Speaker 1: And very happy Wednesday to you. At twelve oh seven
Speaker 1: in the West, it's the John Phillips Show, mister Randy
Speaker 1: Weggs in Culver City.
Speaker 2: John, we are now less than two weeks away from
Speaker 2: the elent the end of election season in Los Angeles
Speaker 2: City and County continue to underperform the state of California
Speaker 2: when it comes to getting those ballots. In the state
Speaker 2: of California is at six percent. LA City in La
Speaker 2: County are at four percent.
Speaker 1: Which is interesting because Spencer Pratt is the one that
Speaker 1: is generating all of the interest in this election.
Speaker 2: Yes, but is that interest from people who can vote
Speaker 2: in Los Angeles or is that interest from the people
Speaker 2: on the internet that can't vote in Los Angeles. Very
Speaker 2: good point, Randy.
Speaker 1: Eight hundred two two two five two two two is
Speaker 1: jellphone number one eight hundred two two two five two
Speaker 1: two two. Well, speaking of the City of Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: La Mayor Mother Oos gave another disastrous interview, this time
Speaker 1: to CNNs Alex Michaelson. Here's the short version. It did
Speaker 1: not go well. She's out of her element if she's
Speaker 1: not rhyming.
Speaker 2: Let's hear Karen Bass in her sit down with CNN's
Speaker 2: Alex Michaelson.
Speaker 3: So when you talked to Jake Tapper in twenty twenty three,
Speaker 3: you said that your goal was to end street homelessness
Speaker 3: in LA by twenty twenty six. It's now twenty twenty six.
Speaker 4: And we haven't ended it.
Speaker 3: We have not ended it, and we're not close to
Speaker 3: ending it.
Speaker 2: Four more years. By the way, Gavin Newsom did the
Speaker 2: exact same thing that he was mayor of San Francisco.
Speaker 3: How are you so off?
Speaker 4: Well, basically, when I said that have you a valley girl?
Speaker 2: I thought you were in Baldwin Hills.
Speaker 1: Remember when Barbara Ferrer took on the valley girl persona?
Speaker 4: The evidence is like feel clear on that?
Speaker 2: Well, what do you think she was like at You
Speaker 2: See Santa Cruz. I don't want to know because that's
Speaker 2: like the biggest party school in the UC system. So
Speaker 2: what was she doing?
Speaker 1: Well, just because you know her as the lady with
Speaker 1: the white lab coat doesn't mean when she was an
Speaker 1: undergraduate at You See Santa Cruz, she wasn't dancing on
Speaker 1: tables whipping her braw around her head to mony mony.
Speaker 2: Next side. He always paid interesting visuals on this show. Well, basically,
Speaker 2: when basically.
Speaker 4: Well, basically, when I said that it was.
Speaker 2: This is true. On the old Loveline show before it
Speaker 2: ended with Doctor Drew and Mike Catherwood, they used to
Speaker 2: have a bell they would play when they'd have a
Speaker 2: caller who called in, and they hit the bell every time.
Speaker 2: Someone would say basically because they would say it about
Speaker 2: seventeen times when explaining how they got in STD.
Speaker 4: Oh my, well, basically, when I said that it was
Speaker 4: at the beginning of my term, I am very committed
Speaker 4: to achieving that goal. I didn't anticipate some of the
Speaker 4: bureaucratic barriers that I would experience.
Speaker 2: Well, you should have gotten some advice from Shang E Tao.
Speaker 2: The breaucracy is real. Could have learned a lot.
Speaker 4: But I am prepared to take those on now. And
Speaker 4: let me just give you.
Speaker 2: You know, this first four years was just getting the
Speaker 2: training wheels, figuring out how this city works. The next
Speaker 2: four years it's gonna be great.
Speaker 1: It's not like spring training in baseball, where you get
Speaker 1: a whole month to work the kinks out. You said,
Speaker 1: if elected, you would end street homelessness in four years,
Speaker 1: and now there's a bomb on it corner.
Speaker 4: But I am prepared to take those on now. And
Speaker 4: let me just give you an example. Los Angeles made
Speaker 4: a decision probably twenty twenty five years ago to not
Speaker 4: address street homelessness, to focus.
Speaker 2: Well, twenty five years ago, this wasn't that big of
Speaker 2: a problem. No, no, this has become a massive problem
Speaker 2: in what the last ten years, pretty much since twenty fourteen,
Speaker 2: because that is when we de facto legalized drugs, and
Speaker 2: you could go all the way back to about twenty
Speaker 2: ten when we started depopulating the prison system.
