A New Generation Has Arrived in LA Politics. Is Nithya Raman Ready to Lead It?

Councilmember Nithya Raman says she’s running for mayor “to make LA affordable for everyone.” She joins us this week in her first extended sit-down since edging out Spencer Pratt in the recent mayoral primary. We begin with Raman’s decision to challenge an incumbent mayor she once endorsed in Karen Bass (2:47), the state of Los Angeles after years of overlapping crises (6:50), and why she believes the city needs a greater sense of urgency in addressing housing affordability (9:47) and homelessness (16:11) in order to restore public trust in local government (25:00). Then, she reflects on immigrating to the United States from India as a child (29:44), the unique opportunities this country afforded her (33:08), and a formative experience that led to a life of activism and politics (41:28). To close, Nithya explains how she would have handled the LA fires of 2025 (45:43), what she believes the city needs to do to safeguard against future climate disasters (46:12), her evolving views on the LAPD and their role in addressing homelessness (53:54), and why she believes this sprawling city is still worth fighting for (1:07:33). Subscribe to our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@talkeasypod. As always, our email: [email protected]. 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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  There was always a vague sense of, okay, let's figure out how to fix the problems. Let's figure out how to make things better for, for everyone. Let's, let's, let's make, let's, let's improve this.

• 0:10Sam Fragoso?

  You have a problem solving instinct.

• 0:12Speaker 00

  I believe, yes.

• 0:13Sam Fragoso?

  And where do you think that comes from?

• 0:14Speaker 00

  I don't know. I really don't.

• 0:16Sam Fragoso?

  You must have asked your therapist this.

• 0:17Speaker 00

  We focused on other stuff.

• 0:21Sam Fragoso?

  That's not, that's not making the shortlist?

• 0:22Speaker 00

  It's not making the shortlist.

• 0:24Sam Fragoso?

  What's the, what's the top five? You go in there and what, what are the, what are the top things besides Spencer Pratt?

• 0:31Sam Fragoso?

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

• 0:48Sam Fragoso?

  Today, Los Angeles City Council member and mayoral candidate, Nithya Raman. Six years ago, she was a political newcomer, an urban planner, a housing activist, a mother of two, an immigrant and naturalized citizen who had never held elected office before deciding to challenge a sitting member of the Los Angeles City Council. She won, positioning herself as both a reformer and pragmatist. However, the political backdrop to her 2020 victory and also her reelection in 2024 has been marked by various overlapping crises. Rising housing costs, increased homelessness, spikes in antisemitism and Islamophobia, a Hollywood and free fall, and a sense that the city and its elected officials were not

• 1:33Sam Fragoso?

  fit to meet the moment. Los Angeles is at a breaking point, Raman has repeatedly claimed, and it's for that very reason that she decided to throw her hat in the ring at the 11th hour to become the city's next mayor. And so today, in her first long form interview since edging out Spencer Pratt in the June 2nd primary, we discussed why she decided to take on incumbent Karen Bass, the daylight between their respective platforms, and why she believes she has the answers to many of the city's innumerable problems. This is Nithya Raman. Nithya, welcome to the show.

• 2:09Speaker 00

  Thank you for having me.

• 2:10Sam Fragoso?

  How are you doing?

• 2:12Speaker 00

  I'm doing well.

• 2:13Sam Fragoso?

  You've been busy?

• 2:14Speaker 00

  A little bit, a little bit, yeah. It's been really interesting to be able to run for this seat. So much of it is unexpected. You know, I didn't think about it for weeks and do polls and things like that. And so I jumped into it, not quite knowing what I would get into. And the word endurance, I think, is really important because the race is enormous. It's a big city. You have to do so much. And I had to do it in a much shorter time period than most candidates who run for mayor of Los Angeles.

• 2:47Sam Fragoso?

  So can we talk about this timeline? Because you recently advanced to the November runoff for LA mayor, edging out former reality star Spencer Pratt. You're going up against incumbent Karen Bass, who you yourself had endorsed back in 2025. Between your endorsement of her and then your decision to get into the race, I think just hours before the filing deadline on February 7th. What, what happened between that period?

• 3:16Speaker 00

  You know, when you're an incumbent in City Hall and the mayor asks for your endorsement, you have to fight for your residence. And I gave my endorsement to this mayor, not seeing anyone else getting into the race and thinking about what I would need to do in order to be able to serve my constituents as their council member. How do I make sure that I get everything that they deserve from the city? And the mayor is a key piece of that. But as the end of the filing deadline came closer, I expected that more people would get into the race. This was a period, last year was a profoundly challenging year for the city of Los Angeles,

• 3:58Speaker 00

  between the fires and the ICE raids and economic instability in the city.

• 4:05Speaker 00

  And I felt like many Angelenos that there's just this profound feeling of rudderlessness, of a directionlessness in the city.

• 4:15Sam Fragoso?

  But that rudderlessness, it didn't begin in January of 2026.

• 4:20Speaker 00

  No, but you know, it's been, it's been there. And as time went on and as the mayoral uh, kind of election became more concrete and more real.

• 4:31Sam Fragoso?

  Mm hmm.

• 4:32Speaker 00

  And as the end of the filing deadline came closer, I realized that the options ahead of us at that point were, you know, an incumbent, uh, an establishment status quo.

• 4:45Sam Fragoso?

  Mm hmm.

• 4:45Speaker 00

  That felt deeply, deeply dissatisfying to me.

• 4:49Sam Fragoso?

  Hmm.

• 4:49Speaker 00

  And Spencer Pratt, a reality TV star, a conspiracy theorist, a MAGA Republican, and those were going to be our only two options. And what that meant in actuality was potentially months of that election because the mayor wasn't polling high enough to make it over the 50% margin right in the primary, but ultimately in an uh, an acceptance of the status quo, which I was increasingly feeling was deeply broken and deeply frustrating.

• 5:15Sam Fragoso?

  But is there an inflection point in here that I'm missing? Because I, I've heard you talk about this a lot.

• 5:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:19Sam Fragoso?

  Where you go, I was dissatisfied, the city was at a crisis point, it was rudderless. Those things, they did not begin in December of 25. They didn't begin in January of 26 or February 26th or February 7th of 26.

• 5:37Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 5:38Sam Fragoso?

  When you gave that endorsement, I still don't understand that the, the thing that pushed you over the edge to go, I am moving away from this seat representing District Four. I'm, I'm gonna put my two twin kids through this.

• 5:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:54Sam Fragoso?

  Knowing how hard it was going to be. I still don't understand. Where that switch came?

• 6:00Speaker 00

  I don't come to this with a sense of I'm the only person who can do better for Los Angeles. But I was the only person who stepped up. And that is the truth of what happened. And I think that process of trying to figure out whether there would be a real kind of grappling with what was going on in the city in this mayoral election just did not come to pass. And it just didn't happen.

• 6:24Sam Fragoso?

  It didn't happen.

• 6:25Speaker 00

  It didn't happen. It just didn't happen.

• 6:27Sam Fragoso?

  When you announced, um, according to journalist David Day, and Karen Bass said at a Democratic Club meeting that she was, quote, flabbergasted by your announcement. I worked closely with Nithya, helped her gain the Democratic endorsement, helped her clear an encampment in her district, adding that she will, quote, "work to fix a relationship that I didn't know was broken." Was it broken by the time you decided to step in?

