A Candid Conversation with Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass

It’s been a year in Los Angeles. Between the historic wildfires, rapid recovery efforts, and the ICE raids over the summer, Mayor Karen Bass has been tasked with moving at a breakneck speed to meet the demands of a city in peril. Watch this conversation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQdNdebmVrI on our new YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@talkeasypod. The Mayor joins us this week to reflect on her office’s response to ICE in Los Angeles (7:00), the federalization of thousands of National Guard troops by the Trump administration (11:20), and the ongoing legal battle now being waged in court (15:00). We also discuss the city’s “rapid rebuilding efforts” in the aftermath of the January wildfires (21:45), lessons learned from the historic catastrophe (25:50), and why she cut through “federal red tape” (28:48) to push forth her Inside Safe program designed to reduce homelessness (30:20). On the back-half, we get into some of Bass’ personal story: coming of age in the Venice/Fairfax area of Los Angeles (36:30), working in emergency rooms during the crack epidemic of the 1980s (46:00), and her six terms in Congress representing various Los Angeles districts (58:00), all while navigating unimaginable personal loss (54:00). To close, the Mayor discusses her ongoing mission to end homelessness (1:00:00), the promise and potential of the 2028 Olympics (1:04:00), and where she finds the strength to continue fighting for the city that raised her (1:04:45). This episode was recorded at Spotify Studios. Thoughts or future guest ideas? Email us at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. Get 50% off Monarch Money, the all-in-one financial tool at www.monarchmoney.com/TALKEASY. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:21Sam Fragoso?

  This is Talk Easy. I'm Sam Fragoso. Welcome to the show.

• 0:38Sam Fragoso?

  Today, the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass. She made history back in 2022 as the first woman to be elected as the city's mayor, beating out real estate developer Rick Caruso, who, if you remember, ran a campaign that cost north of $104 million. The celebration of that fact lasted about seven seconds. Somewhere between the news breaking, the balloons dropping, and the confetti being swept up by the janitorial staff the next day, the LA Times editorial page put the mayor-elect on notice. "Congratulations to Karen Bass," the editors wrote. "Condolences as well for a difficult job ahead." If only

• 1:19Sam Fragoso?

  they knew just how difficult. Upon being sworn in, Bass inherited a divided city rife with political scandal, homelessness, gang violence, overcrowded neighborhoods, a shortage of affordable housing, a looming climate catastrophe, rampant racism and corruption inside City Hall, not to mention the goddamn traffic. By the way, that was at the end of 2022. That was before what Los Angeles endured in the first eight months of this year. A historic wildfire that has destroyed over 16,000 homes and businesses, displacing well over 13,000 families. That was then followed by a summer of deportation at the hands of ICE agents,

• 2:02Sam Fragoso?

  also National Guard troops that President Trump deemed necessary to accompany said immigration agents on their raids. The events of 2025 have resulted in an ongoing stress test of the utility of the mayor's office. The raids tested the limits of sanctuary city protections, a battle that is now being fought in court. The fires further expose once more the bureaucratic red tape that makes addressing the housing and climate crises in Los Angeles nearly impossible. And yet, Los Angeles, led by Karen Bass, goes on. And so today, I sit with the mayor to talk about the rebuilding efforts in the aftermath

• 2:42Sam Fragoso?

  of the wildfires, her very complicated relationship working with the Trump administration, the Inside Safe program her office created to combat homelessness, which has actually seen a decrease in two consecutive years. And then on the back half, we get into some of her personal story, growing up in Los Angeles, working in emergency rooms throughout the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s. And then finally, moving to Congress, where she served six terms representing LA districts while navigating unimaginable personal loss. One thing I want to note before we get into it, I heard from a lot of people asking about

• 3:21Sam Fragoso?

  the long expected after-action report regarding the Palisades Fire, which the city is required to complete after any kind of catastrophe like the one we suffered this year. There are a lot of questions that people are hoping the report answers, like what the city did and didn't know before the fires, an analysis of what went well and what could have been done better, and then perhaps most importantly, specific recommendations for future training, planning, and resource allocation. For obvious reasons, I've been asking about this report since we got word that the mayor wanted to sit for an interview. At the time of recording, that report was not available.

• 4:06Sam Fragoso?

  When we finished the taping, I once again asked the mayor if she would check in on this, and true to her word, she did circle back with the interim fire chief, and the office issued a statement earlier this week. Quote, "The US Attorney's Office for the Central District of California requested the report be held to avoid interference with an ongoing federal investigation. Upon the conclusion of that investigation," the statement reads, "the after-action report will be released in coordination with the DOJ." The long and short of it, as I understand it, is that the report has actually been completed, it has been reviewed by the mayor's office, and is ready to be released by Mayor Karen Bass. But for now...

• 4:49Sam Fragoso?

  It must be held until the DOJ finishes its investigation. When I asked when that may be, I was told that the mayor's office has been given no timeline whatsoever from the DOJ. Hopefully, it is sooner rather than later. Whenever it's released, we will be here and ready to talk about it, and I hope the mayor will join me again back on the program when that happens. Until then, here is my first conversation, the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass.

• 5:34Sam Fragoso?

  Mayor Karen Bass.

• 5:35Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 5:36Sam Fragoso?

  A pleasure to meet you.

• 5:37Speaker 01

  Thank you. It's very nice to meet you as well.

• 5:40Sam Fragoso?

  Your team suggested that we sit down for an interview, and I have to admit, when they suggested the idea, I thought, Los Angeles, pretty tough year.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  Very tough year.

• 5:53Sam Fragoso?

  Pretty tough year.

• 5:54Speaker 01

  Very tough.

• 5:55Sam Fragoso?

  It's not typical that a politician would run towards an interview

• 6:00Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 6:01Sam Fragoso?

  after a year like this. And so I want to just commend you from the top, like, the fact that you're here means a whole lot. But how are you doing?

• 6:09Speaker 01

  Well, you know, thank you for asking. I appreciate that. I'm doing fine. And yes, it was a tough beginning to the year, but, but-

• 6:17Sam Fragoso?

  That feels like an understatement.

• 6:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, in a way, it is. But, you know, I actually like this because I like having thoughtful conversations, getting past a soundbite like you have to do in a regular, you know, routine press interview. But to sit down and have a thoughtful conversation is something I do appreciate. And what I used to do is I used to do town halls all the time. And I love that public engagement. Town halls are a little more difficult now, though.

• 6:45Sam Fragoso?

  Why are they more difficult?

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Well, you know, what I experienced as a candidate is that people would come to shut the town halls down, or that people were really interested in clicks, social media, where I'm used to rowdy town halls.

• 7:00Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  I'm used to that, but not so much for the purpose of social media.

• 7:04Sam Fragoso?

  Okay, I want to know, jumping right in. When you wake up in the morning, what's your morning look like? When, when the ICE raids have been happening this summer? Like, how, how do you, how do you get up and start getting to work?

• 7:19Speaker 01

  Well, first of all, I do wake up extremely early and my morning is spent, probably like a lot of people, reading the news on my phone. And I read, but I've, I've compulsively read and followed the news since I was a child.

• 7:33Sam Fragoso?

  Right, but now you do what most of us do.

• 7:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:36Sam Fragoso?

  Except in your case, you actually have a chance to more meaningfully affect the news that you see on the screen.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  But I have to follow the news to know what is going on. And so I follow local, state, federal and international.

• 7:52Sam Fragoso?

  Well, let's start with local. The Trump administration over the summer deployed Marines and the National Guard to Los Angeles to, quote, "quell the ICE protests and to liberate the city," there were liberate, "to liberate the city from its elected officials." Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said, "Your leadership is both socialist and burdensome, and that ICE operations will continue to target people in work sites that are trafficking drugs and trafficking human beings." I have two questions. When she says socialist leadership, is she describing Mayor Karen Bass? Or is she describing Karen Bass at the age of 19, who traveled to Havana, Cuba to explore alternatives to capitalism?