Speaker 1: It was a combination of those two things prison realignment
Speaker 1: Prop forty seven, Prop Fifty seven. The moment we decriminalized
Speaker 1: drugs and we decriminalized retail theft, it exploded.
Speaker 4: To focus solely on building. And granted, I have fast
Speaker 4: tracked forty two thousand units of a fourth did.
Speaker 2: You say granted or granted? I don't know. Let's listen
Speaker 2: to that again.
Speaker 4: And granted, I.
Speaker 2: Makes for a hell of a countertop.
Speaker 4: And granted, I have fast tracked forty two thousand units
Speaker 4: of affordable housing, but it still takes a couple of years.
Speaker 2: So basically, and that fast tracking was in an executive order.
Speaker 2: She wrote about two weeks ago.
Speaker 1: Okay, But even though she's giving some of them units
Speaker 1: to sleep in, they're just storing their stuff there, and
Speaker 1: they're still hanging out in the encampments because that's where
Speaker 1: the drugs and the fun are.
Speaker 4: But it still takes a couple of years. So basically,
Speaker 4: the policy of La that was.
Speaker 2: The second one. I need a bell. Are we gonna
Speaker 2: hear about chlamydia next? Oh? I missed that show.
Speaker 4: So basically the policy of La City in La County
Speaker 4: was we could accept straight homelessness as long as we
Speaker 4: were building. We didn't anticipate the problem tasticizing. In my
Speaker 4: three and a half years, for the first time, two
Speaker 4: years in a Row Street homelessness has decreased in our city.
Speaker 1: Nope, and that's with how many of them dying on
Speaker 1: the streets per day between five and seven in the county,
Speaker 1: you know, so you're looking at a few thousand that
Speaker 1: are dying because of overdose or other issues every single year.
Speaker 4: In my three and a half years, for the first time,
Speaker 4: two years in a Row Street homelessness has decreased in
Speaker 4: our city. There hadn't been a decrease before.
Speaker 2: Also, some important context. When Karen Bass took over, she
Speaker 2: installed her friend Valicia Adams Kellum. Excuse me, doctor Valiicia
Speaker 2: Adams Callum is the head of LASA, who changed the
Speaker 2: methodology of how they count the stupid homeless count, and
Speaker 2: who also, through a whistleblower complaint, was hiding about how
Speaker 2: ineffective Karen Bass's homeless plans were. Huh.
Speaker 1: And that's one thing that you should be able to
Speaker 1: notice because you see it on a regular basis. It's
Speaker 1: like when someone loses weight. You're used to fat Al Roker,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, Al Roker loses a
Speaker 1: ton of weight, and he's this thin guy doing the
Speaker 1: weather and you go, oh, look, Al Roker's thin now,
Speaker 1: or maybe not thin, but not as fat as he
Speaker 1: used to be. You live here in Los Angeles, You
Speaker 1: drive around the streets, you drive around the freeways, you
Speaker 1: have your eyes open, You're aware of your surroundings. Don't
Speaker 1: you think we would all feel it and see it
Speaker 1: if the number of people living on the streets was
Speaker 1: actually in free fall?
Speaker 2: Let me tell you, as a resident, unfortunately of the
Speaker 2: city of Los Angeles, you can see it. You can
Speaker 2: smell it.
Speaker 4: You can smell it right here.
Speaker 2: And you can feel it.
Speaker 4: In my three and a half years for the first
Speaker 4: time two years in a Row Street. Homelessness has decreased
Speaker 4: in our city. There hadn't been a decrease before. That
Speaker 4: is a quality of life issue that impacts all Angelinos,
Speaker 4: whether you are unhoused or whether you run.
Speaker 2: Can we stop using that term, No, she is wed
Speaker 2: to that.
Speaker 4: Term, or whether you run a business.
Speaker 2: By the way, lassit doesn't even like that term anymore.
Speaker 2: They say. The appropriate term is people experiencing homelessness. Okay,
Speaker 2: how about this.
Speaker 1: If they actually have a house, whether it be a
Speaker 1: unit that was given to them through Project Inside Safe,
Speaker 1: a bed at a homeless shelter, a couch to sleep on, whatever,
Speaker 1: But they have a domicile where they could live if
Speaker 1: they wanted to, but they prefer to hang out in
Speaker 1: the encampments because that is their preference.
Speaker 2: What do you call that?
