WTW133: The Trump Playbook Comes for LA - Spencer Pratt for Mayor

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:03 Clip: What's so scary about the woke mob? How often you just don't see them coming. Anywhere you see diversity, equity, and inclusion, you see Marxism and you see woke principles being pushed. Wokeness is a virus more dangerous than any pandemic hands down. The woke monster is here and it's coming for everything.

0:00:34 Clip: Instead of go-go boots, the seductress green M&M will now wear sneakers.

0:00:41 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Where There's Woke. I'm Thomas. That over there is a furious Lydia Smith. How are you doing?

0:00:46 Lydia: Hmm. I don't know how I'm doing, to be perfectly honest with you.

0:00:50 Thomas: Yeah, I thought we were getting divorced a second ago, but I actually think it's just this episode.

0:00:55 Lydia: What I had to consume to talk about what we are going to talk about today. I visited so many of the people that we hate that we have to expose ourselves to for this show. Because today, I didn't know if we needed to talk this, but we're gonna have to talk it. Spencer Prattt. Because it's looking like he very well could be going up against Karen Bass for the mayor of LA. Karen Bass is moving forward in the election. She'll be, yep, jungle primary, exactly. Well, it's also the mayor of LA is a nonpartisan race.

0:01:24 Thomas: Because of the jungle primary thing is the whole, yeah, we gotta get rid of that. Oh, okay.

0:01:30 Lydia: But honestly, Karen Bass is probably happy about this because Spencer Pratt, I'm sure a lot of people, I don't know, maybe it's mixed. Maybe some people don't know who he is. Maybe some people do know he is I'm so sorry, everyone who listens to this episode is going to have have to know who he is. And if you lived in blissful peace of not knowing who he was, I'm so jealous, but also I'm going to have to ruin that for you today.

0:01:51 Thomas: Oh, great. Well, I didn't know he was. He's just Chris Pratt's brother, right? No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, yeah.

0:01:55 Lydia: No. Which honestly would be problematic too. Chris Pratt is perfectly problematic also. But Karen Bass,

0:02:01 Thomas: So wait, he makes Chris Pratt look like he's the better Pratt? Jeez, I don't know what's happening here. Well, we're still in the beginning of the show.

0:02:04 Lydia: Dude, it's, I can't, I know, I'm not going to get ahead of myself, but it's really the opponent that Karen Bass probably wanted. She does have some major weaknesses. LA is a huge city and she's been under fire, no pun intended, after the Palisades fire and the things that have happened there. And going up against Spencer Pratt means that she's less likely to have to confront them in a serious way, potentially, though he did perform very well in the debate that they had.

0:02:37 Lydia: The other person that she was going to haveto face, and she might still, they're still counting votes, there's probably 300 ,000 votes remaining still. So we have 62 % in right now.

0:02:45 Thomas: Usually California elections take a while, but.

0:02:48 Lydia: Yeah. Karen Bass has 35 % of the vote. So she's moving on to the general. Spencer Pratt is at just about 30 % of the vote and then the next person is Nithya Raman who is a council member I believe if I'm getting that correct and she's under 23%. So they can't decide yet if it's going to be Pratt or Raman and we'll see. It very well could be him and like I said if you are starting this episode without Without knowing who Spencer Pratt is, I'm so happy for you, and I'm so sorry that I have to do this to you, but I think this is really important that we talk about because at the end of the day, this is the Trump playbook being repeated in one of the biggest cities in the United States that could work, and we've got to talk about it.

0:03:34 Thomas: That doesn't sound fun. I'm glad at least this isn't because you're serving me papers, unless you're also serving me papers. You can tell me later. Yeah, I didn't make you do it.

0:03:41 Lydia: We'll see. If I have to keep doing stuff like this, we might need to have a conversation.

0:03:46 Thomas: All right. Well, let's take our usual break. Remember, support the show, patreon.com slash where there's woke and get two bonus episodes about Graham Plattner and his tattoo and the Atlantic publishing a dog shit article about him. Yeah, there might need to be because it sucks that I wasn't able to get out ahead of this because I still needed to talk about the text. And I was going to predict and kind of caution that like there could be, you know, this is all anything I said was subject to like there may be more information coming out. It seems like there's a little more information out, so we may have to do another one. It really was one of those like I was going to rant about something. I thought we were just doing a little bonus, but it just turned meaty as it always does. So now I'm not sure what I'm doing with it. But either way, you can find those first two rant-isodes about Graham Plattner on the Patreon. So make sure to check that out. That's like two hours of bonus stuff for the patrons that you

0:03:57 Lydia: Maybe more on Graham Plattner to come. We'll see. Yeah.

0:04:44 Thomas: Can get right now. And you can skip the ads. So thank you so much to our patrons who support the show and make it happen. Let's take a break and then Lydia will serve me papers.

0:04:54 Lydia: Where

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0:04:58 Thomas: Okay. So yeah.

0:05:00 Lydia: Are we going to start? Before we talk about who Spencer Pratt is, I've been following this for a bit of time. And I've had thoughts and opinions about this for a bit because of who Spencer Pratt is. But honestly, what set me off this morning when I texted you and I was like, I have to talk about this was Billy Bush being interviewed outside of Spencer Pratt's election election night party. And the comments that Billy Bush said just made me go insane. So please press play on this video that I sent you. And we can keep this in mind as we learn more about who who Spencer Pratt is.

0:05:36 Clip: How is he looking back there? How is she feeling? What is he saying? Listen, he's been positive as can be from the beginning. I mean, he thinks he's closing 50% tonight. That would be a small miracle at this point, but it looks to me like better than not it will be Karen Bass and Spencer Pratt going through the summer and into the fall and then you got a situation where this is a guy that knows how to communicate with people and I said this you know before this is the last time you saw a community organizer bring hope

0:05:48 Lydia: Didn't happen.

0:06:09 Thomas: Now for fuck's sake, don't say it. Don't you dare.

0:06:10 Clip: And excitement and change to his you know a large populace his name is Barack Obama and Spencer Pratt has that you know has that ability to connect with

0:06:16 Thomas: Okay. He's virtually the same guy.

0:06:23 Lydia: It made me so mad. I saw that and I was like, no, no.

0:06:29 Thomas: Oh, wow. Wow that almost had the format of like the you know who else preached to whatever like the jesus ones I don't even know him well enough to do it but holy moly so I don't know about is that I don't know anything about him is he not BARACK

0:06:38 Lydia: Yeah, God. OK, so Spencer Prat. No, no, Spencer Pratt is a reality TV star, Specifically, a reality TV villain is what he has been famous for. He rose to prominence with the MTV reality show The Hills, which was a spinoff of Laguna Beach, something I watched like every episode of growing up when I was in high school. And it followed this character, who's also a person, named Lauren Conrad or Elsie. After she graduated from high school, she ended up dropping out of college. And so The Hills kind of picks up after she dropped out of college and trying to make it in the fashion industry. And she lived with her friend that she met in college they both left together named Heidi Montag

0:06:51 Thomas: OBAMA uh oh

0:07:26 Lydia: And she's oh you do interesting well

0:07:26 Thomas: I know that name don't I maybe

0:07:30 Lydia: She became famous I mean for a variety of reasons one is the show but then also she did like 10 plastic surgery operations in one day and that kind of spread yeah so she Heidi started dating Spencer in the second season of this show and they fed the drama with With every single character.

