solution. They might not be able to
00:24:20
respond because of their illness.
00:24:22
Thank you. Thank you counsel.
00:24:23
I don't go to council member, Anna.
00:24:24
Liam, let me be every one of you that it's not there.
00:24:29
Nope. No.
00:24:30
No question for de Leon. I guess that's just an
00:24:32
open-ended question on homelessness for de Lyon.
00:24:36
You're right, that's a good like no, yeah, no question for daily
00:24:41
on it just hey, hey, Kev Kev. You want to throw your two cents
00:24:46
in here while we're at it? Well, I guess in general,
00:24:49
they're still on still on the subject of police using police,
00:24:54
but you're right sometimes they give questions specifically and
00:24:57
then a different question is someone else specifically?
00:24:59
And then open-ended to another. Yeah, she just kind of left it
00:25:03
open for Kevin De Leon who I guess is the self-proclaimed.
00:25:06
I'm homeless expert La now. So let's hear his response
00:25:12
Progressive or Humane to let engineer those live and die on
00:25:17
the streets of Los Angeles. Just last week at told you meet
00:25:21
Plaza in our Borough Tokyo. We housed 108 individuals.
00:25:26
Now, of course we had so-called activist trying to obstruct us
00:25:30
for moving. These folks from squalor for the
00:25:33
head to have a shower. Don't toilet.
00:25:35
Don't Warm bed, clean rooms as well as clean sheets and towels.
00:25:39
And more importantly, especially for in a locked door, there is a
00:25:42
major difference as I just mentioned a few moments ago and
00:25:45
that difference is, I'm actually doing something about it
00:25:47
already, not waiting for a fancy title of mayor or my name up on
00:25:51
the door to do something about it.
00:25:52
Like I just said a few moments ago I've house more individuals
00:25:55
than anyone has the entire city of Los Angeles.
00:25:58
In the past year, I have built the largest tiny home Village,
00:26:02
not in LA. But the entire United States of
00:26:04
America, nine times out of 10 on housing, the vigils, they'll
00:26:07
take the housing immediately, we have to supply.
00:26:10
The inventory to make sure we can move them from the streets
00:26:13
into housing. Hold on tight.
00:26:15
I don't, I don't believe that nine times out of ten, they'll
00:26:19
take it. I, I tried to look that up, but
00:26:21
I just, I have no way of corroborating that, but that
00:26:23
just doesn't sound sound right to me.
00:26:25
Also, I can't take seriously anyone who says unhoused.
00:26:28
I'm sorry, I know that's Petty, but that's so la to be, like,
00:26:31
let's change the language but not do.
00:26:35
Anything about it basically, like they're so offended that we
00:26:38
call them homeless, when they have no home.
00:26:42
Yeah, you are without home. You would be homeless but on
00:26:46
house is nicer, I don't know. And then if someone is unhappy
00:26:50
housed and they are with child, they are a pregnant person.
00:26:54
They are there unhoused pregnant people so as opposed to homeless
00:27:00
pregnant women but yeah his him in his time.
00:27:04
Village again but you can't seem to find you live there.
00:27:07
So you can't even find where his tiny bits.
00:27:09
So it's making me think a Zoolander where he's like, is
00:27:12
this like a is this a Tiny Village for ants?
00:27:15
Like it's so small, you can't even find it first.
00:27:20
I want to say what I said at the beginning, which is we've had
00:27:23
some success in the city. Offering a choice date for
00:27:25
people experiencing homelessness, we still have a
00:27:28
place for you to go. There's a date after which you
00:27:30
cannot stay here and that strategy typically has worked
00:27:34
occasionally. It doesn't when it doesn't in my
00:27:36
view, we should be having the triage location elsewhere in Los
00:27:39
Angeles, with congregate shelter and basic services.
00:27:41
And the person is moved there. But before I go on mr.
00:27:44
Caruso you indicated, you're a builder and I respect that, but
00:27:48
I have to say, you haven't done much in the way of building
00:27:51
homeless and affordable housing for all the opportunities you've
00:27:53
had. Instead you've opposed rent
00:27:55
control, and at the same time, you were building luxury housing
00:27:58
and opposing rent control. I was standing up for tennis
00:28:01
being illegally, evicted and making sure that we were
00:28:03
combating slum housing. Seeing and working to improve,
00:28:06
and expand affordable housing. Those are Stark differences
00:28:10
campaigns are about comparisons. Voters are entitled to know.
00:28:15
So that issue of the building thing, that's a great thing to
00:28:19
say. It's a great commercial, but
00:28:21
action speaks louder than commercials So this is one of
00:28:26
the things and I don't know what beef he has with this guy.
00:28:30
I can never pronounce this mic for vera for our Fiora.
00:28:36
They've had some beef or something because they went back
00:28:38
and forth this entire debate and the first thing I think of it
00:28:43
maybe it's just the the disgusting free market
00:28:45
capitalist in me. Says Why would he build homeless
00:28:50
shelters? His business is building the
00:28:54
Grove luxury apartments, that's what his business does.
00:28:59
Why would he go out of his way to build homeless shelters?
00:29:03
Which is a whole different thing.
00:29:04
Mind you, you have to get government approvals and permits
00:29:07
and I'm sure there's all these hoops and you have to get
00:29:10
Specialists and you have to get the right people to administer.
00:29:13
It's like it's not just throwing up luxury apartments, it's a
00:29:16
whole different thing and the profit margin is probably
00:29:20
nothing because You're not making money off homeless,
00:29:24
people, you'd have to get a contract with the city to buy or
00:29:27
to build that. So his kind of this point of
00:29:31
like, why haven't you built homeless shelters, if you're a
00:29:35
builder, I don't know probably because he's been a private
00:29:39
businessman up until right now and that wasn't in his
00:29:44
businesses. Best interest to build a
00:29:46
homeless shelter. So I why he's right.
00:29:49
It's a, it's a, it's a lame attack, in my opinion, it's an
00:29:54
oversimplification which I guess I don't know leftists are want
00:29:58
to do, you know? Like well this is so simple and
00:30:01
just do this and I don't know anything about building but
00:30:05
Crusoe and again he's not like my favorite in this but he
00:30:08
brings up how it's really difficult to build in LA and
00:30:11
there's a lot of red tape tape and that's a problem.
00:30:13
And I don't know whether that's true or not but it seems like it
00:30:16
might be true. And so That's also a valid, you
00:30:20
know, maybe reason or concern or whatever.
00:30:23
Yes, it's not so simple. Yeah.
00:30:25
It's not like he's just, you know, it says easy to build a
00:30:28
homeless shelter as it is and maybe I don't know, maybe it's
00:30:31
easier to build a homeless shelter than luxury apartments,
00:30:34
but I feel like it's probably easier to build luxury
00:30:36
apartments in La. If you can do it, and you're
00:30:40
good at it because people will pay in La for luxury apartments.
00:30:44
So rather than homeless shelters, which He's not gonna
00:30:48
make a profit on anyway, but serious response, mr.
00:30:52
Crewson she won't respond. Well I do know how to build and
00:30:57
I've been on the other side of the counter.
00:30:58
When I've tried to pull permits and this city is so
00:31:00
over-regulated. It was no surprise while we
00:31:03
don't have enough housing, but if you want to just talk about
00:31:06
facts and problems in the city Mike I'm sorry that you open the
00:31:09
store. Your office was raided by
00:31:13
federal agents. Your office is under
00:31:16
investigation and you've got a senior person in your office.