Speaker 4: Or whether you run a business and your business can't
Speaker 4: function because there's tenths outside, whether you're a peer that's
Speaker 4: trying to navigate through tenths to get to.
Speaker 2: School, all of this is still happening every single day.
Speaker 4: Or whether it's residents where it has decreased the quality
Speaker 4: of life. So this is a problem. That all Angelino's experience,
Speaker 4: and we have got to have a commitment that this
Speaker 4: has to end the.
Speaker 2: City you're in charge. This is so pathetic.
Speaker 1: Where she's making the argument, well, I know, I promised
Speaker 1: that I would fix this problem in four years and
Speaker 1: I didn't even come close. However, I'm making a dent
Speaker 1: in it, and you need to give me four more years,
Speaker 1: because only if you give me four more years can
Speaker 1: I make the problem go away.
Speaker 2: I don't think she can make the problem go away
Speaker 2: at this rate in forty more years. No, no, she
Speaker 2: can't because she's part of the problem.
Speaker 4: The city and the county never made that commitment before.
Speaker 4: And I found something that surprised me. I found a
Speaker 4: lot of people who work internal in this system who
Speaker 4: were very resistant to ending street homelessness.
Speaker 2: You mean the homeless industrial complex who you are bringing
Speaker 2: the brinks truck to. Shocking that the service providers don't
Speaker 2: want to solve the problem because that's how they get
Speaker 2: their funding. Part of Karen Bass's problem is this, she
Speaker 2: is one of these people who buys into the false
Speaker 2: idea that the high cost of housing is causing the homelessness,
Speaker 2: which we all know is not true. It's drugs, it's alcohol,
Speaker 2: it's mental illness, a combination of the three. But she
Speaker 2: cannot move away from that position because part of the
Speaker 2: reason that she has the money to run for reelection
Speaker 2: is because the developers like her, because she gets to
Speaker 2: spend money on homeless housing. The homeless services organizations love
Speaker 2: her because she makes it rain for them. She keeps
Speaker 2: it all going. This problem is never going to be
Speaker 2: solved with that woman in that office.
Speaker 3: But you promised that it would go away one hundred
Speaker 3: percent and it's only gone down about seventeen point six percent.
Speaker 3: So why should people trust you that you're going to
Speaker 3: be able to get to the hunting?
Speaker 2: Because great question, Alex Michaelson. Good for him.
Speaker 3: So why should people trust you that you're going to
Speaker 3: be able to get.
Speaker 4: To the hunt because, let me just tell you, for
Speaker 4: the first time, we've had a decrease at all.
Speaker 1: No, if you were selling a product and car companies
Speaker 1: get in trouble for this all the time, they put
Speaker 1: ads in the newspaper, buy this suv because it gets
Speaker 1: thirty miles per gallon, and then in real reality the
Speaker 1: car comes nowhere near thirty miles per gallon. It gets
Speaker 1: I don't know eighteen nineteen miles per gallon, and you go, now,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, that's not what the salesman promised me.
Speaker 1: That's not what it said on the sticker. That's not
Speaker 1: what the car company said in their literature. They promised
Speaker 1: thirty miles per gallon. The FTC if people file complaints,
Speaker 1: comes down on the auto manufacturers like a ton of
Speaker 1: bricks when they do that, because you cannot make a
Speaker 1: false claim in writing in your advertising and then expect
Speaker 1: the consumer to just deal with it when your promise
Speaker 1: doesn't come to fruition. That's how you get class action lawsuits,
Speaker 1: that's how you get government regulators knocking on your door. Yet,
Speaker 1: for Karen Bass, she can make these totally outrageous promises
Speaker 1: that you know are not going to come true, and
Speaker 1: then she just moves on to the next one after
Speaker 1: she gets called out for not fulfilling her first obligation.
Speaker 2: I drive on Vano And Boulevard from my home on
Speaker 2: the west side of the San Fernando Valley to Bourbank
Speaker 2: Airport pretty regularly, and the last few times I've done this,
Speaker 2: I've started counting the tents that I see just on
Speaker 2: Van Owen going through the Valley to get to that airport.
Speaker 2: The amount of tents have not changed.
Speaker 1: No, it looks like outside of a Best Buy on
Speaker 1: Black Friday.
Speaker 4: There was not a decrease before at all, because there
Speaker 4: was no commitment to get rid of street encampments, and
Speaker 4: we had encampments all over the city.
Speaker 2: We still do. It. Used to just be in skid row,
Speaker 2: but now they're everywhere.
