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Language: en
What happens when your city burns and
the people in charge pour gasoline
instead of water? America is in danger
of unraveling politically, economically,
and socially. This is literally one of
the most volatile moments in modern
history. Riots in our biggest cities, a
trade war with our biggest partner, and
a government seized by division. The
extremes are pulling harder than ever,
and real leadership feels non-existent.
But disruption always creates
opportunity. And today I'm joined by a
man who ran to fix the second largest
city in America and got a front row seat
to how broken the system really is.
Billionaire developer and former mayoral
candidate Rick Caruso joins me today to
break down what he saw during the LA
riots, why political leadership is
failing, and what it will actually take
to rebuild trust, safety, and the
American dream. If you're tired of empty
outrage and want an actual clear path
forward, this is the episode for you.
I feel like right now we are in one of
the most precarious moments in modern
history for sure with the political
divisiveness that we have. LA is
certainly going through a microcosm of
what we're experiencing on the national
level. Yeah. What would you have done if
you'd been in charge during the recent
LA riots? I think you've got to have a
culture change in the city of Los
Angeles. So, you know, go back before
the riots. you you have a culture in
this city of a lot of elected officials
going to jail. Um, a lot of elected
officials skirting the law. Quite
frankly, I think the the culture in this
city uh is corrupt to some extent. It's
certainly not a culture that demands
excellence, that demands everybody
sitting up a little bit taller and
serving the best interests of the public
over yourself.
And then part of that culture is that we
don't tolerate breaking the law in the
city of Los Angeles, right? We support
LAPD to be good stewards of the law and
not only to respond to a criminal act,
but more importantly, a good police
force is designed to help prevent
criminal activity. You don't just want
to respond to it after the fact. But
what have we done in this city? We've
defunded the police. We've defunded the
fire department. You look at the current
budget, we're a billion dollars in a
deficit. We have declining revenues and
there's more cuts to LAPD. We will have
probably the lowest
police force of any major city per
capita by a factor of two. Not just by a
couple, by a factor of two. So then you
get to the riots.
We'll look back what happened at CO.
COVID was a time that you couldn't even
call it a riot. Even though they were
destroying property, including mine, you
had to call it a protest, right? So, at
least we've gotten to the point you can
call it a riot now. But it was a riot
back then. But what did we do back in
CO? We allowed them to do it. There were
standown orders. Don't incite them.
Don't get involved.
And at the Grove, they came through, if
you remember, and started breaking
windows. watch it burn. The little
police station inside the Grove they lit
on fire. Yeah. One of my proudest
moments was one of my senior executives
climbing up and grabbing the American
flag on the cob and saving it. It to me
it was just so beautifully symbolic so
that it didn't burn.
And what was happening then and I called
Garcetti at the time as mayor and I just
said what are you doing? Why are you
allowing this to happen? You need to put
a police line out. You know, you need to
guide them in another direction. Why
don't they like do they have a reason? I
think or not. I think the reason is Tom
is quite frankly they're weak. I think
they feel that there's um some kind of
protocol into not aggravating them. Um
when I was the police commissioner, you
used to literally have to pull a permit
in order to walk the streets, protest,
whatever you want to call it, right?
There was there was a set of laws and
protocols that were required. We need to
go back to being a lawful city and
that's the culture. So what would I have
done in the riots in the very beginning?
You don't tolerate property being
destroyed. Our mayor spent two days
allowing it to happen. And I don't know
if you read now we have a $20 million
bill because of damage to LAPD of all
the damn things. They raided LAPD
headquarters. I didn't hear about that.
Oh. And they stood down.
So, I think what we have to do in our
city, in any city, is you got to say we
want people to respect the law, um,
we're going to hold people that break
the law accountable. We're going to
police communities in the best of ways.
Certainly never take advantage of
communities and make sure our police are
absolutely well trained. But go back to
things that Bill Brat and I brought in
years ago. senior lead officers, a cop
walking a beat, knowing business people,
knowing neighborhoods, understanding the
mood. That's all the prevention side of
it, right? Um, and we got crime down to
levels not seen since 1950.
And in a very respectful way. And this
was post Rodney King. Yeah. No, I was
here for it. Yeah. Scary. Uh, I remember
Well, tech I wasn't here for Rodney
King, but I was here for the time where
you guys were rebuilding right after.
Okay. Um, you've talked about culture,
you've talked about mood. Those feel
like the right places to start. Um, if
so, you laid out what's broken about the
culture, but talk to me about the mood.
What is the mood right now? How much of
what we saw during the riots was uh paid
agitators and how much is on the ground.
People are fed up with something. Yeah.
Well, people being fed up with something
and wanting to take to the streets in a
peaceful way, I completely applaud. Do
you feel that mood? Like where where are
we? Is it uh I love all these policies.