00:31:20
That's accusing you of perjury and you're standing here,
00:31:24
criticizing. Seeing me for building one of
00:31:26
the most recognizable and admired companies in Los
00:31:30
Angeles, if not the country. And I just don't think that's
00:31:33
the right thing to do is. Let's focus on issues.
00:31:36
Yep. Good Rick.
00:31:39
I'm Greg, glad you brought that up because sure, you are
00:31:43
building. You are because it highlights a
00:31:48
stark difference between us in my office out of 340 thousand
00:31:53
cases that I'm responsible. For and 2 laws that I've
00:31:56
written about 1 people in the course of my tenure, I
00:31:59
worked by overseas. There was one instance where we
00:32:04
uncovered violations, we made that information public, I hired
00:32:08
an expert, I published a report and then I issued a series of
00:32:13
reforms in contrast to your leadership in here which has
00:32:16
been thank you, City attorney as opposed to make Transit.
00:32:18
Thank you. We're going to we're going to
00:32:20
move on to the next question. Gone to the issue.
00:32:22
There we go. Of Crime.
00:32:25
Another big issue for a lot of people had a big issue in l.a.
00:32:29
crime. Is that, is it bad?
00:32:31
It is. Yeah, I hadn't heard I couldn't
00:32:36
no crime was bad in. L.a. totally not safe at all.
00:32:42
And 10 being really safe, really comfortable.
00:32:45
How safe, do you feel walking on the streets?
00:32:48
And if you don't feel safe, what something specific that you want
00:32:51
to see different as mayor? Listen, I would say a seven.
00:32:54
That's all relative to every angeleno depending on their zip
00:32:58
code and the color of their skin.
00:32:59
I'm sorry, I hate that. Okay, we both you go first.
00:33:07
Well, overall, I expect just my own opinion, great.
00:33:10
He's so annoying to me. And so, I don't know, just so
00:33:15
serious and such a sob story, but I would say more than
00:33:19
anything, it's dependent on your sex, à, Choux.
00:33:26
I don't think it's relative to where you live there.
00:33:28
Your ZIP code because you're traveling l.a. people drive.
00:33:33
I just don't see the point of making this all about skin
00:33:35
color. Her there and homelessness and
00:33:40
crime is an issue in Los Angeles, no matter what your
00:33:42
color is and your income level, and all of that.
00:33:45
So let's just deal with the problems.
00:33:47
I think the way he says it comes off as and I know he's trying to
00:33:53
Pander to you know he's trying to Pander on skin color and to
00:34:00
minorities when reality I think that's just it. it's almost
00:34:07
insulting the way he says it because it's like just because
00:34:12
you may be Black Or Hispanic and you're walking through a
00:34:17
neighborhood, you could still be Scared or not feel safe in your
00:34:24
neighborhood. Like that has nothing.
00:34:26
Is he trying to say like well if you're Hispanic and you're
00:34:30
walking through a certain neighborhood, you're going to
00:34:32
feel less or you're going to feel more secure because I like
00:34:36
I'm trying to figure out like just because your skin color,
00:34:40
your in a certain neighborhood, you should feel safer or I don't
00:34:43
know, it comes off to me like I guess those minorities don't
00:34:46
feel as scared because it's their communities, like the
00:34:50
opposite way. That's interesting.
00:34:52
Right. Like, they feel more scarier
00:34:54
because of the police ostensibly or because there's more crime,
00:34:59
but regardless, I just don't think it says, I just don't see
00:35:02
the point of separating it by skin color if you're running for
00:35:05
LA mayor. Yeah, I mean, if a neighborhoods
00:35:08
dangerous it shouldn't matter what skin color you are, it's a
00:35:11
dangerous neighborhood. Like if you go through a bad
00:35:15
neighborhood, it's a bad neighborhood.
00:35:18
Like I don't know. Shouldn't be like, I guess he's
00:35:21
assuming like Or maybe he's trying to say, oh, well if
00:35:24
you're, you know, if you're white in the wrong neighborhood,
00:35:27
then you're going to feel really scared because you're white and
00:35:30
you're very fragile and you're very scared.
00:35:33
But I mean, is it a bad neighborhood?
00:35:36
Or is it just and we're seeing these blatant smash-and-grabs
00:35:40
and just a broad daylight? It has nothing to do almost with
00:35:43
the neighborhood, which is sad gotten so egregious, that it
00:35:48
happens all over. Yeah.
00:35:51
Yeah his response right off the bat I was like, oh this is this
00:35:55
one's bad. They're sure violence.
00:35:57
So I know what fear feels like. I think anyone can stand on this
00:36:00
stage and ask for thousands of more police officers and I think
00:36:04
everyone had to say she has asked for an increase in the
00:36:06
budget. But what they're not telling you
00:36:08
is that if you increase the police budget to the numbers
00:36:11
that they want, it's going to cost 1 billion dollars over the
00:36:14
course of five years that does include pensions or Health Care,
00:36:17
nor does include the badge or even though squad car before we
00:36:21
get get into increasing our police budget.
00:36:23
We need to, we need to utilize our resources in a much more
00:36:26
effective manner. We need to hire Mental Health
00:36:29
Specialists together, LAPD officers off the mental health,
00:36:32
front lines and back on the line of duty to protect and serve
00:36:36
every person deserves to be treated with professionalism,
00:36:40
respect and dignity. We can better utilize our
00:36:43
resources strategically and hot spots where we have crime Trends
00:36:47
and keep all Angelina's safe. And we'll get more into that
00:36:50
specific queue of know. Of cops in our next round, but
00:36:53
City attorney fuhrer to you, if you had to do one to ten, one
00:36:57
being, Not Safe, 10, being really safe, how safe, do you
00:37:02
feel in Los Angeles? And what can be done on that
00:37:04
issue of crime? So I personally typically feel
00:37:08
safe, but I know because I'm going to every one of LA's 101
00:37:12
neighborhoods. The only American ever to do
00:37:14
that that people are on edge everywhere in the city from San
00:37:18
Pedro to North Hollywood. You know, this is an interesting
00:37:21
Arresting question. I just thought of it because The
00:37:24
way as a politician to tiptoe around, this is it's very it's
00:37:29
difficult because on one hand you want to say oh I feel safe
00:37:36
in Allah because Allah is such a great City.
00:37:41
But on the other hand, you don't want to say you feel too safe
00:37:45
because then you seem out of touch because Normal Los
00:37:48
Angeles, I like it's not safe. I don't know where you've been,
00:37:52
I don't know what Ivory Tower. You're living in or what rich
00:37:55
neighborhood you live in. It's not safe in La so I think
00:37:59
it's a very it's a tricky question for them to answer of
00:38:02
like they don't want to make it sound so bad of like l.a. is
00:38:06
like It is a war zone and it's really bad out there but they
00:38:10
also don't want to. I don't know, it's interesting
00:38:13
question but I was the only one not currently holding public
00:38:17
office. So if you're holding public
00:38:19
office and you say oh yeah, I felt super unsafe, it sort of
00:38:23
reflects badly on you and your work and your city.
00:38:27
Especially as yeah, especially City attorney, like your job is
00:38:30
to prosecute misdemeanors and you're like, I don't feel safe
00:38:33
at all. This is horrible.
00:38:34
And I just I don't think any of the answers were They all I
00:38:38
think without exceptions that I feel safe and I don't know.
00:38:41
I can't judge that but I just I don't believe that you feel safe
00:38:45
at all hours in any part of the city, I think that's BS even for
00:38:49
the men on the stage. So yeah.