• 6:53Speaker 00

  You operate in City Hall, at least I do, to try and get the most done. And so you, you push. I push all of my relationships. I push to make sure that I'm fighting for my constituents. I push to make sure that the policy outcomes that I care about are happening. And I had been pushing. I had been pushing on the things I cared about, about our homelessness response, about housing production, about, uh, how we delivered basic services, about some of the budgetary allocations that we were making in the city that I felt were leading us in the wrong direction. And I had been vocal about that behind the scenes. I had talked to her staff. I had talked directly to her about my challenges. I had been very open about, about the struggles.

• 7:37Sam Fragoso?

  Your frustrations.

• 7:37Speaker 00

  My frustrations, yes.

• 7:39Sam Fragoso?

  And, and your frustrations were met with what?

• 7:41Speaker 00

  Commitments to address, but no progress, no real progress to address. And, and I think that's where, that's where I, I started feeling more helpless in my particular situation.

• 7:53Sam Fragoso?

  So when she describes it as, as broken, do you think that's a fair characterization of your relationship with her prior to joining?

• 7:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was trou- it was troubled. You know, it was troubled because. Broken means, I think it broke when I decided to run against her, right? But it was a troubled relationship because I was pushing for changes that weren't happening.

• 8:13Sam Fragoso?

  Explain the trouble to us and explain where there were discrepancies in daylight between your two platforms.

• 8:20Speaker 00

  You know, to me, one of the biggest issues facing Los Angeles is housing, the cost of housing.

• 8:27Sam Fragoso?

  Affordability.

• 8:28Speaker 00

  Affordability. It is the single driver of how expensive living in Los Angeles is. It is driving families out of the city. We're seeing population loss. We're seeing families leaving LAUSD schools and schools shutting down as a result. And I see it over and over again in my district that people are choosing to leave rather than stay and weather a challenging period here in Los Angeles. And that's driven by the cost of housing. It's also deeply connected to our homelessness crisis. Our homelessness crisis and our housing crisis are two sides of the same coin. If we're not building more housing, if we are not doing the work to actually bring housing costs down here in the city of Los Angeles, we will not secure the future of this city.

• 9:12Sam Fragoso?

  Between 2024 and 2025, more people fled Los Angeles County than any other place in the country.

• 9:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:20Sam Fragoso?

  And the problem, as you see it, is what?

• 9:23Speaker 00

  I think it is also related to the immigration crackdown from the Trump administration. But we have been losing population here in LA for the past few years. And that is driven by how expensive it is to live in LA. And that is driven by the cost of housing. Housing is the biggest factor in how expensive it is to live in Los Angeles. And that is driving people to leave.

• 9:48Sam Fragoso?

  So having worked with Mayor Bass for the past few years, on that issue of affordability, where do you see her falling short? And where do you see a pivot in terms of your platform?

• 10:01Speaker 00

  You know, for me, this issue is absolutely central to LA. The mayor has not had a deputy mayor of housing for the last two years. The mayor has-

• 10:12Sam Fragoso?

  Why is that?

• 10:13Speaker 00

  That's not a question for me to answer.

• 10:16Sam Fragoso?

  I mean, you work around this, these people. You have conversations we're not privy to. Is there any explanation? I'm sure you seem like an inquisitive, smart person. I'm sure you've wondered, why hasn't this job been filled? Have you got a reasonable explanation for that?

• 10:33Speaker 00

  To me, it's part and parcel of a broader lack of urgency around the housing issue that I have seen.

• 10:40Sam Fragoso?

  It's emblematic.

• 10:40Speaker 00

  It's emblematic, right? It's a key to understanding an administration's priorities. It is a key to understanding a person's focus in their work. And for me, this is one of the keys to our city's future. And it has to be a focus of our mayor's work.

• 11:00Sam Fragoso?

  So on day one, what would you do that Mayor Bass, to this point, has not?

• 11:05Speaker 00

  The broad thing that the city can do is get out of the way of housing production. Right? So we need to protect renters. That's been a huge piece of work that I've engaged in. We need to make sure that the city is really reoriented around making sure that vulnerable renters have real protections and that the city has their back when they're threatened by, you know, bad actor landlords and things like that. But parallel to that, we have to be producing more housing here in the city of Los Angeles. And we can do that by making sure that we have real deadlines for when the city issues permits. So I want to make sure that we, on day one, have a shot clock, a deadline by which the city has to respond to permit requests, which can take a year and a half

• 11:50Speaker 00

  or more on average here in the city to build exactly the thing that we say is a shortage here.

• 11:55Sam Fragoso?

  So you want a 24-second shot clock, like we're playing in the NBA?

• 11:59Speaker 00

  Not a 24-second. 60 days for zoning compliant projects, 120 days potentially for non-zoning compliant projects.

• 12:07Sam Fragoso?

  And what is it now?

• 12:08Speaker 00

  The process is very unpredictable, right? And different departments have to weigh in on different parts of that process. And they can all take their own timelines. And a recent- Uh, UCL, uh, UCLA study, I believe, found that, yeah, on average, it takes more than a year and a half for multifamily housing to be permitted here in the city. That's before they can put a shovel in the ground. That's before construction starts. That's longer timelines than almost any other major city in, in America. And it contributes to the cost of housing. The longer you wait to build housing, the more expensive that housing is ultimately.

• 12:49Speaker 00

  And so we end up with kind of the worst of, worst of all worlds, which is housing that is less than what we need. And finally, when it is produced, it's more expensive than it needs to be because the city has stood in the way of that.

• 13:02Sam Fragoso?

  Have you seen, um, Everybody's in L.A. by John Mulaney?

• 13:06Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 13:07Sam Fragoso?

  He walks through a map and history of Los Angeles. And I just want to play a clip from it for us for a second.

• 13:13Speaker 02

  Uh, fun fact, did you know L.A. has a mayor? If you were rolling around town, you'd be like, no mayor, right? But, and then you'd be like, for no mayor, it's going okay. Like, and that's not a knock at the current mayor, not at all. I think it is crazy in any decade for any person to look at all this and go, I got it. I'll be able to handle that.

• 13:40Sam Fragoso?

  Good joke. Also, kind of a fair question. When you look at that map, that sprawling, beautiful, strange map of Los Angeles, do you go, yeah, I'll do that?

• 13:56Speaker 00

  Yes, it's a big city, but I absolutely think that we can find ways to govern a big city. I don't think it should be such a overwhelming problem that you just walk away from trying to govern it completely. And I think that the mayor here in L.A. has the ability to think about policies that can impact every corner of that city and to push for those policies and to make sure that they're shaped differently in different neighborhoods, but to really make the city work better across every jurisdiction.

• 14:30Sam Fragoso?

  On a serious note, like in preparation for this conversation, I've read a lot about you. I've read a lot about the role of mayor, which is certainly, um, you know, reduced in contrast to New York or Chicago.

• 14:44Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 14:45Sam Fragoso?

  In terms of its powers, et cetera. And I do, I do wonder.

• 14:50Sam Fragoso?

  I mean this sincerely, not as a joke.

• 14:54Sam Fragoso?

  Why would someone want this job?

• 14:57Speaker 00

  Out of love for Los Angeles. You know, I, I think that this city right now is struggling. I think that I believe that, that some of those challenges come from a lack of leadership and urgency in the mayor's office. Only the mayor can push the departments to do better. Only our mayor is really tasked with emergency response and emergency preparedness. These are all things that are in the charter mandated role of the mayor. And we need someone in that role who is using every single power given to them to push the city in a different direction and in a better direction, to be able to respond to our crises with urgency, with action,

• 15:40Speaker 00

  and use those powers to demand change and to make sure departments are delivering, to make sure that we are functioning in a way that really makes sense for, for Angelino's. I want that in my city leadership. I have hit up against the unwillingness of this mayor and our city to demand more from our departments and to do better. And I want to change that.