0:07:35 Thomas: Not yeah maybe I just know it from that weird thing yeah Yeah.

0:07:48 Thomas: I'm fighting so hard because normally if this were a conversation, my brain is turned off and I've left, but you're saying I need to like, no, okay.

0:07:53 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. You need to pay attention. Yeah. And so I would like to play some clips from this show.

0:07:59 Thomas: Oh, okay, no. Oh dear God. This is just a trick guys. This isn't elaborate. I am sorry that you had to be part of this. My wife wanted me to watch reality TV and there's no other way I will.

0:08:03 Lydia: So, yeah, I will not spend a lot of time on this drama, but I think this is important for the setup to understand some of the things that we're going to be talking about with regard to Spencer Pratt. And granted, I'm just going to say up front, I understand that reality TV is not 100 % unscripted. I will say from the research that I've done, specifically on the hills and Laguna Beach, is that it's also not 100 % scripted. The producers set up these environments, these situations, and then they edit it and they make it seem in certain ways. But what you get is then certain people play into these archetypes and stuff.

0:08:33 Thomas: Right. It's not really scripted. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, yeah. Yeah.

0:08:46 Thomas: And there is the incentive that in order to kind of be on the show and be interesting enough to be on The Show, you do need to play stuff up and, you know, all that.

0:08:51 Lydia: Right. Yep. Yep. But tell me what you think about this. There's going to be two moments we're going to play from this video, and it'll be one after the other. We can stop and talk.

0:09:01 Thomas: Yeah, it's also true, depending on the show, like sometimes it's like if the cameras are on long enough, and it really depends on the edit too, but it is true that it's not as though it's could be entirely fake. If cameras are on people for 24 hours a day, like eventually things are, they are going to shine through like you're going to kind of assuming they're not totally edited out which that's that's the one part you can't be sure about but I guess I'm saying it's not impossible that this might capture the real person I

0:09:29 Lydia: And I will say there's an entire period of time where Elsie, Lauren Conrad, and Heidi are not being filmed as they are becoming friends. There was a real friendship at the core of this for them. And then they did The Hills after that point. So there's information that they know about each other that's formed through friendship that then can get weaponized against them on camera. And some people engage in that and some people don't.

0:09:55 Thomas: Don't know what that means

0:09:58 Lydia: And And I'll give you one guess who Spencer Pratt, what kind of person he is.

0:10:01 Clip: People and he's done it I'm gonna leave but I didn't get to say hi are you guys

0:10:04 Lydia: This is his sister. Yeah.

0:10:08 Thomas: Sorry who's what okay so we got it some douche that's a guy we got a girl oh that oh that's his wife oh okay I'm trying So hard.

0:10:12 Lydia: Spencer Pratts sitting next to his wife, Heidi. At this point. Yeah. Yeah. They eventually got married. I know. And so Spencer Prats sister, they had a falling out as part of the show because Spencer Pratz sister was kind of siding with Elsie and trying to get her to be friends with Heidi again, help mend that relationship. And Spencer, I know, I'm trying not to dive too deep into this.

0:10:35 Thomas: No, I'm not. I'm not blaming you. It's just I just recognize that I will have no idea what you just said. Like I can't, but I'll do it. Okay, go ahead. Sorry.

0:10:43 Lydia: All you need to know is Spencer Pratt and his sister Stephanie do not get along. And Stephanie is trying to say hello and see if she can help mend this relationship on the show. On the show? Yep. Go ahead.

0:10:52 Thomas: On the show. Yeah, on a show. That's the show. Okay. Hmm.

0:11:07 Clip: That's why you're not in my life, you crazy bitch. Because you come to barbecues and just start crying. I was just enjoying myself with my wife and I get crying sisters in front of me? But that gets us crying away. What the do I need to do to you? He just ignored me at the party, man!

0:11:33 Clip: We're over here having our little conversation, I can't even talk right now. Here I'm talking about my little f***ing sister who's not relevant to my life.

0:11:52 Lydia: OK. So that's the first one. They have a tumultuous relationship. I do have some comment from her about his political run right now that we'll get to at the end. But just know that they had a falling out that was filmed on TV, an attempt at repair that was filmed on TV that did not work out. And he decided he was going to call his sister a crazy bitch and mock her for crying. Again, probably played up.

0:12:16 Thomas: It feels really fake, but I don't know that that makes it better. It could all like this sentiment could be real, but he's also just a fake person at the same time. I don't so I don't know. If it was just this, I'd be like, I don't know, man. It's reality TV. I don't know, but I'm guessing

0:12:33 Lydia: Yeah, there's plenty more. I mean, I'm just showing us two clips from this. And then I'll have one other thing from another video. But this next clip is basically someone trying to talk to Spencer. And he just seems to have anger issues and starts screaming. And his long-term friend, Brody Jenner, yes, of Kardashian-related family heritage, if anyone knows. I won't go down that road. They were friends prior to this show. And Brody Jenner starts screaming at him and Spencer starts screaming back. So go ahead.

0:13:08 Clip: Right now, you are so stuck in your marriage that I can tell you're not happy right now What do you feel like doing right now? Do you want to go talk to him or? Hey, Audrina, get over here. Hey, get it over here!

0:13:32 Thomas: That was the other guy.

0:13:32 Clip: You're the lamest girl in this club. What the hell is wrong with you? You're being a weirdo, bro. You just yelled at me very gnarly. I surrounded somebody's yell in my face in three years. Walk away from me before we have a problem.

0:14:02 Clip: People don't know how dangerous I am. Like I just really had to like hold myself, keep smashing his head off, you know? All right, this is, like, really, especially once you fake it.

0:14:18 Lydia: So it's just kind of constant drama, constant fighting, constant. There was a. Yeah. Yeah.

0:14:23 Thomas: Hey, watching this is bad. It's bad if you watch this. There's no point to this. Sorry. Okay, go ahead.

0:14:29 Lydia: Yeah. One of the reasons why Lauren Conrad stopped being friends with Heidi Montag, like they tried to be friends while she was dating Spencer. But Lauren ended up suspecting that Pratt was responsible for a rumor being spread that there was a sex tape that Lauren did with her boyfriend at the time, the main person that was followed into the Hills TV show from Laguna Beach. She's the reason why the Hills exists, honestly. And like Spencer wouldn't admit it. Heidi wouldn't admit, et cetera, et zebra. So he is, in my opinion, an abuser of women, regardless of the woman that you are in his life. He abused his sister. Again, pin in that. We'll talk about that some more. But abused people, women especially, on television, even if it's just like fake, it's for a self-serving purpose. Purpose and I think that is disgusting especially when you're trying it's disgusting from just like being a person right it's especially disgusting when you'RE trying to run for mayor of a huge city like Los Angeles so I have one more clip for us from the show when Spencer is trying to kind of get a hold of his anger problems he turns to crystals like healing crystals yeah

0:14:46 Thomas: Sorry, who's Lauren? Yeah. Crystals? Okay.

0:15:51 Clip: You need to just forget about that for a minute today, That is a seagull feather from the Pacific Palisades. This is bird flu status. So Bald Eagle, what did they...

0:16:11 Clip: It's your life. It's you and your wife. It's YouTube against the world. I get it. I never had females in my life that were so crazy.

0:16:17 Thomas: Females?

0:16:20 Clip: I got a sister crying in my face, doing drama.