Let's go harder blue. Let's be more
handsoff. Or is it uh no, we need law
and order. Like I I I honestly don't
have a great read on. You're talking
about the mood of the elected officials
that are in charge of the people, the
people on the street first. I can tell
you what I feel. I I don't I don't like
and I've been very open about this and
public about it. I don't like seeing
people that are here, although
illegally, that have worked hard and are
good, and haven't broken the law, being
scooped up, separated from their
families, and shipped off. I don't like
that. We have enough people in this
country, in this region, that have
broken the law, that are illegal. let's
go after them and let's find a pathway
for good hardworking people to become a
citizen to earn that right to be here. I
feel very strongly about that. So I do
you have specifics on that like what's
the line in the sand? 5 years 10 years 9
days no let's let's sit down in a
bipartisan way. This is a really great
bipartisan thing to do because Tom one
is a matter of fairness. The second is a
matter of sheer reality that our economy
needs hardworking people. Now more than
ever, by the way, when you talk about
rebuilding Aladena, rebuilding the
Palisade, rebuilding Malibu, you need
workers.
And a lot of these workers also, and I
don't know the number,
worked in Malibu, worked in Palisades,
maybe worked and lived in Altadena. They
lost everything. they lost their jobs or
maybe they lost their home and now we
got people running around picking them
up. I I just don't like that. And so
let's say if somebody's worked here for
5 years and goes to school, learns the
history of the country, you know,
qualifies to be a citizen, whatever that
may be, doesn't have a criminal record,
my god, let that man or woman continue
to contribute to our economy. Let's get
the bad people out. For sure. Get the
bad people out. We have gangs running
around this city that are really, really
bad people. Let's go round them up, you
know, for sure. That are selling drugs
on the streets that are create
committing violent crimes. Let's go do
that. But um so I understand that people
want to take the streets that are angry
about that. I also understand quite
frankly that the way it was done
was done I think in a very cruel way. It
didn't have the rounding up. You mean?
Yeah. It didn't have to be the running
in and the it just had such a hardness
to it. Do you think it's a shock and a
thing or is this like where they're
actually trying to make a statement or
is this just Trump's personality and he
doesn't think about it? I think it's I
think it's Trump's personality. I don't
know the man.
But I think there's a lot of different
ways that you can accomplish things in
life. I know when we were fighting crime
at LAPD with Bill,
um, listen, you have to make some tough
decisions and you got some bad people
out there and you better be really
prepared to deal with the bad people.
This isn't what they were doing. They
weren't going rounding up bad people.
They were rounding up people that were
working at a car wash. A guy that was
selling fruit at the corner. I mean, you
don't need to bring in the military
officers to do that, right? with all the
gear and everything, but that's just my
take on it. So, I think there's a lot of
ways we can accomplish things. So, I
understand where people were on the
street and they were upset, but I also
have zero tolerance for any kind of
violence on the street and zero
tolerance for destroying any property.
We have to have really bright lines in
the city in order to protect our
communities, protect our businesses,
protect our families. I don't think it's
that complicated, by the way. Do you
tinfoil hat up at all? Like do you think
that there were like paid agitators like
For sure there was. Yeah. Okay. For sure
there was. Who and why? For sure there
was. There's they get people get joy.
These are odd weird people that get joy
out of rioting and destroying somebody
else's property. I mean, you just you
look at some of the film that was coming
out of LA and running into the Nike
store, the Adidas store, LAPD. I mean,
who are these people? How do you get off
on that? But I would say though, that's
pretty different than if somebody behind
the scenes is paying people to go out
and sicker. You're right. Do you think
that's happening? I believe so. I do
believe. Do you have a sense of what the
agenda would be? Like, is it just tear
the system down or You've got
organizations in this city that have a
violent bend to them and they coexist
and they're in our streets. And we're
talking cartels. What what do we You're
talking more political organizations
that just want to create anarchy that
that want to uh completely mess with the
system
and and terrorize people. Absolutely.
Not to put you on the spot, but are
there names? Like what kind of
organizations are there specific
organizations or you can just sort of
feel them at the edge? Is there
something picking? No, there's specific
organizations, but I don't want to name
names, but um LAPD knows who they are.
Most people who are involved know who
they are. There was a number of those
organizations that really tried to make
my life miserable during the campaign.
Um because you're law and order focused
kind of person or something else because
uh yeah that and probably an easy
target. I don't fit their mold, you
know. These are people also that go to
the real extreme. They want no cops.