• 16:05Sam Fragoso?

  I, I want to get an example of that, of where you've hit the ceiling, so to speak, where you've run to a brick wall.

• 16:11Speaker 00

  We have a homelessness response in the city that has grown significantly over the last few years.

• 16:17Sam Fragoso?

  The Inside Safe program?

• 16:18Speaker 00

  Not just Inside Safe. Inside Safe is one piece of it.

• 16:21Sam Fragoso?

  Right, but it's a $300 million piece.

• 16:23Speaker 00

  A hundred million annually across our budget. But the city funds 8,000 shelter beds. The city funds thousands of permanent supportive housing units, the construction of those, the services for which are provided by the county. The city funds. Outreach workers who are on the streets and the county also has outreach workers who are on the streets. All of that needs to move in the same direction in order for us to have real progress on homelessness, in order for us to be able to look at an encampment and to say, how can we bring this person indoors and take down the tents, clear that sidewalk and make everyone safe for that person who is experiencing homelessness and the neighborhood around it.

• 17:08Speaker 00

  Inside Safe is in the mayor's office. It is directed entirely by the mayor's office. But the rest of the system is not being organized for the benefit of Angelino's.

• 17:18Sam Fragoso?

  Who is it being organized and benefit for?

• 17:21Speaker 00

  It is not being organized. It's just funded and it's moving forward. There has to be kind of a bringing together and a pushing forward and organization of that work. The mayor is the person who has the capacity, the convening power, the organizational power to bring together disparate departments, agencies, service providers, even jurisdictions in order to make sure that we're all rowing in the same direction. I've done as much as I can from my role as a council member to do that work. But ultimately, you have to manage the whole system and you have to push the system in the right direction. And that, that, that is not happening right now.

• 18:01Sam Fragoso?

  But Nithya, this is, this is where I'm, I'm having a problem, which is in November of 2025, you tell the LA Times, Karen Bass is the most progressive mayor we've ever had in LA. So how, how did we go from someone that you described as the most progressive mayor to someone who is not moving a system in lockstep, who is disorganized, who is not moving the city in the right direction? Because, because one is a quote that you gave not that long ago, and now we're sitting here in June and the tune is completely different.

• 18:34Speaker 00

  I don't know that being progressive means you are.

• 18:40Speaker 00

  You are organized.

• 18:41Sam Fragoso?

  Okay.

• 18:41Speaker 00

  Progressive is a set of values.

• 18:42Sam Fragoso?

  But that's a pretty positive statement. I wouldn't say that about someone that I didn't support.

• 18:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, she was the mayor. She is the mayor at the time. And I had critiques and I'm sure everyone in, I would say that almost everyone in City Hall who has endorsed this mayor, people who have worked with her, I'm sure they all have their critiques. They're not saying them publicly. And I'm sure everyone has their critiques because the system, to me, as a, even just as a resident of the city, is our homelessness response working to you? And I would say, in my district, I've pushed every lever I have to make sure that it is working better.

• 19:14Sam Fragoso?

  District four.

• 19:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, we've reduced, you know, number of tents and encampments significantly. We are very responsive when people are calling for help. We're working to make sure issues are addressed as quickly as possible and that people are getting the help they need and that they're moving indoors. But as a city, I don't think anyone would argue that we're moving fast enough in the right direction. And that's a very different thing from saying someone is progressive or conservative. That's about effectiveness. And for me, as a progressive, I really believe in the power of government. I really believe that government, it has the power to do immense good. I'm inspired by the capacity of government to help people. That's what drives me in this work. That's what drives me in my, in my job as a council member. It's what drove me to run in the first place.

• 19:57Speaker 00

  And when you see that the system is not being pushed to deliver for residents as much as possible. I think what you, what we risk here in Los Angeles and what I've seen happening and what you saw in the primary election is that people lose faith in the capacity of government to serve them. People lose faith in the capacity of us to deliver outcomes with progressive values. Like, I think if, if we want to address homelessness and do it by making sure that we are housing people as opposed to arresting people, we have to make sure that that system of bringing people indoors and into housing is working as effectively as possible in order for people to have faith in that system. That's not happening right now. And you see more people turning away and losing faith in the government.

• 20:42Speaker 00

  That matters to me. As a progressive, that matters to me.

• 20:45Sam Fragoso?

  One of the reasons Spencer Pratt was as successful as he was, was because he had a mission statement, a rallying call, not dissimilar to what you've just said.

• 20:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:56Sam Fragoso?

  Which is that The city's at a breaking point.

• 20:58Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 20:59Sam Fragoso?

  There are issues of affordability, homelessness. People are leaving LA County, as we talked about. Hell, business is going away. Hollywood is going to Vancouver, Atlanta. Less film productions happened in the last couple of years than in any recent time. I mean, these are real things that you agree with.

• 21:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:17Sam Fragoso?

  That Pratt himself also called out.

• 21:19Speaker 00

  Right.

• 21:19Sam Fragoso?

  I want to play a clip from a recent video after you beat him in the election.

• 21:26Speaker 03

  You have no idea how many major developers, hoteliers, business owners, entrepreneurs have been texting me saying they're packing up and leaving town. More of your favorite restaurants will be shuttering. That means less tax revenue. That means the city has to cut services. More potholes, less firefighters, less police patrols, more criminals, more drug addicts terrorizing your communities. And we haven't ended it. You have no idea how bad things are about to get for this city. Look at this place already. Weeds growing from every crack and crevice, graffiti over every square inch of public space, garbage, drugs, feces, burned up dogs, burned down towns, abandoned storefronts. This city is a mess and you're about to reward the arsonists who torched a place with four more years of destruction? I know he's very bitter. My goal hasn't changed. I've been laser focused on stopping these commie animals and I will stop them.

• 22:10Speaker 03

  If you think we uncovered a lot of fraud and evil in the campaign, just wait. We have some recordings of one of your exalted candidates doing and saying something that would make her resign in shame. I was saving it for the general election. Go ahead and pick your demon, certify your choice, and then you get to see it. So Karen Nithya, ask yourself, is it possible that one of your employees may have a recording of you doing or saying something that would force you to resign and disgrace? Hope you sleep well at night over the next five months because you know who hasn't slept well at all for the last 17 months? My mom.

• 22:40Speaker 00

  I mean, I think this is exactly what I was talking about before. I think you can see a city that is providing less services, that is not fixing streetlights quickly, that isn't addressing homelessness with urgency, that isn't doing enough to bring down the cost of housing. That isn't helping small businesses enough to stay open. I think Angelenos have a choice. They can pick this angry frustrated response. Or they can say, no, we can do better and still stick by our progressive values. We don't have to choose a very broken status quo.

• 23:18Speaker 00

  We can choose something that can address these issues and still hold what I think are so incredible about Los Angeles's values, which is that we want to do things the right way. We want to be able to address homelessness by bringing people indoors into safety. We want to be able to address the mental health crisis on our streets, not just try and arrest our way out of it. And again, if we don't deliver on that, people will turn away from that. And that is a very real fear that I have. And I think that that video is giving voice to exactly that. And the fact that so many people voted for him is also part and parcel of what that fear is.

• 23:56Sam Fragoso?

  You understand why they voted for him?

• 23:58Speaker 00

  Yes, I do. I mean, I hear about that frustration every day, you know, on the campaign trail. I hear about it when constituents call my office and say, why can't we fix a streetlight in less than a year? You know, why can't we address graffiti? We used to do it three years ago. We don't do it now. The quality of services has gone down. Our ability to respond has gotten worse. That's not good for the city. And I think that's not good for the future of LA.