0:16:27 Clip: When she popped out of my mom, and they tried to hand her to me, You're so chill, you don't see what people are doing.

0:16:34 Thomas: What?

0:16:37 Clip: And you do, and it makes you miserable all the time. My life is perfect until Stephanie and Holly try to come in and, like, be part of it. Build the biggest walls you possibly can and just cordon yourself off from reality forever? Because you're hyperventilating over here, your red face. That's why there's hundreds on me right now.

0:16:35 Lydia: So so insane

0:17:00 Clip: Maybe take them all off and look in the mirror you're crazy you lost it

0:16:59 Lydia: Oh my god oh yeah

0:17:02 Thomas: That's too good oh man see that would be a good comedy scene

0:17:13 Lydia: Exactly like if that were like you know parody but it wasn't so in interviews and stuff he said he leaned in to the villain character and from my understanding there was even like trainings and classes and stuff these days about like how to be a good reality tv villain for people who are trying to get into the industry because now like you have social You can have brand deals, etc., etc., that can kind of come from that celebrity status. And he said that, you know, he leaned into it because of profit and ratings. And it was never for likability because, like, social media didn't really exist back then in the way that it does now. There was no Instagram. There was no Twitter. There's nothing like that. But he also says he doesn't regret anything he did on that show ever and that he would have actually gone harder in order to stay relevant.

0:17:59 Thomas: Yeah got a mixed message

0:18:00 Lydia: He said that like during this time as he's campaigning for mayor in one of his interviews. Very bizarre. So let's actually go to that interview specifically when he's pressed on who he voted for in the last election. This is on a show called We Need to Talk.

0:18:19 Clip: Can you disclose who did you vote for in the last presidential election well it came out which everyone went crazy that I was a registered republican but I if you look I've never talked

0:18:27 Thomas: Weird oh he looks like shit now jesus

0:18:29 Clip: Politics a day in my life period you know if you really want to go down to why I was even registered Republican. And it's in my book. When I was fearing for my life, when there was threats against my life. I got a gun. Heidi got a Gun. So I was just always a gun owner. And so my if I

0:18:40 Thomas: What oh yeah you have to register republican

0:18:48 Clip: Hear anything with guns, Mike, if Democrats have talked guns back then I probably would have been a registered Democrat. So that was the only thing that ever connected with me politically because of so many years of fearing For our situation and being a legal gun owner, so that's like,

0:19:00 Thomas: Yeah wow that's who I want to be my

0:19:05 Clip: Which is fair but who did you vote for in the last election I did I voted for trump okay yeah oh because you're registered republican yeah okay so do you think that that then impacts

0:19:08 Lydia: Yeah. Answer the question.

0:19:11 Thomas: Mayor you don't have to vote

0:19:17 Lydia: Yeah, that doesn't mean anything.

0:19:19 Clip: Your run no you're in l.a not at all because anybody listens what I say like people will be like oh this or that like this karen bass I don't know like I have a trans trans employee on our, on our monthly payment, trans employee. Heidi's whole crew is gay. I travel everywhere for last year with a gay crew. Heidi has two songs with amazing trans art. Like you can't box me up with other people's politics. You know, I don't even do politics. I would never even want to do this again. The lawyers I even voted. Cause it's like, Oh, my gun rights. That's like if biden had been like yo I want you to get keep your ccws and who knows what happened you know but I didn't hear anything about so like I know not everyone loves guns but once you have

0:19:29 Thomas: Oh this or that god what an idiot uh

0:20:07 Clip: People death threats for many many years whether it's not still the internet but I had that for years you go do the proper training you do that you also have law enforcement tell you you should probably do that. You know so that's been my only You know, other people fight for all sorts of things, but that's like.

0:20:27 Thomas: Yeah it sucks because any like liberal celebrities who people hate they just get killed right away just immediately because they don't want a gun that's why they're all dead also that's where you hear all these successful stories of you know celebrities shooting people like what the

0:20:34 Lydia: Mm hm. Mm hum. Yeah. Yeah." You can actually stop there. But I think, you know, a couple interesting points from that is he describes himself as like basically a single issue voter, that the only thing that he cares about is whether or not it seems like the party that he's voting for is going to do something about his guns yeah and that that's it and that he doesn't do politics

0:20:56 Thomas: Dumb said guns yeah yeah that's the mayor for me I want someone who doesn't know what the fuck they're talking about whatsoever

0:21:03 Lydia: Yeah he is definitely trying to present himself and we'll see this in some of these other clips he can morph himself to match whatever and like is very careful with his language even though he's like you can't finish sentences but he flip -flops I think like if you watch enough of this stuff so you know he's an everyman a man of the people and he doesn'T do politics and he DOESN'T care about the stuff at at the national level, yada, yadda, yedda. And I think that can be really, really dangerous.

0:21:40 Ad: [Ad break 2 — ad music]

0:21:40 Lydia: Okay, I have a couple of things that we're going to talk about. We have to start with Spencer Pratt's visit to Adam Carolla's show a month ago. And I'm so sorry, I'm going to be exposing you to a lot of people that we hate. But yeah, there's just, yeah.

0:21:52 Thomas: Well I'm sure I'm gonna learn a lot from the from the inside I'm sure it'll be fire was bad therefore for conservatives

0:22:00 Clip: Like I posted Bill Clinton's Democratic Committee 1996 convention, and it looks like it's what I'm running on right now. And that's the reality. All the laws that I want to enforce as mayor, they're all Democrat laws.

0:22:09 Thomas: What what what are you talking laws uh

0:22:16 Clip: They were all voted by Democrats. I'm from Pacific Palisades. I went to Crossroads. I keep telling people I don't know if I've met that many Republicans. Republicans, all the people I know, family, friends, they're all Democrats. I'm not over here fighting for anybody except for citizens that want their lives back. And a lot of it's because of Democrats got fooled by the DSA.

0:22:26 Lydia: Pin in that, Democratic

0:22:40 Clip: I talked to so many smart people that have no idea what the D.S.A. is.

0:22:38 Thomas: And stolen dsa yeah

0:22:46 Clip: And they think, oh, Democratic Socialists and then they have all this lingo and they

0:22:44 Lydia: Socialists of America, yeah,

0:22:45 Thomas: I know what the what yeah they would also say they're not democrats

0:22:54 Clip: And they trick the average voter into believing these progressive care. They say the word care, take care, compassion. It's all euphemistic. Well, first off, all their stuff has a bullshit title to it because they have to make up a euphemestic title for it. So all the daycare centers that are ripping everyone off are called First Step Forward for the Children. And all the other one are called like Angel Hospice Care. Like no one says Somalian ripping you off daycare center.

0:23:27 Thomas: That's what does that have to do with anything

0:23:29 Clip: It's all they give it these fruity, stupid names and they work with the language. You know, they go they go the immigrant, the undocumented immigrant community. You're talking about illegals or coming here or taking jobs or living off the government teat like they give a they call but they go gender affirming care that's cutting off the dick of a 14 year old dude who's confused like they give a sweet title to everything and then they go about it and and we don't

0:23:35 Thomas: Fruity stupid names

0:23:50 Lydia: Oh, trigger warning. All right, you can pause there. Yeah.

0:24:03 Thomas: Well if he's not political and if he is so trans friendly I I would expect he's going to give a hearty defense of trans people there. Why did you cut it off right before he gets to his defense?