Speaker 4: So I would ask for people's trust in the sense that.
Speaker 2: We did drop a tea there. She likes to do that,
Speaker 2: doesn't she Usually she drops the d That's the first
Speaker 2: time she's dropped the tea. I trust Bass.
Speaker 4: So I would ask for people's trusts in the sense
Speaker 4: that we have absolutely made progress. We know what we
Speaker 4: need to do now to in street homelessness.
Speaker 2: We need I finally figured out what to do. I'm
Speaker 2: going to need four more years to implement it, though.
Speaker 1: Okay, then why aren't you doing it now? If you've
Speaker 1: cracked the code, why is it that we have to
Speaker 1: wait until after election day in November.
Speaker 4: We know what we need to do now to in
Speaker 4: street homelessness. We need to end the failed policies of
Speaker 4: the past, which is all we're going to do is
Speaker 4: focus on building, and we are going to ignore street homelessness.
Speaker 4: That is what the city in the county has done
Speaker 4: for years, ignored street homelessness.
Speaker 2: Well, she's really trying to throw everybody but her under
Speaker 2: the bus.
Speaker 1: And by the way, when she talks about the quote
Speaker 1: mistakes of the past, what she's talking about is incarceration.
Speaker 1: If we're ever going to get out of this crisis,
Speaker 1: what we're going to have to do is put many
Speaker 1: of them in prison because they're breaking the law on
Speaker 1: a regular basis. They're doing it in plain side, and
Speaker 1: the cops and the system are being told to look
Speaker 1: the other way.
Speaker 3: What would you identify as sort of the biggest obstacle
Speaker 3: that you learned maybe being in the job, and how
Speaker 3: are you going to tackle that differently in the next
Speaker 3: four years.
Speaker 4: The biggest obstacle is the resistance to building interim housing so.
Speaker 2: Basic, you mean putting up shelters in single family neighborhoods
Speaker 2: that attract crime. Gee, I wonder why there's resistance to that.
Speaker 2: That one's hard to figure out. And by the way,
Speaker 2: this was a policy of the former mayor Eric Garcetti
Speaker 2: who created the Bridge Home system, where we needed a
Speaker 2: shelter in every district. But don't you worry. If we
Speaker 2: build these things, we're going to make sure to clean
Speaker 2: up the area in front of the shelter. And that
Speaker 2: did not happen. I received things on both ends.
Speaker 4: So basically it was an three.
Speaker 2: Where's that bell?
Speaker 4: So basic it was an ald or nothing type policy.
Speaker 4: I think probably.
Speaker 2: She added a D there.
Speaker 1: I guess if she drops the D she can pick
Speaker 1: them up and use them when she wants to.
Speaker 4: So basically it was an ald or nothing type policy.
Speaker 4: I think probably for a good reason. We didn't want
Speaker 4: people to languish in shelters, but the shelters of the
Speaker 4: old was a big room with cots all around. That
Speaker 4: does have to end. But now there's new and improved
Speaker 4: shelters where you can house multiple people. It's not a
Speaker 4: motel room.
Speaker 2: You can have oy way. Your hope plan's been motels.
Speaker 2: So why aren't you changing that strategy right now while
Speaker 2: you are in charge of the government for at least
Speaker 2: the next six months.
Speaker 1: When she had the big reveal of Project inside Safe,
Speaker 1: wasn't the snooty fox mentioned by name?
Speaker 2: Oh yes? And there were yelp reviews that were complaining
Speaker 2: about the specific kinds of porn that you could order
Speaker 2: on the TV. We got a lot more of this
Speaker 2: unedited twenty minute interview with Karen Bass sitting down with
Speaker 2: Alexmichaelson and it did not go well.
Speaker 1: And we'll give you a hint. She drops more ds.
Speaker 1: Remember when Jeffrey Tubin dropped the D.
Speaker 2: We don't need to get into that.
Speaker 1: Eight hundred two two two five two two two is
Speaker 1: a telephone number one eight hundred two two two five
Speaker 1: two two two. If you'd like to email the show,
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Speaker 1: dot com and Randy. If you want to go back
Speaker 1: and listen to yesterday's program where we spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time talking about the gubernatorial election, you can do
Speaker 1: that quite easily. All you gotta do is search for
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Speaker 1: at noon, so many different ways to listen live to
Speaker 1: what we're doing every single day from noon to three
Speaker 1: and download all the podcasts. And really, you're gonna want
Speaker 1: to listen to all the podcasts about the governor's race
Speaker 1: and the mayor's race and what have you within the
Speaker 1: next two weeks, because two weeks from now they'll be
Speaker 1: completely irrelevant. Absolutely, And speaking of the election, we're going
Speaker 1: to be live on election night.