00:38:53
And how do we address that? We don't have the zero-sum game
00:38:57
of either more police or reform because we need to do both.
00:39:00
I propose an increase in 500 officers to 10 and a series
00:39:05
of reforms to make sure that our office.
00:39:07
Are embedded in communities that are distrustful of police for
00:39:09
five years. Since to make sure that we
00:39:11
suffer from police officers, obligations interventions with
00:39:15
mental health issues on the street that aren't violent to be
00:39:17
sure. We have civilian ambassadors in
00:39:19
our police stations and to be sure that we deescalate violence
00:39:23
through training of our officers.
00:39:25
And one more thing, Alex, we can't ask LAPD to do it alone.
00:39:28
We need to complement that with neighborhood based violence
00:39:30
prevention intervention programs and cleaning up our communities.
00:39:34
Just cleaning up a neighborhood has been shown can decrease gun.
00:39:37
Violence by 29%, these are all parts of a comprehensive
00:39:41
sustainable Vision. Safety, mr.
00:39:44
Blue Sky. A know as a former cop.
00:39:46
How safe do you feel walking? The streets generally, I feel
00:39:49
safe but I'm not hearing that with my own family, also
00:39:52
probably, as a former police officer.
00:39:54
He probably already has a fast track to a CCW, which he, I'm
00:39:58
sure he likely carries. So I'm sure he feels real safe.
00:40:03
As if everyone could probably carry in l.a. that might be.
00:40:08
Yes. And I don't want to get too far
00:40:10
into the weeds but again, going on their websites.
00:40:13
So many of these people do Lyon Glee is very against Pro red
00:40:20
flag laws against the NRA. Crackdown on 80% rifles, which
00:40:25
are in his opinion, weapons of mass, destruction or weapons of
00:40:31
Excuse me, that's crusoe's website, actually, so Caruso and
00:40:34
DeLeon both have things on their website about how we need to
00:40:39
crack down on guns. Not necessarily just illegally
00:40:43
acquired guns, which is interesting because they're
00:40:46
talking about combating crime and making the average Angelino
00:40:49
feel safer. So, just something to research
00:40:52
on your own everybody. I guess, if you're really
00:40:55
interested in making an informed decision, he came in De Lyon is
00:41:02
one of his quote, keeps popping up from different organizations.
00:41:08
When I think he was assembly, man, he was talking about how he
00:41:12
was describing an AR-15, and he was talking about that.
00:41:17
There is I think this is the correct quote, someone would
00:41:20
have to correct me, but it's something about there's a
00:41:23
special button on the side of the AR-15 that Basically allows
00:41:29
it to become fully automatic which is not true at all.
00:41:34
Like you can't just push a button on an AR-15, make it
00:41:37
fully automatic and then he said, it shoots out something
00:41:40
like 300 rounds. And it's like, he got so much
00:41:45
wrong about the gun. He's trying to legislate out of
00:41:50
existence and you look at the stuff and you go, these are the
00:41:53
people who make the law, the gun control laws, they don't know
00:41:56
anything about Loudly says, on his website that he created the
00:42:01
strong, he wrote the strongest package of gun control laws in
00:42:04
California history. And again, like, I'm just
00:42:06
learning about guns, I've never shot a long gun, but I'll just
00:42:09
remind everyone that like, criminals don't abide by gun
00:42:14
legislation because they're criminals.
00:42:16
So this is just for the average angeleno again.
00:42:20
It's very difficult to get a CCW here.
00:42:22
The average single woman walking alone in Los Angeles.
00:42:26
There's, that's the only Listen, the only people that's effects,
00:42:29
not the criminal. So keep that in mind when you're
00:42:33
voting I guess I don't know. Family members with my friends
00:42:40
today. You see Mayhem and Chaos in the
00:42:42
city of Los Angeles, we haven't seen these homicide numbers in a
00:42:45
15-year period. Everything hinges on Public
00:42:47
Safety. I voted to defund voted.
00:42:49
Not I voted guess defunding LAPD, let me say this.
00:42:53
It's news though and the reason why I voted against it because I
00:43:00
expect to see. And I sold my colleagues.
00:43:02
Just when we take resources away from LAPD, expect to see a spike
00:43:05
in crime. When I first actions is Mayor is
00:43:08
going to be the refund, the LAPD 150 million dollars, and I'm
00:43:12
hearing from residents all across the city.
00:43:15
I hear from Sam Des, Stephen and Los Feliz.
00:43:18
They are afraid because you have a date.
00:43:21
They were dealing with a dangerous.
00:43:22
Encampment with a known local gang taken over their streets.
00:43:27
I've heard from the Melrose Avenue businesses, where it was
00:43:30
the epicenter of the smash-and-grabs.
00:43:32
Then you have a out-of-touch district attorney, who's not
00:43:36
Prosecuting crimes. Yeah.
00:43:37
And we'll talk more about him a little bit later too, but let's
00:43:40
wait to mr. Caruso now, how safe do you feel
00:43:43
walking? The streets of LA.
00:43:45
And what's the, most important thing that can be done in terms
00:43:47
of safety? I think we all agree.
00:43:49
We have a problem in the city with crime, homicides are up 50%
00:43:52
since 2019 vehicle, thefts are up. 50% since 2019, shootings
00:43:58
are up almost 50% since 2019. Here's the difference between
00:44:02
everybody on the stage of me, I inherited a mess after The King
00:44:07
beating. I was asked to be the president
00:44:09
of the police commission. I inherited apartment.
00:44:12
I reformed it. It was under a federal consent.
00:44:14
Decree got to remove by a reforming the department.
00:44:18
I change leadership went out for the best and the brightest
00:44:21
brought in Bill Bratton. We reverse the course of LAPD.
00:44:25
And then, what did I do next? I hired 800 officers.
00:44:29
And then what do we do? Next community policing, senior
00:44:32
lead officers officers were on the street.
00:44:35
They knew the neighbors, they Ooh, the storekeepers, there was
00:44:38
trust, you have to have trust. And then what happened?
00:44:41
30%, reduction of crime. I've done it before.
00:44:45
I'll do it again because I know how to do it.
00:44:48
Congresswoman, do you feel safe walking in do feel safe?
00:44:52
I would say it. Ten I feel safe, but I do I feel
00:44:55
really safe with my secret service and my bodyguards and my
00:45:01
bulletproof SUV that I ride in as a federal.
00:45:05
Congresswoman I feel Great. I don't I don't I don't know
00:45:08
what people are talking about 10/10.
00:45:11
Don't understand what people are talking about.
00:45:12
I am befuddled that people don't feel safe in La.
00:45:17
Excellent answer. Makes you really seem like
00:45:20
you're in touch with with normal angelenos.
00:45:24
I understand that a lot of people around the city, do not
00:45:27
feel safe and I respect that and we have to address that and when
00:45:30
there is a spike in And we have to hold people accountable on
00:45:36
the other hand, I want to address the crimes of today, but
00:45:39
I want to prevent the crimes of the future, and we can do that
00:45:43
by investing in communities in 1990 at the height of the crack
00:45:46
cocaine epidemic and gang violence.
00:45:48
We had a thousand homicides in South La.
00:45:50
At the time, I went to that crisis.
00:45:52
I went right in the middle of South Central.
00:45:54
I started an organization to figure out.
00:45:57
How do you organize the community to address crime.
00:46:00
How do you prevent crime and some of the projects and G, that
00:46:03
we came up with years later have been replicated.
