Druski, the Most Consequential Comedian? Plus: L.A. Mayor Karen Bass on Wildfires, Housing, and a Second Term

Summary

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Higher Learning with Van Lathan & Rachel Lindsay

Podcast Episode Summary
Episode: Druski, the Most Consequential Comedian? Plus: L.A. Mayor Karen Bass on Wildfires, Housing, and a Second Term
Date: May 1, 2026
Host: The Ringer
Guests: Mayor Karen Bass (starting at 55:11)

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Overview

This episode dives deep into three main themes: the cultural significance of Drewski in comedy, a passionate critique of the recent Supreme Court ruling on racial gerrymandering, and an in-depth interview with L.A. Mayor Karen Bass tackling wildfires, housing, homelessness, policing, and her campaign for a second term. The hosts maintain their signature blend of incisive cultural commentary, personal anecdotes, and probing political analysis.

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Drewski as the “Most Consequential Comedian” (00:14–11:00)

Key Topics & Insights

• Drewski Announced as BET Awards Host: The episode kicks off with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay discussing Drewski’s appointment as the BET Awards host, labeling it as a significant moment in comedy.
• Debate on Comedy’s Most Influential Voices: Van asserts, “Drewski is the most consequential comedic voice in America besides Dave Chappelle.” (00:37) He places Drewski above the likes of Tim Dillon and Andrew Schulz for his cultural influence, particularly for sparking conversations within Black culture.
• Rachel’s Skepticism & Nuance: Rachel pushes back, expressing curiosity about Drewski’s ability to translate his online/skit-based humor into a live, mainstream setting. “He does it and he moves on... Dave Chappelle does what—he addresses what he does.” (03:02)
• Artistic Responsibility & Style: Van points out the legacy of artists (e.g., Donald Glover) who don’t explain their work, arguing that sparking dialogue is sufficient for cultural impact.
• The Gender & Communication Debate: The discussion segues into a meta-commentary on miscommunication and gender stereotypes, particularly within Black commentary circles (04:18–05:00).

Notable Quotes

• “Literal Dave Chappelle and Drewski. Now, there are other comedians... but in the actual comedy, it’s Dave Chappelle, and then it’s Drewski.” — Van (00:37)
• “What I am saying is Drewski never addresses what he does... Dave Chappelle does.” — Rachel (03:03)
• “Diving deeper is what the art makes you do... The art is asking a question. It’s interrogating something.” — Van (05:00)

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Gender Stereotypes, Social Media Critiques, and Meg Thee Stallion (11:00–25:03)

Key Topics & Insights

• Community Feedback: Van and Rachel address listener criticisms regarding their prior debate about Megan Thee Stallion and Clay, exploring how societal views on desirability, partnership, and worth are often patriarchally coded.
• Defending Meg Thee Stallion: Van passionately rejects measuring women’s value by their marriageability, framing such attitudes as relics of patriarchal bias: “There’s almost nothing in this world that is more patriarchal than marriage.” (18:57)
• Rachel on Public Perception: Rachel clarifies that her concerns are over how women’s value is publicly weaponized, not just their relationship status.
• Balanced Reflection: Both hosts acknowledge the complex effect of celebrity, misogyny, and double standards on public conversations.

Notable Quotes

• “If you legitimately meet a woman... and then you decide because your boys say something or because society says something that you don’t wanna be with her, you’re a fucking cuck.” — Van (16:20)
• “The value comes from her as a human being. To me.” — Van (20:27)
• “When you see an encampment, there might be 25 or 50 people there. What we have done differently is we take everybody.” — Karen Bass (100:14, later in episode)

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Supreme Court Voting Rights Ruling & Black Political Power (31:16–53:29)

Key Topics & Insights

• Striking Down Louisiana’s Majority-Black District: Hosts cover the new Supreme Court decision rolling back a second majority-Black congressional district, and how it further erodes the Voting Rights Act (31:16).
• Historical Context: Rachel traces the legal lineage from the Reagan era through Shelby v. Holder, highlighting the right’s long-term strategy to disenfranchise minority voters.
• Democratic Party Critique: Van fiercely criticizes Democratic “asleep at the wheel” negligence, contrasting it with the right’s strategic investments (37:33–41:53).
• Direct Impact: The hosts stress that such rulings directly harm the quality of life and political power of Black people in the South, not just national party metrics.

Notable Quotes

• “You’re an OP... not just in terms of taxes. You’re an OP in terms of the basic rights that I am guaranteed as a citizen of this country.” — Van (49:00)
• “The only people who benefit are white Republicans. That’s it.” — Rachel (45:18)
• “If you don’t want me to vote, you don’t want me to live.” — Van (48:58)
• “We have watched them chip away at this. We’ve watched them literally complain and talk about the fear that they have of how this country is becoming multicultural.” — Rachel (44:03)

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Interview: Mayor Karen Bass on Wildfires, Housing, and a Second Term (55:11–126:27)

Wildfires: Response & Accountability (55:21–71:01)

• Spencer Pratt’s Candidacy: Bass dismisses Pratt as exploiting tragedy for notoriety, while acknowledging the grief of wildfire victims (55:53).
• Fire Recovery Realities: Bass details extensive permitting progress but flags insurance/banking as new obstacles (58:00).
• Jurisdiction Limitations: Bass explains limitations of her office, especially in unincorporated areas like Altadena, but highlights cross-jurisdiction advocacy (66:09).
• After Action Report Controversy: She refutes reporting that her admin “watered down” fire response accountability, noting the report was instead used to justify leadership changes (68:32–70:50).

Homelessness: Strategies, Achievements, and Systemic Barriers (71:02–104:43)

• Motivation & Progress: “That’s why I ran [for office].” — Bass emphasizes her personal drive and the 18% reduction in street homelessness during her tenure (71:07).
• Policy Failures of the Past: She critiques previous approaches, contrasts New York’s shelter-centric model, and stresses the urgency of getting people off the streets first (71:49–76:47).
• Complex Causes: Elder women, foster youth, the formerly incarcerated, and veterans all face unique risks and require tailored solutions. Bass established programs from prevention to employment training (77:47, 78:20).
• Prevention Efforts: Cites her nonprofit Community Coalition, which proactively assists at-risk individuals via legal/public benefits (78:47–85:10).
• Structural Issues: Bass explains how divided city/county responsibility for housing vs. services hinders systemic reform and calls for an economic model based on human need, not profit (83:41).
• Community vs. Big Developers: She rejects claims that she prioritizes gentrifying development, asserting her advocacy for culturally sensitive, affordable housing, especially for Black and Brown residents (86:25–88:35).

Policing and Public Safety (88:35–99:15)

• LAPD Budget Debate: Bass clarifies that no city workers were laid off in the latest budget despite initial projections and contextualizes LAPD staffing relative to Chicago (88:51–93:28).
• Police Reform: Outlines her long-standing commitment to police reform, her stance against “defunding,” and support for community-based safety efforts (93:28–99:15).
• Unarmed Responses: Details launch of CIRCLE (non-police crisis response for mental health/homelessness) and significant salary rises for violence interrupters (99:00).

Next-Term Vision & Systemic Barriers (99:15–113:07)

• Priorities: Bass aims to nearly eradicate street encampments, expand community safety, overhaul basic infrastructure (e.g., converting streetlights to solar), and finish systemic reform plans delayed by term limits (100:08–104:43).
• Emotional Commitment: She shares personal anecdotes of hands-on work with the homeless, hiring a doctor as deputy mayor, and pushing for healthcare-focused approaches (104:43–106:29).
• Drug Addiction & Skid Row: Bass critiques current drug policy philosophy, advocates for a return to robust, residential treatment options, and worries about potential inhumane treatment ahead of the Olympics (107:17–110:26, 110:14).

Immigration & Hollywood’s Future (113:07–121:04)

• Protecting Undocumented Residents: Bass describes steps to prohibit ICE use of city resources, strong relationships with advocacy groups, and the limits of city authority vs. federal raids (113:57–118:26).
• Entertainment Industry Challenge: Cites efforts to lower local filming costs, partner with industry leaders, and compete with out-of-state tax incentives, all while explaining personal/family legacy in Hollywood (119:21–124:39).

Final Word: Voter Apathy & the State of the Race (124:39–126:27)

• On Voter Frustration: Bass acknowledges a “depressed electorate,” cautions against impulsively ousting experienced officials, and urges voters to consider the true impact of leadership turnover.
• Parting Reflection: Both hosts thank Mayor Bass for her candor and time.

Notable Quotes (Karen Bass)

• “I believe in doing policy by putting people at the table who are impacted by it.” (121:01)
• “I’m right in the middle now of being able to create an entirely new system. I don’t want to walk away halfway through it.” (104:39)
• “I also come at this, especially the homeless issue. It’s personal to me. I look like the people on the street. I do. And I feel that to my bone.” (100:08)

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Memorable Light-hearted Moments

• “When’s the last time you were funky?” (26:16) — A humorous, candid exchange about body odor and the primal appeal of “must.”
• “Some men have, like, a natural must that comes and it actually smells good... it’s a primal thing.” — Rachel (28:17)
• Meta-Jokes: The hosts riff on their own segues ("You did a half a segue..." 25:21), keeping the tone conversational.

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Drewski/Comedy Debate: 00:14–11:00
• Gender Stereotypes, Social Media Response: 11:02–25:03
• Supreme Court Voting Rights Critique: 31:16–53:29
• Karen Bass Interview (Wildfires): 55:21–71:01
• Homelessness Solutions: 71:02–104:43
• Policing & Budget: 88:35–99:15
• Term Priorities & Infrastructure: 99:15–113:07
• Immigration Protections: 113:07–118:26
• Hollywood & Tax Credits: 119:21–121:04

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Conclusion

This sprawling episode moves fluidly from cultural debates to pointed political critique and local policy deep-dives. The Drewski conversation frames broader questions about comedy’s power, Black culture, and generational divides, while the assessment of Supreme Court politics brings urgency and a sense of personal stakes. Mayor Karen Bass’ detailed, empathetic responses provide a rare look at the complexities and human faces behind Los Angeles’ toughest problems, illustrating the challenge—and necessity—of persistence, coalition-building, and clear-eyed leadership in turbulent times.

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Transcript

[Karen Bass]

Foreign.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Yo, yo, yo, Thought warriors. What is up? Higher learning is on. It's Zy Van Lazen Jr. And it's

[Rachel Lindsay]

me, Rachel and Lindsay.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Breaking news. Drewski is hosting the BET Breaking news.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Is that breaking news?

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Is it breaking? When did this come out?

[Karen Bass]

I'm seeing articles dated 32 minutes ago.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

As of right now, um, very rarely is there the perfect host at the perfect time. And I think this is the perfect host at the perfect. The perfect time.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Why the perfect time?

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Drew Ski is the most consequential comedic voice in America besides Dave Chappelle.