0:24:10 Lydia: So I well, because that does not happen, even though in the last clip we watched where he says, you know, I we have a trans person on our staff. Heidi's entire crew is gay, et cetera, et cetera. This is three minutes into his interview with Adam Carolla. He is echoing back the language that Adam Carulla is known for these days, especially. And you would think like, oh, they've been talking back and forth for a bit.

0:24:39 Lydia: And he's kind of, you It's three minutes in. He's introducing himself, basically. Hi, I'm Spencer Pratt. And yeah, no, he didn't. But, you know, talking about the Democratic Socialists of America and, you know, oh, care and compassion and being mocking of something like that. He was not like that in the last interview that we did, the we need to talk piece, which, again, I watched the whole thing of and it was not that vibe at all.

0:24:45 Thomas: Fuck trans people. I guess he didn't bring that up, but yeah. Huh. Yeah. So he's a liar. Yeah.

0:25:06 Lydia: He is a liar, as his friend on the show said in the clip that we heard. You are a snake oil salesman, right? Like this is who he is and who he has been for 20 years. OK, I have another clip that we can go to on this. Forty one twenty three.

0:25:23 Clip: Know how many of our own terrorists so we have a group called ice which is law law enforcement but it's for this subject and they're gonna come in and they're going to try to find these people and they are gonna arrest these people and or if you arrest these people for rape or murder or arson when you release them we would like you to release them to ICE so that we can remove them from the country because I don't want people here from other countries committing crimes and you say no we're gonna fight ICE. So are you pro Pro-law enforcement or not. It doesn't sound like you're pro-law enforcement. You want to defund the police and you want to abolish ICE and you wanna fight ICE you're not into law and order. I can tell by what you're interested in. You're into the trans community. That's where your interest lies because that's all you talk about and then when it comes to cops, so I just met with an also an immigrant community and their biggest issue with ice is that the actual rapists and drug dealers and murderers are hiding behind the good hard-working immigrants they're hiding behind these sanctuary protections yes and so we as a as angelinos we need to get these rapists murderers and drug traffickers child traffickers we need TO GET THEM OUT OF of this country and the immigrant community wants them out too of course it's like defund the police affects black people in the neighborhoods they're the ones who need the police no it's so racist that they're like spencer what of course we want these rapists drug we're not talking about well let's put it to you this way hold on you and me are white if we lived in a white neighborhood neighborhood, which we did, Malibu, Palisades, but there are a bunch of white rapists and drug traffickers and human traffickers around us, then we would want them out. We'd want Gary and Glenn and Chet the fuck out of our neighborhood. And it wouldn't be because we're racist against white people.

0:26:27 Thomas: What? What a good argument.

0:27:35 Clip: They say, Spencer, you got to find a way to get these people that are destroying our communities. They're the ones trafficking the kids. They're the gangsters, but they're hiding under these protections. So if you actually ask the immigrant community, they don't want these illegal criminals. And that's who we do with homelessness.

0:27:52 Thomas: Minute and that immigrant community was named albert

0:27:57 Lydia: Yeah. So this is also another example of a very dissimilar answer than what he gave on the other show. We need to talk podcast. When he was on that, he said that he was anti -ICE. He explicitly said anti -ice because he is for Angelenos, and that's what AngelenOS want. They have made their voices loud and clear that the vast majority of folks in Los Angeles are against ICE coming in and disrupting their community. So he is for AnglenOS, which means he is anti - ICE. But again, he's on Adam Carolla, and he's participating in this rhetoric, which I think is more in line, honestly, with his policy. And then he's just being fake on these more empathetic outlets.

0:28:09 Thomas: Einstein no way really we need to bring back elitism I'm tired of the dumbest fucking kid in the classroom being in charge of it I'm sorry if you were the dumbdest kid inthe classroom you just shouldn't be in charge I'm not saying you can't do anything in life but you don't get to lead everybody sorry you gotta fucking be able to understand something this guy is so dumb like that's the main thing is like he seems incredibly incredibly stupid.

0:28:58 Lydia: I'd like us to visit a claim that he brings about on a couple of other shows we're going to start by visiting. If folks listen to OA and our patrons, you've heard our special on Bull, our lamb on Bull. This is on Dr. Phil's show.

0:29:10 Thomas: Bull is allegedly based on Dr. Phil, if anybody didn't get that. Otherwise, it seems like a weird thing to say.

0:29:19 Clip: 90% of the homelessness problem, according to the DEA, is a drug addiction problem. My opponent,

0:29:25 Lydia: Pause. Yeah I can't find this anywhere. I've been spending like so much time I'm trying to track this down. He repeats this everywhere, this claim that 90 % of the homeless population.

0:29:40 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. He says the problem, right? Elsewhere, he states this as the DEA will tell you that over 90 % of the homelessness population in LA are hardcore illicit drug users. Yeah, and they're both wrong.

0:29:38 Thomas: Well, no, the homeless problem, that's not what the DEA's in charge of.

0:29:49 Thomas: Okay, that is a very different claim from 90 % of the problem is drugs.

0:29:57 Lydia: They're both incorrect. They're not correct at all.

0:29:57 Thomas: Yeah, I am sure there is a lot of addiction, but it is not the causal, yeah.

0:30:03 Lydia: And it's not 90%. It's absolutely not 90 % LA has over 40 ,000 people who are homeless. And to claim that 90 percent of those people are illicit drug users is just inaccurate and that studies have borne this out. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

0:30:05 Thomas: Where are they getting the funding for that yeah

0:30:19 Clip: Karen Bass, thinks these people need more empty $750,000 beds. We don't need more empty beds we need mandatory medical treatment and with sp43 the state law we can provide that to these poor souls that are addicted to one of the strongest drugs in the world in history fentanyl and this new modern super meth with this precursor from china these people do not need empty beds they need real medical treatment if they're going to have a real chance to ever get off these drugs and then we can get them the beds and the services they need but we need to stop lying and calling it a homelessness problem it's a drug addiction problem and as mayor I will enforce laws where you can't just be smoking fentanyl next to kids parks you cannot be naked

0:31:07 Thomas: What yeah well I agree with that

0:31:12 Lydia: Yeah that's also another through line from his campaign is.

0:31:13 Thomas: Yeah so I guess if his you know theory is correct then there probably wasn't any homelessness prior to the introduction of fentanyl right I mean it must have just just started

0:31:23 Lydia: Yeah yeah exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So there's a recent study that came out in 2025 that was published in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, looking into drug use in the homeless population and also a variety of other things. Right. Right. So what that study found was a large majority of people, and this is specific to California, living on the streets in California, are not illegal drug users, but it is intertwined with homelessness. Like it's a risk factor that may lead to homelessness, but it's also an effect of losing housing. And it's complicated.

0:31:57 Thomas: Then yeah it's also it's a cause so like homelessness can be a cause of drug addiction obviously like what the fuck else are you

0:32:03 Lydia: Yeah. And the problem is, is that when you devolve into this ridiculous claim, this 90 percent claim, or even try and say that all all homeless people. It's not a housing problem. It is a drug problem. What ends up happening is that now you have a huge population of homeless people who don't use drugs who are now being treated like they are drug users. And that further stigmatizes not just the general reaction and public sentiment to homelessness, but also to people who may have never touched drugs in their their lives. There are some people who, if they are thought to be on drugs, they will lose their sheltered housing and be back on the streets. That's a problem. That is very, very concerning. That is a lot of moms with kids that have left violent situations. So there are dangerous outcomes that can happen with sloppy rhetoric like that. Interestingly, in the study, it also showed that 35 percent of respondents said that they decreased their drug use when they became Yeah. And part of that is also, as I said just a second ago about women in this situation with kids, they worry about losing custody of their kids.