00:46:06
They've been research base. And so, while I want to suppress
00:46:10
the crime of today, I want to very seriously invest in
00:46:14
prevention in the future. And in my office, I would have
00:46:17
office of community safety so we can prevent the crimes of the
00:46:20
future and make the investments in communities.
00:46:23
That will do that. Thank you, Congressman, course
00:46:25
she's referencing the Community Coalition in southeast.
00:46:27
I am. Eric said that the the premise
00:46:29
of Minority Report is that you arrested People based on future
00:46:32
crimes. What's that am I?
00:46:36
I am I feel like there's a movie based on and that's the part
00:46:40
where she really reminded me. Oh, go ahead.
00:46:44
Now you finish? No I just heard prevent the
00:46:47
crimes of the future. She said it like four times it's
00:46:50
like we get it. Okay.
00:46:50
What do you what do you saying though?
00:46:52
That's the part where I was like okay Kamala.
00:46:55
You're just saying words and repeating them like the passage
00:47:00
of time. Yeah.
00:47:01
Time is passing and the passage of time.
00:47:04
Yeah. In Ukraine is a small country.
00:47:07
Russia is a very big country. So, sticking with policing and
00:47:12
Public Safety. Some of you just mentioned about
00:47:15
creasing, a size of the Los Angeles Police Department.
00:47:18
I want to dig a little bit into that specifically, the numbers
00:47:22
that have been cited City attorney for you mentioned that
00:47:24
you want to take the force to around 10.
00:47:26
Is there a reason why that particular number makes sense?
00:47:29
Yeah. So at 10, the city was
00:47:31
experiencing a good level of safety.
00:47:34
The numbers have been declining as a consequence.
00:47:37
The police don't have the resources to respond to a hot
00:47:40
spot. It's the way they should as I go
00:47:41
around the community response times.
00:47:43
In general, our way down that needs to change.
00:47:47
And again, I think we need to be looking at expanding the police
00:47:50
force and at the same time reforming it, we could be doing
00:47:53
both things in communities throughout the city I'm hearing
00:47:56
we want candidates not to the left to the right, but right in
00:47:59
that heart of where common ground is and that's common
00:48:02
ground territory. As I mentioned, the police
00:48:04
department. Can't do it all by itself.
00:48:07
I began to delineate other elements.
00:48:08
My Public Safety plan. Including cleaning up
00:48:11
communities having teams that respond comprehensively across
00:48:15
departmental lines when a park isn't safe.
00:48:17
For example, neighborhood after school, programs, job, training
00:48:21
programs. These are all elements of what
00:48:23
it means to be a safe City. And I want our police force to
00:48:27
be diverse and I want to have more college graduates in it
00:48:30
which tends to deescalate. Access issues of violence.
00:48:33
Thank you, City. Attorney, mr.
00:48:35
Caruso, you also want to increase the size of the force,
00:48:37
but to a larger size, what is behind that number and How would
00:48:40
you propose paying for such a massive expansion?
00:48:43
The city payroll? So right now we have some as a
00:48:46
again, very poignant question from Eric and Rick Russo, you
00:48:52
want to really increase it to a large.
00:48:54
She doesn't say the number. She just says you want increase
00:48:56
to a very large number. It's going to cost a lot of
00:48:58
money. How do you plan on doing that?
00:49:00
So just going to another observation.
00:49:03
Yeah, you're right. He wants to increase it by
00:49:05
around 1500. According to his website.
00:49:10
How much was it? You cut out for a second by 1500
00:49:14
police. Oh, okay, Some of the worst
00:49:18
crime we've had in the history of Los Angeles and at the same
00:49:21
time, we have some of the worst violent crime or 500 officers
00:49:26
short, thanks to our career politicians, right?
00:49:29
So you're going in different directions and the arrest rate
00:49:32
is down 25%, which means officers are not engaging have
00:49:35
to change morale, you have to do the reforms.
00:49:38
You have to re-engage the community city of Los Angeles,
00:49:41
has a budget of 11 billion dollars.
00:49:44
I guarantee you. I'm used to managing budgets.
00:49:47
I'm going. Executive I'm a manager.
00:49:48
That's the difference between me and other people that are
00:49:51
running for office. The money is there to support
00:49:54
the additional officers and I also stand with our President
00:49:57
Joe Biden who said let's find the police.
00:50:01
There will be adequate funding coming out of the federal
00:50:03
government adequate funding coming out of the state
00:50:05
government. There are more resources in
00:50:08
terms of funds in the United States today than any time in
00:50:11
history except for the rising inflation and the amount of
00:50:15
money that we have to print. Because we don't have I have
00:50:17
money and we're 30 trillion, or so dollars in debt.
00:50:21
But yeah, we have more resources than we know what to do with
00:50:25
just and throw more money, right.
00:50:26
I don't understand how any of these people are going to pay
00:50:29
for any of this stuff and I just don't trust any of them.
00:50:36
That's usually a good idea. Don't trust any of these people
00:50:38
on the on the stage, never trust any politicians really, but you
00:50:44
can't put a dollar value on saving a life.
00:50:48
I'm talking to families at st. Lawrence down in W.
00:50:51
They're scared to have their kids go outside.
00:50:53
Think that's just not right. Thank you, councilman.
00:50:56
De Leon. You just talked about increasing
00:50:59
the size, not increase in the size of the force.
00:51:00
But talking about mental, health workers.
00:51:02
How would that work to somewhat some Of the other candidates who
00:51:05
proposed. Let me say the quote President,
00:51:07
Joe Biden. That's a bunch of malarkey.
00:51:10
Bunch of malarkey. Let's be very clear about that
00:51:12
because if you're going to increase the budget for the
00:51:14
LAPD, what they're not telling you is you have to raise taxes,
00:51:19
a billion dollars, of course of five years, let me underscore
00:51:22
that does not include pensions or Healthcare, your badge, your
00:51:25
weapon, your uniform, your belt, not even a squad car.
00:51:28
Why is he standing like that? That's billion dollars over the
00:51:31
course of 10 years. So you either have to raise
00:51:34
taxes on every day angelenos who have suffered greatly from the
00:51:37
coronavirus pandemic or You're gonna have to cut to the Bone.
00:51:42
When we talk about needed services for angelenos, such as
00:51:45
Meals, on Wheels for senior citizens after school, programs
00:51:49
for children, as well as parks for every Angelina.
00:51:52
That's the bottom line. You can't have it both ways.
00:51:55
And I think what we need to do is we need to better utilize the
00:51:58
resources that we have. We're budgeted for nine thousand
00:52:00
seven hundred and six officers through attrition retirement.
00:52:04
We can restore that budget or we can restart those officers
00:52:07
today. Okay.
00:52:08
Hold on. I I appreciate that.
00:52:11
He brings up the cost and raising taxes to do it.
00:52:14
That's probably honest. But also I don't think the
00:52:17
average Anna lean and Angelino cares about parks for every
00:52:21
angeleno and after-school programs above crime.
00:52:24
I just, I think that's his own political feeling and agenda and
00:52:28
it's just not very in touch with and the reality might be.
00:52:30
We can't afford it or whatever it is.
00:52:32
I don't again I don't know, the answer is not my job, but also
00:52:35
that's just not like number one on the list Meals on Wheels.
00:52:40
Yeah, it's I think I had this before that.
00:52:44
It's interesting listening to these candidates because they
00:52:47
all sound like 2 years ago. This sounds like stuff.
00:52:52
Republicans were saying, You know, and a lot of it is like if
00:52:57
you were in 2020 if you could look into the future and see
00:53:02
that the LA Mayoral race would be talking about things, like
00:53:07
how do we clean up the homeless? How do we increase funding for
00:53:11
the police? How do we hire more police?