• 8:36Speaker 01

  You know, no, I think she is just doing the performance of the administration.

• 8:43Sam Fragoso?

  And you worked with her in the past.

• 8:44Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, you know, I do know her.

• 8:47Sam Fragoso?

  You guys would wake up early and run together in a gym.

• 8:49Speaker 01

  Well, yes, we were both, we would both work out in the gym together. Not so much running, but we would both work out in the gym.

• 8:55Sam Fragoso?

  Power walking.

• 8:56Speaker 01

  And, and so she certainly knows me. We served together for, I believe, at least 10 years. I was in Congress for 12 years, so.

• 9:05Sam Fragoso?

  And did she ever mention that you were a socialist in that time?

• 9:08Speaker 01

  No, that's why it's performative. And, you know, because I did go through the first Trump administration, I'm used to the, what do we used to call it? Performative nature of the leadership. And so to me, the raids were that, you know, as well. To relieve us, to rescue us, we were doing just fine on June 5th. June 6th is when things became difficult with the first raid that happened. And remember, it wasn't just one place. It was, I think it was four or five places all at the same time. So it created a sense of confusion and chaos in the city. What is going on? What is happening here? We were all taken by surprise and there was no communication. Whereas I had been working with the administration positively in terms of Palisades.

• 9:53Speaker 01

  I mean, it's one of the reasons why we were able to get the lots cleared so that people could rebuild so fast because the administration had an unprecedented number of Army Corps of Engineers to get that work done.

• 10:06Sam Fragoso?

  And you credit the Trump administration for helping you on that front?

• 10:08Speaker 01

  Well, they're the ones that are in control of the Army Corps of Engineers. It could not have happened without them.

• 10:13Sam Fragoso?

  They seem to be willing collaborators on the recovery front after the fires. Why has their tune changed so greatly this summer?

• 10:23Speaker 01

  First of all, their tune didn't in the sense that he ran on this. But remember, in the beginning of the administration, they were going after hardened criminals. And there is absolutely no evidence of that.

• 10:37Sam Fragoso?

  People trafficking drugs and trafficking human beings?

• 10:39Speaker 01

  And I don't know how, driving down the street, you can tell that by looking at people. I don't know how you can tell that in a parking lot of Home Depot. When you're running and chasing people, you don't even know who they are. Or, you know, emptying out a car wash of the employees. So what they said and what they did were two different things. And then they also reduced it to, from violent criminals, drug traffickers, to, well, if you're in the country illegally, you're a criminal. But then we know that they were also detaining people who were here illegally, who were showing up for their immigration visits with papers.

• 11:14Sam Fragoso?

  You've equated these actions to, quote, "a federal takeover."

• 11:17Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 11:18Sam Fragoso?

  And prove that we're a test case.

• 11:20Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 11:21Sam Fragoso?

  Here in the nation's second-largest city.

• 11:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:23Sam Fragoso?

  A test case for what exactly?

• 11:24Speaker 01

  Well, first of all, what they did was they seized, it was a federal seizure of power from the governor. They seized the National Guard and federalized them. And I use that language because I think it's very Very important for people to understand. The governor is in charge of the National Guard. If we needed the National Guard for any reason, we would have asked the governor. And he certainly, I mean, I don't know the history beyond my time as mayor, but I can't imagine him turning us down if it was what we needed. But we did not need that. So I felt as though it was a stunt. And I said, Los Angeles is a peach, was a Petri dish, basically giving a warning to cities all over the country. And the Monday after the first raids, I was on a Zoom call with over a hundred mayors.

• 12:10Speaker 01

  So people around the country were very worried. You chose to do that to this city, to the nation's second largest city. Why?

• 12:17Sam Fragoso?

  How have you come to understand what you described as a performative stunt? Because what is performative on television has had real consequences in the lives of Los Angelinos. So tell, tell me the distance between what is performative on TV versus the lived experiences of people in this city.

• 12:36Speaker 01

  Well, all I mean by performative is that the raids were indiscriminate. They were massive, pulling people over on the street. You can't say that that was anything but performative. If you say that you're going after hardened criminals and all of that, you basically are pulling people over who appear to be Latino. Because you also can't say that anybody that's in the country illegally is a criminal and that's who you were going after if you have no way of knowing that.

• 13:05Sam Fragoso?

  And you've seen no evidence of ICE detaining violent offenders?

• 13:11Speaker 01

  Well, I think if they had detained a number of violent offenders, they would have put them all in the cameras. We would have known all about it. My understanding, because that is part of the problem. We don't know who it was. I mean, we know that family members say, my husband or my wife didn't come home, right? But we don't know in advance who they're going after. So my understanding is, is that of the people that they have detained, to the best of our knowledge at this point, that more than 50% of them had no criminal records at all.

• 13:46Sam Fragoso?

  More than 50% had no criminal?

• 13:48Speaker 01

  No criminal records at all.

• 13:50Sam Fragoso?

  Now, you say to your knowledge.

• 13:52Speaker 01

  Yes, I have to qualify that.

• 13:53Sam Fragoso?

  Now, explain this to me because

• 13:55Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 13:55Sam Fragoso?

  We started this conversation talking about how we both wake up in the morning and are scrolling on our phones. And it sounds as if we may have Similar amounts of information about the ICE raids.

• 14:09Speaker 01

  You are correct.

• 14:10Sam Fragoso?

  That is very concerning. Can I tell you why?

• 14:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:13Sam Fragoso?

  Because I host a podcast. You're the mayor.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  Exactly right.

• 14:16Sam Fragoso?

  There should be a huge gulf between us in terms of information. What is the dialogue between this administration's ICE raids and your office?

• 14:27Speaker 01

  Well, there you go. None.

• 14:29Sam Fragoso?

  No dialogue?

• 14:29Speaker 01

  No. We have been functioning off of rumor.

• 14:32Sam Fragoso?

  Rumor?

• 14:33Speaker 01

  Right. And so, for example, this morning, I woke up and the city council, one of the city council members sent me pictures of an ICE raid that took place this morning. Now, even though we have the temporary restraining order, that took place this morning at a Home Depot. So how did I find out about it? I found out about it when one of her constituents sent her a picture and she sent it to me. There has been no communication from the administration.

• 14:58Sam Fragoso?

  Why?

• 14:59Speaker 01

  Well, I guess that's again why I said that it has been an assault on our city, that I said that it's a federal seizure of power.

• 15:08Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 15:08Speaker 01

  All of that is what happens when there is no communication or coordination.

• 15:12Sam Fragoso?

  But are you demanding information and it's just not being given?

• 15:15Speaker 01

  Well, demanding, I mean, I think I've been very vocal about it and actually had a meeting scheduled with one of the leaders of ICE here, but he canceled the meeting.

• 15:27Sam Fragoso?

  Was there a reason for the cancel?

• 15:29Speaker 01

  Yes. He was upset that the city was looking to intervene in the lawsuit that eventually led to the temporary restraining order. I did remind him, though, that he was suing me. I mean, the administration is suing the city of Los Angeles and named me.

• 15:48Sam Fragoso?

  Now, I've heard a lot about that. I talked to the ACLU this morning and I've heard all about the Federal Appeals Court on August 2, which upheld A ruling that blocks US immigration officials, including ICE agents,

• 15:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 16:00Sam Fragoso?

  from making arrests in Los Angeles based solely on appearance, language, or location unless probable cause is established. Tell me about what sounds like a temporary win for you.

• 16:11Speaker 01

  Well, the temporary win up until today, I think, was very positive in the sense that, you know, you were seeing random raids all day, all over different parts of time, and they stopped once the temporary restraining order was in place. That's why what happened this morning is very concerning.