0:32:44 Thomas: Doing yeah it's probably hard to get fucking drugs when you're homeless probably not that easy right

0:33:16 Lydia: So they have to make some changes. So it's a more complicated picture than Spencer Pratt clearly would have you believe. Leave. But when you're able to flatten the conversation, again, like Trump and like so many of these other people who seem to rise from being jokes to actually having power, which is terrifying, if you can flatten that conversation and flatten that rhetoric, and we talk about it a lot with things like TikTok and stuff and the collapse of information, information it can lead to people voting on an altered reality from what things actually are and that's rich when it's coming from someone who became famous because of reality tv it's like yeah

0:34:00 Thomas: I think almost everybody's voting on altered reality now even on the left I mean not not in the same exact way but like it's so skewed nobody has any perspective anymore on anything real it's just a bunch of bullshit countering bullshit you know and obviously like I prefer the bullshit that's like more compassionate but a lot like really we're just out of reality it's just the ways we have to compete are also use kind of stuff that's not really right but is at least kind of getting people toward the right conclusion you know we should be talking about nothing else other than fucking climate change you know or essentially not nothing else but like that should be a major But we just can't because people have decided, meh. Or when people wanted to campaign on Trump being a fucking traitor and stealing our democracy, a focus group said, mehh, doesn't really work. So we got to like pretend that doesn't exist.

0:34:55 Lydia: The study also showed that one in five homeless folks that were participating in the study said that they were actively seeking treatment and were unable to So why isn't our focus on that, right? Like instead of demonizing people, you have actually a portion of people who are continuing to use drugs that want help. And instead, you're going to decide that they're a drug user and that they need to be locked up. He talks about asylums a lot, bring back the asyliums and lock people up.

0:35:22 Thomas: What's that guy do yeah

0:35:23 Lydia: Don't love that. Get them off the street so people don't have to look at them. That's really what it's going to do. He's going going to say it's because like then we can you know mandate treatment etc etc but there is a mechanism for that that actually disability rights groups have a problem with in california he mentioned it in the clip sb 43 which turned into the care court system I don't think we've ever talked about it on any of the shows but something that actually when I was in state government was involved in you know kind of putting together data for in advance of through the department of state hospitals but it is a complicated situation it is something that I am also upset like hasn't been taken care of. But vilifying an entire population of people who need help and support and resources and then linking them up with essentially what's going to be the wrong resources for a lot of them is not the way. He gets into this with Bill Maher as well.

0:36:15 Thomas: Yeah for fuck's sake he was on Bill

0:36:15 Lydia: So we're going to hear. He sure was. He was on it. It came out right club random. It came out I think the night before the election.

0:36:18 Thomas: Maher the oh the main show or the okay

0:36:23 Clip: In front of kids in your encampment next to the homeless drug addict people do not need beds they need treatment mandatory treatment you cannot any I've grown up in la I know about addicts I

0:36:32 Lydia: The treatment happens when they're and beds too

0:36:38 Clip: A bed and say, here's this bed. You can offer them any bed in the city. They don't want a bed.

0:36:40 Thomas: What if they need to sleep

0:36:43 Clip: They want a new high. They want some new fentanyl. They wants some new super meth. We need to get these people help to get them sober. Then we get them the beds and the sheltering and the community

0:36:48 Thomas: Superman uh okay so then shouldn't we still want beds for when that

0:36:53 Clip: And the rehab. But this program that's cost 24 billion of our tax money has increased homeless. So that's how I win because I say, hey, everybody, this isn't working. We all know it and we're paying for the destruction of our own city but they can't say it because they won't get reelected because they're deep in this failure they would be better off to just say hey this didn't work we're gonna pivot we we tried this one but we have a new plan but they my opponents will say we need more beds any more beds these beds cost $100,000 a bed so I've said this before and I feel I feel like the conventional wisdom answer to it that I get is that it's, for this reason, unfeasible, for this reasons, un-feasable, blah, blah blah. Tell me why, as someone who's running and is gonna inherit this problem for eight years, tell me why it's not feasible to, this is, for the homeless, answer to be,

0:37:07 Thomas: Happens yeah mm -hm that's what it is uh -huh to have them all killed

0:37:53 Clip: One, you can't stay on the streets. Because the streets are public and the people need that and it's just for a million reasons it's disease and it just not right you we

0:38:00 Thomas: And you're not a part of the

0:38:04 Clip: Just it's not your right this is this is not a alternative home lifestyle homelessness okay which is how the woke have turned it into like I always say

0:38:07 Thomas: Public what the fuck are you talking about yeah they're like no it's my right I want to be homeless here they have to be in a place dude what what the all right I'll keep

0:38:25 Clip: Old school liberals we thought the compassionate thing was to get them off the street not to enable them to stay on the street like they're an endangered species in their natural habitat it's fucking ridiculous okay so that's a you

0:38:31 Thomas: Going still do still want to do that nobody thinks that

0:38:39 Clip: B, why can't there be barracks, for lack of a better word? And they say, well, it's unsafe in there. A, how much would it cost to hire a security guard for literally every row of the barracks? Is that gonna cost $24 billion?

0:38:43 Thomas: Asshole barracks yeah I don't know let's find out

0:38:56 Clip: I know some guys who will do it for like $28 an hour. Just make it safe. Why is that so impossible to make a homeless shelter safe?

0:39:03 Thomas: Yeah well I can't just make it be the thing I want

0:39:07 Clip: Because you have to put people somewhere where the doctors can come in or the specialist whoever's gonna wean them off the drugs you're right the treatment but we can't treat them on the street and we don't want to give them hotel rooms that's crazy you have to go to a place a humane place this is not some sort of Nazi program you're off the street you have a roof over your heads we will make it safe feed you get you back on your feet we can watch you

0:39:33 Thomas: That sounds great yeah do that

0:39:35 Clip: And make sure you don't do there's no drugs getting in here again this is something that's impossible in prisons impossible to stop I bet they could do it in saudi arabia because they'd cut your hands off if you did it not that I'm suggesting that but you could so you just described

0:39:48 Thomas: Oh yeah I should do that yeah not that I'm suggesting that but you could what

0:39:51 Clip: Which I know you have not watched my eight minute video describing exactly my plan you go to the federal government you say there's so much beautiful nature with these trees you take a big piece of land right now mayor bass will say there's only 42 000 people living on the street the rand corporation will say it's 30 percent all right let's say it 70 000 people right now it's cheaper to literally build an entire facility they'll go it's a concentration no they have insane cheaper prefabricated homes they actually look like houses with little fences you could build enough of these you could build miles of these but the facilities with the medical people some people are veterans that's their corner of this beautiful place where of

0:40:03 Thomas: What fucking what what

0:40:37 Clip: Of course the media is gonna come watch and try to be like Spencer's doing this come look they can be riding around in golf carts they can be eating air one there there's we have enough money to have combo plates okay

0:40:45 Thomas: What are you talking

0:40:42 Lydia: Yeah okay anyway yeah so would it surprise you to know that Spencer Pratt is virulently nimby I mean obviously right like he is laying laying out this entire thing of like, let's create an entire like commune that's beautiful and amazing and gorgeous. And, you know, we're just going to get a piece of federal land to do it apparently.