00:53:13
How do we stop crime? Kevin De Leon saying, oh, can't
00:53:18
raise taxes? God forbid, we don't want to
00:53:20
raise taxes. You'd be like, that's like the
00:53:23
world. Way the LA mule race is going to
00:53:26
have people talking like this, but that's what they're talking
00:53:30
like and it seems like that's that's the general feeling of
00:53:35
all the candidates and maybe that's what the polling says, is
00:53:38
talk about this stuff and talk about it in a moderate way.
00:53:42
I read an article about how this could be a lot of angelenos sort
00:53:50
of envious of Orange County and they kind of Want more of that,
00:53:55
Orange County, stability, and safety, and they want some of
00:53:58
that cut like, Common Sense coming up to Los Angeles, so
00:54:02
it's definitely interesting to see because you listened to
00:54:05
these these politicians. And you're like, that's not the
00:54:08
party line from two years ago. Well, it's pulling some of them
00:54:12
have other issues on their sides, but they all some of them
00:54:15
only have these, two issues, homelessness and crime.
00:54:18
All of them, touch on that. And some of them, that's all
00:54:20
they talk about on their site. So they know.
00:54:23
We're concerned about homelessness and crime.
00:54:26
I don't know if they are, but they know we are.
00:54:31
Yeah. So that's what they're paying
00:54:32
during to and I'm sure the moderators know that to I'm sure
00:54:35
they look at the polling and saw what was important in made the
00:54:38
questions. Yeah and yeah and this girl with
00:54:42
her her mask on still sitting there looking at everybody, I
00:54:46
want to jump ahead a little bit because I want to get to your
00:54:49
favorite topic covid because they just Jump back in to talk
00:54:54
about covid. So let's, let's hop ahead to
00:54:58
their talk about covid and see how they respond or what their
00:55:03
because I think they're they're different, they have different
00:55:05
answers and it's definitely more marketed than up until this
00:55:09
point. It was basically, they're all
00:55:10
kind of like, on the same page like we need to clean up
00:55:13
homelessness. And yeah, we need to increase
00:55:16
cry or police so that we can fight crime, but covid seems a
00:55:19
little bit. They're all a little bit more
00:55:21
different. So, There's news.
00:55:24
Okay, now, let's see if we can make some news on the issue of
00:55:27
coat. Yes, it's that let's talk
00:55:30
briefly about covid. So obviously, Allah is coming
00:55:33
out of the worst. The pandemic businesses have
00:55:35
reopened, we've gotten rid of our Mass mandates were able to
00:55:37
talk, you know? But we've seen cases spiking in
00:55:41
other parts of the world in Europe, in Asia, and there's
00:55:43
some concern that there could be a search here and they're still
00:55:46
vulnerability here in l.a. given the disparities in vaccination,
00:55:49
hospitalization rates. So if we do, see another surge
00:55:52
would You support a return to more stricter rules and I'm
00:55:55
going to just go right to left, so turn it here.
00:55:58
Thank you very much, Erica. So the answer is, if we see a
00:56:02
surge, we're going to have to listen to the public health,
00:56:05
experts, advise, which I've been doing throughout this whole
00:56:07
process. I'm very proud.
00:56:09
There's been no Public Law Office in the nation as
00:56:11
impactful as ours and going after price gouging and fake
00:56:14
test kits and cures and prevention's and defending the
00:56:17
city's vaccination that vaccination mandate which I
00:56:20
strongly supported in the teeth of the pandemic.
00:56:22
If the health experts say we need to go back to tougher
00:56:25
restrictions, we will do it. If that means avoiding shutting
00:56:28
down our economy and closing, our schools and requiring masks
00:56:31
on kids because my pain I can't, I can't take anybody seriously
00:56:37
on this stage who says, we might have to go back to restrictions
00:56:41
if the public health experts say so and then claim to care about
00:56:45
housing, affordability unemployment.
00:56:49
Homelessness anything. You don't care about that at
00:56:52
all. You don't care about Equity.
00:56:54
You don't care about equality because going back to
00:56:56
restrictions affects all of those things and who are the
00:57:01
public health experts other than Barbara for are for every public
00:57:04
health expert. We all know.
00:57:06
Obviously, your audience knows who says we need to go back to
00:57:09
restrictions. There's another one who says no
00:57:11
we don't and Allah was in restrictions longer than anybody
00:57:14
and he is now claiming that we might have to go back to
00:57:17
restrictions in order to avoid shutting down our economy and
00:57:20
avoid putting mask on children's and shutting down schools.
00:57:23
We did all those things longer than anybody else and we still
00:57:26
had more restrictions than anybody else.
00:57:27
So it doesn't it doesn't work and I just this is for me, I'm
00:57:32
biased. This is like a single a
00:57:34
deal-breaker issue for me. I can't support any candidate
00:57:36
who doesn't say and I don't know how much say the mayor has.
00:57:39
And this honestly it was standing up to the governor.
00:57:41
But I you don't care about any of this stuff because you're
00:57:45
making all of those problems you just mentioned worse by shutting
00:57:48
down businesses. Has and imposing vax mandates.
00:57:53
WhatsApp, prevent the worst from happening if we learned I can
00:57:57
see. I it's why I'm watching you.
00:57:59
Like they're talking about Kobe, I can feel like you're that's
00:58:02
why I want to make sure we got to this topic because I was
00:58:04
like, I know she's gonna want to talk about covid because I
00:58:07
wouldn't be here if it weren't for covered.
00:58:09
I would not have been become a conservative or a Republican or
00:58:13
whatever I am. If it were not for covid, this
00:58:15
is a huge, huge thing in the country and especially in Los
00:58:18
Angeles and it's changing people's lives.
00:58:21
And it changed mine. So, here we are.
00:58:30
The fact that there was confusion and City Hall, about
00:58:32
who was in charge, we have to be training people now for the next
00:58:36
pandemic as though, we were training for an earthquake or
00:58:38
other disaster. We have to be sure if there are
00:58:40
concrete rules that are clear for our businesses, I did town
00:58:43
halls with small businesses uncertain with the rules.
00:58:45
Were, they need Clarity and certainty.
00:58:48
These are all lessons. We've learned from the pandemic
00:58:50
and as mayor going to put those lessons in place.
00:58:52
Thank you, mr. What is the question a mandate
00:58:55
or is that what I'm sorry would we basically would You if there
00:58:58
is a surge, would you support returning to stricter
00:59:00
restrictions both for businesses and schools?
00:59:02
And fair enough. Thank you for clarifying that I
00:59:06
have a company that was in the middle of a bull's-eye on the
00:59:08
pandemic. Everything I owned was shut,
00:59:11
they won no view. No visibility to how long we are
00:59:14
going to be shut. We had hundreds of employees,
00:59:17
hundreds of retailers. Hundreds of tenants, hundreds of
00:59:19
restaurants. What did we do?
00:59:22
We made sure that everybody got over the bridge together.
00:59:25
We did not lose one small business on our property.
00:59:29
It was a shared responsibility, that's the way I look at covid a
00:59:32
shared responsibility. If the health experts say we
00:59:36
need to have more restrictions, we should you need to follow the
00:59:40
advice of the experts, but I think government has two
00:59:43
critical jobs. One is to protect people's
00:59:46
lives. The second is to protect your
00:59:49
livelihood. I think we did a very poor job
00:59:52
in this County protecting livelihoods ninety percent of
00:59:55
the businesses in l.a. city or small businesses.