• 16:29Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 16:29Speaker 01

  And we have to get to the bottom of it. So what it looked like, because I saw a still picture, but I also saw video. It looks like what they were doing before, running through the parking lot of Home Depot. Now, maybe they had warrants. Maybe they were going after specific people. I doubt it, but I don't have that information right now.

• 16:47Sam Fragoso?

  You don't know if they had probable cause.

• 16:48Speaker 01

  I do not.

• 16:49Sam Fragoso?

  You know, in preparation for this, I asked a lot of people. I've lived in Los Angeles for nine years. So I asked a lot of people about what they wanted to ask you, and a lot of it did come back to ICE.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:59Sam Fragoso?

  One of the major questions was, at least 40% of the construction workers in Los Angeles are immigrants. How have the ICE raids affected the rebuilding efforts across the city in the aftermath of the wildfires?

• 17:14Speaker 01

  I actually believe it's more than 40%, just so you know. But I do not believe it has had an impact yet. Okay? But I am very concerned about it. Now, you know, as mayor, I only represent one area, and that's Palisades.

• 17:28Sam Fragoso?

  Pacific Palisades, that's right.

• 17:29Speaker 01

  But I do know that there was a raid near Altadena, and then there was a raid at a Home Depot in the Marina. Now, that's a little distance from Pacific Palisades, but close enough to scare the workforce. So I have not heard that the workforce has been impacted, but I have no doubt that if this temporary restraining order is ignored and they go back to having massive raids, that it will. Because you do know that there is a segment of our population who, I hope they're coming out now. Well, maybe I don't after this morning, but who have been at home, who have not been going to work.

• 18:09Sam Fragoso?

  What is your line on that? I mean, are you encouraging? The immigrant community to come back to work?

• 18:15Speaker 01

  Well, I will say, prior to today, I was. Now, I don't know. So I have to find out what that was. So for example, while we're sitting here, are there raids going on right now? You know, so it's hard to know. I think all of us are still traumatized. I know I certainly am, you know, from what happened.

• 18:31Sam Fragoso?

  The thing that we keep circling is, how the hell are you supposed to do your job well? When there seems to be very little communication, the information is rapidly changing, and you are given about as much intel and notice as I am?

• 18:48Speaker 01

  That's correct. And by the way, not just me, you know? The governor has no idea, nor does our police chief, nor does our sheriff.

• 18:56Sam Fragoso?

  Oh, I'm concerned about Karen Bass right now.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  Well, thank you.

• 18:59Sam Fragoso?

  We'll get to those boys later. I mean, do you ever just pick up the phone and call the White House and go, can you give us any heads up?

• 19:06Speaker 01

  I have.

• 19:07Sam Fragoso?

  You have?

• 19:07Speaker 01

  Yes, directly and indirectly.

• 19:10Sam Fragoso?

  Okay, and what happened on these phone calls?

• 19:11Speaker 01

  There has not been a response.

• 19:13Sam Fragoso?

  He's ghosting you?

• 19:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I wasn't saying I called him. I did put an official request in to speak to him. But I will tell you that that is part of, I believe, part of the theater, part of the performance, is to not tell.

• 19:28Sam Fragoso?

  And what is your role in the play?

• 19:30Speaker 01

  My role in the play is to fight like hell for my city.

• 19:33Sam Fragoso?

  Okay, let's talk about that. Restaurant owners have told you that the raids are as cooling as COVID for the labor market. Over and over, I've heard how you talk about how your number one job as mayor, as you just said, is to protect Los Angeles.

• 19:48Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 19:48Sam Fragoso?

  Given the one-two punch of the wildfires and the ICE raids this summer, do you think you have?

• 19:55Speaker 01

  Well, I think I have in areas where I can, you know? For example, in terms of what is happening with ICE, you know, absolutely standing up, pushing so that we participate in the lawsuit, taking every avenue possible, meeting with groups and seeing what they need. So, and then also educating people. Because I'll tell you that a lot of people did not understand the power of the federal government in relation to the local government. So for example, a lot of people felt that sanctuary city law was going to be protective of them beyond the capacity.

• 20:35Speaker 01

  The problem that has happened here is that an administration has never taken this this far. So for instance-

• 20:42Sam Fragoso?

  What do you mean by this far?

• 20:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, there always have been ICE enforcement, I mean immigration enforcement. That is not new. How they have gone about immigration enforcement this time is brand new, that left all of us flummoxed.

• 20:58Sam Fragoso?

  Previous Democratic administrations have-

• 20:59Speaker 01

  Lots of deportations.

• 21:01Sam Fragoso?

  More deportations than some even Republican.

• 21:03Speaker 01

  Correct, however, not masked men running through streets randomly picking up people. No, that is what is new. The brutality of this enforcement is what is new. And so that caught all of us off guard.

• 21:21Sam Fragoso?

  The indiscriminate nature.

• 21:22Speaker 01

  The indiscriminate nature and it also tests the limitation of sanctuary city. And so for a number of people who felt like, well, you know, why aren't you defending us? Why aren't you stopping this? You know, and, and having to get people accustomed to the reality of, in my opinion, a federal government that has gone awry.

• 21:45Sam Fragoso?

  The other part of the equation, aside from the ICE raids, are the fires. You recently sat with Vice and you told them you have at least 10 regrets around the handling of the LA fires.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  I did.

• 21:58Sam Fragoso?

  The first is that you were not in Los Angeles when they began.

• 22:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 22:02Sam Fragoso?

  The second was the lack of notice from the fire chief ahead of time forecasting what could have been before your diplomatic trip to Ghana. I want to talk about both of those, but what are some of the other eight?

• 22:15Speaker 01

  The one and two are huge, you know? And, and the way I've, I've tried to describe it so that maybe people could feel a connection to it is that if you had ever been out of town when a close family member or friend had an accident or became very ill, it doesn't matter why you were out of town. It doesn't matter where you were. You feel the deep regret that you weren't there when you were needed.

• 22:43Sam Fragoso?

  So the fires began on the 7th.

• 22:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:45Sam Fragoso?

  You get on the first plane you can board from Ghana, which is a military plane, which means that you can work and make calls throughout the flight, which you did.

• 22:53Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 22:54Sam Fragoso?

  So you land back in LA on the 8th. The city is already in flames.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 22:59Sam Fragoso?

  And not exactly pleased to discover that their mayor is not here.

• 23:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:05Sam Fragoso?

  And I remember that interview coming out that has now become this viral sensation of you getting off the plane and standing at the jet bridge.

• 23:16Speaker 03

  Do you owe citizens an apology for being absent while their homes were burning? Do you regret cutting the fire department budget by millions of dollars, Madam Mayor? Have you nothing to say today? Have you absolutely nothing to say to the citizens today? Elon Musk says that you're utterly incompetent. Are you considering your position? Madam Mayor, have you absolutely nothing to say to the citizens today who are dealing with this disaster?

• 23:51Sam Fragoso?

  And I know this is something, knowing your family history, your personal history in public service, I know that this is something that must have weighed on you over the last seven months.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 24:04Sam Fragoso?

  Probably every day since January 7th. What was going through your head in that moment? Like, how much were you carrying?

• 24:13Speaker 01

  Well, I think a couple of things happened. One, I was stuck and ambushed. And so it was a little shocking because where I normally depart a plane is different than the public. And the code wasn't working. So I was stuck at the door looking at this guy who was trying to let me out. I had no intention of speaking to him. And I wasn't sure who the heck was flashing. I had no idea who it was.

• 24:40Sam Fragoso?

  Okay.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  And there's a big spotlight that's on me. I've not slept in like a day and a half.

• 24:46Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  I felt totally ambushed. I didn't know who was ambushing me.