They want the prisons opened up. You
know, uh there's some people out there
that really do believe in things that
would be terrible for the city. And we
saw it play out, if you remember, we saw
it play out in city council chambers
when that whole tape was released. if
you remember that with Gil Sadil and and
everybody and the tape came out and
there was groups of people that kept uh
interfering and interrupting with
council meetings and it got it got
pretty heated. It got some punches
thrown. There was organized groups of
people that were doing that on a daily
basis. And here's the thing that should
have happened. This goes back to
culture. Shut the chamber doors and
don't let them in. M they don't have a
right to be there. No, they don't. But
we need to we need to change to your
point like when you have winds, you need
to change that trajectory. And you
actually don't have to change it very
much because just like in sailing,
distance will make a lot of changes for
you. Yeah. But the distance is measured
in time. So, uh man, you're way more
comfortable with that than I am. So, I
have the good or bad fortune. I moved
here in '94. So, this is right as Yeah.
You guys were starting to get it all
together and I watched Hollywood go from
if you went to Hollywood and Vine, you
were there to pick up a prostitute. I
mean, it was crazy in broad daylight. I
was like, as a kid from Tacoma, I was
like, what is happening? And then I
watched it get turned around and like
really become this beautiful, incredible
place. And I've watched it decline
again. Y and so culture has consequences
but culture also moves so slowly. It's
all leadership, Tom. It is all
leadership and you can move culture very
quickly and I've done it a number of
times with the right people with you
doing it. We moved LAPD really very
quickly. Um you know when I became chair
of University of Southern California,
which I didn't I wasn't seeking that
job. It was a crisis at USC. It was
probably What year was this? Um, this
was probably five, six years ago now.
Oh, okay. That's where I went. Okay. So,
this is the Dr. Tindle crisis. You know,
thousands of students, female students
were taken advantage of. Oh, the cover
up. Oh, yeah. I mean, it was terrible. I
was on the board. Um, cover up on it. It
was a management implosion.
They came to me and said, 'Would you be
the chair and lead us out of this? And
actually, as a side note, my daughter
was just starting school that year. And
I said, I I'm going to go home and talk
to my daughter because I don't think
anybody wants to have their dad as the
chair of the university they're going at
in the middle of a crisis. But God bless
my daughter, she said, "Pop, let's do
it, and we'll be on campus together."
You know, and it was great. But that was
a massive culture change. I had to
remove the president of the university.
I wouldn't let him come back on the
campus. Whoa. I had to change the
governance of the board. I had to size
down the board. Um change the rules of
engagement and what got approved by us.
The whole structure. I would say it took
about a year,
lot of infighting uh to get it done, but
we came through it um brilliantly thanks
to a lot of really talented people
working alongside of me. So basically,
you're saying um culture is downstream
of your leadership. Change your
leadership, you're going to have a
different culture very rapidly. You just
got to make sure you're bringing
everybody with you. What does that mean?
That means, you know, sort of the cheesy
line that I always use that if you're a
leader and nobody's following you,
you're just somebody going for a walk.
It means that good leaders know that
you're walking with people. You're
explaining to them where you're going,
why you're going to go there. how
important they're going to be a part of
this culture change, what the rewards
are going to be, the payoff is going to
be. Meaning, we're going to change
people's lives, we're going to keep them
safer, we're going to reopen these
parks, and kids are going to have a
better quality of life. Whatever that
goal is,
good leaders always know to bring people
with you and and inspire them and bring
people around you, frankly, that are
smarter and as passionate, if not more
passionate, than you and draft off of
them. Mhm. I teach entrepreneurship and
one of the things that I try to give
people to understand is listen, you'll
look at a Steve Jobs, you'll look at an
Elon Musk and there'll be plenty of
people that will criticize them because
they didn't actually do the coding or uh
Elon isn't actually the one building the
rocket engine. And it's like, but hold
on. The hardest thing to do as an
entrepreneur is get the right team,
point them in a direction, and get them
all moving at pace. That's right. And so
this is exactly what these guys that we
look at and revere based on their
accomplishments was they're able to
attract and orient talent. Um what is it
that allows you to do that?
Well, I think part of it is DNA. You
know, it's how you're wired. I always
use Walt Disney as a great example. I'm
a big fan of Walt Disney.
And I tell people Walt Disney as a
profession, he was a cartoonist. and he
was a really good cartoonist. But if he
would have just remained a cartoonist,
none of us would have ever known who
Walt Disney is.
And then he started the Walt Disney
Company and he became a businessman. And
the combination of the cartoonist and
the businessman, he made some
interesting films, but again, nobody
would have ever remembered him really or
certainly wouldn't be as relevant today
as as he was many years ago.
But what he really was was this
visionary that had the ability to see
around a corner and
to take his talents and marry it with
his vision and then get people excited
about it. And that's a really unique
thing to do, right? And and bring, you
know, constantly absorbing talent to
take you to the next level. Nobody can
do it alone. I would imagine that Elon
has some of the most brilliant people in
the world around him that he's inspiring
every day. But all Elon has to do is be
the visionary that sees around the
corner and realizes I've got to populate
this idea with really talented,
passionate people. Steve Jobs, I always
think about I met him when we were doing
one of the first Apple stores at the
Grove.