00:59:59
When you made them closed, you took the ability of people to
01:00:03
make money to put food on the table or pay their rent.
01:00:06
We have to be very careful on. How can you tell them pipe?
01:00:11
He's not wrong about. Well, first of all, I don't
01:00:12
think it's the government's job to protect your livelihood.
01:00:15
I don't think that's the government's job.
01:00:16
You should step out of the way if you want to protect people's
01:00:19
livelihoods. But that's what I've been saying
01:00:20
since. Beginning, is that livelihoods
01:00:22
our lives? You can't separate the two in
01:00:26
our, modern day Society, because you can't survive without it.
01:00:29
But, and I know a debate is limited in what you can say, but
01:00:32
he doesn't go into specifics. He just says, trust the health
01:00:35
experts just like throwing that out to appease that side of
01:00:38
things, but doesn't go into specifics of how do you protect
01:00:40
livelihoods? If you're trusting the health
01:00:42
experts which we proven in Los Angeles are idiots.
01:00:46
Sorry. And it's not on his site either
01:00:49
and and really no one. Other than Ferrer has anything
01:00:52
on their side about covid and I understand homelessness and
01:00:55
crime are the two or guest on I guess was the second major issue
01:00:59
when they were pulled. But that ties into crime.
01:01:01
But I would say covid is like a very close third for a angelenos
01:01:06
because we've been hit so hard and I think you need to talk
01:01:09
about what you would do. If and in fact, in my opinion,
01:01:13
win fauci and Newsome. And everybody else says there's
01:01:16
another surgeon, we have to shut down again.
01:01:18
I think that is important for this race and None of them are
01:01:22
doing that, in my opinion, other than maybe one, which we'll get
01:01:24
to in a sec. I guess.
01:01:26
Yeah. It's the one thing it's
01:01:28
contradictory to say I would trust the health experts and if
01:01:34
they say we have to do these things, I would do them.
01:01:37
But also I want to protect people's livelihoods which we
01:01:41
saw from the past two years, the health experts don't really care
01:01:46
about livelihoods and especially in LA county and l.a. they did
01:01:50
not Not care about livelihood. So I wouldn't put all my faith
01:01:54
in the health experts. If they say jump you don't say
01:01:57
how high you say. Okay, that's your opinion.
01:02:00
Now I have to take it into consideration in the real world.
01:02:03
That's that would be a better answer to say I'll listen to
01:02:08
them but it doesn't mean I'm going to just follow them
01:02:10
blindly which they all seem to feel like they can't it wait.
01:02:14
It's almost like blasphemy to like or heresy to say aye I
01:02:19
would listen to him but I would Take it in to consider.
01:02:21
Like you can't question the experts when it comes to the
01:02:25
left there like can't question it.
01:02:28
Yeah, they're all afraid to say it.
01:02:30
Yeah. I mean, maybe they really
01:02:32
wouldn't question, but the eye they all feel like they have to
01:02:35
say that. Oh, we have to follow the public
01:02:37
health experts. Well, yeah we did.
01:02:40
And here we always have. Yeah, take their opinion but it
01:02:44
doesn't mean you have to follow it to a tee.
01:02:46
So And the pandemic. Thank you Congressman.
01:02:51
So when the crisis hit, I was chairing the Congressional Black
01:02:54
Caucus. And one thing I've done in my
01:02:56
life is built coalition's and collaboration.
01:02:58
So I pulled together the black caucus, Latino Asian Pacific,
01:03:01
Islander Native American caucus. And we fought for in one
01:03:04
billions of dollars to deal with the disproportionate way cold,
01:03:08
it was impacting our communities and we sent millions of dollars
01:03:12
to Los Angeles. Hundreds of millions is a matter
01:03:14
of fact. And they would have been in a
01:03:15
fiscal crisis without that money and that money all So paid for
01:03:18
some of the tiny homes, own key room key etcetera, I would
01:03:22
follow the science first of all, but I do the science.
01:03:26
If we continue now to really focus on vaccinations in
01:03:31
communities where it's disproportionately low, the next
01:03:34
time we have a variant and by the way, we do have a variant
01:03:37
right now. It's a question as to how big
01:03:39
it's going to be the next time people it will not impact folks
01:03:43
the same way and so we probably won't have to do it now in
01:03:46
Congress, I also focus on Foreign Affairs So, we are
01:03:48
focusing on getting millions millions of vaccines around the
01:03:53
world until the world is vaccinated.
01:03:54
We're going to continue to have variance, okay?
01:03:56
I'm sorry, we're separating all of my feelings about the
01:04:02
vaccine. I cannot vote for someone who
01:04:07
cannot follow science. And actually read this woman
01:04:11
acts like she hasn't watched CNN, lately doesn't know that
01:04:14
the vaccine doesn't stop transmission, especially for
01:04:17
Omer. Grand or seemingly any new
01:04:19
variant, it gets weaker and weaker against transmission.
01:04:23
I I just I even if I love the vaccine had taken it, believed
01:04:27
everyone should take it. I don't trust you.
01:04:29
If you cannot just pick up a newspaper or like log online.
01:04:33
That she's crazy in my notes, I just wrote.
01:04:36
She's an idiot. I mean, she's like from May of
01:04:39
2020. I'm talking about
01:04:41
disproportionately impacted communities, we were all
01:04:43
impacted in Allah. And in California, it had
01:04:46
nothing to do with your skin color.
01:04:48
That's part of the problem here is that we're focusing on that
01:04:50
and there's nobody nobody in Los Angeles who cannot access a
01:04:53
freaking vaccine if they want it.
01:04:55
So acting like it. So disproportionate communities
01:04:57
don't don't have the vaccine. Like, that's our problem.
01:04:59
And you just need to educate them.
01:05:00
That's racist on both sides and it's absurd.
01:05:03
Some people don't want the vaccine.
01:05:04
So what are you going to do about it?
01:05:06
And there is no science behind. This is why we have new variants
01:05:09
because people are vaccinated I just I can't take this woman.
01:05:11
Seriously. Go ahead.
01:05:13
I'm sorry. You know what she is?
01:05:14
Yeah, when she says, oh well, we'll continue High variance in
01:05:17
Till everyone's vaccinated isn't the reason we have variance
01:05:22
because everyone gets vaccinated and then it's the virus is
01:05:26
mutating and creating more variants like and it's also
01:05:29
going to create more variants regardless so it's yeah, I think
01:05:34
possible can't vaccinate everyone at the same time unless
01:05:37
we're talking about forcibly doing it.
01:05:39
And obviously that would pertain to the entire world.
01:05:42
We did not forcibly vaccinate the entire world at exactly the
01:05:45
same time. So here we are and covid never
01:05:47
going away. And you're running for mayor of
01:05:49
Los Angeles. So stop talking about
01:05:51
vaccinating, the world like you're a moron.
01:05:54
I'm sorry. Yeah.
01:05:55
And her whole little tirade about oh I brought hundreds of
01:05:59
millions back at the first thing I thought was boy she brought
01:06:02
the pork home. That's for sure.
01:06:03
Actually made sure hundreds of millions flooded into the LA
01:06:08
City coffers and so great, it's good to know that you brought
01:06:14
the pork home. Thanks for letting us know.
01:06:17
No, the story of covid-19, little six is A Tale of Two
01:06:22
Cities in one, La, the poor got poor and the middle class got
01:06:27
smaller and the other La Rich actually got richer Expendable.