0:40:53 Thomas: About yeah yeah

0:41:06 Lydia: But he is so incredibly not in my backyard and has been for a long, long, long time. So we'll continue with this conversation.

0:41:06 Thomas: Yeah

0:41:17 Clip: For home done that's how much we spend don't know I'm just saying everyone but my point is just really one is there's down so far but one is we spend that that much money to have them live in their own feces and die, that we can have them living up like kings. And there, we get them sober.

0:41:35 Clip: We teach them how to clear the milk vetch. They come back, and they're going to do fire breaks

0:41:38 Thomas: What

0:41:40 Lydia: It's a plant that has to do with the Palisades fire.

0:41:42 Clip: We're going to teach them to help come clean the trash so they We need to get people off the street, get them sober, and give them the opportunity 60% of the people in Los Angeles that are experiencing homelessness, they're not from California. They've been brought here by NGOs that profit off of this homeless industrial complex.

0:42:01 Thomas: What's why is it funny brought here sure

0:42:11 Clip: Body brokers bring these people here.

0:42:11 Thomas: Haven't what are you talking about

0:42:15 Clip: If you're an addict, you can come to L.A. and get these rehabs and use your Medicaid. It's also, if you're going to be, shall we say, outdoors your whole life, it's better to be here than in Minneapolis.

0:42:19 Thomas: Oh you're insane

0:42:28 Clip: I think that's part of the attraction. There's a big part where this is. I talk to these people who are now sober, off fentanyl, off meth, and they say they got literally brought here through rehab, Their money runs out, boom, left on the street. This is multiple stories of this. So that's a Tim waltz. He never stops being a so fucker Sending the fucking people. I don't know what state they're from exactly again. I'm getting elected with mom

0:42:39 Thomas: Yeah that too uh -huh sure what

0:42:48 Lydia: All right. Yeah, this claim, this is another one he repeats a lot of places that NGOs need to be investigated, audited, because they are serving as body brokers and bringing in people to LA, dumping people in LA to be homeless specifically in LA because they profit off of that. There are a number of people who are homeless who, when they were last housed, it was not in Los Angeles County. There were a number people when they last housed, it was not in California.

0:43:29 Thomas: What doesn't matter yeah non

0:43:29 Lydia: But I mean, people move. People move around. It does not mean that someone is loading up a truck or a plane or something like that and driving people down and dumping them on other counties. It could have to do with there aren't as many mental health services in the state as there probably can be. And so if you have the opportunity to participate in something, it might be that it's in your neighboring county. It might be that you have to travel to go somewhere there's a whole a whole host of reasons why that would be and for spencer pratt to dive straight into non -profit organizations are yeah he's

0:44:06 Thomas: Non-governmental or yeah NGOs I don't yeah yeah because there's so much money in it

0:44:13 Lydia: Saying that I don't know implying that they're basically kidnapping people and I mean it's just it's cuckoo um I don't even know what else to say about it it's silly and the percentage that he cites is also wildly inaccurate.

0:44:24 Thomas: Percentage of what I mean I couldn't even tell you

0:44:26 Lydia: I guess of all people that are in the point in time count for L .A., maybe. I'm not sure.

0:44:31 Thomas: I who know nothing he said look this guy's an an idiot. I don't, you can't get beyond, like, even if he says something right, it's by accident. We can't be in a place where the person you put in charge is someone who's this dumb. You just can't. Even if he said a thing or two that is right once, it doesn't matter. You can't do that. That's why we're where we are. He can't reliably tell you what reality is. We need to go back to when we only let people who can reliably tellyou what realityis run stuff.

0:45:00 Lydia: All right. I think I just have one more clip from Bill Maher to expose everybody to.

0:45:07 Thomas: For once, it's like Bill Maher's not the worst part of Bill Maher yeah

0:45:10 Lydia: Well, so I will say Bill Maher pushes back on a few things. Spencer Pratt really grows on him, though. He's into it. He is like, you know, I didn't know how this was going to go, but you're a really likable guy. You seem really authentic. And Spencer Pratt will like, Like Spencer Pratt pushed back on some of the things that Bill Maher was saying. And Bill Maer would be like, oh, that's a good point. You're right.

0:45:26 Thomas: He's like I'm not likable I have a piece of shit

0:45:30 Lydia: Yeah, it's wild.

0:45:33 Clip: So I don't think moms are on these Moms no, okay. No, it's douchebag guys Well, I just found a new section of your core audience. I guess I have more voters then I realize core audience I I totally forgot I mean you must own the bros first of all they the bros are Republican well here's what's happened socialism has captivated people because everyone has this is my yeah it's my thought sure I feel like people are all hyped on socialism because they're like everything's so expensive America's failed give me money but what they're forgetting is all the people that these socialists are saying they're taking the money give it they're gonna to leave and then they're not going to have any money to take from these people to give to you

0:45:36 Thomas: What huh

0:45:37 Lydia: His listeners.

0:45:54 Thomas: They're fucking idiots uh -huh wow

0:46:22 Clip: I keep telling people the way we get you money is stopping the socialism letting that successful rich people build businesses build restaurants put money into your pocket because there's more jobs there's no opportunity that's how we actually get you more money to lie to you and tell you we're going to tax these rich people we already taxed so much in la in california I can't even comprehend hand taxing more what's happening is we tax these people and then other rich people this champagne socialist scammers steal that money because they're all connected to the people taxing and then the people that should see the money the communities though after the boys and girls clubs the parks the the actual infrastructure doesn't see that money cuz different rich people stole the money that was being taxed from the rich people so I actually feel like Robin Hood because

0:46:36 Thomas: Steal

0:46:37 Lydia: No, that's a lie.

0:47:10 Thomas: It how'd they how

0:47:13 Clip: Because I'm coming in and I'm going to say, where's all this money? We're done with everyone stealing the tax money. We're going to actually put it to the people that have turned to socialism because they say, America doesn't work. It doesn't works if we let people steal all the tax monies and we have no accountability and transparency.

0:47:31 Clip: And, you know, I mean, look, I'm not the first guy to say these kind of things.

0:47:28 Thomas: I agree what's bill gonna say here yeah you say it all the time bill I was just gonna say this is this is right up his alley yeah fucking Ronald Reagan said this like I yeah to some extent obviously you want businesses and investment in your community but this is the same argument I've said this before no matter where we are it's always the same agreement no matter we are in the spectrum of fucking late stage capitalism bullshit well we need more capitalism and we knew like where are we and it's true I think

0:47:35 Clip: It's all who can.

0:47:57 Lydia: We saw what that led to, right? It's profits over people.

0:48:04 Thomas: Yeah I think they have pretty high taxes there and so I don't have any problem with people wondering why that isn't giving better benefits and stuff but like this isn't the reason it's not going to all the democrats because they're rich and connected or whatever uh

0:48:25 Ad: [Ad break 3 — ad music]

0:48:25 Lydia: So another piece about Spencer Pratt that we heard about was he talked about, you know, that he voted for Trump. He's registered Republican. He's a registered Republican because of his gun rights. And, you know, that's the only reason why he's Republican, et cetera.