[Rachel Lindsay]

That's your opinion.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Now, as stand up, obviously, you guys, I don't want to offend the standups. I'm joining your ranks pretty soon. I'm terrified. But in terms of comedic voices that say things and do things that get people going, it's literally Dave Chappelle and Drewski. Now, there are other comedians that have bigger voices and influences as podcasters, but I'm talking about in the actual comedy, I would say Tim Dillon is probably up there. Way up there as well. But in the actual comedy, I. I'm saying that Drewski. It's Dave Chappelle, and then it's Drewski.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Interesting. I like Drew Ski, and I love what Drew Ski does. And I'm always thoroughly entertained, like when he has a new drop, when he's doing his could have been records auditions. Like, I'm always tapped in. I'm like, oh, Drewski just dropped something new. However, I don't know if I would agree with you that it's Dave Chappelle and then bam, Drewski. Because what I'm interested in and what I'm curious about with him hosting is Drew Ski's great in what Drew Ski does. I've never seen Drew Ski in this capacity. Now, I know he does live shows, but I've never been to one, so I don't know what all that entails. And I know he brings people out, but I'm curious as to what Drew Ski looks like headlining and hosting a live televised show. That I'm more interested and curious than I am. Like, to make the bold statement that you did. I don't know.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

I think it'll be the bold statement that I made.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Dave Chappelle and then Drew Ski right now are the biggest. I don't want to misquote you.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

The two most influential and consequential. I would love to be able to say words. The most influential and consequential comedic voices. I say that because Drew Ski has taken his comedy Skits from a place of. We talked about this.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, yeah.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Noting cultural phenomena and then making fun of it, to actually asking cultural questions and then having people debate them after. I'm talking about the black church. I'm talking about Erica Kirk. These things became huge, widespread, mainstream conversations started off by skits that he did.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Of course, here's my pushback. He does it, and I don't have a problem with this. He does it and he moves on. I think I would tap more consequential. Absolutely. And as you said, we've already talked about it. We're gonna get to that ball in your hand in a second. I hesitate only because Drew Ski never addresses what he does, and that is his right. I'm not saying he has to. Dave Chappelle does what? Whether he does it in another standup, whether he does it in an exclusive sit down interview, he addresses what he does. Drew Ski doesn't. And there's a difference there. And it almost makes Dave Chappelle more consequential because he either doubles down, explains further, or maybe, I don't know, he doesn't dial it back. So I can't say that. But I'll just use those two things. He either doubles down or explains it further to where then it's litigated even more, whereas Drew Ski doesn't. So he definitely takes a risk, but not as he doesn't dive as deep as Dave Chappelle.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

What's interesting about your pushback is that I said Dave Chappelle was more consequential and influential. I said that.

[Rachel Lindsay]

No, no, no.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

And you argue that Dave Chappelle is more consequential and influential. When I said that it's Dave Chappelle, then it's Drew Ski. I said what you said. See, that's what I'm talking about. See this? When you got to pull back the layers of what's going on, this is the Clay Meg thing. And we can't even get on the same fucking page anymore as black men and black women.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Well, that's where this has come from. Because everybody says you don't listen to me. But that's not what I'm saying. I'm not disagreeing that Dave Chappelle.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Oh, what did they say? I didn't see it.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I'm not disagreeing that Dave Chappelle is more consequent. I'm not disagreeing with you on that. What I'm saying is Drewski being second is my thing. I don't know who the second is, but I won't Put Drewski. Because he doesn't dive deeper. That's what I'm saying.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Well, I mean, honestly, I don't know that that to me, for me, personally, guys, I don't know that that to me would be. That's irrelevant. Like, to me, diving deeper is what the art makes you do. Like, there are plenty of artists over the course of years who use their art to ask questions. And I'm not making it like Drewski reinvented the wheel. There are plenty of artists over the course of their history that say, this is the art. This is what's in the art. The art is asking a question. It's interrogating something. And now you guys have to either talk about the appropriateness of that question. What's sort of under the question where the question could go, but this is the art. Like, for example, Donald Glover never explained that this is the America video. This is America video. He never explained it. People had all these interpretations of it and all these different things. He might have talked about it and stuff, but he never came out and said, this means this. This meant that this. And a lot of great artists don't. And I don't know that that has. For me personally, yeah, yeah. For me personally, I don't know that that has anything to do with whether or not the art is either influential or whether or not it's consequential. I think Dave Chappelle is a talker, and he also sometimes feels the need to be the smartest guy in the room. And so if he says something and you don't get it, Dave Chappelle will come back and say, this is why what I said is meaningful and makes sense and is cogent. And this is why you don't get it. He does that sometimes.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I'm not saying Drew Ski's not consequential. I'm just saying the second most right now is more of mine. I don't know who the second would be. So, you know, maybe you are right. I'm just, like, not that deep into the comedy space to be able to name number two. Definitely influential just because of his reach and his reach even outside of just black people. It's like, you know, everybody's tapped into Tedruski, but it was more so the second most consequential. That was my first.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Let's think about it. In the world of comedy, Z Corner. In the world of comedy. Anybody else, There's Tim Dillon, there's Andrew Schultz. There's people that are consequential when they say stuff that Talk about these types of issues. Ali Siddiq, to me, I love him. Obviously, you know that. Yeah, Ali Siddiq, there's so many great standups and stuff like that, you know. But when they're taking on social issues and talking about these things and getting political and some people who. People care about some people.

[Rachel Lindsay]

What will be interesting is Dave Chappelle, if he was hosting, would absolutely dive into those type of topics. As a host. I wonder if Drew Ski will. That'll be. And that's probably what makes Dave Chappelle the most. And that's why I'm curious to see how Drew Ski will navigate it. Because again, I know him in one space, I know him in skits. I know him kind of just doing off the cuff stuff. I guess it would be equivalent to kind of like a crowd work thing when he's talking to these people as they come through in auditions, but in this setting with the script, live, televised, under a network, a corporation, because, you know, he does his own stuff. He's not beholden to anyone. I'm just curious to see will he still go there? Because Dave would.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Dave Wood, I mean, I guess. I mean, I'm not comparing him to Dave Chappelle insofar as like their ability to be on the stage and do comedy. Drew Ski did do like a stand up comedy tour of some sort. He did. So he did something on the stage. I don't know who went to it or how it was or anything like that. I do think that his skill set allows him to probably combine what he does skit wise with some crowd work with people in the audience and some other stuff. Cause they're always like skits at these award shows and stuff like that. And there's always like little vignettes and stuff that they do. I think it'll be great.

[Rachel Lindsay]

No, I think it will too.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

I think it's also him, his ability to like push himself a little further for sure, continue to expand his skill set. But I think that them getting him at my point is them getting somebody who is a comedic voice that everyone

[Karen Bass]

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[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

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[Karen Bass]

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[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

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[Karen Bass]

tell me to Rachel.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

What? What what what? What part of it did I listen to?

[Rachel Lindsay]

We don't have to catch me up. We don't have to get in into all that. It's just the typical stuff. It's like people say, you know, Rachel's always going to defend women and is always going to hate on black men. People say, you weren't listening to what I was saying. And about what? And about your. No, it's the same. It's the same stuff. Like they think in the same way that people think that whenever it's a gender war, I'm going to fight tooth and nail to defend the woman no matter what and always find fault in the man. They think you will never understand the side of the woman and always will try to make excuses or compare it to men. It's the same stuff. We both get it from both sides. When it comes to it, one of us has a bigger response. I'm like, yeah, okay, they always gonna say, I hate black men.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

I resent this.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I don't know why.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

And I'll talk to the audience about it. I resent this. I don't think that it's probably. I'm not sure that people are wrong, but I still resent it. And I'll tell you why. I particularly in what we were talking about. First of all, which part were they talking about?

[Rachel Lindsay]

The whole thing.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

What do you mean the whole thing? How could it be the whole thing?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Go ahead. I think it's specifically to the Megan and Clay conversation. Yeah. No, it is the whole part of it.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

The whole thing but what about it? What didn't I get? Catch me up, ladies. Help me.

[Rachel Lindsay]

They didn't like your comparison to Shador Sanders. They didn't like that. You know, like, you were like, megan will find, like, automatically assuming Megan will find love. Like, they just like, it just was kind of like a. I think people felt. Some people felt like you were dismissive of the Megan side of it and were finding ways to, you know, bring men into it at some parts during the conversation. Again, this is just criticism. I'm not here to argue for these people. It's just. But you want to talk about it. Why don't you just go back and look at it?

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

I don't want to look at it.

[Rachel Lindsay]

But you want us to tell you.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Well, I'm curious on how you guys even saw it.

[Rachel Lindsay]

People write me. People tag me threads. You know, I'm a threader.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

You're a threader. Shout out to Duran. By the way, one of my favorite people. Couple things just real quick, before we get off it. Number one, I stand steadfast behind the notion and the fact that in the long run, like, what some niggas on the Internet say about Meg will not stop Meg from getting married and finding a long lasting relationship. I honestly think that if you look at who these guys are dating and all of that stuff, that that's just not as big of a concern anymore. But I'll even go further than this because I thought about this. I want to know what you think about this. Should. Is it not backwards to consider somebody's desirability for marriage as a part of their reputation? Is it not backwards, sort of patriarchal thinking to think that, oh my God, these people are saying something about someone and that's going to make them less desirable for marriage?

[Rachel Lindsay]

I don't think when. Yes, it's backwards. Just to answer your question, yes, it is. Patriarch.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Patriarchal.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Patriarchal. Here we go.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Patriarchy.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Cocoa. Yes, it's a part of the patriarchy. But I think when women are talking about it, and I'll just say it, particularly for me, it wasn't. It's more about value that I was discussing. Not desirable for marriage or value for marriage. It's just value and partnership and how she's being seen. It doesn't mean, like how they see her so they can wife her up. I mean, it's just about having a good partner. I wasn't thinking marriage.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Well, that's what you said.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I wasn't thinking marriage.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Well, you. That's. What did I say?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Marriage.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

You said married. Like that someone would want to marry her. And then my point was that I don't think that that's as big of a concern as it used to be. And I just look around the. Especially in the rappers and the ballplayers and the situations like that, I just see. I don't want to once again get into. I could name names of, look, he took her out the club. And look, he did this, and look, he did that. I don't want to say that. I think that there's two things now. Number one, I do think that, like, maybe amongst a certain ilk of man, Meg, the guy that Meg is going to be with or is probably going to be like an extremely successful and all of that type of guy. I do think that maybe there's a different type of guy that could be successful and be like really accomplished that might not be a front page guy that might be better for her, right? But that's just in terms of compatibility. That has nothing to do. But I mean this in what I say. When I think about somebody's worth, I don't think about their worth in terms of whether or not somebody will want them. I don't. When I think about somebody's worth, I think about it from a humanistic perspective. Like, what is this doing to you as a human being? The degradation of Meg, thee stallion. I don't give a fuck whether or not that degradation makes a bunch of guys who cannot contend with sexual mores and values and the independence of a woman's body, whether or not that makes them not want to date her. Because that's stupid anyway. Like, that's dumb anyway. If you legitimately meet a woman and you fall in love with this woman and you love her, she is smart, she is funny, she is enterprising, she tickles your balls the way you like, you really enjoy her. And then you decide that because your boys say something or because society says something, that you don't want to be with her. You're a fucking cuck. You're a cuck. And you're a cuck to your homeboys. You're a cuck to everybody else. I've never respected it. I don't respect it now, dog. If you like her, I love her. And that's the way that it should be. And to me, when we judge particularly women in that lens, we're doing the work of the patriarchy. We're doing that work. Niggas are saying this about it. That's going to make her less desirable. So they shouldn't say it they shouldn't say it because they're dehumanizing her. Them being desirable to a bunch of niggas that took the time to make that meme is crazy to me. And sometimes that might not come off the right way with me. And I get it. But if you guys go back, I challenge the audience if you guys go back. I have always criticized that. I have always criticized taking a woman and making fun of her and debasing her and all of that based on her sexual choices. Since the beginning of this podcast, we've had this battle on the podcast. So when I looked at it in terms of Meg, honestly, I don't care who wants to marry her, because I think the framework of who wants to marry you is a means of controlling what the fuck you do. And I think that as long as we sort of adhere to that and make that into a thing, we hustling backwards. And I truly. And if. And y' all can say what the fuck y' all want to say, go back through the history of higher learning, and anytime the term bird, bop, ho, whatever comes up, I say, hey, don't do that. You shouldn't do that. You're making it easier for the guys who want a purity test from you in order to make you desirable to something that men set up in the first place. There's almost nothing in this world that is more patriarchal than marriage, nothing that has been used to control and dominate women more than marriage.