01:06:31
Essential workers. Treated like Expendable workers
01:06:33
front line workers relegated to the back of the line for
01:06:36
life-saving vaccinations. And PPE equipment, not waiting
01:06:40
to lead on this issue because I've already introduced
01:06:42
legislation, that will create a public health department for the
01:06:46
city of Los Angeles. And I So invest historic amount
01:06:49
of dollars. So we can educate every angeleno
01:06:52
in every language to make sure they are prepared for the next
01:06:55
Global pandemic invariant because it is going to happen.
01:06:59
We underscore and emphasize the phone my district at the height
01:07:04
of a pandemic was Ground Zero where we had the highest
01:07:07
infection as well as mortality rate families were devastated.
01:07:12
There will be another pandemic be rest assured but we have to
01:07:15
be prepared for it and that's why I'm going to Wait a public
01:07:18
health department. So we can cut through all the
01:07:20
bureaucratic BS at the county and state level.
01:07:22
Make sure we get the feta goes directly to City.
01:07:26
Isn't there already a public health department of l.a. city
01:07:30
or am I is there? No Public Health Department.
01:07:34
Well there's one for the county and so their issue and I don't
01:07:37
know whether they're right or wrong on this.
01:07:39
I don't understand whether it be a good thing or bad thing for
01:07:42
people who are of our way of thinking.
01:07:44
But we share the department with like 70 other cities.
01:07:48
And we're so big that they argue, we would need our own.
01:07:51
And I think, in fact bass says, at the end, she's not a, she
01:07:55
gets asked. A specific question about it
01:07:57
towards her for some reason. She said she's not opposed to it
01:08:00
but it would take like 10 years to make.
01:08:02
I don't know whether that's true or not.
01:08:04
But most of the candidates on the stage support trying to make
01:08:07
one ASAP for just the city. Yeah.
01:08:12
More bureaucracy. Yeah.
01:08:18
Thank you. Well first, I'm proud of what
01:08:20
we've done in my district in response to covid-19.
01:08:23
Look at us. We're together again.
01:08:26
We don't have masks on this, emergency is over enough with
01:08:33
these emergency orders. In fact, the last three months,
01:08:35
in the city of Los Angeles, in front of council, I voted
01:08:38
against continuing the emergency orders, but we know what to do.
01:08:42
We know what not to do, vaccines are Universal.
01:08:47
Access to Maxie vaccines today. We also have universal access to
01:08:51
testing. Look at our traffic, we're back
01:08:54
at work. I was one of my first sale or
01:08:58
not that's a good thing to brag about but we refund the LAPD 150
01:09:03
million dollars. I'm going to end the employee
01:09:07
vaccine mandates. We are losing our police
01:09:11
officers and firefighters to neighboring agencies and at the
01:09:15
same time we're seeing Spike in fires and a spike in crime, we
01:09:19
have to end the employee vaccine mandate in the city of Los
01:09:23
Angeles. Okay.
01:09:24
I'll try to get you in on that later because well, that 15
01:09:27
Karen bass is shaking her head and they never get back to it
01:09:30
and I'm disappointed on that, but she clearly is for the
01:09:34
vaccine mandate, which is ironic because on her website.
01:09:37
She says she wants to add more forces to the police force, but
01:09:42
that sort of difficult to do because you're making it more
01:09:44
difficult to become a cop right now.
01:09:46
And the reality is is all these people have to deal with.
01:09:48
They talk about diversity, diversity of Los Angeles, part
01:09:51
of it is some people do not want, our cannot take the
01:09:54
vaccine. So how are you going to do with
01:09:55
that? Not with vaccine mandates.
01:09:58
I just like to point out girl and math.
01:10:01
She's riled up about that last answer.
01:10:03
She's talking to her friend. She was like, can you believe he
01:10:06
wants to get rid of the employee magic mandate?
01:10:10
And the girl is, they actually, she probably doesn't even know
01:10:12
this girl, this girl is just like, okay, okay?
01:10:15
I can't hear you through the mask.
01:10:17
Thanks talk to you later. Hey, ask a different kind of
01:10:24
question now because not only are people here trying to
01:10:28
understand your policies. I think people are trying to get
01:10:31
a grasp on who you are, because this is such an important job
01:10:35
and a lot of it is Try to understand your character and
01:10:38
your values. So mr.
01:10:40
Caruso I want to start with you named a member of your family,
01:10:45
don't you think your values okay?
01:10:47
That was it for the covid. All right.
01:10:50
I wanted to wrap up because I want to get your input as an
01:10:53
angle, you know, there's a lot more if you want to subject
01:10:57
yourself, anyone who's listening?
01:10:58
You can go find this, they have a whole bunch of videos of it.
01:11:02
If you want to subject yourself to the whole hour and a half, I
01:11:06
would I would highly recommend I commend it.
01:11:07
If you live in Los Angeles, definitely tune into this, but
01:11:11
these were sort of the highlights of this whole debate.
01:11:15
What was your takeaway? And is there, anybody as an
01:11:19
angeleno who kind of stands out to you specifically that you'd
01:11:23
be like I would support that person for the next mayor.
01:11:30
My takeaway is that I really need to move Nana.
01:11:34
Watson is none of it was real. Ali gave me a lot of other heart
01:11:40
and I hate to be that cynical. I mean, just the fact that
01:11:44
they're all Democrats which I guess is to be expected.
01:11:48
And again I'm biased because covid is like a deal-breaker
01:11:51
issue for me and I thought they were all lacking on that blue
01:11:54
sky. You know, is the only one who
01:11:56
sort of you know speaks to me and in any way I think his
01:11:59
answers are Clear, and make sense to me.
01:12:04
And he's not afraid to say it, but I don't think he has a
01:12:07
chance at all, and I wouldn't necessarily be thrilled with
01:12:10
him. I don't know.
01:12:11
I just, I don't, I don't, I think this is more of the same
01:12:15
BS and I hate to end it on that note, because that's so not
01:12:20
helpful and I want people to go out and vote and all that.
01:12:22
But just watching this, I don't see how anything is going to
01:12:26
change in Allah. And I know a debate is limited
01:12:29
like I said, but I did do my due diligence and go to their
01:12:32
websites. And again I wasn't I wasn't
01:12:34
thrilled. So I'm not really sure.
01:12:39
So moral of the story to anyone watching or listening if you
01:12:41
live in Los Angeles, get out. Now that's the moral of the
01:12:46
story, it's not going to get better.
01:12:49
Yeah, I thought it was surprising how, like I said
01:12:54
before, I was surprised at how moderate they all came off.
01:12:58
Like, as I was listening to it, I expected a lot more specially
01:13:02
Allah, which is a fairly, I would say, fairly woke City.
01:13:07
It's not San Francisco by any means, but even San Francisco, I
01:13:10
think, is starting to get fed up with a lot of the woke stuff and
01:13:13
they want Common Sense. Kitchen table politics, back in
01:13:17
their cities. They want save streets and they
01:13:19
want to be able to go to the park, with their kids, and
01:13:21
their, their, their dogs and whatever there.
01:13:25
Therapy lizards or whatever, they go to the park with in San
01:13:28
Francisco and they just want to live normal lives and it was
01:13:33
definitely interesting to me to watch this whole thing and see
01:13:38
how moderate they all came off. And again, I don't know if they
01:13:44
get elected, I would say maybe out of all of them, I can
01:13:48
imagine Caruso and boost guy, you know, staying moderate
01:13:52
especially since we're Caruso, was a republican at Point boost
01:13:56
guy, you know, seems like a pretty blue, dog Democrat.