• 24:24Sam Fragoso?

  And when he calls you an arsonist? He calls you a commie animal? You feel what?

• 24:34Speaker 00

  Well, I don't like being called a commie animal. But, you know, I would say that my response to this has been exactly the opposite of arson. It's really trying to make sure that we are as responsive to people as possible. That is, that is the goal. And to work relentlessly until we're able to respond to the needs that they have, to make sure that I'm not putting personal political goals over what's right for the city, which I see happening in City Hall all the time.

• 25:09Sam Fragoso?

  You do?

• 25:09Speaker 00

  I do, I do.

• 25:11Sam Fragoso?

  And why is that?

• 25:12Speaker 00

  Because that's the way that this, this political system has worked for a very long time. You see people who are unwilling to change policies that are, for example, reducing housing production here in Los Angeles because Big vested interests or their allies who brought them in want to keep it this way. You know, you see investments in things like the convention center, the downtown L.A. Convention Center, which was an enormous investment for the city, supported by very powerful downtown business interests that is going to take over a hundred million dollars from our general fund for the next thirty years, at the same time that we're going back to voters and asking them to pay more to fix our streetlights.

• 25:57Speaker 00

  And I don't think it has to be that way. I don't think it has to be that way here in Los Angeles. When you have a mayor and a city hall that takes the trust of residents for granted, you start to lose it.

• 26:09Sam Fragoso?

  And you think Karen Bass has taken it for granted?

• 26:11Speaker 00

  I do, and I, and I don't, and I don't.

• 26:14Sam Fragoso?

  And, and this is my last point on this. Do you believe she took it for granted, starting on February seventh of 2026? Or do you feel she took it for granted during and even after you endorsed her?

• 26:30Speaker 00

  That's, I don't, I think she, I was, I was frustrated, you know? This is a, but people change their mind, you know, it's not a moment where you change your mind, right? It is a moment of-

• 26:40Sam Fragoso?

  It's three years of working with her.

• 26:41Speaker 00

  Yes, this is a big decision for me to step away and to do this.

• 26:45Sam Fragoso?

  Massive.

• 26:46Speaker 00

  Massive, you know, I did it, I did it with my husband and I talked about it and, and, and I didn't do it on my own, but I do think that this moment, this city is worth fighting for. I think that for me, I have two little kids, I have ten-year-old twins, and I don't want to wait four years for the city to get better. I just don't. And yes, there was a moment of break. There was a moment where I was like, okay, yes, this is happening, this is what the system is. And I had actually thought to myself, okay, maybe City Hall is not the place where I'm going to make change, right? So I'll finish out my term, I'll leave and I'll go do something else where I can have more impact. That was what I was thinking, you know? Time went on and I thought, okay, well, who's going to get in this mayor's race? Someone's got to talk about these issues. Some of these things can be fixed. Like, if I were mayor, I would be calling all of these different departments into the

• 27:31Speaker 00

  office, making sure the permits were given out on time, making sure we were actually delivering on outcomes for home- Making sure that I was using that power to do it differently. And then I had an opportunity to say, okay, I will do it differently if I'm elected.

• 27:45Sam Fragoso?

  And so here we are.

• 27:45Speaker 00

  And so here we are.

• 27:46Sam Fragoso?

  After the break, I want to talk about why you're in this fight, where you come from, and why this means so much to you. That's coming up next with Nithya Ram. The summer is almost here, and whenever I plan time away, I want to spend it deciding where I'm going, not wondering whether I can afford it or not. Peace of mind is supposed to be part of the vacation itself. It's one of the luxuries. So my finances are organized before I leave, I can actually enjoy the time away. Monarch is the personal finance app that tracks everything: accounts, investments, savings goals, and spending. Get your first year off Monarch Core for half off, just $50, with promo code TALKEASY. But what I appreciate about Monarch is that it takes a lot of the mental load off my plate.

• 28:31Sam Fragoso?

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• 29:13Sam Fragoso?

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• 29:28Sam Fragoso?

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• 30:12Sam Fragoso?

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• 30:35Sam Fragoso?

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• 31:17Sam Fragoso?

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• 31:53Sam Fragoso?

  Coming back, I want to know a little bit more about about where you come from and how you arrive at doing all that you've been doing. You're born in India in 1981.

• 32:04Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 32:05Sam Fragoso?

  Before you and your mother join your father in America in 1987. Have you asked your mother about the Pan Am flight from India to Newark Airport? Like, coming to America, you were six. I don't know if your memory was super clear, but what has she said about that journey, that trip to come into the States?

• 32:28Speaker 00

  We have talked about that, but I do have, I have a memory of, and I'll have to ask her if this is accurate, of walking off of steps at Newark Airport and coming and seeing America. And I have this one very vivid memory. My uncle and aunt picked us up at the airport and we went to their apartment in Dayton, Ohio. And seeing in a, like a baked goods stand on their countertop, a croissant. I was like, what is this? I had not seen a croissant before. Not that we don't have baked goods in South India, but it just was.

• 33:06Sam Fragoso?

  It was a shock.

• 33:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I tried it. So I have some, you know, I have some memories from that. What was interesting about that moment was my mom had been working elsewhere. My father had been working elsewhere initially and then studying in Bombay and then studying in Louisiana. And my grandparents had taken care of me. And my mother, so I had, I called my grandmother Amma, which is what the, you know, mom in Tamil. And so I was coming to America to live with my family for the first time that I could remember. And. My mom says that she was excited about that,

• 33:52Speaker 00

  that we were all gonna be together for the first time in a long time, that we didn't have to be separated by economic necessity. She also talks about what it was like to be so far away from her spouse in giving me advice with my husband.

• 34:09Sam Fragoso?

  What was the advice?

• 34:11Speaker 00

  So when my dad was in America, calling India was very expensive.

• 34:18Sam Fragoso?

  This is early, mid eighties?

• 34:19Speaker 00

  And they didn't talk that much. They didn't talk that frequently. It wasn't the era of cell phones and WhatsApp. And, you know, my then fiance and I were, you know, having an argument. And she just, my parents told me, when you're that far and when between conversations, you have to choose your words really carefully. Because if you said something you didn't mean, or if you said something hurtful because you were upset, you may not be able to rectify that for a month. And so she said, choose your words. You have less time between conversations.

• 34:57Sam Fragoso?

  Pretty good training for a politician.

• 34:59Speaker 00

  Right?

• 35:02Sam Fragoso?

  Even in love.

• 35:03Speaker 00

  Even in love.

• 35:04Sam Fragoso?

  Be very disciplined.

• 35:05Speaker 00

  Be very disciplined, be very careful with your words.

• 35:07Sam Fragoso?

  So long before you you fell in love and got married, I I wanna know, you're growing up in a suburb outside of Boston.

• 35:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:17Sam Fragoso?

  You started the Gay Straight Alliance back in high school.

• 35:21Speaker 00

  Yes. Wow, you really did your research.

• 35:24Sam Fragoso?

  How were you treated in high school? What what was your experience as a young kid? You know, now in America, I think this is about eight years having been in America, once you start high school?

• 35:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, and in high school, in middle school, there was a growing number, so it's a primarily white suburb with a growing number of. Asians, both East Asians and a lot of South Asians who had come there to work in a burgeoning technology sector. Route 128 is a highway in in Boston that, you know, circles around Boston and a ton of tech companies had set up there and a lot of engineers,

• 36:03Sam Fragoso?

  Mm hmm.

• 36:03Speaker 00

  software engineers were coming from India to work there. And so there was a growing number of South Asians in my town.