0:48:37 Thomas: Well they won on that issue so you don't need to vote for them anymore for

0:48:40 Lydia: Let's talk about what his support looks like, though, because I think that paints a different picture. He really tries to distance himself in a lot of these interviews from the Republican Party. And I don't blame him because 74 percent of Los Angeles County did not vote for Trump in 2024. So those numbers are pretty stark. Again, the mayor position is technically nonpartisan, so he doesn't have to put a letter next to his name to his benefit. The L .A. City Ethics Commission filings show that his campaign has paid more than $60 ,000 to the executive director of America First California, which is the state chapter of America first, the Stephen Miller organization, and that they have spent $25 ,000 on campaign consulting to a firm called Tag Strategies. Not the tag that we talk about on Gabble Gabble, whose other clients include the Republican Party of Arizona and Jim Jordan, the U .S. representative. One of Spencer Pratt's listed campaign workers is a man named Alan Pellicani, who is currently a senior advisor to Congressman Daryl Issa. Another payee is an online fundraising platform called Rev. It's a sort of right -wing fundraising raising platform co -founded by a former Republican National Committee chief digital officer. One of their biggest clients is Trump, obviously. The contribution link for his website, Pratt for Mayor, is run by a payment processor that's widely utilized by Republican and conservative campaigns. So it's like it's just read all the way through, you know, up and down the infrastructure of what his campaign actually looks like. The campaign headquarters is a boutique tax service agency run by the wife of a former GOP congressman. Their daughter is not just Pratt's treasurer for his campaign, but also a former Republican Party delegate. His campaign fundraising events are organized in part by this group called Pluvius Group. It's an L .A.-based political consulting firm that has worked on behalf of folks ranging from Trump to Tom Cotton to another U .S. GOP Representative Mike Garcia. And it's just like, it walks like a duck, it talks like a

0:50:14 Thomas: Yeah

0:50:54 Lydia: Quacks like a duck, right? Yeah, it's silly. And you see this change in rhetoric depending on what shows he goes on, which I talked about as well. Now, in terms of support that he has from like people, that's been really frustrating. He has a lot of people like Sergey Brin, the Google co -founder, a lot people with a lot money are donating to Spencer Pratt's campaign. They're all donating the maximum allowable amount, which is not very much. But again, it's the primary. So we'll see if they continue to support. They probably will. He also has celebrity endorsements. He said that Leonardo DiCaprio endorsed

0:50:55 Thomas: He's definitely yeah oh yeah oh dear god

0:51:28 Lydia: Him privately, but and he said there's witnesses. Who knows? Who knows because you never know with Spencer Pratt. But it's also people that's like kind of frustrating people like Paris Hilton.

0:51:38 Thomas: Oh I expect so much out of Paris

0:51:41 Lydia: Well, I don't know. I kind of do like to some extent. I think she is actually a really savvy business person. I think she is someone who is really important to the LGBTQ community, who really, really cares about those people. There's a lot of connection there for her, but she was impacted by the Palisades fire. And he continually says that the Palisades fire, how that was handled, and I don't blame him for this, the fallout of this whole thing and the lack of accountability and everyone pointing fingers at everybody else, I don't blame people for being angry.

0:51:51 Thomas: Hilton really huh and he's anti-fire and the Democrats are pro-fire yeah

0:52:18 Lydia: There were terrible, terrible missteps. And the lack of accountability is a problem. That does not mean that you get to be mayor. It does not mean that. So it's between that and then between, as he says on these shows, that all the moms that are sending him photos and videos of naked zombies, what they what he refers to his homeless people, pooping on sidewalks in front of kids. He's like, I can't even open my phone anymore because like my camera roll is just all that. I'm like, that's disgusting. Yeah.

0:52:17 Thomas: Yeah yeah oh the homeless people yeah yeah see if this was a vast conspiracy by the left to keep people homeless like what's in it for us you know like that's not good optics people on the left don't want that so the problem with dumb people is that they think that nobody's ever thought of the most simple things that they're are thinking of. Like they think every thought they have is like a genius thought that no one's ever thought of. Cause I look at it and I say, well, there must be some structural reason why this keeps failing. Now it doesn't mean that there's nothing we can do about it, but it does mean that it's not going to be what some idiot thinks up in five seconds.

0:53:19 Thomas: You know, like there are problems. It's not like, you know, no one is happy with the homelessness in California. Literally no one has happy with it. But that's another part of it too, is like people are at cross -purposes a lot. It's really hard. And anytime, if the left is going to try to solve it, it's actually in the right's interest for it not to be solved. You know, like there's just a lot going on that makes it hard. There's a lot of people on the left who are bad faith and are NIMBYs and don't actually do what they should be doing.

0:53:44 Thomas: Like that's all part of it too, but it's not going to be, we don't need some good old fashioned horse sense out of some fucking moron who can barely string a sentence together. Like, that's not gonna be the answer.

0:53:54 Lydia: Don't just take it from us. Take it from his sister, who's known him her entire life. So I, you know, played those clips at the beginning so we could understand their relationship a little bit better before I said this. She wrote on X recently, Spencer has done great work for the the Palisades, but L .A. does not need another unqualified and inexperienced mayor. A vote for him is a vote for stupidity. And then she later followed up with some more details that in an ideal world, the Palasades would have their own mayor and police department and that if that were the case, she would love for Spencer to be in charge of the neighborhood, but not the entire city. Quote, I have no problem with Spencer playing government, but our city needs help.

0:54:33 Lydia: Yeah. She claimed also on X that she thinks her brother is, quote, just trying to stay famous and I don't know. Yeah.

0:54:32 Thomas: Playing cover I don't like that I thought they kept they always said that about Trump too and it's like no he wants to be president this guy wants to be mayor

0:54:47 Lydia: He also brings in religion to it. He's like, if God didn't want me to be mayor, I wouldn't have received so many votes that I've received. So I think God is saying that I need to stay in this race, that I get the next five months, and then I'm going to face off against Bass and 51 % be done with it.

0:54:58 Thomas: Pretty sure if God wanted you to be mayor you probably would just like have a lot more votes why 51 probably like 100 you know like this God like when she could just make it happen

0:55:05 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. Could do anything. Thing she started getting a lot of backlash to these tweets so then she followed up and said quote everyone's saying I should support him no matter what sorry he beat me up when I was 18 and put me in the hospital so no he doesn't belong in the government run the palisades all you want not la she also alleged that he got her hooked on drugs hooked was her word quote almost forgot how it all started he's the one who got me hooked on hardcore drugs at 15 I've kept this all a secret for years.

0:55:36 Lydia: He also had a hidden drug addiction. Now do you get he shouldn't be running LA? Thank you. Amen. Yeah.

0:55:41 Thomas: Oh let's put him in a fucking institution or whatever he was

0:55:45 Lydia: And then for anyone who is a reality TV person like me, guilty pleasure. So sorry. Later tweet. And yes, fact, I will always be on Team Lauren Conrad. So those two, meaning Spencer and Heidi, spent years trying to destroy her life for magazine covers. I always side with the vulnerable who need help, not the people inflicting pain on others. Leopards never changed their spots. Stay in the Palisades, Spencer.