• 24:49Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 24:49Speaker 01

  And I was not about to engage in a conversation.

• 24:52Sam Fragoso?

  You're not a big Sky News person?

• 24:54Speaker 01

  No, I didn't. No, but I was also just dead tired too and very anxious to get on the ground. I'm feeling terrible. I mean, all of those hours I spent, I spent 12 hours flying from Ghana. That's the other thing too, is the time difference. So I spent 12 hours flying from Ghana to DC. And then another five hours on the plane. So that's 17 hours on a flight. I'm dead tired. Somebody shining a big light and yelling at me. That was how I was taking it.

• 25:26Sam Fragoso?

  And since then, how has it stayed with you? Like, does it still nag at you a little bit?

• 25:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, it nags at me, of course, because it's been played over and over and over and over again. Sure, absolutely. I mean, that's our life in social media now. And then, you know, there was the moment, okay? There was the moment that I was going through. But was far worse was to see that moment. That was far worse. Yes, because when you're going through it, you're not thinking about how it's coming across. You know what I mean?

• 25:56Sam Fragoso?

  Do you feel like you should have said something to the citizens that day?

• 26:01Speaker 01

  You know, I honestly, at that time, I don't.

• 26:04Sam Fragoso?

  You don't think I owed that?

• 26:05Speaker 01

  Well, it's not a matter of owing it, you know? Absolutely, I owed Los Angeles everything.

• 26:11Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 26:12Speaker 01

  But, and I know you probably can understand this. You weigh whether or not you burst out and say something when you're totally unprepared. And I needed to be on the ground. And I think in those moments, and not just that moment, because I've certainly experienced being ambushed many times. But when that happens, I do choose, there's some occasions maybe I've done differently. But I do choose not to say something because I want to be prepared. I'm not on the ground. I don't really know what's happening. And so to have responded then, and that's certainly something I've reflected back on. If I had to do it over again, would I have said something?

• 26:49Sam Fragoso?

  Would you have?

• 26:50Speaker 01

  I'm not sure.

• 26:51Sam Fragoso?

  What would you have said?

• 26:53Speaker 01

  I might have said, you know what? I gotta get out of the plane and get briefed and I'll have a press conference later today. I think if I would have said anything, it would have been that. It might not have stopped what he was doing, though.

• 27:06Sam Fragoso?

  Once you got off the plane and you folks get to work, the Pacific Palisades, which is under your jurisdiction, was ravaged by the wildfires.

• 27:14Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 27:14Sam Fragoso?

  Beginning on January 7th. Since then, you've been working to turn what was once a disaster zone into a robust construction site. 90% of debris has been removed with the help of President Trump. About 300 rebuilding plans have been approved. And under emergency executive order 8 and executive directive 13, the recovery is, quote, "on track to be the fastest in modern California history." But this is a remarkable accomplishment. And I suspect the first time many listeners are hearing about it. If the recovery is so fast, why has the messaging been so slow to people?

• 27:58Speaker 01

  Well, you know what? That's a very good question because we say it all of the time. I say it all of the time. What happened to people was a massive traumatic loss. And it was a collective loss of thousands of people all at once. And losing everything that you had. It's more than a house. It's the memories. And then the memories are critical. But then equally as critical is the sense of community and relationships. And so for me to sit here and talk about it's the fastest, it's the bestest, it's the brightest, that doesn't make them feel any better.

• 28:40Sam Fragoso?

  It doesn't bring back the homes.

• 28:41Speaker 01

  No, they're not in their houses. And so maybe three years from now, I say that when they're already back in their homes. So I always try to qualify it because I think it's always important to acknowledge what people went through.

• 28:55Sam Fragoso?

  Part of the reason Palisades citizens have been able to rebuild so fast is because your office issued executive orders to cut through red tape and expedite the permitting process, which is a real feat. Why does it take an emergency, historic wildfire, for the city to move with a sense of urgency? Why is the red tape only cut in the wake of catastrophe?

• 29:19Speaker 01

  Why is the red tape there? How about that?

• 29:21Sam Fragoso?

  That's a question for you.

• 29:22Speaker 01

  I know. It was rhetorical.

• 29:25Sam Fragoso?

  Nah, no, I think it's real for you. You, you, you spent time in the state legislature, starting in 2004? You represented California's 36th congressional-

• 29:35Speaker 01

  It changed 36, 37.

• 29:36Sam Fragoso?

  Okay, one of the congressional-

• 29:37Speaker 01

  Three districts.

• 29:38Sam Fragoso?

  Districts for a while.

• 29:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:40Sam Fragoso?

  Well regarded on both sides of the aisle. You're the only person I know that Barack Obama and Kevin McCarthy likes. In the Venn diagram of Obama and McCarthy, there's almost no one, except for you. Why is there so much red tape?

• 29:58Speaker 01

  So, if you go back to why I ran for mayor, red tape was a key issue. I ran for mayor because of the 46,000 people on the street, homelessness. And one of the reasons why there are all these people on the street is because of red tape. So what I did in the first day of my administration, the very first day, instead of going to City Hall, I went to the emergency department and declared a state of emergency over homelessness. The whole purpose of that state of emergency was to deal with the red tape. So actually, what we were doing with the fires was also based on our experiences from homelessness. So what needs to happen in the city overall-

• 30:37Sam Fragoso?

  Hmm.

• 30:37Speaker 01

  You want to say something?

• 30:38Sam Fragoso?

  What you're describing is, we have a system that you are now at the top of-

• 30:44Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 30:44Sam Fragoso?

  In many ways. And you're saying, in both instances of my great successes, the homelessness inside safe program and the fire recovery efforts, in both instances, you're saying that the system that you are part of-

• 30:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 31:00Sam Fragoso?

  Has to be circumvented-

• 31:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 31:02Sam Fragoso?

  By way of emergency declarations.

• 31:05Speaker 01

  And, and you know-

• 31:05Sam Fragoso?

  How does that offer any amount of confidence to people who are voting and trying to be part of the city?

• 31:11Speaker 01

  So, let me just explain it this way, maybe this will help. I've used emergency directives to circumvent while the change to the system that needs to take place is happening.

• 31:25Sam Fragoso?

  You're walking and chewing gum.

• 31:26Speaker 01

  I'm walking and chewing gum.

• 31:28Sam Fragoso?

  Okay, explain that.

• 31:28Speaker 01

  So rather than wait, okay, so the process is the city council is very involved. They have to draft an ordinance that then becomes a new law that would eliminate the red tape, right? Meaning all the steps that you have to go through, you got to go to 12 departments and every department is doing whatever they're doing. It's not working together, okay? So for that to really change in law, a law has to be written and that's a process that could take a long time. I don't have time for that. So I use executive directives to circumvent the law while at the same time working to change the law. If I had gone about the process orderly, we'd be sitting here two and a half years

• 32:11Speaker 01

  later, talking about trying to get people off the street.

• 32:15Sam Fragoso?

  Do you think Democrats are overly concerned with process? Do you think they get bottled down in process instead of getting to results?

• 32:22Speaker 01

  I think that can be true. I think that can be true, but what I'm describing here is the process that has to happen in order for a law to change. So I don't have the patience for that.

• 32:35Sam Fragoso?

  Tell me what's happening on the chewing gum part of this equation. We see you're walking.

• 32:41Speaker 01

  I'm chewing.

• 32:42Sam Fragoso?

  The recovery is happening.

• 32:44Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 32:45Sam Fragoso?

  There's a lot of, lot of good stats that are coming out of that. Anecdotally, I've heard a lot of positive things. Tell me how you're working with city council and state legislature to work through and eliminate red tape.