• 36:12Sam Fragoso?

  Mm hmm.

• 36:13Speaker 00

  But I experienced pretty significant racism and bullying. I mean, everyone suffers.

• 36:20Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 36:20Speaker 00

  Bullying in middle school.

• 36:21Sam Fragoso?

  High school's tough.

• 36:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, middle school and high school are tough.

• 36:24Sam Fragoso?

  I understand.

• 36:24Speaker 00

  But it is part of what I love about Los Angeles, part of why I, when I came here, I just was so excited by this place and its inclusiveness and its welcoming and the idea that when my kids are growing up here, that, you know, when they bring Indian food to school in their lunchbox, the other kids want to try it. They don't make fun of the smell of the food, you know? It's just a different experience.

• 36:46Sam Fragoso?

  Did that happen to you?

• 36:47Speaker 00

  A hundred percent.

• 36:49Sam Fragoso?

  So you'd bring lunch?

• 36:50Speaker 00

  Yes, well, I stopped bringing Indian lunch very.

• 36:56Speaker 00

  But anyway, but again.

• 36:57Sam Fragoso?

  I think my school lunches was just miserable.

• 36:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:00Sam Fragoso?

  It wasn't because of a cultural thing either, just the food was terrible.

• 37:03Speaker 00

  Right, well, I, you know, then I asked my mom to just pack peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

• 37:09Speaker 00

  Save the Indian food for after.

• 37:11Sam Fragoso?

  Mom Lunchables will have to do.

• 37:12Speaker 00

  Yes, exactly. I mean, I was very jealous of people who brought Lunchables.

• 37:16Sam Fragoso?

  Were you?

• 37:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:17Sam Fragoso?

  So, yes, middle school, high school, eh, not always the best time.

• 37:22Speaker 00

  Not always the best time.

• 37:23Sam Fragoso?

  You experienced some amount of racism, not specific and certainly not exclusive to you, I understand that, but I do want to know what that did to your sense of this country and your, you know, your self-esteem and, gosh, I mean, coming here and and being told those things, being mocked and made fun of because of where you come from.

• 37:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:49Sam Fragoso?

  What did that do to a teenage Nithya?

• 37:52Speaker 00

  Well, one, I do want to say that I carry, I carry the perspective of being an immigrant to America with me a lot.

• 38:00Sam Fragoso?

  Which means what?

• 38:01Speaker 00

  I know where I came from. I know the future I would have had if I had grown up there. I went back a lot, even as a kid, I went back as an adult. And so I know what life was open to me there and I, my family and I had access to opportunities in America that we just didn't there. And stability in America that we just didn't have in the place where I grew up, where I was born. And so I have an immense amount of gratitude for America and for what it gave us.

• 38:30Sam Fragoso?

  You go to Harvard, then you get a master's at MIT. Good schools.

• 38:35Speaker 00

  Yes, good schools and schools, again, I would have, wouldn't have had access to in, in, in India. And it, in my, you know, the opportunities that I have here are absolutely immense. And so I come to this work with a sense of this place is amazing and I want it to be amazing for everyone.

• 38:54Sam Fragoso?

  But what did it do to you?

• 38:55Speaker 00

  What did it do to me in terms of my self-esteem? I had to develop a certain amount of resilience being there. Because I still had to believe that I could do things. I still had to believe that I was worthy of love and, and success as much as anyone else in, in my school environment. And so I think I have a certain amount of resilience that I've carried with me. And that has actually served me well in an environment where social media allows everyone to critique you. And where you're putting yourself out there for that kind of critique all the time.

• 39:30Sam Fragoso?

  So that's how you look at that Spencer Pratt video and go?

• 39:34Speaker 00

  I just, I have a feel like when, this is not necessarily about Spencer Pratt, per se, although I have actually an immense amount of empathy for someone who's home burned down in the Palisades and what that does to you. And what that does to your ability to have faith in, in government. But I, I would say that to people who come to my office, my council office, or people who come to me with anger and frustration.

• 40:04Speaker 00

  I really do believe that if we can make this work for them, that we can address that anger and frustration. Ultimately, most of us here in Los Angeles want the same things for the city. We want to feel safe. We want to feel good. We want to feel like we're able to build our businesses and send our kids to school and and succeed here. And I think part of why I'm, why I can take on some of the negativity, because I'm like, okay, how can I fix what's working you? How can I make sure that this city works better for you? How can I address the issue that you're talking about? I understand your frustration. Let's fix it.

• 40:40Sam Fragoso?

  So is there a story or a moment where those, those seeds of justice were seemingly planted in you very early on?

• 40:49Speaker 00

  I, so there was always a vague sense of, okay, let's figure out how to fix the problems. Let's figure out how to make things better for, for everyone. Let's, let's, let's make, let's, let's improve this.

• 40:59Sam Fragoso?

  You have a problem solving instinct?

• 41:01Speaker 00

  I believe, yes.

• 41:02Sam Fragoso?

  And where do you think that comes from?

• 41:04Speaker 00

  I don't know. I really don't.

• 41:05Sam Fragoso?

  You must have asked your therapist this.

• 41:07Speaker 00

  We focused on other stuff.

• 41:10Sam Fragoso?

  That's not, that's not making the shortlist?

• 41:12Speaker 00

  It's not making the shortlist.

• 41:13Sam Fragoso?

  What's, what's the top five? You go in there and what, what are the, what are the top things besides Spencer Prep?

• 41:19Speaker 00

  I think just right now it's been grappling with the scrutiny.

• 41:24Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 41:24Speaker 00

  The enormous attention and set of eyes that are on me and my family and every decision I'm making and, and how to, how to, how to deal with that. I mean, this has been a very different moment than anything I've ever experienced. And I don't think I knew how different it would be. So that, that's really been the focus of, of this, but, but also, yeah.

• 41:48Sam Fragoso?

  In therapy?

• 41:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 41:50Sam Fragoso?

  I mean, I imagine the therapist going like, hey, look.

• 41:54Speaker 00

  I could have told you.

• 41:55Sam Fragoso?

  You're running for mayor.

• 41:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, what did you expect?

• 41:57Sam Fragoso?

  I didn't, I didn't learn this in medical school or when I got, when I got my degree, my license to practice. But so is there, is there kind of an experience that comes to mind or, or? I know nothing happens all at once.

• 42:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:10Sam Fragoso?

  But is there something that you hold on to that gives you the passion and power to continue forward, to keep doing this work?

• 42:18Speaker 00

  One of the most.

• 42:21Speaker 00

  Striking moments for me in my memory was being in Delhi and there was there was a redevelopment process happening in Delhi where they were trying to become a world-class city. And there was a, there was big slum evictions that were happening at the time. So slums are these, you know, shanty towns that were scattered throughout the city, but a lot on the outskirts. And I remember reading about one where 100,000 residents' homes had just been bulldozed and barely got any coverage in the English media. And I went to go see it for myself, just to see what had happened there. And the scale of it was so enormous.

• 43:06Speaker 00

  And I remember thinking to myself about the power of government and what can happen when government goes awry and, and, and enacts power in a way that is so destructive for people that, that, you know, displaced so many people from that location to other locations that destroyed people's wealth and families. And I think for me, that moment made me think about what cities could do and how cities could could be that or could be so much better.

• 43:37Sam Fragoso?

  So let's talk about that. And in 2020, you become the first democratic socialist to win a council seat. Bringing what, what some members have called a sea change to City Hall. You have said that on a city council level, there's a culture of delay and denial. To what extent did you contribute and participate in that culture? And to what extent did you try to upend that culture once you, once you land there in 2020?