[Rachel Lindsay]

And I have to go back and listen to the whole thing. And I feel like some of this is either. This is why I hate, like, talking about a conversation we talked about last time, because I can't remember every single thing that was said. And we're only talking about one part, and we're picking a part of it, and maybe even being a little bit of a revisionist in some ways. But I. But I do feel like one part that you kept saying, you kept being like, meg will be all right. And I think that that's something that people didn't like, is that you were like, she'll be fine. And you were like, I mean, yeah, I'm sure this hurts her emotionally, but you're like, meg will be fine. As if because of what she's accomplished and who she is and she's reached a certain status, she'll be okay. And where other people were like that, it still is still damaging. And so you. And again, I can't remember everything, but I do remember you kept. Yeah, maybe emotionally, it hits her, and it's like, well, that's the thing. And so, like, now when you're talking about it, you're like. You're talking about the humanity of her, not the outside stuff. It's like, yeah, but that's not kind of how the conversation wasn't. It wasn't all of that.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

That's exactly what I said, though. You said what I remember what you said was, no one's gonna marry her. I said, number one.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I didn't say it like that.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

You said to marry her. The word marry, like that happened. Johnny, am I tripping?

[Rachel Lindsay]

I might have said Mary. I don't remember. But, like, I kept talking about her value. It's how people see her.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

The value comes from her as a human being. To me.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I know, but I'm talking about the thing that happened and how they're using it to weaponize her. Right? Because the whole conversation started with this picture and how she's being depicted versus how Clay is being depicted. And I told you he's notoriously known for cheating. And you were like, well, that's a rumor. Just like it's a rumor with all these other people. And then we started talking about, yeah, but you use the word, it's an indictment. And this is how the conversation started going. And I started saying, what happens to women who are categorized or indicted in the way that Meg was being? Is that their value? They're looked at in a different way. So maybe I said the word marriage, but I guess I more so mean somebody you commit to, somebody you want to be long term with, somebody you want to wife up. Doesn't necessarily mean marriage, but that you look at in long term and not just because there was another comment that was made of, you know, she'll be able to get this person, this person, this person. Because men don't care about on a certain level of, like, who you've been with. And it's like. But maybe they just want to experience her and not actually value her, is what I was saying. That's more of where I was saying with that kind of indictment that's placed on a woman like that, when that becomes her reputation or her image or her brand, that doesn't get placed on men.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

You are 1 million percent right with what you just said. There's no way that anybody could argue that that's not true. What I am saying is that that work, doing that work to change the way that we value women based upon choices that women make about their own bodies, that. That is active. That's an active choice and an active conversation that we have to have all the time. And it's a choice that is difficult to negavitate to navigate in a celebrity relationship. Yeah, it's tough. It's difficult to navigate in a celebrity relationship because there's so much about the relationship that we don't know. Right. Clay, Being a cheater is in no fucking way is going to stop his ability. Him being rumored to be a cheater, his reputation as a cheater is no way going to stop his ability to go out and get another lady. But there's a reason for that. The reason is, number one, because the priority is for a woman to get a man like that to have stability in her life. Number one. That should not be right. That's number one. So a lot of women would have to suffer through a relationship with a guy like that because getting married in this society has an outsized, overrepresented worth for a woman. Number one, that should not be a thing. If that is a thing, then the scarcity of somebody like Klay Thompson is always going to be weaponized in dating, in being together. That's always going to be a thing. The second thing is this. It's like for somebody like Meg thee stallion who, you know, what I see is, I see a lot of people going, oh, she made a song called Wap.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Oh, she did this.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Oh, she did that. All of that stuff. I see so much of this going on, and I'm like, you know, my thing is this, man. Not to anybody who's saying that, but just in general. In general. Find who you like and have a great fucking time. Find who you like and have a great time. All of these artificial, these societal, these pressures that people are putting on interpersonal relationships. They might have worked in 1970 when women didn't have bank accounts and when you had to stay with somebody for economic, like sustainability, they might have worked and knows. But right now, in the Internet age, where everyone is litigating everything, all of these narratives are gonna fall apart. They all are. They don't matter. They never really did. They were all means of control. They are all gonna fall apart. You guys are raging to try to hold on to your father's ethics, and I'm telling you, it's a losing fucking game. You might as well go out, experience people, experience things and make. Make up for yourself what you believe about people and what you believe about connection.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Let's talk about something else. Falling apart.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

What's up? What else is falling apart?

[Rachel Lindsay]

The country Is Donnie not here.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Yeah, but if you gonna segue, you Gotta segue the country.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You did a half a segue, But Donnie's so good. He just picks it up. He's got it.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

You did a. If you go.

[Rachel Lindsay]

He knew where I was going.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

But that was a bomb ass segue. But you went. Let's talk about something else. Falling apart.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Donnie. I should have said Donnie. I should have said Donnie.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Even that would have been cool. Donnie's sitting over there.

[Rachel Lindsay]

My bad, Donnie.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Donnie doesn't.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I love that we look over here, because this is where the speaker is.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

We've been looking over here. Look at Donnie right here, y'.

[Karen Bass]

All.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

When we have these arguments, Donnie be. Donnie be on his shit playing Tetris. Donnie got a beautiful wife, a gorgeous fucking son, a great life. Donnie and them probably taking nature walks, planting fucking seeds. He's probably looking at his life like, hey, everybody arguing about Meg and Clay. Donnie's like, oh, the squash coming. How are the squash this season? Donnie is the. He doesn't give a fuck about any. Donnie, do you have thoughts at all? Anything?

[Karen Bass]

I really, really, truly don't.

[Rachel Lindsay]

He doesn't care. I get it. I get it, Donnie. I get it. I'm with you. I'm with you.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

One question before we get into the show. When's the last time you were funky?

[Rachel Lindsay]

As in smell like you stank?

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Last time you had a stank on. Last time you were out and you were like, I got a little stank on me. Was the last time.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Oh, I can't even remember.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

It's been a long time. Yeah, it's been a long time since you. It's like you got a track record of. I don't stank. It's been a long time, hasn't it?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah. At least it's never come to. Do I smell today?

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

No, Rachel, you don't smell. I'm just asking at the wave time.

[Rachel Lindsay]

And I always, like, keep stuff on me. Cause I'm super paranoid. Keep that thing on me about being a. I always have some kind of, like, scent to use. If I know I'm gonna be out for a really long time, I usually will keep deodorant on me. I am very paranoid about it. So it must have happened to me at some point. And I was traumatized. And I was like, never again. I refuse to be musty.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

I hit and it's been a long time for me, too. A lot of people will probably look at me and go, we could see you stinking.

[Rachel Lindsay]

No, no, no, no fan. You don't give stinky at all.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

It happened yesterday.

[Rachel Lindsay]

There are Some.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

It happened yesterday where I did a lot of walking.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

So I walked and then I walked all around the Grove, which you do, though. The Grove is one of the loudest kid filled places. Man, these kids is crazy, man. Get the fuck out of here.

[Rachel Lindsay]

That's a lot.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

And then I walked. Me and Kaliqua went to the beach, and then we walked around all up and down the Santa Monica Pier and all of that stuff. And then, like, after that, it was a little. By the time I got back home, it was a twinge.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Well, that's a lot of walking. You're seasoned with that. You didn't carry deodorant on you?

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

No. You carry the deodorant with you, huh?

[Rachel Lindsay]

If it's gonna be a long day, like, if I'm going to the beach, I'm for sure carrying deodorant.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Okay? That's the thing. I don't want it to happen again because when I got back in the car.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Did you recognize it or did Kalika have to go?

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

I recognized it.

[Rachel Lindsay]

And then what did she say?

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

No, she didn't say anything. She never recognized it. I recognized it. I got back in the car, I was like, mm, ripe.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay, this is even more. This is. What kind of must do you have? Because there are. Do you know what I mean? Some men have, like a natural must that comes and it actually smells good. Like, it's not like oniony or funky. It's like Jade's nodding her head. You know what I mean? Yeah. There's like musk with a K. It's like a musk. Like their natural. Like, you know that it's a musty, but it's a primal thing. It's a primal. I'm like, whoa. But then there's a level that's oniony and it's like, now that's tart. That's why I like to say you're a little tart.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

See, this is what I'm talking about, though. This is the thing that we can't control for some niggas stank and y' all like it. That's why we gotta be. I know exactly what you mean. Cause there's something else that I could describe. There's another smell that I could describe. Bernard knows what I'm talking about, and Donnie knows what I'm talking about. There's another smell that I could describe that you would not describe this smell as pleasant. But God damn it. Do we like it, Donnie? Everybody's different.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, everybody's different.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

You wouldn't describe this smell as good, but it smells good. Y' all see? But why can't I express myself? Move on?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Because ours isn't, like a sexual thing.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Nope, nope. It is sexual. It is sexual.

[Rachel Lindsay]

It's just.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

It's in a different way. It's a different way. What y' all just described.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I would love for ladies to tap in.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

This is the exact same thing, by

[Rachel Lindsay]

the way, because I was like. It's like I forgot. And then I was like, oh, wait, like, there are levels of. I guess, like, the pheromone level. So my question goes back to you. Are you tart or is it a

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

must when my shit gets to that point? It's biting. Like, it can cut through the air, and you can't live that way. I remember one day. I remember one day, man. I don't know what the fuck happened, but, like, I was at McKinley and I noticed it in second period. I was like, fuck. I was like, God damn. How the fuck do I get through the rest of the. Of the day? I noticed it. I went to the bathroom and I washed up, and that took it away. But I didn't have any deodorant. So you wash up. That only buys you another period. And then what happens is the funk gets into your shirt, and then there's nothing you can do about it.

[Rachel Lindsay]

There's no turning back.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Even when you wash up. It's still the thing I had to make. I made it all the way to football practice. And when I got to the football practice, somebody. Somebody's stinking in this, Donnie. That's a transition, okay?

[Rachel Lindsay]

No, somebody else is stinking in this bitch, too. And it's the Supreme Court, Donnie. There you go.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

There we go. There we go. There we go. All right.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

This week, the Supreme Court struck down Louisiana's second majority black congressional district in a decision that found that the district relied too heavily on race.

[Karen Bass]

The decision is going to make it

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

harder for plaintiffs to challenge future maps

[Karen Bass]

for racial discrimination, which undermines a key understanding of the Voting Rights Act. So another hit to the historic act.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Now, Roland got one here. Roland was in criticism of a lot of people, or not a lot of people. I mean, he always kind of makes it personal, but of this idea that came from people in 16 and 20 and whatever.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Oh, that's making the rounds, right?

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

That there were going to be no lasting consequences for voting out of step with the mainstream Democratic candidate. And you kinda gotta give it the fuck up right now. I don't know if it's the best thing to put people's pictures up and make this type of stuff personal because I think there's larger conversations about how we hold the center of the Democratic power base to account, while also understanding that when you lose, you can lose for a long motherfucking time. Right. So this is one where it's really interesting that's besides the case itself, because we know that the right, and not even the maga, right, this is an enterprise on the right itself has been to destroy and disenfranchise black voter power for a while. And that begins before Shelby versus Holder.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, I mean, I just, it's like, how do you make. We're here now, right? So I was about to say, how do you make people realize how consequential this is? But this is just the last straw. We've been here before. You said Shelby v. Holder was, which was even before Trump took office, before he even tilted the court in his favor in Republicans favor, which should have been an outcry to Democrats. And again, this was started during the Reagan administration. Like ever since the voting rights. Here we go. I don't know what's wrong with me, man, today. Ever since the Voting Rights act of 1965, they have been trying to figure out their way back. And it really started with the Reagan administration and who he was appointing to the court. And Shelby v. Holder, though, should have been the thing of guys, they're chipping away at it in such a major way. And as a reminder, Shelby v. Holder took away the federal government's oversee of elections and they put it in the hands of the state. And so that's when we see, I mean, gerrymandering has always been a thing, but the states are completely drawing up the maps in the way that they want to. It's been challenged all the way up until this point, which case from Louisiana. Now they're saying, basically, let me go back in 2019, the Supreme Court ruled that you can redraw maps based on partisan, like partisan maps. So basically you can redraw maps, which is what we saw Texas do. And you can say, well, it's not that I'm looking necessarily at how many white people it's. I'm drawing it based on the party. That is not illegal. You can do maps and tilt it in your political favor. They said that was legal. And if you really break that down, you can realize that Republicans mainly look one way. So if you're redrawing maps to favor your Republican Party, you're obviously racially tilting it as well. The Supreme Court did not uphold redistricting maps in Louisiana and Alabama that tried to do that because it was not representative of the state in regards to race and they kept the majority minority districts and allowed them to be present. Louisiana re fought that case back up, which is the case that we're. Put that case back up in front of the Supreme Court, which is the case we're dealing with now, and basically said it is illegal for them to do that. It violates the equal protection clause and you shouldn't be able to draw a district that favors a certain racial group. The court agreed and here we are now and basically if somebody says hey, they bring up a court case and they say this map. Cuz Florida's already done it, right? Florida was already getting ready. It's like they knew that this was coming. Let me also add that normally cases like this come out in June because they're super consequential and then the Supreme Court goes on break. The fact that they released this in April is even more based in politics because it gives these states the time to redraw their maps and possibly be there for the midterms later this year or definitely for 2028.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Well, Landry has already postponed a primary in Louisiana to make sure that they

[Rachel Lindsay]

have time, see what I'm saying?