He built and took down his space three
times. Whoa. wasn't happy with it. And I
finally said to him, "Steve, we got to
get open. You know, I can't have you
keep tearing down." But he was such a
perfectionist. He had his vision so
tight. It was wild, right? But when you
think about Steve Jobs, one of the most
brilliant guys ever. He never really
invented anything new.
He reinvented something and made it to
the point that you couldn't live without
it. I mean, it was just genius, right?
We had cell phones, but it didn't
compare to the iPhone. And so we had
cars, but it doesn't compare to a Tesla.
We have rocket ships, but it doesn't
compare to SpaceX. Yeah. So, I don't
know. I just I I really admire people
that have these exceptional
brilliance, but really tied to vision
and then the courage to just completely
be over your skis. We'll get back to the
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show. I fully understand that it's one
thing to want to get things done and
it's a completely other thing to
actually get them done, right? And I
find that politicians tend to fall into
the camp of I'm trying to get elected.
I'm not necessarily
optimized as a an actor in the world to
get things done. I'm optimized to get
elected. Right. I think that's very
true. That's usually the top priority. I
really enjoyed serving the public
because I, as you know, I served under
three mayors in this city and I really
saw different leadership styles. Um, I
served under Tom Bradley, Dick Reen, and
Jim Han. All very tough assignments,
which I enjoy.
And I was very convinced when I ran a
couple of years ago that the problems
could be solved and that I along with
the team of people I would pull
together, we could solve them. And I
still believe that way because it's
based on, and this is where I think
things start to fall apart. It's based
on, frankly, a track record and a
history of getting things done and
having tough assignments and you learn
from each time that you do it, right?
So, I was grateful that I had an
opportunity to bring that to the table
to help the city out. When you take a
look at our current mayor and the mayor
before that, by the way, um there was no
history of accomplishment of getting
things done. They were legislative
accomplishments, maybe at best, and not
really great ones, by the way, but there
was no history of running an
organization and making tough decisions
and understanding management and
understanding staffing and governance
and all the things a CEO has to deal
with, right? setting the course as
you're talking about and then making
sure you're bringing people along with
you. Um, and so it was predictable that
she was going to fail because there's a
lack of competence, but more importantly
or equally important, there's a lack of
experience that would give you any
indication that she could have pulled
off managing a very, very complex
organization like the city of Los
Angeles. Companies are good at that.
They're good at finding those leaders or
oftentimes the leader just creates the
company. Yeah. But when you have to deal
with politicians, um I to put my jaded
hat on for a second, I worry that the
reality is politics is downstream of
culture and that what you're describing
will work inside of a company, but the
odds of you being able to do it at the
political level when people have to get
reelected. Um, right now there's just so
much political division and
I I'm not sure how we get the voting
public on board with voting for
competence. Do you have a take like how
do we get the public to make that their
criteria? Tom, it's a great question. I
I'm hopeful
that
the fire woke people up
to the point that they said, you know
what, ideology is now not the most
important priority. Um the most
important priority is competence because
we just saw what happens when you have
lack of competence. You have 700,000
acres burn and hundreds of thousands of
people being impacted.
um because they didn't do their job or
couldn't do their job quite frankly.
So I I hope there's a wakeup call to
that. Um
and I think if we can get somebody in
the office in a office whether it's me
or somebody else and quite frankly I'd
love to have the opportunity to do it
that can prove that you can be
compassionate and passionate.
You can create safety nets for people
because you care about the quality of
life. But you can also change the
direction of a city in a way that people
feel proud to live here, safe to live
here, excited to build a business here,
excited to raise a family here, uh
wanting to be here, not moving away,
wanting to come here. Let's get back to
this state and this city should be
leading the nation. We shouldn't be like
tucking our head in our hands because
we're sort of embarrassed of the last
thing that we just did. Literally,
that's how I feel now. I keep asking
myself why I have not left. Yeah. Uh and
why just the real answer is my wife has
friends here. Yeah. Like if it weren't
for that on left to my own devices, man.
Like when I look at the size of the
problem, it's so daunting because
there's a really famous Thomas Soul
quote and I believe that this sums up
where we are in California for sure and
there's so much of this across the
country uh that this is a paraphrase but
it's very very close. The last 30 years
are marked by exchanging what works for
what sounds good. And I think that
people they're voting for policies that
sound good but I'm like look at what's
happening. it isn't working. So why do
we keep voting for the same thing and uh
it's just like the the odds of that
changing strike me as so low and in fact
I'm I'm going to ask you a very pointed
question. I'm more hopeful. I I know you
you have heard the phrase many times
optimism. Yeah. Hope is not a strategy
and it's like I want a strategy. So uh
you waved people off the Karen Bass
recall. Yeah. Why? At the like peak
anger. Yep.