• 44:05Speaker 00

  So the delay in denial was really about housing. I've talked about that in the context of housing a lot. Building housing, about building shelters, about building the, the thing that we, again, we say we need all the time here in the city of Los Angeles.

• 44:18Sam Fragoso?

  But you think it extends beyond just that issue?

• 44:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, there's a lot of things for which we are, we kick the can down the road or we avoid, we avoid facing these problems head on.

• 44:27Sam Fragoso?

  And having been inside the system as you have the last five years, why?

• 44:32Speaker 00

  It's easier to not deal with it. It's hard to say yes to housing. It's much easier to say, oh, we got to do more process. We got to think about this more. We have to make sure that We are evaluating whether this is appropriate for the community or not. We have to do this, we have to do that. And finally, you never say yes or no. You can just kick the can down the road indefinitely. And we have projects in the city that have been delayed for three years, four years, five years, because we are just, the city refuses to say yes, because it is hard to say yes.

• 45:09Sam Fragoso?

  Why?

• 45:10Speaker 00

  Specifically on the question of housing. We have a housing shortage, right? Broadly, everyone agrees, we need to build more housing. So let's try and change the laws that we can build more housing. And then when it comes to a specific project, the answer is always, I want more housing, but not that one. That one doesn't work for this reason. That one doesn't work because it's not right for the community. That one is too big. That one doesn't work. Even if there's broad alignment around the need for more housing on specific projects, and because council has the ability to say yes or no to many specific projects, that's kind of the design of our city here in Los Angeles. We are able to stop and block individual projects all the time. And I have tried, in my time in council, over and over again,

• 45:55Speaker 00

  to reduce that individual project discretion, and to make it so that we have a set of plans and regulations where we agree on those values, and then we let the system do its work.

• 46:04Sam Fragoso?

  So what's preventing you and your colleagues from doing that work?

• 46:09Speaker 00

  There is still significant discretion built in. There's resistance from other council members to take away that discretion, right? So we can, even if we put in place rules or regulations that say, 100% affordable housing, if you follow these rules, you're going to build it, right? Still, city council members have stopped affordable housing projects, have reversed their approvals for them, even when it is not legal to reverse their approvals. Have fought in court to say we shouldn't have these projects built, lost those cases, and then we pay attorney's fees for those efforts. And meanwhile, affordable housing, the thing that everyone says we need,

• 46:51Speaker 00

  is delayed for years as a result because people don't want to face resistance from from communities and anger from communities about specific projects. And whenever you do have neighborhood change, whenever you have new projects built, there is pushback in neighborhoods. And I think the work that we need to do here in Los Angeles is to talk about how we can accommodate change. What kind of neighborhood do you want to build? How can we build more density? We need more housing, we need more density. How can we build in this neighborhood in ways that makes you feel excited about that change? How can we make it look beautiful? How can we make it so that new density is attractive for you? And how can we make sure that your preferences are being included in this?

• 47:35Speaker 00

  But ultimately, once we've decided that it's going to be built, we're not going to go back and say, oh, this is not right. Once we've already agreed on the rules. I think that's the goal that we need to get to here in the city of Los Angeles. That's what I've pushed for. But there is still a culture of individual project delay and denial.

• 47:52Sam Fragoso?

  Two big issues that are going to be front and center come November. Homelessness and the fires of 2025. We are still suffering from the after effects of that and the reverberations across the city. I want to start with the fires. You know, given the climate conditions in this city, A, do you think it's only a matter of time until another wildfire happens? And B, if so, what would you do differently to prevent, or at the very least mitigate, this potential devastation?

• 48:26Speaker 00

  I believe that we are in an era of increased climate risk here in in LA, which means both increased risk of fires, but also increased risk of flooding and mudslides.

• 48:37Sam Fragoso?

  So that's a yes to the first part?

• 48:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, a yes. I we absolutely are seeing.

• 48:44Speaker 00

  Periods of of of fire risk that will result in in in fires happening. And also periods of intense rain. That's actually what I saw before last year. What had happened in my district was periods of very, very intense rain that washed homes off of their foundations that led to streets being rendered completely unusable into the future in our hillside areas.

• 49:08Sam Fragoso?

  So what would you do that Karen Bass did not?

• 49:11Speaker 00

  What, you know, the role of a mayor is to do emergency preparation. And I think anytime you know that there is risk of rain, if there's risk of fire, that you are doing the kind of preparation that you need to do. That's that includes pre deployment of fire trucks to areas of high fire risk and into areas where there's not the coverage that you need, including, you know, did we didn't, the city didn't do that in the Palisades. Their fire trucks were not pre deployed, even though there had been a fire there the week prior. And that is the kind of work and preparatory work that the city needs to be doing in advance of these riskier moments.

• 49:50Speaker 00

  And similarly, you need to be doing things like ensuring that we're clearing brush more effectively, that we are working with homeowners to make sure that we're doing everything in our power to harden homes and to ensure that we are limiting fire risk within individual properties. And that means regulating the, making sure that our Department of Building and Safety and our Fire Department are engaging with homeowners in the hillsides, in these high risk areas, much more intensively and effectively. It means in advance of of heavy rain conditions, making sure that you're clearing catch basins, that you're going through our rivers and and and there's people who live next to our

• 50:34Speaker 00

  our riverbanks right now, making sure that you're working with them to get them indoors into into hotel and motel rooms during those high risk periods in order to ensure that you don't have deaths when you have flooding risk. And so this is the kind of work that I think we need to be doing as a city much more. And we have to be equipped. To prepare for these things and things I want the city to be focused on.

• 51:01Sam Fragoso?

  The other issue of homelessness, you said repeatedly that the city has to work much harder, especially at the mayoral level. When it comes to homelessness, we talked a little bit about Inside Safe, but there's programs beyond that.

• 51:15Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 51:16Sam Fragoso?

  Do you believe Mayor Bass and her administration has not worked hard enough on homelessness? Is it a matter of work ethic?

• 51:25Speaker 00

  It's not about work ethic, it's about where you're focusing your efforts.

• 51:28Sam Fragoso?

  Okay.

• 51:29Speaker 00

  The mayor's office right now works on Inside Safe. That is their primary program and intervention.

• 51:34Sam Fragoso?

  And you think that's wrong, why?

• 51:36Speaker 00

  Because that is one part of a broader investment and response to homelessness, every piece of which needs to be working towards addressing the crisis as effectively as possible. So on Inside Safe alone, I have critiques, which is that the program is too expensive on a per-person basis. And we need to move towards a response to encampments that doesn't cost $100,000 in some cases, per year, per person.

• 52:04Sam Fragoso?

  I thought it was closer to 82,000.

• 52:06Speaker 00

  Eighty-five, 82, 85,000 on average. There are motel rooms that we're paying $100,000 a year per person for. And on average, people are staying a year in those hotel rooms, right? So that, we need to make sure that that response is working much better than it is and that we're not spending an unsustainable amount per person to bring people indoors.

• 52:24Sam Fragoso?

  What would be the right amount of money? What do you think allocating, what would you allocate?

• 52:29Speaker 00

  So, there are, there is an intervention that I have, that I really, has worked very well in LA called a time-limited subsidy, which is a short-term rental voucher where you can provide money for apartment rental for an individual. And it can cost Something like up to $2,000 a month, plus some case management support. And that program has had very good results. Seventy-five percent of people who are in the time limited subsidy program stay housed, they stay permanently housed. And it's a short term program and it costs anywhere from about $22,000 to $32,000 a year per person.