Speaker 2: Yeah, are you coming down here for this? Are you
Speaker 2: working from there?
Speaker 1: I haven't decided yet, because if you're staying there, then
Speaker 1: I'm staying home.
Speaker 2: I don't want to be a Culver City till nine
Speaker 2: o'clock at night. Anyway, that's a conversation I have with
Speaker 2: Art if you want to hear what we think about
Speaker 2: the election. As we close the polls at eight o'clock,
Speaker 2: we're going to be broadcasting live from seven to nine
Speaker 2: pm on seven ninety KABC in Laws Angeles, eight ten
Speaker 2: KSFO in the Bay Area, and five eighty KMJ in
Speaker 2: the Central Valley. We're going to be in all three
Speaker 2: stations from noon from seven to nine pm. When the
Speaker 2: polls close at eight, we'll give you all the results
Speaker 2: that we have. But knowing that this is California and
Speaker 2: people can submit their ballots right up until the end,
Speaker 2: we may have no results. You'll just have to tune
Speaker 2: into c.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, what do you say we make a
Speaker 1: couple of listeners very happy?
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm very happy about this. Seven ninety KABC welcomes
Speaker 2: the twenty first annual LA Winefest at the La Equestrian
Speaker 2: Center in Burbank Saturday. By the way, I love that
Speaker 2: the LA Winefest is happening in Burbank. It's happening Saturday,
Speaker 2: June thirteenth and Sunday, June fourteenth. Hey, they know what
Speaker 2: neighborhood's safe. Tickets are on sale now at Lawinefest dot com.
Speaker 2: But right now Collin number nine at one, eight at eight,
Speaker 2: seven ninety five two to two two gets a pair
Speaker 2: of general admission tickets to Sunday, June fourteenth. You must
Speaker 2: be at least twenty one years old to win tickets
Speaker 2: furnished by the LA Winefest. Good luck dialing. All right,
Speaker 2: let's go.
Speaker 1: Back to LA Mayor Karen Bass's sit down interview. We
Speaker 1: see it ends Alex Michaelson.
Speaker 4: But now there's new and improved shelters where you can
Speaker 4: house multiple people. It's not a motel room. You can
Speaker 4: house multiple people.
Speaker 2: Where they got to figure this out four years ago
Speaker 2: just by having a one conversation with the Union Rescue Mission.
Speaker 4: Where they do have a modicum of privacy. And one
Speaker 4: thing that we have specialized that we have absolutely conquered
Speaker 4: in my time, which is we know how to get
Speaker 4: people off the streets. We know how to get there.
Speaker 2: Where what evidence do you have to prove this? Every
Speaker 2: single day that I drive into this radio station and
Speaker 2: we're right on the dividing line of LA and Culver City.
Speaker 2: Once you cross Venice, you're into Culver City. But when
Speaker 2: you get off the ten Freeway at Robertson, you're still
Speaker 2: in the city. And what do you see as you're
Speaker 2: getting off the freeway a massive encampment that has been
Speaker 2: there for years and years and years and years and years.
Speaker 1: Under the freeway there's a homeless encampment that has a
Speaker 1: loading dock for stolen bikes.
Speaker 4: Which is, we know how to get people off the streets,
Speaker 4: we know how to get them to accept the services
Speaker 4: that they need. And the only people.
Speaker 2: That forty percent of the people in your Signature program
Speaker 2: are back on the streets three years later.
Speaker 4: And the only people that refuse at this point, and
Speaker 4: it's a very small number, are people who are so
Speaker 4: profoundly ill they don't even know they're homeless. Or you
Speaker 4: have the criminal element, and that's a very small element
Speaker 4: of the homeless population.
Speaker 2: But sure about that? What planet is this Disney broad
Speaker 2: living on. Well, if you admit that there is a
Speaker 2: massive criminal element to the homeless population, the public would
Speaker 2: want to put them in prison.