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

To rally around this decision.

[Rachel Lindsay]

So any argument from the Supreme Court or anybody that's supporting this decision that says this isn't politically based. Van just gave that example of them exactly postponing a race in order to redraw their maps and in their favor so that they can possibly win. Basically, if somebody takes a case to the court right now based on this position and they say well this map is not allowing is a disadvantage to black people or to Latino voters. If the other side can say well no, it's not that, it also disadvantages Democrats, then the court will say, well then it's okay. Yeah, that's literally what it comes down to. So they can couch any type of disadvantage to minorities by saying well no, it's not based on that, it's based on their party and then that makes

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

it okay, this is the way I will indict the Democrats for this and not to consistently indict the voters or people that want people to vote for what they believe the right set of political policies are. This is the way I'll indict the Democrats for this if there is an indictment is that they have been asleep at the wheel for going on 50 years when guys like Leonard Leo and the federal society have built not just an intelligentsia centered around destroying and rolling back rights for black people, gay people and women. But to write America as if the civil rights gains of the 60s and really into the 70s never happened, to fanfic that stuff out, literally create an alternate history where all those gains are rolled back. I mean, Sandra Day o' Connor said, we talk about Reagan, that she envisioned a time when affirmative action was no longer needed. The question was, for me, always was going to be who was going to make that decision? Was, was it going to be a bunch of black people going, you know what? Things are cool. The wealth and income gap is. Has been decimated. We want to. We believe that you got. We believe in the mythology that America is a meritocracy and we want to, like, compete in America in that way. None of this stuff is needed anymore. Who was going to make the decision when it was over? Like, who was going to.

[Karen Bass]

Who.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

How are we going to make that decision? And we see what has happened. But you know Leonard Leo, who is the leader of the Federalist Society, he's the longtime vice president of Pharaoh Society. I don't think he's there anymore. But when you talk about Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Amy, Coney, Barrett, this is all fruit off of his tree. They worked for a long time to shift the politics of their party, to make the party decidedly anti minority voting, enfranchisement in power, anti women's rights, and to seed that from an intellectual standpoint into the DNA of the right. So they played a cultural game, but then they also played a structural game, which was to dump as much money into all of these different structures on the right to be able to get the people that they wanted. And they won. And they won because nobody was minding the gate. And my question is why? Why wasn't anyone minding the gate? Because I'll respond to a lot of what I see right now. What I see right now is people going California could draw a 70 to 1 map, which they might be able to. There are a lot of other places where the numbers based upon national races could be so fucked up and so skewed for the Democrats that you could offset any of this stuff that's going to happen in Southern states, in red states, because you could run up the score in other places, right, which they might be able to do. This doesn't address the suffering that is going to be hoisted upon black people in places like Louisiana, because fuck what happens nationally. Fuck your national race. Fuck all of the other stuff that's going on. Fuck your Presidential race. Fuck all of that stuff. Fuck all of that. Those people need representation in their state. They need people who care about what they're eating, what they're drinking. They need that there. They need voices that can go onto the hill and. And stump for them. We need like a web of people, local, state, and also federal, to address the standard of living, particularly in these states that we're talking about. If you're talking about an Alabama or a Mississippi or Louisiana, we're legitimately talking about basic human rights here. We're talking about the food you eat, the schools that you go to, your freedom of movement. All those people's voices need to be heard. The water you drink, your environmental standards. That's what I'm talking about. When I'm talking about being black and living in the South.

[Karen Bass]

Yeah.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

And so when you allow stuff like this or when you. When you. These types of power grabs, you are directly affecting the standard of living for millions of black people in the blackest white part of this country. And national politics be damned. It's a huge deal when it comes to national politics. That is true. But in terms of making these states intractable for any progress on behalf of those people who are my aunts and my uncles and like all of that stuff, my, my mother, my sister, my nieces, my nephews, the people I've always shared and built community with, that is a tremendous crime. And the Democrats have a lot of fucking work to do. Because what I would ask is why did not that no one see this coming? Why over the course of this entire time was there no robust effort on the left? And I would love for someone to tell me how I'm wrong here, because we woke up one day and abortion rights were gone. We woke up one day and Shelby v. Holder happened. We woke up one day. Well, who was watching the gate while we were asleep? This is the type of dereliction of duty that I'm talking about when I'm talking. That is what the fuck I'm talking about. Because you voted for the same people for all of this time, and now we woken up and woke up and they got their fucking asses kicked. Once again, I'm not saying. Let me make sure. I'm saying, to me, power comes with a set of responsibilities.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Absolutely.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

And I'm not blaming the wrong people here. The villains in this story are Leonard Leo, the Supreme Court, the idea that black people don't need representation in the south, clear villains. But we do have to talk about not just how bad the villains are, but how good and effective the so called heroes are. And if y' all don't, if that conversation makes y' all uncomfortable, I don't know how we get to a place where we're understanding what we need to do.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Right, well no, I mean you have to be able to talk about it because then the question, the question is how did we get here? How did this happen? It didn't just happen overnight. This has been a slow death. And I'm not even talking about all the other stuff. I'll keep it just to the Voting Rights Act. We have watched them chip away at this. We've watched them literally complain and talk about the fear that they have of how this country is becoming multicultural. How we've listened to them talk about their fear of diversity, we've listened to them talk about white replacement theory. And so basically what they are saying is they are terrified to become the minority voice in America. And the reason they're terrified is they know exactly what has happened to minorities in this country. So they are trying to protect their voting rights, their own rights. And if you break this down, contrary to what, I don't know if you saw what Scott Jennings was saying on cnn, he basically said the people have decided that racism is over. And thank you to Sarah who was like, that's actually not true. As a part of the black community, that is not the case. When you look at who benefits.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Scott said what?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Scott said, somebody said I'm sorry, but racism, somebody at the table is like, I'm sorry, racism that you decided that you don't get to decide that racism is over. And Scott said, well the people have. And Sarah was like, as a member of the black community, I can definitely tell you that that's not what the people said. I mean just the fact that a white person is telling you that racism is over, how can you even fix your mouth to say that? This is where I get into the whole thing of Scott Jennings having a microphone in a seat on the cnn, like that's too far. And I'm glad Sarah who was sitting in for Abby, I'm glad she definitely checked him. Cuz she's like, no, the people have not decided that racism is not over yet. And as a part of the black community, she's like, I'm telling you that that's absolutely not true. But my point is, is when you break down this Supreme Court ruling, the only people who benefit are white Republicans. That's it. The only people who would benefit from this new thing and the chipping away of the voting rights act basically taking it away for people who have died for it, sacrifice their well being, like everything for this to come through. Because prior to the Voting Rights act, you're talking about Southern states. Because that's really where we saw the benefits. Prior to that, a black Southerner had not been elected in office since the 1800s, since post reconstruction. After the Voting Rights act, we got two. Then you saw those numbers rise. What happens again? The fear. So what did they do? We have to take away their voice. Why do they want to take away your voice? Because that matters. And I know part of the purpose of doing this as well is to disenfranchise minority voters. You say you give up, you throw up your hands and you say, what's the point? Why does it even matter if they're rewriting to where we don't even have a voice? No, this is exactly the time. If you're, if you're. The people in power aren't doing it. We have to unify and do it. And you can't sit back. You can be outraged, you can be completely frustrated. We both are here as we're talking about it. But you have to continue to use your vote and use your voice and show that you matter, because this is exactly what they want you to do. And again, if you're not getting it from the people that you're voting for, then, I mean, you gotta use your voice and your vote to do it for, to get the right person in office who is gonna do something with that power.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Two things. Number one, I'm gonna be back on Abby's show in a little while, in a couple weeks. And if you think that the people, whoever the fuck the people are, I guess the people in this situation are the goddamn Supreme Court. Don't talk to me. This goes to everyone. Goes to Scott. This goes to all of them. Don't talk to me. I don't want to talk about the rewatchables. I don't want to talk about none of this shit. Tiffany is right. Tiffany Cross is right. Tiffany Cross said a long time ago that she goes on these shows and she doesn't try to like chum around with everybody and be cool with everyone and talk during the. And everyone looked at Tiffany like there was something fucking wrong with her. Like, oh my God. We can have conversations with people and we can do all of this stuff and we can have all of these disagreements when the cameras are rolling, but we can also still ask about people's kids and talk about. And you know what? She's right. She's a million percent right. Her book Love Me is coming out pretty soon. We're hoping to have Tiffany on the show. She's a million percent right. Because if you don't want me to vote, you don't want me to live.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yep.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

If you're okay with this, you're okay with me being a permanent second class citizen in this country. If you're okay with this, if you think this is cool, you're okay with this. These states that we're talking about, where this is going to be the most serious. These are the blackest states.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

These are the states with the most black people. So this is intended to take that power base that could exist away from them. These are the states that should have the most representation, that need to have representation. I'm from a black city. Baton Rouge is 55% black. I'm from a black city. New Orleans is a black city. And then there are enclaves of blackness. There are some places in Louisiana that are just incredibly white, but there are some enclaves of blackness around where people exist. Maryguin, where my father is from, that's a small town full of black people. Right. And so there is both the issue of what's happening here in terms of the actual decision, but then there's also the goal. And the goal being to have niggas shut up. The way that they were shut up. Pre civil rights, even though they were still shouting. We've never been shut up. I hate to even do that to my ancestors. I gotta stop doing that. But what I'm saying right now is we can't be cool. And we shouldn't be cool with any of them. We should not be cool with any of them. Anybody no cool? If I can't vote, you can't fucking talk to me, man. If my grandmother and my mother and my. If they can't. If they can't go out and actually make a change where they are, you can't talk to me. You don't want me to be an American. It don't matter. What if it's in Georgia? Whoever's playing with the votes, whoever's playing with your access to being a full citizen's country, you can't fuck with them. And it don't matter. Don't talk to me because I'm bomb your ass out. I did it the last time. I talk about, like, don't talk to me. Don't move with me. I'm a bust your ass every time. I get you because you're an OP and you're not just an OP in terms of. We have a difference on what the tax rate should be. You're an OP in terms of the basic rights that I am guaranteed as a citizen of this country. And pass what I'm guaranteed. What niggas got shot in a fucking head for, it means more to me. It's like SEC football. Like, they got. They bled. They got fire hoses turned on them dogs bit them. They fucking had to have underground railroads, and they had to have intricate fucking webs of organization just so they could be people in this country. And I'm disrespecting them if I kick it with you. Yeah, that's just the way Tiffany is 1000% right. I'm disrespecting them if I kick it with you. I didn't see that. He said that.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, he said that.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

But, like, all of that shit, if you. If it's WWE on the. Like, on the fucking show, and if it's cordial behind the show. No. Devil all the time. Yeah, 100% devil all the time. Don't have devil me no more. Half Devil privileges. Privileges, yeah. Devil all the time. Devil, Devil, Devil. And when I say people can't vote, I mean, I'm not saying that they can't vote. In a lot of ways, they. They make it hard for them to vote. But I'm saying that they're taking away the power of that vote because they're going to come back and be like, oh, everybody can vote. It's just. Shut the fuck up. Don't talk to me. Tiffany's right.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Yeah, I know that's how you feel, too.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

I mean, you keep it real all the time.