• 32:58Speaker 01

  Let me give you an example, the permitting fees. People, and I believe rightfully so, in the Palisades felt like, wait a minute, what do you mean I have to pay to rebuild? This was an act of God. I didn't do this. I didn't choose to remodel. So I did an executive directive that said, you don't have to pay. I put it on pause. Now, why did I do that? Because it takes a law of the city council to waive the permits. But I can use my authority to make it happen faster. It's the same thing with rebuilding in terms of building affordable housing.

• 33:39Speaker 01

  I used my executive authority to do it quicker while the ordinance or the law is working its way through. So I'm chewing gum and walking at the same time. I just don't have patience for the walking.

• 33:52Sam Fragoso?

  You don't?

• 33:53Speaker 01

  No.

• 33:53Sam Fragoso?

  What do you have patience for? L.A. traffic?

• 33:55Speaker 01

  Action.

• 34:00Sam Fragoso?

  After the break, how Karen Bass became Mayor Karen Bass. We'll be right back.

• 34:13Sam Fragoso?

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• 35:28Sam Fragoso?

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• 36:14Sam Fragoso?

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• 37:01Sam Fragoso?

  Let's talk about where you did grow up. You're born in South Central. You're raised, starting at 10, in the Venice Fairfax area, where you attend Hamilton High School.

• 37:10Sam Fragoso?

  That's right.

• 37:11Sam Fragoso?

  Your friend Suzy Shapiro said, "Some of us goofy girls were worried about silly things, like, how can we get to the beach without parents finding out?"

• 37:20Sam Fragoso?

  Karen wasn't interested in that kind of stuff. What kind of stuff was teenager Karen Bass interested in?

• 37:26Speaker 01

  So when I was a child, it was the civil rights movement. That's what I was always talking to my father about. Especially at night, because the nightly news was on TV. And I could see those horrible pictures of demonstrators who looked old to me. Of course, I realized they were teenagers, but I saw them being assaulted. And then when the civil rights movement kind of blended into the next generation, which was more militant, like the Panther Party, all of that was very fascinating to me. That's what I was interested in when I was a child.

• 37:59Sam Fragoso?

  At night, when you were watching with him, are there conversations that you had with him that you still replay from time to time?

• 38:07Speaker 01

  Yes, and not only that, I mean, those moments I treasure until this day. You know, those were just such precious moments. But sitting next to him and watching the protesters have food dumped on their heads and being kicked and brutalized and Martin Luther King speeches. And, you know, my parents, this is really sad to say, but my parents prepared me and my siblings for his assassination. So when he was killed, it was not a surprise.

• 38:37Sam Fragoso?

  How did they do that?

• 38:39Speaker 01

  Well, they just told us he wasn't gonna live.

• 38:43Sam Fragoso?

  And how old were you then?

• 38:44Speaker 01

  Oh, I was 10, 11.

• 38:46Sam Fragoso?

  What did you think of that?

• 38:49Speaker 01

  Well, it made me mad. It made me mad, but that during those times, I was in such a hurry to grow up because I wanted to participate. I wanted to get out there and to participate. So when I was 14, Bobby Kennedy started running and I worked on his campaign. I did something that my mother never knew. But I signed her up to be a precinct leader. But I was the precinct leader.

• 39:16Sam Fragoso?

  I heard about that and you stuffed envelopes?

• 39:19Speaker 01

  Uh huh. I went to the headquarters, rode my bicycle. I still ride my bicycle.

• 39:26Sam Fragoso?

  I still can't get over it. Like, when you say it made you angry, what did that look and feel like at that age?

• 39:34Speaker 01

  Well, you know, it was, uh, that's some childhood trauma that I still carry. Because to me, what King was fighting for was such a non-no brainer, that the idea that people wanted folks to be segregated and all of that was very difficult for a child to understand. My father was, you know, what's important is, is that he was born and grew up in Texas. What I didn't realize until I was an adult is he never, ever talked about his life. I never knew anything about him personally. And I guess it was too painful for him to talk about. He never went back to Texas until much, much later in life.

• 40:19Sam Fragoso?

  Would you ever ask him?

• 40:21Speaker 01

  I did, but he wouldn't. I don't think I asked that much, but it was something he didn't talk about. So he migrated to LA in the mass migration of black folks out of the South after World War II. My mother was very unusual because she was actually born here before black people arrived. So her family left the South even, you know, a generation before my dad did, and there were only a handful of black folks here. So my father had one view of the world. My mother had another view of the world.

• 40:55Sam Fragoso?

  And looking back on it, their two views of the world shape your worldview?

• 41:00Speaker 01

  Created me absolute 100%. My father instilled the fight. My mother instilled the collaboration, the, you know, working together, the always wanting to find the best in people, the optimism.

• 41:16Sam Fragoso?

  Those two don't sound exactly in harmony, though.

• 41:19Speaker 01

  They're not. Well, but you know what, though? My parents, neither parent, wanted me to touch politics. They did not, my father did, they did not want me to be involved politically at all. And it wasn't for ideological reasons. They wanted me to live. That's why when Obama started to run, so many black people didn't want him to run. They were fearful. And I, through his race, after he won the primary, I was like, he's not gonna make it. I would wake up every morning, he made it, he made it, he made it, another day, another day, another day. And I remember going to see Michelle Obama speak, right? When he first, you know, announced, and it was a conversation, it was mostly black audience,

• 42:04Speaker 01

  but she said how they talked and recognized that we're gonna do this, but it might not turn out.

• 42:14Sam Fragoso?

  And yet, your father had this fear, but you did not heed his advice.

• 42:20Speaker 01

  No.

• 42:21Sam Fragoso?

  You go to Cuba at 19, he says, if you go, that means you're done with us. And you did it anyway.

• 42:28Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm, and they were never done with me.

• 42:31Sam Fragoso?

  Who could be done with you?

• 42:34Sam Fragoso?

  Why did you go?

• 42:35Speaker 01

  Well, after the king and Kennedy and all the other assassinations that happened in those years, I lost faith in, you know, what was happening here. I felt like, are we ever gonna have justice? You know, those were years, it's important to provide the context of those years. Because those years, as a young person, I certainly, like a lot of young people do, you know, I certainly felt that I could get out there and I wanted to participate in changing the world. And I believed the world was gonna change because the world was changing all over. I mean, you know, you had the Vietnam War,

• 43:15Speaker 01

  but you had the independence wars that were happening in Africa and in Asia and in Latin America. And young people were at the forefront of all of that. And so I felt like things, you know, were gonna change, but that things needed to change radically, you know? We needed to get rid of discrimination. We needed to- Provide education and healthcare for everyone. And I wanted to see what that looked like. So after-

• 43:41Sam Fragoso?

  And you had those concerns when?

• 43:43Speaker 01

  When I was in high school.

• 43:44Sam Fragoso?

  High school.

• 43:45Speaker 01

  So I worked all through high school. I saved my money. I graduated high school on Thursday and I left the country on Tuesday.

• 43:52Sam Fragoso?

  Okay.

• 43:52Speaker 01

  I thought I was gonna leave the country. I didn't know if I was ever gonna come back. But fortunately, somewhere I had some common sense, so I bought a return ticket.

• 44:00Sam Fragoso?

  You bought a return ticket?

• 44:01Speaker 01

  But I-

• 44:01Sam Fragoso?

  You didn't give up quite yet?

• 44:03Speaker 01

  No, no. I traveled through England and Scotland. And then I went to a library, trying to figure out where to go next. And I spun the globe around and wherever my finger landed, that's where I went. I went to Greece. But I forgot that Greece was under a military dictatorship. I had watched a movie about it before. I think the movie was called Z. I watched the movie, but I had forgotten about it. And so when I landed in Athens, there were troops.

• 44:28Sam Fragoso?

  So how do you work your way from disillusioned, disaffected young person back to Los Angeles, wanting to make a difference?