Speaker 1: Do you remember some time ago we had then Anaheim
Speaker 1: councilwoman Lucille Kring on this program who talked about touring
Speaker 1: the Santa Ana River. That's the river that runs right
Speaker 1: through Orange County to the ocean and goes right by
Speaker 1: Angel Stadium. And she said when she was interviewing the
Speaker 1: people who were living in the river, almost to a person,
Speaker 1: they were let out of prison early. It was a
Speaker 1: criminal encampment. People who should still be in state prison
Speaker 1: but were released early because we were overcrowded. Now, Karen
Speaker 1: Bass is trying to tell us that the mentally ill population,
Speaker 1: the drug addicted, the criminal elements. That's a tiny fraction
Speaker 1: of the overall homeless population in Los Angeles who is
Speaker 1: believing that we.
Speaker 2: Know from the raids of MacArthur Park, and we've heard
Speaker 2: this for a very long time. We've heard this about encampments.
Speaker 2: Even in Nitia Rahmans District, the gangs imbed themselves in
Speaker 2: the homeless encamment. Where do you think the drug dealers are.
Speaker 4: Or you have the criminal element and that's a very
Speaker 4: small element of the homeless population, but it does exist
Speaker 4: and they should be held accountable.
Speaker 1: Of course, the most hollow word in the English language
Speaker 1: in the state of California.
Speaker 4: Accountability, accountability, accountability.
Speaker 3: All of the candidates for governor said that people who
Speaker 3: refuse shelter should be forced into it. Do you agree
Speaker 3: with that, Well.
Speaker 4: It depends. Let me just explain people.
Speaker 2: Who are Wait, did you say depends or do you
Speaker 2: say depends because those are two different things, one of
Speaker 2: them sold to Target.
Speaker 3: Do you agree with that, Well, it depends.
Speaker 2: Let me just explain thinks you dropped another d.
Speaker 4: Let me just explain people who are profoundly mentally ill
Speaker 4: and they don't even know that they're ill. I do
Speaker 4: believe there should be involuntary hospitalization. Right now, the laws
Speaker 4: don't allow.
Speaker 2: For that, right I thought Gavin Newsom's care Court specifically
Speaker 2: allowed for that.
Speaker 1: I love that all of these people act like they
Speaker 1: have no power. You know, if I were in charge,
Speaker 1: we take all the crazy ones and we throw them
Speaker 1: in the nuthouse.
Speaker 4: Right now, the laws don't allow for that, and even
Speaker 4: if they did, we didn't have the facilities. But you
Speaker 4: can't just incarcerate people, And let me.
Speaker 2: Tell you why not.
Speaker 1: If they're breaking the law, and they're doing it in
Speaker 1: front of you, why can't you put them in jail?
Speaker 4: Call up our sheriff and say, ask him what he
Speaker 4: thinks about that. The jails are already overpopulated.
Speaker 2: Well, if you went to Sheriff Robert Lona, who is
Speaker 2: also up for reelection, and you said I don't feel
Speaker 2: safe in La County because you won't do anything about
Speaker 2: the homeless program, he would say back, I need you
Speaker 2: to not fill that wait.
Speaker 1: You know what's funny. Whenever we hear a crime victim
Speaker 1: in a local news report and they sound totally defeated
Speaker 1: from top to bottom, where they have no fight left
Speaker 1: in them at all. That's what Robert Luna sounds like.
Speaker 1: Every time he goes on television. He sounds like the
Speaker 1: most defeated man on planet.
Speaker 2: Earth. I'm talking about al Bundy level. Even al Bundy
Speaker 2: had a little more fighting in than that guy. That's true.
Speaker 4: And if you were upset about how much it costs,
Speaker 4: it costs far more money.
Speaker 2: I don't think it does. I don't think it does.
Speaker 2: When you talk about all the different service providers, all
Speaker 2: the NGOs, all the nonprofits, I really don't think it
Speaker 2: costs more to keep these people in jail, in prison. No,
Speaker 2: and think about this too.
Speaker 1: Every time a crime occurs, there's a cost associated with it.
Speaker 1: Every murder costs society a certain amount of dollars because
Speaker 1: you have to have the police officers to go look
Speaker 1: for the person. Let's assume that you find them. You
Speaker 1: have to pay for the prosecutor to prosecute them, for
Speaker 1: the people who collect the evidence, to collect the evidence,
Speaker 1: for the judge, all the people who have to take
Speaker 1: time off work to serve on the jury, all the
Speaker 1: people who have to testify, all the people who have
Speaker 1: to defend the person when they've been accused of the crime.