01:13:59
He's a former police officer. I wouldn't trust Karen bass or
01:14:04
Kevin De Lyon. To not just go far left the
01:14:07
minute, they get into office and just be complete woke
01:14:11
politicians, Mike feuer. I don't think he'd be very
01:14:15
effective at all so I'm not even worried about him.
01:14:19
But yeah it was, it was definitely interesting and I
01:14:21
think I'll wait, there's another guy who's a guy over here.
01:14:23
He's wearing a mask too. Brand-new blue mask, he's
01:14:26
wearing a fresh blue mask is that the girl might be a guide
01:14:30
to because in this screenshot she comes some kind of looks
01:14:33
like a guy just kind of looks like a surfer bro should be a
01:14:38
surfer. Bra showing up like did I want
01:14:41
to check out the mayoral debate? Let's go bro.
01:14:46
Yeah so I was surprised that how how moderate they all came off
01:14:50
and it is interesting that they are talking about stuff like we
01:14:55
Want to fund the police and we want to put more cops on the
01:14:57
street and there was not one talk about black lives matter or
01:15:03
any of the cultural stuff, that's for sure.
01:15:05
And it was all pretty straightforward.
01:15:08
It was a lot of kitchen table politics.
01:15:09
There wasn't one, mentioned like trans issues or I don't know.
01:15:14
It was it was lacking of woke politics and especially for
01:15:19
Erica. Who is the author of the black
01:15:21
face of white supremacy? I was surprised that she didn't
01:15:24
inject more woke politics into it and yeah, it's surprising for
01:15:28
me for ELA and I'll be, I mean, I'm keeping my eye on LA because
01:15:32
I think it could be an indicator of maybe stuff to come in
01:15:38
California. If people are starting to move
01:15:41
back towards the middle, But I won't hold my breath in places
01:15:45
like La. I think other places you have a
01:15:47
better chance of moving back towards the metal, so those are
01:15:50
my thoughts. Yeah, that makes sense.
01:15:52
I think maybe you're more hopeful than me.
01:15:55
I thought it was to Welk. I wrote I was really my eyes
01:16:00
left and right, honestly. I thought it was I don't know,
01:16:05
maybe I think Kevin De Leon side.
01:16:08
Kevin. Yeah, I think Kevin De Leon was
01:16:10
I think if we were handing out Awards, he definitely gets award
01:16:13
for the most woke politician on the stage because everything
01:16:17
started off with, you know, as the son of immigrant parents and
01:16:22
black brown Asian communities and he always had to go into
01:16:26
like every answer was prefaced with like something about
01:16:30
minority community. So, here's the most woke out of
01:16:33
All of them. I think Karen bass was, I think
01:16:37
she's trying to walk back. A lot of her issues of support
01:16:40
for communist leaders and she's been far left in the past.
01:16:44
So I don't And career. So we didn't get to any of his
01:16:48
fingers, but he had some pretty good singers.
01:16:50
I liked his singers so yeah. Oh yeah.
01:16:53
I don't want to be clear, but like I understand race is an
01:16:57
issue and all of that I'm not saying it's not, but I just
01:16:59
don't think it should be at the Forefront of a mayoral debate,
01:17:04
let alone a race because there's people like me who get left out
01:17:08
of just, you know. I think it was fear who brings
01:17:12
up later in the debate that the average median income for a
01:17:15
white family. Emily in Los Angeles or not
01:17:17
income but wealth is apparently three hundred fifty thousand
01:17:20
dollars and the average median wealth for black families.
01:17:23
Apparently four thousand dollars.
01:17:25
I don't know whether that's true.
01:17:26
That's a problem if it is true but it just doesn't speak to the
01:17:29
actual like average angeleno and it just makes you kind of cringe
01:17:35
a little bit to hear all this talk about diversity and, you
01:17:40
know, we need to make affordable housing, but they were going to
01:17:42
do a vax mandate again, maybe, and then white.
01:17:45
Families are this. It's just just speak to the
01:17:48
issues, is my opinion. I wouldn't be sitting here if
01:17:51
these people ever did but they don't They also ask them at the
01:17:59
end. They all ask them like one like
01:18:01
rapid fire. Like Philly question, we're
01:18:03
going to be silly now. We're going to have some fun,
01:18:06
they ask them at the end like a rapid one fire question, they
01:18:08
asked Mike for who was his favorite athlete and he said
01:18:11
Mike Trout and I was like, Mike Trout doesn't play for an l.a.
01:18:16
team. He plays for the Anaheim Angels?
01:18:18
Okay, I don't think people, I don't mean because they call it
01:18:22
is. Funny thing is, if you're a
01:18:23
baseball fan, they call them the Los Angeles, Angels.
01:18:25
Owls. Even though they play in
01:18:27
Anaheim, they know that when I was okay, when I was a kid they
01:18:32
were to Anaheim Angels. Yeah.
01:18:34
Now they're back there. They've gone from Lee.
01:18:37
Goes to the Anaheim Angels to the Los Angeles Angels so that I
01:18:43
don't know why they're called the Los Angeles.
01:18:45
Angels, they're not in l.a. that the Anaheim Angels.
01:18:49
But there was a whole bunch of rapid-fire questions that we're
01:18:52
kind of silly at the end like Bush guy.
01:18:54
You know, they asked him, where would you go on your if you took
01:18:57
a tourist from out of town? It's our first time in LA and he
01:19:00
said, the San Pedro Fish Market was like, Really, that's out of
01:19:05
all the places in, l.a. you take them to a fish market, okay,
01:19:10
whatever, but it was it was something.
01:19:14
So I'm glad thank you. Everyone for tuning in, to
01:19:19
listen to us, talk about the LA, me or race.
01:19:23
If there's any more debates, we like to tune into.
01:19:26
And I'm sure they'll be gubernatorial debates down the
01:19:29
line. And yeah, we'll cover those.
01:19:33
As well. So thank you Natalie for coming
01:19:36
on and providing your your unique perspective from Behind
01:19:40
Enemy Lines as I like to say in Los Angeles as always.
01:19:43
Because yeah, I mean, I don't know what it's like San Diego.
01:19:47
We're free. We got sunshine, there's no
01:19:50
Mass. Nobody's worried about vaccine
01:19:52
mandates down here. It's a whole different world
01:19:54
down here in San Diego. Just a short 100 miles away from
01:19:57
you. Well, my assemblymember just
01:20:03
Voted Barber for are woman of the year so oh, I don't know.
01:20:08
For what I guess for LA or our district.
01:20:12
I don't know. But that's how out of touch we
01:20:14
are here. So they actually have an award
01:20:16
for I was yeah, I was gonna say they actually have an award for
01:20:20
a woman of the year. That seems kind of like that
01:20:24
doesn't seem very sensitive to those who identify as woman.
01:20:27
Mmm, Yeah. Lala.
01:20:32
But, yeah, thank you for coming on again, and to everyone
01:20:35
listening or watching. If you liked this show, as
01:20:38
always, make sure you share, like, review, subscribe, all
01:20:41
that stuff, that helps the podcast grow.
01:20:44
And let people know that we're what we're talking about and
01:20:48
hopefully, we'll be back to normal next week with the
01:20:50
Thursday 8:00 p.m. to crazy week and I got to get running to a
01:20:55
political event that's about an hour away with traffic here in
01:20:57
San Diego County. So Thank you again, Natalie.
01:21:01
And enjoy your weekend. Thank you.
01:21:06
And everyone else have a great night later.
01:21:27
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01:21:29
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