Um why is because
it would have been a terrible strain on
the city. It would have cost the city
$30 million that we don't have. And more
importantly, the recall vote would have
been only months before the June
primary. People are going to get a
chance to fire her or rehire her. Yeah.
in June. And so to have a special recall
vote, let's say April, May, March, and
then you go into a primary, it was so
tight, it's not going to accomplish
anything. And the other thing, quite
frankly, is very difficult to get
800,000 signatures. That's what you need
for a recall. And you need somebody to
fund it. And I think the funding on that
was estimated to be about $10 million.
Yo. So, who's going to do it?
And then if it didn't get the
signatures, then you're handing her a
victory. And then she gets to say, "See,
people don't want me recalled. They
couldn't even get enough people to sign
a petition." Yeah. Fair. And then you
have her walking into the primary as a
victor. I just it wasn't thought
through. And I was talking to the people
that were pushing the recall. And I get
the visceral reaction and the need to do
that. And had there been three years
left on her term or two years left on
her term,
that's what you want to do, go do it.
But it was actually, in my opinion,
gonna have the opposite effect.
And I know people were very upset with
me, but I I firmly believe it was the
right thing to do for the city.
Miraculously, your properties survived
the fire. walk me through how you ended
up with the plans from how you built the
buildings to all the things you did to
make sure your property stood through
it. Sure. Well, we we learned when we
built um the hotel that I have, the
resort up in Monaceto in Santa Barbara.
So, we were building the hotel. The
resort was about 6 months ahead of um
starting construction on the Palisades,
but there was the Thomas fire and we
were just structurally in wood was going
up. And as that Thomas fire was raging
up in Santa Barbara, I called the head
of our security who does special
operations for us. And I said, "Bany,
you got to come up with a plan to save
the property because the fire
department, rightfully so, is going to
be protecting homes before commercial
spaces."
And so he's the one that developed the
plan that brought in private
firefighters, water tanks, trucks, and
the retardant. So we learned a lot from
that. When we were designing palisades,
we knew we were designing in a area with
high fire risk. I mean, the amount of
fires that happened around Malibu and
that whole area over the last
50 years, right? It's not rocket
science. And so we designed the
Palisades with no combustible materials.
We designed the Palisades with no open
vents so that embers couldn't get to the
inside of a building because most of the
homes that burnt in the Palisades and
Altadena burnt from inside. Inside out.
You hire experts that tell you that kind
of stuff like that. When I heard that
one, I was like, what? What? Yeah. Yeah.
No, you hire experts. You know, how do
you design something to give you the
highest likelihood of it not burning
down? So, you know, things that like
buildings that look like wood shingle
buildings were actually concrete that
were poured to look like wood. And so,
one is it was built right. And the
second is when these warnings were
coming out, you got a warning, right?
Yeah. I think the only person in LA that
didn't get a warning was Mayor Bass. as
these warnings were coming out two days
before.
Um, Banyan takes the manual off the
shelf and goes into the plan if there's
a major fire. And two days before we had
the private firefighters there, the
water trucks there, and the retardant
there. And um, we were ready. And
listen, I've said this a million times.
It's so true. What is predictable is
preventable. And we We wanted to be
prepared and we were. And not only did
we save all of our structures, we saved
all of our neighbors and everything
across the street and we were loaning
equipment to the fire department. I
mean, the way this city has been managed
is insane that they were so underfunded
and that you could run out of water. So
that night, because we had to evacuate
also. So my wife and I and our four
kids, we all evacuated. We live in
Brentwood. We left too. My daughter lost
her house. My son lost his house. But
the night we got the call on January 7th
of my daughter losing her house from
Banyan, who was embedded in the command
post. I couldn't believe the words. He
said, "Rick, your daughter's house is
burning because the fire department ran
out of water. They're standing there
with their hoses and they're dry." I
said, "Bon, it's an impossibility.
This is the second largest city in the
nation." I ran LWP. It doesn't run out
of water. But what did we find out? They
had an empty reservoir
months and months before this. This
still makes me mad. What even should
make you madder, the head of DWP's never
been fired, never been held accountable.
It's crazy. Crazy. The fire department
was never pre-eployed. They could have
put out I will debate with anybody that
that fire could have never happened.
They usually preer deploy. If they had
preredeployed, they would have put out
that spot fire and it wouldn't have
happened.
What did you think when people were um
like voters, average people in the
public were saying, "No, it makes sense
that this was uh empty and I totally
understand like who could have predicted
like the number of people I saw
defending incompetence was that's the
part that that when I look at that I'm
just like I don't I don't know what to
do." Like if people are going to defend
it rather than say this is not the
outcome we wanted, therefore we should
have done something differently. Uh I
don't know what to do. Yeah. Listen, I
think that what I saw, you know, there
was also a bunch of people online that
were criticizing me for saving the
village, right? That's nuts. It's nuts.