• 53:12Speaker 00

  At its best, it transitions them to being self-sufficient afterwards, after a two-year intervention. It is one of the most effective ways to intervene in homelessness. It's not for everyone. There are people who need intensive mental health care. There are people who will always need some level of support. There may be people who need things like rehab, beds and all of that. But for a lot of people, this intervention is very, very cost-effective and very effective.

• 53:37Sam Fragoso?

  Now, tell me about the plan and program for vacant beds. Because I know that's something you've been on a lot. I want to hear something about that.

• 53:44Speaker 00

  So, one of the reasons why I am so focused on not just the Inside Safe portion, but all of these other beds at the city funds, is we need to be able to make sure that we're investing in beds that are filled every night. And for a long time, the city had no idea where these beds were and whether they were full or empty on any given night.

• 54:04Sam Fragoso?

  Why do they not know?

• 54:06Speaker 00

  Because the way the city's investment in homelessness worked was that the city put money into a LASSA, which is the Homeless Services Authority, which is a joint powers entity, a city-county entity that was set up. The city is not, you know, is not a social service provider. It doesn't have the staff or the departments to be able to do this work. And so it gave the money to LASSA, so it subcontracted basically to LASSA and said, best of luck. And although people complained about the lack of transparency and data from LASSA, it was not until I was able to Work with them and get that data that we first started seeing where these beds were and how many of them were filled on any given night.

• 54:47Speaker 00

  The city also invested through HHH in thousands of permanent supportive housing units, which were long-term housing beds. The city was not monitoring whether those were occupied or full on any given night. So I worked very hard to create that oversight data. And then used it to fill beds and to fill units much more quickly than we had before. And we went from being 80% full on any given night to now being 94, 95% full in our shelter beds. And for our permanent supportive housing units, our first number showed that we were at 72% full. And now we're over 90% occupied. And the time it takes to fill a permanent supportive housing unit is now below 90 days for each of those units. It had been taking months and they would lie empty.

• 55:32Speaker 00

  This is not spending a single additional dollar. This is just bringing people into the beds that we are already funding, bringing people into safety, making all of our investments work better, the work that I think the mayor should be doing and that I want to do across our entire system if I am mayor.

• 55:48Sam Fragoso?

  So when it comes to the homelessness crisis, what is the role of the police in this? Because your history around the LAPD, you know, as you've had this job, it's changed. You've had different feelings, certainly in 2020. You called to defund the police. You voted to expand LAPD budget in 2021, 2022, and 2023. You also voted against the raises in 2023. So I want to know both your feelings and the function of LAPD as you see it, but also especially with the homelessness crisis, what is their role?

• 56:27Speaker 00

  LAPD is basically responsible for enforcement of our rules and regulations related to homelessness. What we have done and what the way in which I've responded to homelessness in the district is to really say, how do we actually make sure that we are getting tents off the streets? How do we make sure that we're getting people indoors? That's not work that LAPD is equipped to do. What they can do is tell somebody who is experiencing homelessness, you can't camp here. But if you don't address the reason why that person is on the street, that individual will just move to another sidewalk, will move down the street, will move to another location and camp there. And so the work of the office and the work of our system has to be to actually go

• 57:10Speaker 00

  out to people who are experiencing homelessness and move them indoors and off the streets so that we can address homelessness once and for all.

• 57:15Sam Fragoso?

  So do you still believe in defunding the police?

• 57:18Speaker 00

  I have voted against, as you said in your, in your rundown, I have voted.

• 57:23Sam Fragoso?

  Well, it's, it's my rundown of your record.

• 57:26Speaker 00

  Yes, no, no, I know.

• 57:27Sam Fragoso?

  It's not something I made up.

• 57:28Speaker 00

  No, no, I wasn't.

• 57:29Sam Fragoso?

  Your rundown makes it seem like it's my career, but it's not.

• 57:33Speaker 00

  You're right. Well, I voted for, um, you know, I voted for supported budgets that have maintained and expanded the, the police force, but I have voted against raises for LAPD that the city couldn't afford.

• 57:46Sam Fragoso?

  Is too much being spent on the police?

• 57:49Speaker 00

  Uh, this particular contract was an extraordinary investment that was supposed to expand our police force and retain officers. It did not succeed in doing that at all. Now we're spending half a billion dollars more for a thousand five hundred fewer officers than we were before.

• 58:07Sam Fragoso?

  And the officers retiring, are you worried about that?

• 58:10Speaker 00

  If we want to maintain our police force, you have to be worried about that. This didn't prevent them from doing that. It, the police force shrunk anyway. And so I think if you're worried about those issues, then let's address those issues.

• 58:20Sam Fragoso?

  Mm-hmm.

• 58:21Speaker 00

  This particular pathway of this, these raises that we couldn't afford did not address those issues, right? I believe we need to have a police force that's capable of being able to respond to calls for help.

• 58:32Sam Fragoso?

  Hmm.

• 58:33Speaker 00

  When you need an armed officer to come, we have to have a system that does that. I think a lot of people in Los Angeles are very dissatisfied with our public safety response right now. So I'm very committed to building that out. I think we also need to be able to respond to other kinds of calls for service. Many, many of the calls that are coming into 911 do not require an armed officer to come out when you call.

• 58:53Sam Fragoso?

  And your solution is to reroute those calls to whom?

• 58:56Speaker 00

  To, uh, mental health crisis workers and unarmed responders, homelessness response workers. We're already doing that in parts of the city and it has been effective and it has been safe. And I, my plan is to expand that citywide and to make sure we can really make sure that we're responding to calls for service that don't require armed officers with a citywide system of unarmed response that can, that can really deliver on that, which we're, again, we're doing it in parts, um, and we can do it citywide.

• 59:24Sam Fragoso?

  Um, I have some big questions for us before we go.

• 59:27Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 59:28Sam Fragoso?

  Your three DSA colleagues in the city council have all endorsed Karen Bass.

• 59:35Sam Fragoso?

  Do you foresee them changing their endorsement as we approach November?

• 59:39Speaker 00

  Um, I, I don't, I don't know. Again, that's a question not for me, but, uh, but for them. But I would say that everyone is fighting for their constituents. You have to work within the system to be able to make sure that you're delivering for your constituents. And you have to be able to work with the mayor in order to deliver for your constituents.

• 59:57Sam Fragoso?

  You're saying that they're voting for her, they're endorsing her because it's in the best interests of their constituents?

• 1:00:02Speaker 00

  I'm just saying that I, I come, I understand completely, uh, why you endorse an incumbent. I did it myself.

• 1:00:11Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 1:00:12Speaker 00

  Because you have to do that in order to be able to deliver for, for your constituents. And so I will say that for Angelenos, I don't think that endorsements are the key to unlocking votes.

• 1:00:24Sam Fragoso?

  Sure.

• 1:00:24Speaker 00

  Right? So I'm really out here trying to make the case to voters.

• 1:00:28Sam Fragoso?

  Yes.

• 1:00:28Speaker 00

  That I can deliver better results for them. And that is my focus right now.

• 1:00:33Sam Fragoso?

  I think the, the case, part of it has to be made, or at least part of the consideration is to be mayor is a hard job, as we've talked about. There's a lot of, um, need to work across the aisle to try to compromise. And, and the thing that bothers me, I, I suppose, is that these three colleagues of yours, who are Democratic Socialists of America, part of that, they're not like just on the same aisle as you. They're in the same shopping section. And so I wonder why, at this point, having worked with them as you have, why they feel it is more advantageous to back Karen Bass after all that you have described, that this mayor has done, instead of you?

• 1:01:17Sam Fragoso?