• 44:37Speaker 01

  Because while I was there, there was a protest in London to free Angela Davis. And I felt really guilty because I had met Angela Davis. I had participated in her philosophy classes because in high school, our teachers were on strike. And while our teachers were on strike, I rode my bike to UCLA and sat in on her classes. I felt guilty that here I am all the way in London and people are protesting to free somebody that I actually met. And that I had a duty to go home.

• 45:09Sam Fragoso?

  How did you understand that duty?

• 45:11Speaker 01

  I just knew that I needed to go home and figure something out.

• 45:14Sam Fragoso?

  So your brother Keith has said, over the years, Karen has become more practical, more realistic.

• 45:22Speaker 01

  My brother said that?

• 45:24Sam Fragoso?

  Yes.

• 45:25Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 45:26Sam Fragoso?

  I can read the full quote if you want.

• 45:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, what'd he say?

• 45:29Sam Fragoso?

  He said, "She's become more practical, more realistic, as far as what actually can be done." This has been a big, big, big, big change. He said big four times.

• 45:39Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 45:40Sam Fragoso?

  And moved her quite a bit in terms of away from being extreme left.

• 45:44Speaker 01

  Really?

• 45:45Sam Fragoso?

  When did leftist, young, disaffected Karen Bass become practical, more pragmatic Karen Bass?

• 45:53Speaker 01

  I always wanted to improve the quality of life and to change things for the least of us. Because I felt like then, and I feel like now, we are the richest country in the history of the world. We choose not to do certain things. We choose not to provide healthcare for our whole population. We choose not to put in effect the science that we know that works to prevent problems. We choose not to provide an education system for everyone. And I think we're better than that. And I think that we should be able to do that.

• 46:34Speaker 01

  And so when I was looking at a society that does it different and didn't find one, then I come back here saying, I have to figure out how to make a difference. And maybe it's not the global change that I want to see. Maybe it's not even the national change that I want to see. But I have to figure out how to help those folks that are suffering from the brutal parts of our society. So I wanted to make this change. Nobody told me that was a job.

• 47:08Sam Fragoso?

  No one told you change was a job?

• 47:10Speaker 01

  Nobody told me that someone would pay me to do this, okay?

• 47:17Speaker 01

  So I went into the healthcare field because I was always fascinated by physiology. One point, I thought I wanted to be a doctor.

• 47:24Sam Fragoso?

  You became a nurse?

• 47:26Speaker 01

  Well, yes, I became a nurse. I wanted to be a physician assistant. But during those years, you couldn't just become a physician assistant. You can now, the profession was very new. So you had to go do something else first. So I became a nurse. I worked in the NICU, the neonatal ICU. I went back to school, I became a PA, and I worked in the emergency room. So I loved that because I had the instant gratification of helping somebody. But I was also way more obsessed with the conditions that led to them being in the emergency room in the first place.

• 47:58Sam Fragoso?

  Got it.

• 47:59Speaker 01

  And so I was teaching at USC Medical School. And then the crack cocaine crisis hit. And by the way, the political work I was involved in during those years was after working on the weekend. I was very involved in the anti apartheid movement and freeing Nelson Mandela, that whole international movement.

• 48:16Sam Fragoso?

  You said you would drive through Skid Row every day to the county hospital.

• 48:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 48:21Sam Fragoso?

  And you would see some of those people who came into their emergency room there.

• 48:24Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 48:25Sam Fragoso?

  And you wondered, why do they go from here to the hospital?

• 48:30Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I actually knew why because I understood the kind of system we had. I knew why. It was because of the social and economic conditions that people lived in. And so I wanted to see those changed. Anyway, while I was at USC and working in the anti apartheid movement, crack cocaine hit. And to me, I guess the way I would compare it to younger people is it felt like COVID that just impacted black people. That's what crack felt like. Because people were dying all over the place because you're at the same time the crack epidemic happened, so did the AIDS epidemic. That was a mystery and people were just dropping dead. So I draw that comparison.

• 49:13Speaker 01

  But crack, really, the impact of crack was really focused in the black community. And then the problem is, is that all the politicians and policymakers, their response to this was to just pass laws that locked everybody up. Well, to me, it was a health issue. And because of my political background and understanding, especially of economics, it was a socioeconomic issue that was being addressed, in my opinion, inappropriately. That's what led to me starting the Community Coalition.

• 49:41Sam Fragoso?

  Around homelessness, you've said, the fundamental flaws that we've been doing over the last few decades in regards to homelessness, I don't even think we tried to end homelessness.

• 49:50Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 49:51Sam Fragoso?

  We just tried to manage it.

• 49:53Speaker 01

  To manage it, yes.

• 49:53Sam Fragoso?

  What were the flaws as you understood them? And how are you now? Going about mending them.

• 50:00Speaker 01

  We were actually trying to address homelessness in the 90s.

• 50:03Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 50:03Speaker 01

  Nobody cared because it was just in South Central and Skid Row.

• 50:07Sam Fragoso?

  No one cared. Why?

• 50:08Speaker 01

  So because I think it was a population that people weren't, you know, it was the black community, even though crack was impacting the white community, too. The laws were drastically different for crack and cocaine. So I wanted to start an organization to try to shift the agenda away from criminalization toward a more comprehensive approach that certainly included enforcement, but it also included drug treatment. It also included addressing the economic conditions. So a lot of what I felt as a young person, it's not like I've changed. The question is recognizing that the societal change that I would like to see happen is

• 50:52Speaker 01

  not going to happen right now. And what I have to do is focus on what I can do right now to make life better.

• 51:00Sam Fragoso?

  How are the problems different from when you started working on this in the coalition in 1990 versus as you understand the problems now in 2025? Because 35 years have passed.

• 51:12Speaker 01

  So what happened is we spent years locking everybody up. And then now we've been paying the consequences for that.

• 51:19Sam Fragoso?

  And the consequences are what?

• 51:20Speaker 01

  The consequences are we basically, so this is what politicians would do, okay? A politician thinks about their reelection and they think about their mail pieces or their advertisements that go out and they want to say, well, what can I put on my mail piece? So I want to pass a law that shows I'm tough on crime. And so I'm going to pass this law that says, if you've been convicted of a drug-related offense, you cannot live in public housing. I'm not going to think about the consequences of saying that. So people come out of prison. They can't go back home to their families. Where you think they land up? On the street. So you asked me what was different now.

• 52:01Speaker 01

  We're now suffering the consequences of 30 years of very bad policy. The other thing that was happening was a slow stripping of the social safety net. That started with Reagan, and I'm not talking about mental hospitals, okay? I'm talking about a slow stripping of a lot of the social safety net. Programs that existed slowly went away. And then I think welfare reform was another one. When welfare reform was fundamentally changed, where you could only be on program for five years, and nobody paid attention what happened to you in year six. Then you begin to have women and children who are homeless.

• 52:41Sam Fragoso?

  When you decided to go into the state legislature, from the beginning, you said, I am a different kind of politician. You said, I am not the politician who passes something and then moves on to add the next thing to that flyer you're talking about.

• 52:59Speaker 01

  Right. You want to know what I mean by that?

• 53:01Sam Fragoso?

  Yes, go ahead. What do you, what, how do you?

• 53:03Speaker 01

  What do I mean by that?

• 53:04Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 53:04Speaker 01

  So if I'm going to do a policy that's impacting recidivism, then I'm going to talk to people who are coming out of prison and who are in prison to do a law that makes sense. I want their input. But then after the law is passed, I want to follow it to make sure that the law gets implemented the way I want it. I'll give you a recent example. This is policy, not so much a law that I passed. But as mayor, I learned that there's a number of policies, regulations and laws that make people homeless or keep them on the street, okay? So one of them, very stupid. You have to prove your income in order to get housing.