Of course, it's nuts. But that
conversation started to change over
time. And then people realizing, you
know what? Thank God he did because now
there's a place that's going to be the
center of town that can help that town
get reborn. And it did show everybody
you actually can protect these
structures if you do your job right.
Fire department, you know, the city,
everybody just failed miserably.
So, you start Steadfast LA with the idea
of uh I assume combating what you knew
was going to be a lot of red tape and
everything grinding to a halt, right? Uh
how's it going? It's going actually
pretty well oped that you wrote recently
that uh would lead one to believe that
you might be encountering some I said
pretty well. Well, listen, we're
encountering, you know, push back and
we're encountering
uh incompetence and we're encountering
for the most part inability to make a
decision, which is just crazy. But we're
also making progress. And you know, we
we have our deal with Samara Homes.
We're going to be bringing in these
small homes for people who are very low
income to get them back on their
property and get them back in the
community. We're excited about that. We
developed along with Amazon and Alcastar
the plan check process through AI that
allows somebody's home to be planch
checked in a matter of hours versus
months. Whoa. It's awesome. So, you
know, Steadfast, what Steadfast is is a
nonprofit that I'm funding. We got a
full-time staff. Its goal is to bring
people back to their home and community
as safely and quickly as possible.
Altadena, Palisades, and Malibu.
And I asked a team of people, best and
the brightest in the industries, the
Parsons folks in terms of engineering,
Ezra folks in terms of information
technology,
um architects, lawyers. We got about a
dozen people. Take a problem, unbundle
it, fix it, hand it off to the
government agency. The problems are too
big for a the government alone to fix
them. Even if you had a competent
government, which we don't. Hey, so what
we're doing is we're handing them the
solutions. How do you underground the
power lines? Don't tell me it can't be
done because it can be done. We gave
them a plan and they adopted it. That's
a really big deal to get these power
lines underground in Altadena and the
Palisades and Malibu. So, we're making a
lot of progress. There's a lot of
progress we need to do more of. You
know, we announced rebuilding the park
up in the Palisades. Had a meeting this
morning about that. We've got some great
ideas in Altadena to help revive their
downtown and support the merchants there
to get them back on their feet, which we
need to do. Get people working again and
being able to be prosperous again. So,
I'm spending probably 90% of my time on
steadfast matters. Wow. I'm assuming you
wrote the article to get attention for
all of the sort of lunacy of the
problems that you're running into. But,
so you just talked about the AI that
will do plan checks, which is incredible
and exactly the kind of thing that I'd
want to see AI used for. However, they
haven't implemented it. No. So, and your
oped says, I don't even know when
they're going to implement this. So,
this is the kind of stuff that um
honestly I've thought to myself like 10
times since we've been talking uh would
he ever start his own podcast. I'd like
to believe that if people hear over and
over and over the things that could be
happening followed by the things that
are the roadblocks to this and this is
something Elon Musk is really good at
because he owns one of the largest media
distribution platforms on planet Earth.
But like when they forced him to kidnap
a seal, put headphones on it to see how
it would react to the sound of rockets
just like suddenly people like wait a
second what is happening right so
there's a I think a huge benefit to
people becoming aware in a real time
basis like real time the unrelenting
nature of like we are trying to do this
this is a roadblock we're running into
now we've tried to do this roadblock
we're running into hey here's a counter
we called Karen bass and said this and
this is how many days that she has not
called us back. I really feel like to
your point that this if you're going to
get people to finally wake up because
already we're far and it's only like
four or five months since the fires, but
we're already far enough that people
don't have that visceral anger anymore,
I don't think. And
I think that getting them to vote in
their best interest for somebody that
can actually get this stuff done, they
they just have to see day after day
after day like here's what we're trying
to do. You would agree this is in your
best interest. Here's the response. Like
and then here's the solution. You've
said don't bring me a problem unless you
have the solution. Right. I don't know.
How's it sound? You gonna start a
podcast? I don't know if I'm I would be
a good Who do I pitch this to? We've got
people here. Maybe I'll just be on yours
more often if I could. Listen, I I agree
with that. Um, and what we've done quite
frankly, and may I'm sure we could do a
better job. I could do a better job at
it, is I've told the team, we will walk
with the elected official, around the
elected official, or through the elected
official. Oh, now you're just flirting.
Yes, please. But I will tell you that
everything we've been able to accomplish
has been accomplished in spite of the
elected official. We have had to
literally go around them
and sometimes get ahead of them. So they
had to adopt it. Uh Karen Bass was
very very resistant on the AI.