[Rachel Lindsay]

No, you keep it real. You keep it real. There's a line, right? There's a line. Like you said, you're not disagreeing on something when it comes to taxes, blah, blah. But, like, when it comes to, like, life or death, when it comes to you trying to go back to a certain time. Because my question always is, how were you so impacted by the way the current map looked? How did me having representation within my district and within Congress affect you so badly? Like, that's what people like. That's what you're doing. You are taking away my representation because you so fear that happening to you. That's literally what it comes down to. I just, like, don't. I just.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

You're upset about it.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I'm upset, and I get upset every single time they chip away at something like this.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Chipper Jones.

[Rachel Lindsay]

But again, it's been Happening.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

We have. We have. Karen Bass is about to come on the show right now. She's the mayor of la, the current sitting mayor of la. She's also running for mayor of la against a lot of the people. Have you decided who you're gonna vote for, who you're supporting yet?

[Rachel Lindsay]

You don't know tbd. There's still time.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Karen. Does Karen have work to do to win your vote? Let's talk about it before she gets in here. She have work to do to win your vote?

[Rachel Lindsay]

I'm interested to see how this conversation goes, but, you know, in preparation for this, I've been doing quite a bit of research, and so, you know, I'm kind of. No, no, no, no, no, no. It's actually not like that at all. No, I just think, you know what? If I'm really honest, I think that a lot of people who are talking. First off, I think a lot of people who are talking about this race don't live in la, and that's because of somebody like Spencer Pratt being a part of it. And I think the second thing is a lot of people don't realize that. And this goes for governor's race, too. Some of this is such an impossible situation that you're asking. I'm not saying you shouldn't demand certain things because as a constituent, I would too. But the hole just keeps getting deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper. And I think it needs to be communicated of. There's only use the phrase we've been using. So much you can do to chip away. And that's more of where my questions and concerns lie than expecting an immediate, immediate change. Because it started before she got in office, from the mayor who was there eight years before her.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

All right, on the other side, let's break Karen Bass. Okay. We've promised you Mayor Karen Bass and we have delivered. Mayor Karen Bass for you. Thank you for joining us on Higher Learning.

[Karen Bass]

Thank you for having me on.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Let's just get started. Let's just get right into it. You ready to jump right into it?

[Karen Bass]

I'm ready to jump right into it.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Okay, you are in a race right now. You're the incumbent, and you are up against a pretty interesting field,

[Karen Bass]

I would say. So.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Yeah. You have some people running to the left of you, and then you have some people running from reality tv, like Spencer Pratt.

[Karen Bass]

Isn't that LA in California national now? Oh, that's true.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

My first question is, what do you think about Spencer Pratt being in the race?

[Karen Bass]

Not much. Not much. I think that he's an angry man, for some understandable reasons, of course, but I think he has and is exploiting the grief of others, and I think that's too bad.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

The source of that grief, of course,

[Karen Bass]

he lost his house.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

He lost his house in the fires. I know many people who lost their houses in the fires, and very few of those people are happy about the way that we've responded to the fires, the rebuilding. How much of that do you feel like resides with your office?

[Karen Bass]

Well, also, we have to distinguish, because I represent just the city of Los Angeles, which is not the Eaton fires, nor is it Malibu. So I wouldn't expect anybody to be happy after losing their house. And even though we have expedited things and things are going at very, very fast speed compared to other fires, until I'm back in my house, it's never gonna be fast enough. So I absolutely understand that, and I understand the anger. I know what grief is about. I've certainly experienced it in my life in a very profound way. And those stages of grief and emotion that people have, and a lot of that is directed at me, and I think that that is understandable. But what I think is unacceptable is when people exploit that for either profit and. Or celebrity. That's the part that is unacceptable to me. So what you should know is that in the Palisades, we have issued over 2000 permits, close to 3000, for over 1100 individual properties. We have over 400 homes that are actively under construction now, and many people will be moving in this summer. So if you compare that to other fires that took place in California, we're eight months and sometimes even longer ahead. But like I said, I qualify it. So to me, I'm going to do everything I can in the city and have done that. Now I'm actually having to take it national because what a lot of people are really upset about now is that here I want to build my house. I have my permits, I have my approvals, but I can't get insurance and the bank won't extend my mortgage. So that's what I'm fighting for now, in addition to green lighting the entire process. So people are getting permits in record time, but that's, again, not enough. So now it involves, instead of my direct power, it's advocacy. So I'm fortunate that I served in Sacramento and that I served in Washington, D.C. and that I served in Trump's first term. So I've taken a group of Palisadians to Sacramento to advocate for legislation. I've taken it to D.C. i have to Deal with the administration. We need billions of dollars in LA to pay for the infrastructure that the city is responsible for. So I've gone to D.C. i was there last week talking about this and advocating. So there's the direct responsibility that I have and then there is my responsibility to use the bully pulpit, to use my relationships and experience being in D.C. and Sacramento to hold the banks and insurance companies accountable.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay, I want to ask mask a couple of questions in a part of what you just said. When people go through something, they typically look for someone or something to blame. What do you feel like is a huge misconception about you or your time in office related to the fires? And you then you also mentioned, or I'll say the Palisades fire, because that's the one that's within Los Angeles County. And then also with that, you mentioned that you know, this is why you need to be back in your house so you can continue in building on also some of the work that you're doing now within your tenure. But then if you're reelected again. So I'm wondering, like, what structural changes are you, are you building on or working on implementing to improve wildfire prevention, evacuation communication and stuff related to around that. And then the other thing I'll add to this. Sorry, sorry, sorry. And I'll follow back. You mentioned working with or going to Washington and working with Trump and fema, but that you also talked about how people use this situation for their own benefit or to profit. And we saw President Trump do that to build up his own platform and profile. So what will it look like? How will you work with Washington D.C. when we've seen Trump use you and your office and this city in a negative way?

[Karen Bass]

So let me see if I can.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Sorry, sorry. I just went through everything. First thing I said is misconception.

[Karen Bass]

Oh, misconception. People look for something to blame misconception. And then fundamental changes to improve and

[Rachel Lindsay]

then work with Trump.

[Karen Bass]

And then how the heck do you work with Trump? Okay, so going back to the first one, the misconceptions, I mean, frankly, I think that what you saw even before I arrived, remember I was in Ghana because President Biden asked me to go represent the country. By the way, when I was in Congress, I was the point person in the House of Representative on Africa trade and investment policy. So it was not unusual for me to do that. And actually before I went, it was quite celebrated. It was a major news issue and all. But while I was on my way back, my opponent from the last time, who spent $110 million running against me. 110. He made US history. No mayoral election has cost that much. I spent 15 million to his.110. He spent a good 12 hours, because that's how long it takes to go from Ghana to the United States, not LA United States. And essentially dogging me for everything under the sun. So by the time I arrived back here in the States, I was the DEI mayor, and that was the only reason I was in office, was because I was a black woman, and that I had committed all sorts of atrocities to hide the fact that he had his own private fire department that protected his property. So the misconception started there, and then Trump comes in, like, a week later, and it was all about dei, because people are more familiar with the immigration rates. But when he came in, it was about us. Remember, he fired African Americans, all the top African Americans in the military, and also, you know, in the federal government at high ranks. So I felt a lot of that was transferred, and it wasn't just transferred to me, but it was transferred to other women high up in the city. So I think it started there, and then I think again in people's grief, the first stage of that is denial, and the second stage is anger. But what I know about the grieving process is you don't go through those stages in a linear fashion. They come all the time. Sometimes you can have them all at once at the same time. And people do have a relief if there is a target. So I've accepted the fact that I do understand anger is directed at me. I also was dealing with the fires from a family side, too. My brother lost his home. Uh, he lived in Malibu for 35 years and not lost everything. Uh, so while I'm dealing with it personally, I'm also dealing with it professionally. I rarely talk about that because to me, it's never about me. It's about my job, and it's about the people of Los Angeles, misconceptions about the process. No permits have been given. There's red tape here. All the stuff that is an actual direct lie. The Chinese are buying all of the Palisades. Nothing's being rebuilt. And. And I thought that was unfortunate, because while others are going through the grieving process, other people are exploiting that, and some people made money off of that. I don't know what Spencer made, but it might be interesting, because as a reality TV star, you know, he was a faded reality TV star. And now the question is, you know, he's back famous. He's got millions of Followers. And so I know that he's grieving and I know that he's angry. I know also believe that it's been exploited.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

You think his motivations are purely cynical. You don't think there's any part of him that thinks, I can fix the city and make it better?

[Karen Bass]

Well, I mean, I don't know what he knows about the city. Fair enough. From listening to what he says he's gonna do for the city. I'm not sure he's ever been to City Hall. I'm not sure he understands how government works at all. I don't get that from listening to him. He conflates and confuses all sorts of things.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

I want to pick back up on something you said earlier about the Eden fire itself. That fire out there in Altadena, that is where a lot of the blackest people of the city, the blackest. That's where I know what you. We felt the outsized influence of that fire. A lot of black people lost their homes. You said that you don't have power.

[Karen Bass]

Any authority.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Any authority. Do you feel compelled to specifically address those people who are in those type of economic situations? Especially though, I mean, you are the mayor, right. You don't have any power, but who's advocating on behalf of the people in the East?

[Karen Bass]

So let me just say that, and I really appreciate you bringing this up, because I know for a lot of African Americans, why is she only concerned about the people in the Palisades?

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

We have somebody in our family directly who lost their home here that works on the show.

[Karen Bass]

Well. And I know a lot of people that were victims of the Eaton fire. So Altadena, unfortunately, as you probably know, is not a city. It is an unincorporated area. So it is not governed by any city. And as an unincorporated area, like, we have a lot of unincorporated areas. View Park, Ledera Heights. Those are not in the city of Los Angeles. They're in the county. So Eaton is governed by the supervisors. So it's the county supervisor that is in charge, and that's Catherine Barger. We work together very, very closely. When I went to dc, she was with me. So our advocacy has been together. But it would be like me going and trying to take over Pasadena or going and trying to take over another city. It's not only that you have no authority. There's no jurisdiction at all.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Are they reticent to have you there? Are they, like, stay out of our business type of situation? Because I know a lot of times with other issues, if you went over there and you tried to tell them how to zone their city or how to do whatever, hey, this is la. They might not want that, but in this situation, these people probably feel. They probably culturally feel like Angelenos and they're wondering if the city can help them at all.

[Karen Bass]

Well, but. And see, it's very difficult for me to go in there. I would never exploit their grief, I would never play with their grief. And to go over there and say that the city of Los Angeles could help an area that I have no jurisdiction over would not be honest. And so of course I interact with people from the area and, and I have been invited to different things. But one of the things that I think is really important about the grieving process is to be straight with people, which is why I have so much anger to people who have exploited it when they know stuff is not true, like nothing is being built or, you know, I've issued no permits or I've done this or I've done that. It's not so much that it's directed at me because, like, if I don't have the ability to deal with this, you know, to deal with people directing anger and all at me, then I'm in the wrong job. And I can tolerate that. But I would never exploit it by going over it. I'm black, I'm here. I can do something for you when I know good and well I cannot.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

I have one last question about the fires, and it's about the After Action Report. The Times found out. They found that Drafts of the LAFD's After Action Report included some deletions and revisions that appear to soften the city's framework, like trying to launder it after it happened. Who ordered those changes? And what does that say about the actuality of accountability coming from your administration?