0:56:10 Thomas: Saying what does that mean like he's gonna run the palisades I don't

0:56:13 Lydia: Yeah, I think he was looked at. And I do actually have a little video about this, too, because there's an interesting element here. Again, another way that Spencer shows who he is every single time where, you know, they lost their home. His parents live there, too. So his parents lost their homes. He really, really cares about animals. And so like seeing the impact on like wildlife because of the fire seems to really have affected him too and he would request data and information from all of these different agencies because he was so mad that this happened and so upset that this happen how could this have happened that everything that he started to uncover and like find and stuff not just him by the way and we'll get to that in a second just kind of fueled that rage and you saw bits and pieces of that on the hills clips where little things just kindof like they seem to kind of dig into him more dig him more. Again, I understand, lightly scripted, whatever, played up for drama, etc. But I do think that's kind of core to his personality. Okay, so one last thing before I close this out. I think it's important, you know, I've talked about how he has been heralded as having such a great impact with regard to the Palisades fire and the response after the fact there and how he was so affected there. But I think it's really, really important that I spread this a little bit more. He's not Not the only person who was advocating for the Palisades and trying to find answers and trying to rebuild.

0:56:43 Thomas: Care he's not the only anti-fire candidate shit

0:57:40 Lydia: There is an actual community activist, not Barack Obama, but there's an actual community activist who was involved that Spencer actually bullied and trigger warning that this person who put a lot of time and effort into this ended up taking his own life as a result.

0:57:49 Thomas: What oh

0:57:59 Clip: I'm gonna tell you a story and I need you to send it to anyone who you think might be thinking of voting for Spencer Pratt. You see, Spencer Pratt has positioned himself as some sort of hero, right, hero of the Palisades. But one of the real heroes is this guy, Larry Vane, a man who Spencer Pratt cyber-bullied for months and months and MONTHS, who was caught up in the politicization of the Palisades fire relief effort, and who three weeks ago took his own life. Larry Vane is a father of two, including a toddler, and up until the fires he had volunteered And he was a Palisades resident who sprang into action when the fires ravaged his community. He created the Pally Strong Foundation to collect information for survivors who had He contributed his own money and eventually was encouraged to apply for a grant from the Relief Organization Fire Aid and won $500,000 and a Community Hero Award from Mayor Karen Bass. Uh-oh. Because of the Bass backlash and the criticisms around Fire Aid's distribution of funds, which by the way raised $100 million, so $500K is very, very little and had a lot of regulations on how it could be spent, Larry Vane turned into a favorite punching bag of the far right in Los Angeles who were desperate to blame the fires on somebody Spencer Pratt was one of those craven people who called him a Palisades scammer and called pally strong pally khan bain

0:59:30 Clip: Became an outlet of the dangerous and ravenous group of angelinos who were desperate to politicize the fires at all costs and presume the worst of anyone who was working for relief efforts and so on April 27th Larry Vane a guy known for his optimism and positivity Nativity took his own life. A guy who did good in the community, gone. And now Spencer Pratt, his cyber bully from a hotel in Bel Air, now he wants to be mayor of Los Angeles. It's not just a tragedy, it's a f***ing disgrace.

1:00:00 Thomas: So a lot to verify there what happened there was a story

1:00:00 Lydia: Man, basically everything she said is accurate. From my research here, his house actually did not end up burning down, but he was so affected by obviously his entire community losing so much when he first started out. He didn't have a ton of resources himself, but he self -funded as much as he could and then created these organizations. He was known for this kind of positivity, trying to bring the community together, really, really advocating for the people in the Palisades. And when he died at the end of April and when his brother was reached for comment by the news, he said that not just the cyberbullying, but he was under a number of stresses, but it included recent accusations that he misused some of the funds that were raised for victims, that that really seemed to weigh on him. Nothing that I've seen.

1:00:56 Thomas: Was there any truth to that was there any basis for it

1:01:01 Lydia: I do think that the Karen Bass element is a piece of it, that people are so distrustful of Karen Bass, specifically with relation to the fire, that seeing that connection there, it's, you know, people on the Internet. So just really sad. And Spencer Pratt was a part of that. In general, Pratt questioned Vane's role in recovery efforts. He criticized aspects of the fire aid funding process, which was the grant that Vane group received. And then he made allegations that Vain was a scammer and he did end up deleting them from his ex account.

1:01:37 Lydia: And after, yeah, Vane's brother posted, John Vane posted a long letter on his Facebook saying to my Los Angeles friends, I implore you not to vote for Spencer Pratt. I say this both for personal reasons and for substantive concerns about his candidacy. On a personal level, Spencer Pratt publicly brutalized my brother Larry on social media. He spread falsehoods about him and targeted him purely to elevate himself online. He's a bully and our family is considering possible actions to hold him accountable. As many of you know, Larry took his life a couple of weeks ago. And then he talks about the substantive issues, zero experience. L .A. has a $13 billion budget. You're going to have Spencer Pratt come in and do this. That he has promoted Alex Jones in the past. That they, you know, he frequently turns his personal life into public spectacle for attention and monetization. There's questions if he was even eligible to be on the ballot. Who knows? But obviously some bad blood there for legitimate reasons. And just wanted to make sure that we highlighted someone who, from all things that I've seen, was working to lift up the Palisades community just for the sake of lifting up the palisades committee. But yeah, I said at the beginning, this is it's Trump playbook stuff. Time actually ran a piece on this recently. There's a quote from there. But as Trump could do, Pratt can also read the room. The top issues on Angelino's minds are the economy, including jobs, taxes and inflation at 31 percent, followed by housing affordability at 25 percent. For some L .A. voters, Prat is addressing those issues more legibly than his opponents.

1:01:37 Thomas: After the guy yeah legibly yeah

1:03:08 Lydia: In interviews and appearances, Pratt brands himself as an anti-establishment activist, not just a celebrity whose house burned down in the Palisades fire and inspired his frustration with city services. On the ballot, it lists his occupation as community advocate. When asked about his qualifications, he has a snappy answer. Quote, I'm no longer a reality star. I'm the only candidate living in reality.

1:03:14 Thomas: Oh sweet I hate the establishment too I better vote for this idiot.

1:03:35 Thomas: Wow. I'm voting for him. What a quip.

1:03:38 Lydia: Yep. He sucks. No.

1:03:39 Thomas: Yeah, this guy sucks, man. So hopefully, I mean, it doesn't seem likely that he'd win, but you just can't mess with this stuff, you know, like not even once. Well, we already did once and twice and thrice, but never again. Well, it'll happen again, but we should limit the amount of times that this happens. Yeah, that's good. Sounds awful. Yeah. Lydia's on the brink right now.

1:03:51 Lydia: Yeah. It's not great. Yes, please. Please, no more. I can't handle it. Yeah. Yeah. I

1:04:03 Thomas: You know, you got to find it like an animal to pet or something. Yeah. Well, thanks for the breakdown and thanks for listening, everybody. Don't vote for this hassle, but you see like how easy it is. The reactionary playbook. I mean, it's so easy. Oh, these people don't want me to fix anything actually. And they're so corrupt. Literally anyone can use those stupid talking points

1:04:05 Lydia: Need to go bleach my brain. God, he's the worst. Yep.

1:04:26 Thomas: And it can elevate literally anyone of any like ability whatsoever or knowledge whatsoever, they can all of a sudden be looked at as some serious candidate. And it's a dynamic that we need to get a handle on because it's really harmful.

1:04:42 Lydia: I hate him. And I can do this again. Please. Dear God.

1:04:47 Thomas: All right. Thanks so much, everyone. We'll see you next time. I'm trying so hard.