We built it, raised $2 million around
it. So there was no cost to the city and
handed it off. And if she doesn't
implement it quickly, I will be vocal
about it. I'm trying to give her a
chance to do the right thing. The park,
she was very resistant to it until the
very literally until the press
conference and now she's come around to
be supportive of it. Okay, great. I'll
take that. I don't care who gets the
win. We just want the wins. And so
I'm focused on it. I don't want to be
completely argumentative every day with
everybody because it's not your
personality or you think it's not
effective. Because I think it's not the
right time yet. I'm I I want to get some
successes and I frankly want to see
elected officials feel that success and
hopefully they want to build off of it
rather than be paralyzed by the scope of
the problem. And that's what we have
now. We have paralysis on decision-m
because we've got leaders, including the
mayor, that have never had to make a big
decision. So, she doesn't know how to do
it. She doesn't know how to rely. She
doesn't know how to hire the right
people or rely on the right people to
help make a decision. And she's not
wired to take risk. when you've been in
Congress for 10 years
and the only bill that you've passed
is to name rename a library.
That tells you everything you need to
know. So hopefully now that she's seen
that there can be more movement, we'll
get more movement. But I do worry about
it's frankly not her priority.
And I do worry about that and it needs
to be a priority. But she's got a whole
bunch of problems going on because the
way that they've managed the city, it's
all coming back to haunt them. They got
major budget problems they don't know
how to solve. They've got the problem in
the streets in downtown they did a
terrible job managing. And she's got to
go rebuild a city. Frankly, it's 300,000
acres. She's not qualified to do that.
But she still hasn't hired the quote
unquote ZAR,
right? M so
it's just paralysis and at at some point
in time we'll be much more vocal about
it and we're getting close to that point
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And now, let's get back to the show.
What about safety? for LA to be the
place like and this used to be the place
as a guy running a podcast. So, first of
all, I came here for Hollywood and
Hollywood has now evaporated. Yeah. Uh
then I became a podcaster 10 years ago.
This used to be the place I could
guarantee people are going to come
through LA. Uh now that's Austin. Uh so
it's another thing that's going away.
And when you talk to the people that
leave, it's taxes and safety. I mean,
that's just like the thing. Uh this
again, this feels cultural to me. This
feels like people that like they want to
be compassionate or something. Uh
there's I think a bill put forward that
says if somebody breaks into your house,
you're supposed to flee. I don't know if
it's passed or not, but that that is
absurd. If you break into my house, I'm
shooting you in the face. You were going
to be graveyard dead. Like that or like
what's the alternative? Like that's so
insane. I cannot even be a part of that.
Uh you were a big part of the movement.
You talked about this earlier where you
replaced the police chief commissioner
uh police chief and then started turning
that around. How do we make LA safe
again? You make it a priority, which
it's not a priority now. And you make it
a priority. It's got to start with the
budget and you got to hire more officers
and you got to fill up the academy. And
so right now, like I said earlier, we
are going to have about I think 2.5
officers per capita. And we've got
that's two times less than the next
city. So Washington, New York, I think
even San Francisco has double the amount
of officers. We are at an all-time low.
I mean, when I was the police
commissioner and Brad was the chief, I
think we had over 9,000 officers. We're
probably now at 7,000 officers. We
literally cannot
um protect the streets. What about
prosecutions though? or people uh even
if we pick them up, if they just get
re-released, the bail issues that we
have, like how far go? So, that's that's
a good example. So, we changed
leadership. We got rid of the district
attorney. We brought in a great district
attorney. Who's the D? Nate Nathan
Hawkman. He's he's doing a great job.
He's holding people accountable. Um and
and we're seeing some real change. Now,
here here's the issue with that. In
order to make a city safer, you have to
have a very close partnership between a
police force and the district attorney.
They go hand in hand. LA County has 88 I
don't want to get too far in the weeds,
but LA County has 88 cities, one of
which is LA city. If LA city, if the
leadership, if Karen Bass is not of the
same culture, policies as the district
attorney's office, it doesn't work as
well as it should. You go to other
cities like Beverly Hills that is being
very tight on crime right now, Culver
City, Glendale, the cities around us
that are doing very well. By the way, um
we've got to make sure that the policies
that are in LA that LAPD has to live
with are always very respectful of human
rights, but hold people accountable and
punish people if they if they commit a
crime, pure and simple. But Nathan has
done a great job as a district attorney.
So there is a big change. We changed the
bail law that overwhelmingly got
approved in the state in spite of Gavin
Newsome coming out against it. So that's
good. So change can happen, Tom. It's
got to give you a little bit of hope.
Fingers crossed. Yeah. No, that's uh
fantastic. One thing though that
concerns me, and I know you're a
Democrat, but do you at all worry that
the current Democratic party functions
like a cartel where no matter what their
guy is going to be out front and in
charge? Yeah. Listen, I think the
Democratic Party right now is
dysfunctional and it's got to get
cleaned up. I mean, one of the things
that excites me is that I can be helpful
on giving it a purpose, giving it a
mission, having some real priorities
that line up with what people want. Um,
it's not functional at all. And I don't
even know who the leader of the party
is. I don't think anybody does. Right.