Speaker 1: If they can get convicted, then they go to prison
Speaker 1: and you have to pay for all the costs associated
Speaker 1: with that. There is a huge bill that comes every
Speaker 1: time a law is broken, and the more severe the crime,
Speaker 1: the more cost that's associated with it. If you want
Speaker 1: to look after the taxpayer dollars, what you need to
Speaker 1: do is you need to identify the people who break
Speaker 1: all the laws.
Speaker 2: And you need to put them in jail.
Speaker 1: That's what we did in the nineteen nineties, and it
Speaker 1: worked like a Swiss clock. And then we became a
Speaker 1: victim of our own success. People were saying, why is
Speaker 1: it that we're spending a fortune on the prisons. Why
Speaker 1: aren't we spending that money on education. Well, because we
Speaker 1: like nice things. And if you let the criminals run wild,
Speaker 1: guess what, you can't have nice things.
Speaker 4: And if you were upset about how much.
Speaker 2: Karen Bess's planned to put people in motels is costing
Speaker 2: seventeen thousand dollars per bed per month, And if you.
Speaker 4: Were upset about how much it costs, it costs far
Speaker 4: more money to incarcerate somebody than it does to take
Speaker 4: care of them. So that's an emotional response. And I
Speaker 4: understand that that response comes out of frustration, but it
Speaker 4: is not a productive thing.
Speaker 1: No, don't say that. You know what that reminds me of.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of all these sitcoms from the nineteen
Speaker 1: fifties where the wife is so emotional and the husband
Speaker 1: has to tell her to calm down. We're not a
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties housewife. Our fear of the homeless and our
Speaker 1: fear of the criminals is not something that is unwarranted.
Speaker 1: It's a totally rational thing to have because we see
Speaker 1: what they've done to the neighborhoods. We see how retail
Speaker 1: stores can't stay open, we see the encampments. We've been
Speaker 1: the victims of crime. Don't act like our response as irrational.
Speaker 3: Let's talk for a moment about the fires, because that's
Speaker 3: been a big part of what your opponent, Spencer Pratt,
Speaker 3: is talking About's big reason why he's running in the
Speaker 3: first place.
Speaker 2: Because you burned his house down. Seems like a legit
Speaker 2: reason to run to me.
Speaker 3: And he points to the fact that you went to Ghana.
Speaker 3: You said to me in February twenty twenty five that
Speaker 3: there were warnings that you weren't aware of and that
Speaker 3: it didn't reach the level to you to say that
Speaker 3: you couldn't shouldn't have gone on the trip. It's what
Speaker 3: you said to me when I was on Fox eleven.
Speaker 3: There's a new book out by Jonathan Bigliatti of CBS
Speaker 3: News called Torched.
Speaker 2: Oh this was the reporter, by the way, that was
Speaker 2: at these press conferences every single day following the initial
Speaker 2: break of the fires, and Karen Bass got so pissed
Speaker 2: at all of his questions. Oh I remember that. And
Speaker 2: his book has some damning revelations.
Speaker 3: And he says, quote, according to multiple sources, Bass had
Speaker 3: been briefed before her departure about the National Weather Services
Speaker 3: fire models, So which is it.
Speaker 4: That's just simply not true.
Speaker 2: The book also claims that Karen Bass didn't tell any
Speaker 2: of her staffers where she was going.
Speaker 1: So this is a little bit like Joe Biden being senile.
Speaker 1: Anyone paying attention to the news is aware of it.
Speaker 1: It's not like it was some big secret that the
Speaker 1: winds were coming. It was on all the local TV stations,
Speaker 1: all the local radio stations, it's on your iPhone, it's
Speaker 1: everywhere you go. It's not as if you have to
Speaker 1: have some sort of secret briefing with the chief of
Speaker 1: the LAFD so you understand the wind is coming.
Speaker 2: Open.
Speaker 4: So I don't know what sources he's talking to, but
Speaker 4: that is a whost sale.
Speaker 2: Well, if the sources were named, you would probably retaliate
Speaker 2: against them like you did with the fire chief falsehood.
Speaker 4: I will tell you that it wasn't just the city.
Speaker 4: The entire county was not prepared for this.
Speaker 2: That's not a really good defense. No, it's not. We
Speaker 2: get a lot more of this insane answer to this
Speaker 2: fire question coming up, Johnny.
Speaker 1: Eight hundred two two two five two two two is
Speaker 1: telephone number one eight hundred two two two five two
Speaker 1: two two the fixed California Hour coming up after the
Speaker 1: news it won. Jim Lacy joins us. But right now
Speaker 1: we're going through the sound of La Mayor Karen Bass
Speaker 1: to sit down with ceen n's Alex Michaelson.