  And do you foresee that they will move toward you and your causes? Which I imagine Karen Bass is the first one to say she is not a socialist.

• 1:01:26Speaker 00

  I believe that we have a very powerful political system here in Los Angeles. And, uh, you know, I have been running, I've ran as an outsider the first time. And I'm running as an outsider again, because I believe that this system is not working for, for the people of Los Angeles. And again, my focus is really not. Is really on making the case to voters that we can do better than a very broken.

• 1:01:55Sam Fragoso?

  So you don't think their lack of support is indicative of anything about you and your campaign?

• 1:02:01Speaker 00

  I hope not. Yeah, I don't believe so. But, you know, again, voters are very, I really trust Los Angeles voters. And voters will vote for who they need. All I can do is go out there and make the case to voters that I'll do a better job for them, that I'll deliver better results for them from the city than they've been getting. That if they're frustrated with the status quo, that they have an option that can deliver for them. That is really all I can do right now, and that's all I am doing.

• 1:02:30Sam Fragoso?

  What have you made of the critique of someone, when someone's listening to this or watching it? And then go, well, wait, you're asking us to trust a system that has failed them, that has failed me? You were part of this system as a council member? You have said many times, we have been asking voters to pay for more and to receive less. So how do you pitch or persuade a voter who goes, you're part of the very thing you're asking me to trust that hasn't worked for me?

• 1:03:02Speaker 00

  The political system right now is spending money against me. There's one candidate that had spending against them in the primary, the bulk of the spending. It was me. And so if I'm part of the political system, then please tell the political system, because right now, they feel like I'm hostile. In my district, we've delivered results. We've had a 54% reduction in tents and encampments. We've been responsive to people's needs and calls for service. We've pushed on the issues that matter for constituents and delivering for constituent services. Even when the city is frustrating, the bureaucracies are slow, I hear from constituents all the time, your office is at least communicating and responsive to us about the broader challenges

• 1:03:47Speaker 00

  that you're facing. That ability to be able to kind of fight for your constituents, to deliver for people, that is really, that is important. And that differentiates me, I think, from a very hostile city that I think has taken a lot of these residents for granted, has taken their votes for granted. I spoke up against these issues before. I've spoken up against self-serving and political decision-making that has undermined the best interests of the people.

• 1:04:15Speaker 00

  To benefit Mayor Bass's reelection. For example, you know, the decision to put in her budget to increase short-term rentals, to increase Airbnb in L.A., to make policy changes through the budget process that would expand the number of, to expand profits for Airbnb. During a housing shortage, when every study shows that Airbnb takes housing off the market, makes housing more expensive, to expand Airbnb, to put it in that budget, which ultimately it didn't move forward, right? But Airbnb spent a million dollars supporting the mayor in her reelection.

• 1:04:58Speaker 00

  You, we cannot make policies like this anymore. We have to be able to make policies that are beneficial for Angelenos. We have to be able to say that that, and that, by the way, that example is very much the political system that I keep talking about. That I am not, I'm not part of that. And I think not just Angelenos, but voters across the country are tired of that kind of decision-making. Voters across the country are tired of what they perceive as corporate Democrats or a Democratic Party that does not have their best interests at heart. And again, if voters see me as an honest arbiter of this moment, then they'll vote for me. And if they don't, they won't, but I'm going to be out there making a case for change.

• 1:05:40Sam Fragoso?

  My last question for us. On election night, as the ballots were coming in and showed initially that you were trailing Spencer Pratt by about six points, you gave a speech to your constituents as polls closed. And there's one part toward the end that I just wanted to hold together.

• 1:06:00Speaker 00

  And to my 10-year-old twins, Karna and Kaveri. I've been a candidate for something as long as you can remember. And you've had to live through it with me. And you've been so patient through all of it. Thank you.

• 1:06:36Speaker 04

  I love you both so much. They are kind and wonderful children. And I have to tell you all, I feel so infinitely blessed to be their mother. Karnan Gavidi, I hope you know that everything, every person in this room is fighting for in this campaign has been about building a city that's worthy of you and every child in this city.

• 1:07:05Sam Fragoso?

  I was really struck by that moment of emotion from you. Because at that moment, it wasn't clear that you were going to beat Spencer Pratt. And I wondered, were you crying or emotional or upset because you thought, oh my God, maybe this sacrifice wasn't worth it? Or were you emotional or upset about the prospect of a city being run by the people in charge right now?

• 1:07:38Speaker 00

  I was emotional, really out of love for them.

• 1:07:42Sam Fragoso?

  Your twins?

• 1:07:43Speaker 00

  My twins. And what I feel like I've been fighting for here in the city is a city that is functional for them, one in which they feel like they can build their dreams here, one where when they grow up, that they'll be able to afford to live here and feel a sense of possibility for their future, just like I do, and I did when I first moved here. And not just for my twins, but for the kids I see across Los Angeles, the children I meet on this campaign trail. They deserve that. They deserve a city that opens its arms to them, that tells them to build their future

• 1:08:26Speaker 00

  here, that tells them that this is a city of opportunity for them. Currently, we are not moving in that direction. We're moving away from it.

• 1:08:36Speaker 00

  But that can change. And whether it is through

• 1:08:41Speaker 00

  this campaign, the mayor's seat, or through another pathway, I will continue fighting for that future.

• 1:08:48Sam Fragoso?

  But what in that moment? That's, that's the thing I've just been stuck with since I saw this, since I saw your speech. What in that moment overwhelmed you?

• 1:08:57Speaker 00

  It, I mean, it was really, I'm kind of, I'm a sentimental person.

• 1:09:03Speaker 00

  I cry out of love for my kids. I cried out of love for my kids. And,

• 1:09:10Speaker 00

  and

• 1:09:13Speaker 00

  it has been a lot. It has been a, a big ask of them for me to do this. And not just this, my previous two campaigns as well, it took me away from them. I'm sure it hasn't been easy for them, but it, it is all that they know. But I hope, I hope that they feel like it's, that these values and that this city is, is worth what they gave to it.

• 1:09:39Sam Fragoso?

  To bring us back to the beginning.

• 1:09:42Sam Fragoso?

  Tell me, after all that we have talked about,

• 1:09:46Sam Fragoso?

  why do you want to do this job?

• 1:09:49Sam Fragoso?

  Why? Are you a masochist? Is that what this is?

• 1:09:52Speaker 00

  Because this city is incredible. It really is. And

• 1:10:00Speaker 00

  it is unlike any other place I've been in the world. There is a magic to this place, whether it's in the light, whether it's in the sense of inclusiveness, whether it's in the incredible opportunity that it affords the people who've come here over many, many decades to build their dreams here and transform this city in their image. This is an incredible place. This is how I want to serve it now. And if the voters will have me, I will. And if not, I'll find another way, I hope.

• 1:10:32Sam Fragoso?

  Do you think you can do it?

• 1:10:34Speaker 00

  I can certainly do a lot. There is, there are, there are so many ways in which.

• 1:10:42Speaker 00

  In which I feel like we we can just we can deliver for residents.

• 1:10:46Sam Fragoso?

  Hmm.

• 1:10:47Speaker 00

  And there'll be a lot that's out of my hands. There'll be a lot that is has to do with the macroeconomic climate or the federal government's interventions and all of that. But there will be a lot that can improve locally, and I will use every single avenue that I have to push for the changes that I think are important.

• 1:11:07Sam Fragoso?

  I wish you luck.

• 1:11:08Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 1:11:09Sam Fragoso?

  Nathan Ramon, thank you for the time.

• 1:11:10Speaker 00

  Thank you. Thank you for having me.

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