And so, are they a closed loop? Do they
not want ins outsiders inside the tent?
Yeah. Right. We got to bust that up and
change that and encourage young, smart
people that think out of the box to run
for office. How do you think California
became a one party state?
I don't know. That's a good question.
I'm not a I'm not a good enough history
major to I don't know. But California
runs,
you know, sort of middle of the road in
a in a in a big way. More moderate.
You've got you've got your Republican
base, you've got your far-left base,
but the majority are in the middle.
Majority are moderate Democrats and
independents.
And if they mobilize and get out and
vote, if they have a candidate that they
can mobilize around that inspires them,
um, you could change the direction of
the state. For sure. Do you know
Schwarzenegger at all? I do. One thing I
found interesting and I have quoted him
a gazillion times is that uh it took him
a while but he finally realized that
much of politics is Kabuki theater and
that it's uh what is kabuki theater?
Basically people are pretending they put
on a face they do oh I get that a song
and dance and he was like you know at
the end of the day there's nothing
really there there. Yeah, like he was
just trying to get things done and
people wanted to say a lot of words.
They wanted to hold a lot of press
conferences, but to your point about
decision-m uh they didn't seem to want
to actually move the ball forward. Now,
in a business, it the market is so
ruthless. It just does not care about
you. And so, you're like, well, if I'm
going to make payroll, I've got to solve
this problem. One of the things, and I
assume you know little about my
background, but one of the things I've
become obsessed with is tracking
everything back to the economic cause.
like what what is the foundation of our
economic system that has led us to this?
Uh because I just the thing that made me
a successful entrepreneur is tracking
cause and effect. So it was like I don't
care how I feel. My I've learned in life
that my feelings will lead me astray
because they're not married to the place
that I'm trying to end up. And if I can
state where I'm trying to get, then I
can just follow cause and effect to get
there. Okay. When I look at the economic
drivers that are pushing us um where
we're headed now, basically I see a lot
of the dysfunction
really being born out of the what ends
up happening is you get a massive divide
of inequality between the halves and
have nots that people think is happening
at the level of politics but is actually
happening at the level of money. Um,
have you thought at all about like the
growing political divide and how we get
people back to the middle? I I have. One
is based on a lot of work that we've
done, we think the majority is in the
middle. And so that's a good start. What
what people I believe want, whether it's
in the city or the state, they want it
to be safe. They want the cost of living
to come down. They want to be able to
afford a home. They want to be able to
grow their business, raise their family
in safety. They don't want to pay three
times more for gasoline than everybody
else in the country pays for. They don't
want to be overregulated. Right? If we
can do a bunch of simple things, in my
opinion,
I think you unleash the state. I mean,
the fact that we're the fourth largest
economy in the world, given all the
overregulation
and given all the incompetency that we
have at the state level, just shows you
how powerful the economic driver is
here. But then in spite of that, what
are we doing? We're pushing out the
entertainment industry.
You know, it's 30% more expensive. I was
talking to a studio I had the other day,
Monday night was with 30% more expensive
to film in LA than to film in Atlanta.
Why?
LA get off your rear end and change the
structure. The state of California
changed the structure. New Jersey is
eating our lunch. Um, Georgia is eating
our lunch. London has massive tax
credits for the entertainment industry.
None of this stuff is that complicated.
It takes backbone and will and it takes
something else that's really important.
I think the most important making
decisions where you're not worried about
getting reelected. Yeah. And I I think
that's the most empowering thing in the
world. Say, "I'm going to go do this
because it's right. And if you don't
want me to be your governor or your
mayor anymore, great. That's fine. You
go to the ballot box and you can fire
me. But I'm going to do what I think is
right." Yeah. Man, do I hope you get
that chance. Uh I think we somehow
culturally have to get people married
and obsessed with outcomes uh to get
them to think entrepreneurial and say,
"Oh, we want to do this thing and
they're going to be metrics along the
way." This is why I really hope as a
part of Steadfast LA, uh that you do
some variant of what I was talking about
where it's just a a if you're not going
to do a podcast, a ticker tape of we
called this is what happened. This is
how long we've been waiting. like let
the rest of us then in the media go grab
that feed and start blasting this stuff
out on X and being like this is crazy.
Uh we're going to be in June before you
know it. I think there's a national
divide. You and I do not see that the
same. I don't think people are in the
middle. I think there's economic drivers
that are shoving people as far apart as
fast as humanly possible. And because
nobody is looking at the economics of
this, even to your point about we pushed
the entertainment industry out, you once
you understand how the like how the flow
of money works, that becomes
self-evident because what ends up
happening is people can people think the
miracle is redistribution.
And instead of realizing that what
entrepreneurship is, whether you're
running a studio or doing what you do is
you have done this incredibly difficult
thing where you've created a system
where you put inputs into it and the
thing th