[Karen Bass]

So let me just say something about that because I've been disappointed at the Times reporting because I think the Times is better than that. And I've certainly raised it with the leadership at the Times. So I want you to think about this for a minute. I fired the police chief because she did not deploy, she did not do the preparation of the city. And by the way, the county didn't do the preparation either. And so I fired her for the reasons that they say. The report was watered down. The report justified my actions. Why would I water down a report that supported. Absolutely not. Why would I? It makes no logical sense. Now, what does make logical sense is the fact that the people who are high up in the fire department who made mistakes, and they readily admitted those Mistakes A couple of them did on tv. Whose interest was it to water down that report? It wasn't in my interest to do that. I ordered the report. I wanted the report to say what happened and to back up frankly, what I was saying, because I felt like it would. It was very objective. The fire chief had the ability to keep an entire shift on. She would have had plenty of firefighters. There were fire engines that were left idle not because they were broken, but because there weren't any firefighters to be on those fire trucks. She did no pre deployment to the Palisades. All of those things were documented in that report. The fire department of, sure, I'm ultimately responsible for anything. And everything that happens. Okay.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Stops with you.

[Karen Bass]

But the report was done internal to the fire department. So that's why I told the Times. You guys are. This is beneath you.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

You felt like the reporting was inaccurate or you felt like there was a slant to it?

[Karen Bass]

Because I thought that the reporting was inaccurate and there was a slant to it.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Both.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay, you done on fire? Yes, I'm switching.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

That's it. No more fire.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay. I want to switch to homelessness.

[Karen Bass]

Yeah.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Because that's something.

[Karen Bass]

That's why I ran.

[Rachel Lindsay]

That's why you ran. And, you know, as a resident here, a lot of people, you know, are upset and disappointed and feel like they don't. They feel like they don't see anything happening. For you, what are some concrete outcomes? Because you did initiate a plan. But some people say that that plan is too costly. I think you've said it's not sustainable long term. So what is sustainable? What is something that we can do? If you. For the people who say, or the critics who say, hey, we didn't see anything done or we don't feel like anything's being done, what would you do differently? How would that look? If the current plan isn't sustainable, then what is the plan?

[Karen Bass]

So let me be clear, because what. First of all, I ran. I decided to leave Congress. I wasn't tired of Congress. I wasn't looking for a new job, but I was really, really worried about what was happening in the city. And unfortunately, we've had a generation and a half grow up the kind of thing people have always been on the streets. Well, that was not the case, that people were always on the streets. I remember how this started. And unfortunately, it exploded early on because of crack cocaine. And so I started an organization in the 90s to address what I knew was later going to become mass incarceration. That organization was called Community Coalition. I started it on 85th and Broadway. When we were having 1,000 homicides in LA, the Crips and the Bloods were at their height and crack cocaine was at its height. That was when homelessness actually switched races and became more African American. Black folk are 9% of the population of LA. We are 30% of the people on the streets. So I never said it was not sustainable. What I said is that my job on day one was to get people off the street. Street before, right after I was sworn in, I put the city in a state of emergency. I said the number one thing I have to do is to get people off the street. For the first time, we have reduced homelessness on our streets by almost 18%. Homelessness went up in the country. 18%. Have I solved a problem that's been 35 years old? No. Did I make very specific inroads by addressing street homelessness with a comprehensive plan for the first time in this city? Yes. Have I expedited the building of housing? I fast tracked 42,000 units of housing that is being built. 6,000 of those units are being built right now. So we have profected how to get people off the streets. We have removed over 120 encampments. I think what's sad is that if you passed an encampment every day and it's gone, you may or may not remember it, but we have a sharp reduction in street encampments than we did before I came in. It's my plan to continue doing that, but to build out now. One of the most important aspects of the system, and that is once we get people off the street, we put them in motels. That's where the cost comes in and we can't sustain that cost. We know how to get people off the street. We have perfected that. I will continue that. We need to come up with which we have a better way once we get them off the street, that's less expensive than motels. So what we are doing, and we've started to do this, but I want to do it full bore in the next term, is we are building housing, cheaper, less expensive housing on publicly owned land. So the city owns a lot of land. The school district, there's a lot of publicly owned land. So we don't have to go through those costs and then perfecting what the types of support that people need when they do come off the street. So reducing street homelessness. For the first time, our city, the only thing that had been happening was street homelessness. It had been increasing. So as I Said, did I solve a 30 year problem in three years? I did not. Am I clear what the roadmap is to in street homelessness? I am. We made some very bad policy decisions years ago that have led to the problem we have. For example, in New York, they have 80,000 homeless people. 97% of them are in shelters or some form of housing. We made a decision in this city, not me and not you. Policymakers made a decision in this city, I suspect maybe 25 years ago that the way out of this problem was to build. You can't. You got to get people off the street first. They made a conscious decision to not get people off the street with the belief that 60% of the people on the street will work their way out of it. So while they were focusing on building and not paying attention to the red tape, then street homelessness exploded. It didn't happen in New York. So that bad policy decision I've been fighting with, because I'm going to tell you something, and it's an interesting thing because the people who are really hardcore, they don't look like you. They believe that you should just focus on building housing. So even though I have cut the red tape, I mentioned the 42,000 units. It's still going to take a couple of years to build. I don't think it's okay for our people to be on the street with 30 some percent Latinos are 40, 74%. This is a black brown issue.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

I think the homelessness issue, and you can catch me up on this if I'm wrong, is a fundamental one to me. I look at it sort of like, is the culture, economy and reality of Los Angeles creating citizens that are housed or unhoused? Meaning economically, is there enough upward mobility? Is there enough of attention paid to mental health issues? Are we identifying people who are on the verge of being unhoused? Are there enough jobs at entry level positions to where people who are living, check to check, can find some place to work? Is there enough in our makeup that is creating Angelenos people, human beings who can establish some type of life that is not unhoused and also can continue to move forward. Forward and buy homes and establish wealth? I think those things are fundamental to understanding this problem. Do you agree or do you disagree?

[Karen Bass]

Well, I agree. I don't think that's complete.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Okay, tell me what I'm.

[Karen Bass]

I think that it is important to understand the diversity of the unhoused population. There are sectors of people that are unhoused for different reasons. So let me just go Through a few. Do you know that the fastest growing sector of unhoused folks, homeless people, are elderly women in their late 60s and 70s, mainly women of color, majority black women who are falling into homelessness. They worked in the service industry, can't survive off of Social Security if they're lucky enough to have it.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Well, they own homes. That wouldn't have happened to them, though, right?

[Karen Bass]

Well, well, yes, exactly, because they were lower income enough. But you have another sector of teenagers who are in the foster care system when they turn 18 or 21. We cut them off from their resources. You have people who were the victims of mass incarceration because we weren't able to stop it, even though we tried everything we could. And so while we were in our war on crime, period, we passed so many laws that penalize people whether they're in prison and when they get out. And so you have formerly incarcerated people who basically can't get a driver's license, can't get a job, can't be in housing because there's laws that prohibit them from renting. And so you have that sector. You have veterans who. We actually have the housing for them, but they weren't allowed to receive the vouchers. We had 3,000 unused vouchers that I couldn't give out to a veteran because we had policies on the federal level that said, if you were a veteran and took your disability benefits, I'm going to count it as your income. And I'm going to say you make too much money. It took me a year and a half. I mobilized 50 mayors from around the country. We went to D.C. because I worked there. The House, the Senate and the White House, we got them to change that policy. So now I'm getting veterans in those 3,000 vouchers. Now we're down to about a thousand. So we've been housing vouchers with that. It's critically important to look at people in the sector that they represent. You have people that were not addicted and fell into homelessness and become addicted. Commonly, people take meth to stay awake at night so that they don't get assaulted. And I say to everybody, you try sleeping on the street for two weeks and tell me your mental health is the same as it was when you were housed. You tell me you sleep on the street for a couple of weeks and tell me you're not using drugs just to survive. So unfortunately, we have stereotyped homeless people. We have boiled them down into a few categories. And by the way, there are people who are just economically unhoused they just don't have enough for first and last month's rent. They just fell behind because they got laid off. That's a category of homelessness. But if they don't get housed soon, they fall into these other categories. So one thing I initiated as soon as I came in was a project to prevent people from being homeless. Like what you said. We know because of policies the city council passed, we know who's facing eviction. I started a nonprofit to deal with this. So it's separate from the city, raised independent money for it. And so we reach out to those people, we provide them legal services. We also, a lot of people don't realize they're eligible for a lot of public benefits. And if they could get the public benefits, they might be able to raise their income enough to stay housed. So we're working on the prevention and we're also working on getting people off the streets. We are working on buildings so they will have permanent housing. And we're working on a more cost effective way. While you're in interim. What the city should have done years ago is they should have built a system of interim housing where somebody can go for a year to a year and a half, get their lives back together, address whatever their problems are so they'll be prepared to go into housing. The rigid ideology that has governed this issue for so many years said the only thing a homeless person needs is an apartment. Now you put somebody from a tent and put them in an apartment and guess how that's going to work out. Most of the time people are not ready for that. So you have people who then fall out because they don't know. They haven't addressed why their life collapsed in the beginning. The other thing that's going to come online very soon is funding. Well, funding is online now, but mental health facilities and substance abuse facilities, because it's not enough to say they need this or they need that when we don't have it, but now we're beginning to have it. And as a matter of fact, not too far from here on Alvarado and Beverly, St. Vincent's Hospital that has the capacity for 800 beds has been vacant for years. You know what? We've been using it for the pit film location. Now, I'm big on film location.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

We have to talk about that later on.

[Karen Bass]

I'm big on that. But we need beds for people so that they can deal with what's wrong. So it's a really complex issue.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

I guess my great answer. I guess my question was, or my Observation was all of that.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Right.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

It seems like all of that has to do with a city that's not aligned from a priority standpoint with the needs of the average person. Right. Whatever you're talking about, whether it be the va, which is kind of, that is income, it seems like systemically there is a contagion that doesn't say, hey, we're invested into the average working person here and the stability that they experience is good for, for our city, be that here in Los Angeles or in San Francisco or anywhere else. Because if we were considered about considering things like that, we would make sure that housing was affordable. We would make sure that all of these other facilities and all these other things were available to people. I think that priority reset is gonna be key to long lasting movement on this issue.

[Karen Bass]

100%. But you are talking about some of the fundamentals of our society. So let me just say that one of the issues that's challenging for us, but it's different for a city like San Francisco. We have divided government here. So what the city does is housing. The county is responsible for services. And in San Francisco, San Francisco and New York are one. They are a city and a county. So the mayor can come in and the mayor has control over many of the things that you said in the city of Los Angeles, our government does not function that way. But fundamental, in my opinion, to the United States of America, the way our economic system is set up, it is not based on human needs. We have privatized everything under the sun. People drown and fall into homelessness because they can't pay their health care. They get sick, they get off work, they miss work, they lose their job, and next thing they know, everything spirals. I've met people who are homeless because they got diagnosed with cancer, of course. And so what you're saying though, is really fundamental to our economic system. It's not something that one jurisdiction is going to be able to solve, but some jurisdictions, like New York and San Francisco have a greater ability because they are one system, whereas we are not. New York includes schools. I do not run schools here. We have an independent school, school board.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Can you name the. The organization that you were talking about, the independent non profit that you said that you.

[Karen Bass]

Oh, sure. It's called Community Coalition.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay, Is that you? Was there two or just that one? I just want to make sure. Because you didn't name it when you

[Karen Bass]

were talking about Community Coalition, also known as coco.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay.