Speaker 4: And when I talked to the chief when I got home,
Speaker 4: basically the response.
Speaker 2: A dang she it really does like that word.
Speaker 4: And when I talked to the chief when I got home,
Speaker 4: basically the response was, well, we always have Santa Anna wins.
Speaker 4: We didn't anticipate them being this bad.
Speaker 2: That's not what the chief who's suing her is saying.
Speaker 1: That's not what they said on every single traffic and
Speaker 1: weather report in town.
Speaker 4: It was not just the city of Los Angeles. It
Speaker 4: was not just me, but what I also said to you,
Speaker 4: Alex is that it was a horrible, horrible moment in
Speaker 4: my life, and obviously it wasn't so many others lives.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, this isn't about you, baby.
Speaker 1: People's homes burned down, their businesses burned down, their communities
Speaker 1: burned down, and she's making this about Karen.
Speaker 2: People died.
Speaker 4: I compare it to if you're out of town when
Speaker 4: a loved one has an accident or is sick. It
Speaker 4: doesn't matter where you were, and it doesn't matter why
Speaker 4: you were there. The point is I wasn't here when
Speaker 4: my city and that is a profound regret.
Speaker 2: So why should we ever trust you?
Speaker 3: Good question, But that book makes the point that you
Speaker 3: being in Ghana actually hurt the city's response. It argues
Speaker 3: that during the hour when the fire was building, that
Speaker 3: you were sort of out of touch because you were
Speaker 3: focused on the event in Ghana.
Speaker 4: No, that's actually not true either. So I'll have to
Speaker 4: read this book. And it would have been helpful if
Speaker 4: the author would have interviewed me.
Speaker 3: Well, he said, he said that he asked for an
Speaker 3: interview for a couple of years, and.
Speaker 4: Well that's news to me.
Speaker 2: Sure, blaming her staff. Now, typically what journalists do before
Speaker 2: they're about to put out a damning report or a
Speaker 2: damning book is they asked for you to comment. They
Speaker 2: ask parent bass, would you like to share your side
Speaker 2: of the story. They did not do that, And now
Speaker 2: she's claiming that she was never asked for that interview.
Speaker 1: Sure, she only does friendly interviews. Have you noticed that
Speaker 1: she goes was on KNX, She'll go on Spectrum, She'll
Speaker 1: go on MSNBC. I think she thought she was going
Speaker 1: to get a softball from Alex over at CNN, and
Speaker 1: boy did she guess wrong.
Speaker 2: There's a big difference between going on with Alex Michaelson
Speaker 2: and going on with Brian Tyler Cohen.
Speaker 4: Let me just explain to you that when the fire
Speaker 4: broke out, it was nighttime in Ghana, and I was
Speaker 4: due to board a plane in a couple of hours,
Speaker 4: and I took.
Speaker 2: You were at a cocktail party. There's pictures they first
Speaker 2: plane out.
Speaker 4: I was in touch the entire time. I was in
Speaker 4: touch the twelve hours I was actually on the plane
Speaker 4: because it was a military plane, and I was on
Speaker 4: the phone the entire time. The minute the fires broke out,
Speaker 4: I was on the phone talking to the chief and
Speaker 4: talking to the council president. So when I leave town,
Speaker 4: the council president becomes the mayor.
Speaker 2: Was you also had a deputy mayor of public Safety
Speaker 2: who's supposed to direct response to police and fire, but
Speaker 2: he was on.
Speaker 1: Leave for what John making fake bomb threads.
Speaker 4: I was helping with the executive order that was being issued,
Speaker 4: but obviously that wasn't enough. I wasn't here. It wasn't
Speaker 4: like I found out there was a fire and I
Speaker 4: was in the middle of a party.
Speaker 2: Actually you were, No, that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 3: Do you think that, knowing what we know now looking back,
Speaker 3: that this fire could have either been prevented or way
Speaker 3: way way less in terms of its damage if the
Speaker 3: city would have acted differently.
Speaker 4: Well, I think if the city and the county had
Speaker 4: acted differently.
Speaker 2: Oh, we're throwing the county under the bus again.
Speaker 1: She's doing that for a reason, because, don't forget it
Speaker 1: was La County Supervisor Lindsay Horvath who was toying with
Speaker 1: the idea of running for mayor against Karen Bass and
Speaker 1: decided against it at the last minute. That's why the county,
Speaker 1: he is experiencing their time in the barrel,