• 53:46Speaker 01

  Well, what if you've been in a tent for five years and you have no income? How do you prove nothing? So what I did was I went back to DC. I advocated, and we were able to get HUD, Housing and Urban Development, to waive that policy. So we could say, I'll put you in a house. Then you can deal with your paperwork and your income. Presumptive eligibility was what I fought for, and that happened.

• 54:11Sam Fragoso?

  I want to talk about what else you fought for. You know how I mentioned earlier, when you flew from Ghana and you landed in LA and you, I felt like, of course, like it weighs on you. Whether people listening agree with your politics or not, I think it is undeniable that you have continued to fight for the people that you are aiming to represent.

• 54:33Speaker 01

  That's my life's purpose.

• 54:34Sam Fragoso?

  That's your life's purpose. Now, I want to know how someone, in the aftermath of the tragedy that you endured in 2006 with your daughter, three days later, you have to go up to Sacramento to nominate Fabian Nunez for Assembly Speaker.

• 54:53Speaker 01

  It was tough.

• 54:54Sam Fragoso?

  How?

• 54:55Speaker 01

  Well, I steeled myself to do it.

• 55:02Sam Fragoso?

  What does that mean?

• 55:03Speaker 01

  That means that I focused. One of the things that was tough about that was everybody was looking at me. Like, you know, when you go through a tragedy, when you lose somebody.

• 55:16Sam Fragoso?

  Your daughter passed away, it was a car accident, right?

• 55:19Speaker 01

  Yes. No one knows what to say to you. They're very uncomfortable in your presence because they don't know what to do or say. So I'm feeling all of that from my colleagues. And so I got through what I needed to get through. I got in my car, went home and fell apart. But I knew I needed to hold it together for a couple of hours, and that's what I did. And I think that's, the grieving process, to me, is obviously very personal because of that. But it also, I think people, especially people who lose children, it's kind of like a bond.

• 56:01Speaker 01

  Like, I often, if I know somebody has lost their child, I call them up and talk to them. Because, and prepare them for what's going to happen.

• 56:12Sam Fragoso?

  And what did happen?

• 56:14Speaker 01

  Uh, well, the discomfort that everybody feels around you. I did have somebody say to me, you know, people don't really want to be around you because they don't know what to say or how to act. And even though that was kind of tough to hear, I appreciated the honesty. It put words to what I was seeing.

• 56:33Sam Fragoso?

  And feeling.

• 56:34Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 56:35Sam Fragoso?

  And on those phone calls, how do you prepare someone like that?

• 56:39Speaker 01

  Well, I just tell them that, uh, number one, to don't try to block the grief. Let the grief flow. Don't try to control it. Be prepared for people saying really crazy shit to you.

• 56:54Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 56:55Sam Fragoso?

  What do they say?

• 56:57Speaker 01

  I remember somebody saying to me, um, the day I was being sworn in on speaker, as speaker, which was a very tough day, because nobody was there. I mean, I lost my mother, my father, my daughter, my son-in-law. They were all gone. So my parents never lived to see me become an elected official. And, uh, somebody said to me, you know, God takes and then he gives. And I'm like, what does that mean? You think I got something here?

• 57:28Speaker 01

  I mean, I said, I would walk away from this if I had one hour or one day. There's no compare, there's no...

• 57:37Sam Fragoso?

  This is not a consolation prize?

• 57:39Speaker 01

  No.

• 57:40Sam Fragoso?

  What's the ring on your...

• 57:43Speaker 01

  Oh, it's my daughter's wedding ring. And, uh, I have never taken it off, and this is her necklace. She stays with me.

• 57:50Sam Fragoso?

  You know, as we wrap our way around to this job that you have, it does seem to me that the way you are unflappable, your resolve, your commitment, comes out of and is inspired by that loss. Do you feel in some ways that you are doing this for her, like your commitment?

• 58:10Speaker 01

  Well, so going back to how I got it together to nominate Fabian, she would be pissed at me if I stopped. So it is in her memory and in her honor that I carry on. But also, after going through something like that... There's nothing that compares to it. So it's like, okay, I can handle it.

• 58:33Sam Fragoso?

  You mention this in every interview. You say, this is the last office I will ever run for.

• 58:38Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 58:39Sam Fragoso?

  I think it's good to know when to quit.

• 58:41Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 58:42Sam Fragoso?

  Why do you keep saying this?

• 58:45Speaker 01

  Because, you know why? Because I want people to know that politicians are held in such disdain that I think people just always assume you do things for political reasons. Like, I think that most people, maybe, I don't know, don't believe that I ran for mayor because I wanted to address homelessness. Matt was fine in Congress. Loved most of it, especially loved the fact that I could do foreign policy and domestic policy. But I gambled everything to come home because I was having flashbacks to the 90s, and I saw them being repeated.

• 59:21Sam Fragoso?

  The punitive nature.

• 59:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, the punitive nature. I thought we were getting ready to do that again.

• 59:26Sam Fragoso?

  Okay.

• 59:26Speaker 01

  I didn't want to see that happen. I want people to understand I don't have any ambition other than to run for reelection because I'm not finished. I've entered two and a half years.

• 59:36Sam Fragoso?

  What would be a finished job to you?

• 59:38Speaker 01

  A finished job to me?

• 59:39Sam Fragoso?

  You declared an emergency around homelessness. The moment you stepped into office, what would that look like?

• 59:45Speaker 01

  Here's a finished job. By the end of a second term, if voters allow me to have that, I want it there to be a very clear pathway that homelessness is going to be over, that the system has been redesigned to end it, and that we have made a significant dent. For example, I do not believe that there should be encampments anymore. Individuals who are homeless, okay, that's going to take us a bit longer. That we have affordable housing, and that it's clear we're on track to build X number of units. I think that we know what to do. I feel a level of confidence in that now

• 1:00:31Speaker 01

  that I didn't two and a half years ago, because just coming in, I had to diagnose what was wrong and treat it at the same time.

• 1:00:38Sam Fragoso?

  Okay, so as we leave, give us the diagnosis.

• 1:00:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:42Sam Fragoso?

  And give us the treatment.

• 1:00:44Speaker 01

  Sure. So one of the things that we did not do in Los Angeles, we didn't focus on interim housing. We were obsessed with, we have to build you a house. That's crazy with that number of people being unhoused. So we need to have a system of interim housing, which could be hotels, it could be motels. It could be a lot of different things. But then prepare for an individual to be there for up to a year, a year and a half, while housing is built. It doesn't matter how much red tape I eliminate. It still takes a while to build something. Not focusing so much solely on building, but focusing on taking care of the people and getting them off the streets. No one should be on the streets. Street homelessness should not exist.

• 1:01:29Speaker 01

  What we do now is we take them off the street. We put them in a hotel, motel, whatever. And then we give them virtually nothing and expect for them to get their lives together on their own. People need healthcare. They need social worker involvement. They need help in repairing their lives so that they eventually become self-sufficient, not needing any government help.

• 1:01:53Sam Fragoso?

  And your office is committed to doing that?

• 1:01:55Speaker 01

  I am absolutely committed to doing it. I'm obsessed with doing it.

• 1:01:59Sam Fragoso?

  And you run again next year, which you're gonna run?

• 1:02:01Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 1:02:02Sam Fragoso?

  Is that top priority for you? Does that remain the top priority?

• 1:02:05Speaker 01

  Absolutely. That, crime, quality of life, cleanliness of the city? Yes.

• 1:02:11Sam Fragoso?

  Okay, 2028? You see the city looking like what?

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  I see the city looking one, I want to see murals everywhere.

• 1:02:18Sam Fragoso?

  Okay.

• 1:02:18Speaker 01

  You know how you see the graffiti now? So I want those graffiti artists to come together and paint beautiful murals all around the city. I don't want there to be random trash all around the city.