[Karen Bass]

But I did start other non profits. I started another one called the National Foster Youth Institute.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay.

[Karen Bass]

And by the way, our foster girls, you know where they are their own Figueroa.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah. I want to get you the chance to respond to something and it's about displacement and homelessness and affordability and it kind of goes with all that. Some challengers accuse you of prioritizing big development projects over longtime residents or long term residents, I guess I should say, which leads to displacement. How would you respond to that? And can you name something that you've done that actually contradicts that, that prioritizes community over bigger?

[Karen Bass]

Yeah, that's interesting. I've not heard that one before. I don't know what big development projects they're talking about, but here's what I can tell you.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I'll say the I know I've seen criticism in regards to the Crenshaw Mall and that going up or that that's coming down or the area is coming down and that they're putting up condos instead. So like some people point to maybe cultural erasure or not prioritizing the community in that sense.

[Karen Bass]

Yeah, actually I think that's the opposite is true because. And it's not high income housing that's being put there. There's a lot of affordable housing that is going in right in that area. And by the way, that's my community. So I mean, I'm living elsewhere now because there's a mayoral residence, but my house is right off of La Brea. So this is a community I've been dedicated to my entire life. And actually I'm taking a lot of criticism for the opposite reason because there's a lot of people who believe in building housing in anywhere and everywhere and they're very critical of me because I'm not supporting that. And I'll tell you one of the reasons why I'm not supporting that is because I believe it's going to lead to gentrification in our neighborhoods. So for example, you got Leimert park, you have those areas over there where black people were not even allowed to live. And there's some people that think that those areas should be replaced with apartments. I disagree. And so I think that our council president, by the way, Marquise Harris Dawson is the best example of what has happened on Crenshaw and on Crenshaw, as you know, now there's a strip of Crenshaw that is all hundreds of units of housing is being put there because I would rather see housing there than to put housing in where the single family homes are and make people have to leave who've been there for years. And so I talked to non for profit developers who I was all excited about because they were hot to build housing because of my executive directive. And so I'm talking to them and I'm like, yeah, we need housing on the west side, we need housing here, we need housing there. Oh, I only want to build in south la. And that's when it occurred to me, yeah, you want to build to south la, because those people don't have the resources to tie you up in court. I know all this housing is not going to be built in Brentwood. You want to come over to our neighborhoods. And the rationale I got back is, well, people will be able to return in three years. It's like, first of all, you don't know that.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Right, of course.

[Karen Bass]

So I've actually had the exact opposite fight and have been criticized for the exact opposite reason. So that's an interesting one for me.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

You talk about your roots as an organizer in South LA. Your proposed budget lays off 1600 city workers and it increases the LAPD's budget to around 3.3 billion. Billion. A lot of those city workers are black and brown. How do you reconcile your roots as an organizer with that budget?

[Karen Bass]

Well, you're talking about the budget from last year, not this year. We laid off no people.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Nobody was laid off.

[Karen Bass]

No. And I'll tell you that by city charter, I have to present a budget by a certain date. Okay. Last year we were facing a billion dollar deficit. So the date that I had to present the budget, if you view it this way, that's how much money we had in the bank. So I absolutely presented a budget that called for 1600 layoffs. I had to because of that date. But what I did at the same time I presented the budget, was made a commitment that I was going to fight to make sure there were no layoffs at all. And we did that and we accomplished that. And my concern was exactly the reason you just said, because of what has happened to the public sector. And after, if you remember, because our memories are so short, if you remember Elon Musk coming in under President Trump and you remember how he slashed like 10 years. I know, doesn't it? Because the trauma has been so significant. It does.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Remember Doge, everybody.

[Karen Bass]

Yeah, right, right. But, but, but who lost their jobs with Doge? 300,000 black women, but also black people all over the place. We know that historically and generations before US relied 100% on the government because that's the only people that would hire them. So with a workforce that had been wiped out of black folk. You think I'm going to do that in the city of la? Understand that I ran for office rather late in life. The majority of my life has been spent in the private sector, working in hospitals. I was a nurse for a long time. I worked in the nicu, the newborn icu. I worked in LA County's emergency room in the trauma unit. And many of my patients were unhoused. I was an activist after work, working in the anti apartheid movement, working around police reform, working those issues since I was in middle school because I made a decision as a child. I wanted to spend my life fighting for justice. And that's exactly what I've done. After working in the emergency room for a number of years, I joined the faculty of USC Medical School, teaching students how to work in the emergency room. And then I got obsessed over what crack was doing. And that's when I started Community Coalition. I walked away from a very comfortable career to go to 85th and Broadway, go in the middle of all of the violence, and come up with strategies to prevent the violence, which I'll talk about in a minute, and then also to address crack, because what was happening is politicians, the only thing they wanted to do was pass laws to lock people up. Where I view crack as a health issue. And I viewed gang involvement as an economic issue and as a justice issue. And I started another organization internal to Community Coalition called South Central Youth, Empowered through Action to focus on training the next generation of activists based on how I grew up. And one of the leaders of the organization who I hired straight after he graduated Morehouse, is Marquise Harris Dawson, who is today the president of the City Council. So I have focused on training new leaders, and then after doing that for a while, then I ran for office. So I've had two lives before ever thinking about running for office. And I'm sorry, that was a long way from the question.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

No, no, no, no. I think it's.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I think.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

I think it's important. I just.

[Rachel Lindsay]

What are the.

[Karen Bass]

What is.

[Rachel Lindsay]

What is the referral then? What are they referring to when they're talking about the 1500 city employees that will be laid off? What is that in reference to then?

[Karen Bass]

Well, it's 16, and that was in reference to a budget I presented April of last year.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay, so that never happened.

[Karen Bass]

No, it never happened, but. But I had to say that because that's how much money was in the bank on April 20th of last year.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Gotcha.

[Karen Bass]

I have a constitutional date in which I have to come forward and present where we Are at that moment, no one, no one was laid off

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

specifically about the 3.3 billion dollar police.

[Karen Bass]

Yes.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

We've been attempting to have a conversation about reimagining budgets for police. Call it defund the police, whatever you want to call it. I think that the core of the conversation is about how much money the police need to be increasingly militarized and how much money communities need to be healthy. $3.3 billion is a lot of money for people asking why the police need that much money when there are communities around there that could use that funding. What would your answer be?

[Karen Bass]

So, a few things. One is, in our city, believe it or not, we actually have a relatively small police department for the size of our population. Let me just compare it. We have 8,500 officers right now. Chicago has 2 million folks with 12,000 officers. I'm very concerned about the games coming forward and what we have to do there. And with this president, I'm very concerned about the military coming in and, and taking over. But the police department's budget, which basically has been more or less stable for a number of years, 90 some percent of it, and I might be exaggerating a little bit, is for the officers. So people also complain about not being able to, well, the police response time being slow and also police overtime costing so much money. It's a chicken and egg thing because if you don't have enough officers, then they're going to wind up charging a lot of money for overtime. My overall belief, and by the way, I started working on police abuse and police reform decades ago. When I was in Congress, I was in charge of the George Floyd justice and Policing Act. So I'm not one that believes in defunding the police. I don't. I believe in a comprehensive approach to public safety. And as mayor, in some neighborhoods in our city, they want a huge amount of police. In other neighborhoods, like our neighborhoods, nobody's calling for that. So in my job as mayor, I do what the community wants. So in south la, it's about programs, and in the Valley it's about cops. There's a surge that's happening right now in the Valley of robberies. And so I've surged police in the, in that area, they want police, they want the horses, the mounted police, they want detectives, and they get what they want. In south la, people want programs. So one of the things that I did at Community Coalition 30 some years ago was started pioneering efforts to one, get kids out of gangs, prevent kids from going into gangs, addressing recidivism, people coming out of incarceration and the community based Community Violence Interrupters. You're familiar with that, of course, the

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Working Like a Charm in Baltimore, places like that.

[Karen Bass]

Right, right, right. So some of that work was pioneered here and grew out of community. Not just community organization, but Community Coalition was one of the organizations that pioneered that work. That was one of the things I wanted to do when I came in. And so I started for the first time an office of Community Safety that focuses on the prevention. I have always worked with the intervention. The intervention folks. And for example, when I was running, they wanted me to give them a raise in salary. They were making $40,000 a year. No, I'm sorry. They were making less than 30,000 a year. They wanted me to raise their salary to 40,000. I said no, because that's a crazy amount of money. Nobody can survive on 40,000. I raised their salary to 60,000. And I think that's way too low for their work because these are people, they're majority guys, but they're not all guys. All of them have been incarcerated. And we don't want them to go back into that life. So don't give them money that they can barely survive on and then be surprised that they don't dip their toe back in doing what they were doing before. And so I have focused a lot on them. I have worked with them for the last 30 years. And obviously there's a lot of new people now, but we'll continue doing that work. I think one of the things that has been that I needed to be better at is promoting that side of the work. But that is a real fundamental part of my administration. The other thing I focused on is unarmed responses to crime. So, for instance, I believe that in the police department, a lot of what police do now is because we have decimated the social service. I mean, you know, police officers shouldn't have to deal with society's problems. They that we've refused to fund and which is homelessness, substance abuse, mental health, all the things we're talking about. If you look at officer involved shootings, and by the way, I see every tape, there is a large percentage of the shootings that are of people who are mentally ill. Because as a society, we basically decided to leave mentally ill people on the street until they deteriorate into violence. So we either kill them or we incarcerate them. And I think that we need to hospitalize them and take care of them. But that's not the choice our society has made. We're beginning to turn the corner a Little bit on that. So the picture I'm trying to paint for you is that I do think we need law enforcement, but I am equally, if not more invested on non law enforcement. I wanted to mention one program that we're taking citywide now, it's called circle. And what we do now is that if you call 911 and you need a police officer, you talk to somebody who decides maybe you don't need a police officer. And so instead of sending out the cops because there's a naked homeless person, they send out CIRCLE staff, which are social service providers, social workers, et cetera. And we started that. We had did it in a few council districts and now we're spreading it citywide.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I want to, for the next term, I want to know what it is that you prioritize. Like we talked about homelessness in the last one, that's something big that you ran on. What are two, three things that are a priority to you? Because you've talked a lot about a lot of different things, whether they be programs that you've implemented, things that you see a change that you want to do, build on further in the next term. What is it that you're prioritizing and how will you work with the City Council in getting those things done or whether it's a proposed budget? Because I also think a lot of people understand because it's so easy to sensationalize things on social media.

[Karen Bass]

Oh boy.

[Rachel Lindsay]

The structure in LA when it comes to mayor and City Council.

[Karen Bass]

Right.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I think a lot of people get that wrong.

[Karen Bass]

Right.

[Rachel Lindsay]

So if you can talk with, explain that a little bit and then how you will work with city council and the things that you want to prioritize in the next, in your next tenure.