• 1:02:30Sam Fragoso?

  Okay.

• 1:02:30Speaker 01

  I want the city to look better. And, and, and I want the games to impact the city, whether you go to the games or not. That was one of the beautiful things about Paris. Everybody had a way of participating. And by the way, what no car means? That just means to and from the venues.

• 1:02:49Sam Fragoso?

  Okay.

• 1:02:49Speaker 01

  It's not saying there'll be no cars on the street.

• 1:02:51Sam Fragoso?

  Okay, good. Last question for you, because we have to go. They're wrapping me up.

• 1:02:55Speaker 01

  No, but I'm enjoying this.

• 1:02:56Sam Fragoso?

  I have so many things we skipped, but we'll do it another time.

• 1:02:59Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:03:00Sam Fragoso?

  My last question for you is against a two-parter. You said in the beginning that the Trump administration is making a test case out of this city.

• 1:03:09Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:03:10Sam Fragoso?

  Your capacity to beat back against this administration, your willingness to fight, does it all come back to? Your early years in your twenties, when you started taking taekwondo.

• 1:03:27Sam Fragoso?

  Like, what did you learn about civil engagement?

• 1:03:31Speaker 01

  Thank you. I appreciate the question. You know, training as a martial artist?

• 1:03:35Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, through taekwondo.

• 1:03:36Speaker 01

  Taekwondo, haekyo, you learn how to fight differently. You learn how to fight more strategically.

• 1:03:43Sam Fragoso?

  Tell me how. I'd like to learn something.

• 1:03:46Speaker 01

  You learn how to pick your fights. You learn how to not fight. So, you know, people think because they don't see me screaming and yelling and emoting publicly that I'm not fighting.

• 1:03:57Sam Fragoso?

  We cut all those parts out.

• 1:03:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right. I know.

• 1:04:01Speaker 01

  That I don't fight. And I don't have disagreements. I absolutely do, but I believe that you can have constructive disagreements. And taekwondo teaches you how not to fight.

• 1:04:11Sam Fragoso?

  In the next year, against this administration, tell me the fights that you want to wage.

• 1:04:18Speaker 01

  Well, definitely continuing around immigration, but also homelessness. You know, he came out with his executive directive around homelessness that could lead to punishing, could lead to criminalization. Doesn't have to, but it could lead to that. And then also the militarization of the games. You know, we talk about the Olympics. In 11 months, we have the World Cup. And so I don't want to see our city militarized.

• 1:04:42Sam Fragoso?

  Paramount has settled. Columbia has settled. Will Los Angeles kowtow to the Trump administration?

• 1:04:49Speaker 01

  Los Angeles won't kowtow, but Los Angeles does have to recognize we're dependent, not completely dependent, but federal funding is very significant. Let me just tell you one thing. I don't pick unnecessary fights, okay?

• 1:05:03Sam Fragoso?

  Okay.

• 1:05:03Speaker 01

  I don't grandstand. And so I will work with the administration, and I'm arguing with them now. But I see a lot of other areas to work with them. And then a number of his cabinet members and all, they're people that I served with.

• 1:05:20Sam Fragoso?

  When you wake up most days now as mayor, given all that you've endured, especially with your daughter, what do you tell yourself to keep moving forward?

• 1:05:31Speaker 01

  Oh. My responsibility, this is my responsibility to do this. The people that came before me who suffered 20 times more than me.

• 1:05:41Sam Fragoso?

  And in moments of doubt?

• 1:05:42Speaker 01

  And in moments of doubt. It's like, get it together.

• 1:05:45Sam Fragoso?

  And what does get it together mean for you?

• 1:05:47Speaker 01

  It means focus. It means not dwell on yourself. It means keep your eyes on the prize. I always look to history. I always look to my ancestors, what people had to endure in this country. And I say, how dare you not think that you can do? You're coming in such a privileged, I'm the mayor. And when I'm done with this phase of my life, elected office, I'll continue to be involved. I'd like to think maybe I could take a year off. I've never, I've never even taken a month off, okay? But I will always be involved. I just don't have to be in elected office.

• 1:06:22Sam Fragoso?

  Mayor Karen Bass, thank you so much for the time today and for your continued efforts. Like I said, it's been a tough year for Los Angeles.

• 1:06:31Speaker 01

  It has been.

• 1:06:32Sam Fragoso?

  And the fact that you're willing to come here today to answer every question I had, it means a whole lot.

• 1:06:38Speaker 01

  Thank you. And thank you for the opportunity to have a substantive conversation. I appreciate that.

• 1:06:44Sam Fragoso?

  That's kind of all we got here.

• 1:06:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I like it.

• 1:06:46Sam Fragoso?

  I'll see you next time.

• 1:06:47Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:06:48Sam Fragoso?

  Thank you.

• 1:06:50Sam Fragoso?

  All right. Good?

• 1:06:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, yeah. I do seriously enjoy it. And, you know, it's the tough questions. It's always tough.

• 1:07:56Sam Fragoso?

  And that's our show. If you enjoyed that talk with Mayor Karen Bass, I have two things to ask of you. The first is share the program on social media. Tag us at Talk Easy Pod. Share it with friends, family, anyone that you think who may enjoy the kinds of conversations we have here each and every Sunday. The other thing, if you want to go above and beyond, you can leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Now, people still do this, but these days, we mostly hear from people, Republicans, who are mad at me about, I don't know, everything, especially the David Mamet episode. And so if you want to counteract

• 1:08:37Sam Fragoso?

  some people who have said many, many mean and unkind things about the podcast, you want to show up and show out, leave us a review on Apple, give us five stars on Spotify, or, you know, join the fray and say what you want to say. All of it really does help us continue making the show each and every Sunday. I want to give a special thanks this week to Victor Sheehan, Emily Witt, Jacob Soboroff, the ACLU, and of course, our guest, Mayor Karen Bass. To learn more about what she's done for the city of Los Angeles, visit our show notes at TalkEasyPod.com. If you'd like to watch this episode on YouTube, you can find it on our brand new page. Just type in Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso on YouTube,

• 1:09:19Sam Fragoso?

  and it will pop right up. For more episodes, I'd recommend Senator Elizabeth Warren, Eva Duvernay, and Beto O'Rourke. To hear those and more Lemonada Podcasts, listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen. You can also subscribe to Lemonada Premium for exclusive bonus content and ad-free listening. Just hit the subscribe button on Apple or head to lemonadapremium.com. Talk Easy is produced by Caroline Reebok. Our executive producer is Janix Bravo. Today's talk was edited by Matt Sasaki. Nick Hines and Nick Zahn. It was mixed by Andrew Vastola. It was recorded out of Spotify Studios in downtown Los Angeles. Our music is by Dylan Peck.

• 1:10:03Sam Fragoso?

  Our illustrations are by Tricia Shanoy. Research assistance comes from Kiki Giorgio. Photographs today are by Maria Alvarez. This episode was made in partnership with the good people at Lemonada Media, and I'm Sam Fragoso. Thank you for listening to Talk Easy. I'll see you back here on Wednesday with some bonus content, and then back here on Sunday with a brand new episode. Until then, stay safe and so long.

• 1:10:39Speaker 04

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• 1:12:00Speaker 05

  I'm Dan Heath. On What It's Like to Be, I interview people about their jobs. Here's a married couple that drives a long haul truck together.

• 1:12:08Speaker 06

  We backed up and they loaded fresh dead rats.

• 1:12:11Speaker 05

  I mean, how many rats would you guess were back there?

• 1:12:13Speaker 06

  There were 32,000 pounds of them.

• 1:12:16Speaker 05

  32,000 pounds of frozen dead rats.

• 1:12:22Speaker 05

  Find out what it's like to be a long haul trucker, a couples therapist, or an FBI agent, all on the podcast What It's Like to Be.