[Karen Bass]

First of all, remember I was in Congress, so I've worked with people who have extreme views on the other side. That's not la. And so I don't have a difficult time. We obviously, we have our disagreements and we do have divided power, but it's not difficult for me to work with City council. I think I've had a lot of experience working in extreme conditions. The mayor in the City Council of LA is not an extreme polarization in terms of what I want to do in the next term. And by the way, the frustrating thing is to not have a next term and to not be able to take what I'm trying to do into completion. So I'm very clear about homelessness now. And what I want to see at the end of my four years is that we have addressed street Homelessness. In other words, you will not see large encampments anymore. Skid row is a separate discussion, and we should talk about that. But what you will see after another term is you'll see a tent here and a tent there. That will come and go, because dealing with an individual tent is no problem. What a lot of people don't realize is that when you see an encampment, there might be 25 or 50 people there. What we have done differently is we take everybody. That was never done before, which is why you never saw encampments go away. Even though they might have been homing, they might have been housing three or four people, but you never saw them go away. Not until now. And so I want to be able to essentially set a roadmap that we get our way out of this, because the city nor the county have ever been committed to ending street homelessness. And I can't bear to see my people on the street with policymakers who think that's okay. That's one thing. I want to really build out this office of Community Safety and expand it, because that is how I started 30 some years ago. And again, a lot of what I'm doing today was stuff that was started, that has been perfected. And now what I love about being mayor, for me, it's like full circle, because now I'm getting and I have the authority to do what I was working on. But limited authority as a community activist. Well, no authority, just your advocacy, you know, as a community activist. But basic quality of life here. Why do we have street lights out? What the heck happened here? This deterioration of our basic infrastructure. So, you know, for example, street lights were very frustrating, but I came up with a way to replace the lights. And what they were doing is they were replacing them with copper, knowing full well that the copper would be stolen right after. So why are we doing that? So I'm replacing the lights now with solar. So we're rolling out 60,000 new lights. I want to see that to its completion. And we need more than 60,000. So when you're at the halfway mark, it's like, I want to be able to follow through. And frankly, the people that I'm running against, Lord knows, I'm sorry, but I do believe we would take a step backwards, because I think that a couple of the people running think they have better solutions for homelessness, which I think are totally unrealistic. But I also come at this, especially the homeless issue. It's personal to me. I look like the people on the street. I do And I feel that to my bone. And to me, it is a mission. So I get to. I don't get to do it often, but I go out with our team and by the way, the people, our team, I wish you could talk to some of them. Everybody on our team that goes out day after day dealing with this, all of them are graduates of the University of Hard Knox. Every single one of them, incarcerated, addiction, homeless, former foster youth, traffic, you name it. And they go out there and in some ways, put their lives at risk getting these folks off the street. And one of the things I enjoy most are the opportunities I have to do that with them. And I go and I talk to the people and I touch them when they want. I shake their hands and tell them and look at our folks and tell them, you deserve more than this. You deserve more than this. And people cry and say, where you take me? Am I going to be able to begin to shower? My problem is, is that. I'm sorry, I got a little throat.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

We're all going through.

[Karen Bass]

My problem is, is that I don't do it very well because I get too attached. So some. And they're like, oh, no, here she comes again. So after they leave and they go into a motel, in some instances, I will follow up with them, especially if they have a medical issue. And I've gone to the hospital and it's interesting to show up with my security detail, you know, at an emergency room, like, who are you here for? I'm here for that guy who was in a tent, because I know if I don't show up that he's going to be treated. And I went this. Because I know that this one guy, he was an amputee and his foot was infected. I made him go immediately to the emergency room because I knew if he stayed in that motel three weeks, he was going to die. I knew that and I said, he's got to go to the emergency room right now. I also knew that if I hadn't shown up in the emergency room, they were going to take his other leg, because that's cheap. That's the easiest thing to do. And he's a guy on the street. And so I also have taken this so far that I hired an internal medicine doctor as my deputy mayor for homelessness. So then she goes and follows the people. Because what I've learned in this issue is that the people that worked on this, that have worked on it for years, they don't know the people. They know housing, but they don't know us. And So I want to make sure that we have the care we need. So I'm right in the middle now of being able to create an entirely new system. I don't want to walk away halfway through it. But this is my last rodeo, so I'm leaving it all on the field. I'm not doing this because next I'm going to run for this, that, or the other. I have spent my life fighting for justice. I don't have to be an elected official to do that, but I do have to be an elected official to finish my job.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Before I get to the entertainment industry, you were talking about Skid Row and also, like, even pulling out from there. I was driving to a birthday party, and it was night, and I was stopped outside of, like, MacArthur Park park, basically, like Wilshire, Alvarado, like, around that area.

[Karen Bass]

Yep.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

It was insane out there.

[Karen Bass]

Fentanyl Corner.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Just going crazy out there. And for. I was like a Republican for five seconds. I was looking. Somebody's gotta do something about this. Okay, like what? Like what? Like what? Who's gonna clean up the streets? Like that legitimately happened to me and has never happened to me before. Areas like that that are getting closer to downtown and then into Skid Row. You were talking about that. Like, what is the answer there?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Karen Bass]

So. And MacArthur park is an interesting case, by the way. I go by it almost every day. And you can drive by MacArthur park on some days, and it's, like, completely

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

gorgeous when I go to church at first Congressional, like, over there. But you. But then the other times, it is just jumping, right? Yeah.

[Karen Bass]

When the dope mans come.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Right.

[Karen Bass]

And I look at the date. What's the date today? So what we're suffering from now. And it's heartbreaking to me because when I started Community Coalition, the full name of the organization is Community Coalition for Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment. I told you, I started it at the height of the crack cocaine epidemic. During those days, we used to have residential drug treatment programs. We've gotten rid of most of the drug treatment programs. There's different philosophy in place now that I do not agree with. And part of that philosophy basically says, you'll be okay, you'll come around. We don't really need residential treatment. You know, if you want treatment, you know, you can come in. That's not what people need. That's not what they needed in the 90s, and that's not what they need now. They need a place to stay and get off drugs. I don't think it's okay to use Fentanyl Fentanyl is more deadly than crack ever was because. And you see people, how they bend over. It creates the bends, just like pcp. People used to get naked because their body temperature rose so much. So I don't think that's okay. But we don't have the drug treatment programs now, but they are beginning to come back. And so voters, a year and a half ago voted for a proposition to put money in for mental health institutions. Like I said, the St. Louis.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Or you could just take the city's budget,

[Karen Bass]

you know, But I can't, because the city doesn't do drug treatment. It's the county. But I don't know what we would accomplish with that either, because we also need. In my opinion, you know, we do need law enforcement, too, but we need drug treatment programs that are residential programs. They're beginning to come online now. But until they come online, what we do now is pass out Narcan. I'm glad we pass out Narcan because it saves people's lives, but I would much rather have them have a place to go. So my point is that you see all the people suffering from addiction in MacArthur park, there's nowhere for them to go. And some people say, why don't you just round them up? And sometimes I feel like I wish I could, but more than that, I wish I had some place to take them.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

From what I saw and what I've seen a couple of times going back out there, it worries me about when the Olympics come.

[Karen Bass]

Yeah.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Oh, yeah.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

And the reason why I say that, a lot of people are like, why are you thinking about the Olympics? Because I feel like those people are going to get jackbooted.

[Karen Bass]

You're right.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

And be treated right really inhumanely. Around that time, it happens in other cities because people are going to want to remove the blight from the streets. And I'm concerned about those people.

[Karen Bass]

And so am I. Which is why I want to continue on. Because let me tell you, you tell me what plan the other folks have. So here's the thing. That's why I said Skid row is a little different, because skid row is a concentrated group of about. Well, we don't really know how many people there are, but about 4 to 5,000 people in one location. And MacArthur park, believe it or not, there's not homeless people in MacArthur Park. They use drugs. They go someplace else. They use drugs in those alleys. They do not sleep in the park. So MacArthur park is about drug trafficking and addiction. Skid Row is a whole life and A community in and of itself and an economy that's not all based on drugs. So we have to come up with some way to get to scale quick. And basically that's gonna look at really congregate housing, but not the congregated housing of the past, which is a cot in a warehouse. So the market has produced better housing. That is, you have a modicum of privacy, but it is a lot of people in one place. And we're gonna have to come up with that, because here's my concern. If we don't, I think Trump will, and I think we know what he'll do, because we know what he's doing with the immigration issue is mass detention centers. That's why I'm trying to work as hard as I can to come up with a way of doing it. And the way to do it is on public land. And basically serving in Congress, I spent a lot of time overseas. I've been to war zones. I've been to the Middle East a number of times. And we have the capacity to build cities. We do. The military does. They do it all the time. And so we have to do housing on a major scale that is humane and is organized. I believe if the Trump administration does it, it's going to be like Alligator Alcatraz, that kind of facility that will be like a. Kind of a temporary jail. I don't want to see that happen. But I think he's been pretty clear that he'll come, so that's why I'm trying as fast as I can. We have a lot of plans going on around that, and I would like to be able to implement those plans now. The. Obviously, the biggest roadblock is funding, and I am hopeful that we might be able to get funding from the federal government, but we take care of it and not them.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I'll let you ask. You've been so generous with your time. Thank you. I'll let you ask your Hollywood question before I wrap up.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Oh, no, actually, I have to ask the Hollywood question, but actually, I have two small questions. Both come with stories. When I'm walking in my neighborhood. I'm sorry? When I'm walking in my neighborhood, I stop and I get the. The tahin with the. The fruit with the tahin on top of it, from the.

[Karen Bass]

The vendors.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

The vendors love them, love them, love them. It tastes amazing. Like, it's. It's fantastic. One day, I was walking past there. There's a normal guy there.

[Karen Bass]

He's MacArthur Park.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

No, it wasn't MacArthur Park. This is, like, closer Where I live. And the normal guy wasn't there. His daughter was there. His daughter was there. She was taken. Yeah. She spoke English, and she. He. Me and him never speak. Whatever. The daughter was there. Now. I didn't ask her. We talked a little bit about it. Either he had been taken or he was afraid to be there.

[Karen Bass]

That's right.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Because of his immigration status. And that was the first time that it. That it registered with me that I'm living with a community of people who are terrified of walking around and doing the things that they've always done. How are you going to protect our brown neighbors?

[Karen Bass]

Right. But our brown and black neighbors.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Brown and black neighbors, because.

[Karen Bass]

Yeah, plenty of black immigrants.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Yeah, of course.

[Karen Bass]

You know, one of the things that I'm so proud of in our city is that we didn't crack. We were all so clear when those raids happened.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

We raged.

[Karen Bass]

Absolutely. And also I'm proud of our city because we have a real robust network of immigrant rights organizations that have been around for a long time, most of whom, if not most, of whom, I've worked with for a long time, since the 80s. And so I joined that, invited them in. All the policies I've done have been done with the immigrant rights organizations at the table. So banning ICE from having any connection to city property, because what ICE does is they try to. They'll go into a police parking lot or a fire parking lot or some other city facility and try to stage a raid. Parks a lot. And so I prohibited city property from being used by ice. We've raised money for immigrant families. We've filed a lawsuit and been successful. So anything that we can do with the power of the city, we have done. The problem, of course, is, again, that divided authority. So the federal government can come in and do whatever they want to do, and we do not have the ability to stop them. But it is most important that we are supportive of the protests. The protests are absolutely critical. And because we have to push back. And remember, this all started here. We were the experiment, and then it went nationwide. And that was completely predictable. And I said that. So I also work with mayors. Three days after the raid, which was June 6 of last year, I was on the phone with over 120 mayors around the country. We're all in communication with each other. When one of us does a policy that we think works in their city, we take it. Mayor Johnson, for example, did some policies that he sent to me, and I immediately implemented them. After working with the immigrant rights groups, I've also convened all of the mayors, you know, by the way, in our county, we have 88 cities in our county, which means we have 87 other mayors. And that doesn't include the unincorporated areas like Altadena. And so I've convened the mayors, we've had hearings to give evidence back to Congress for when we take over, which I believe that we will next January, Democrats will be in control of the House, so we can hold people accountable. But the problem with this administration is it doesn't pay attention to the law. And so you have this situation where what people would like is for LAPD to arrest ICE because ICE is doing things they shouldn't be doing. You're not going to have, and you haven't seen in any of the cities, law enforcement fight each other. And that's what happened in Minneapolis, is they just sent in more law. They sent in more ICE and overpowered the police department. And the military has the ability to do that. So I'm caught in a quandary where people always wonder, like many of the questions here today. People often wonder why I can't do certain things or why don't I do certain things without realizing where the authority is and where it is not. So organizing, speaking out, supporting the protests. The problem is, is that when the protests devolve at the end and there is vandalism, then my concern about that is that you might as well pick up the phone and call Trump and tell him to come in. So we should never give them an excuse. So what we've tried to do is to work with many people to get them to learn the lessons from the past in terms of nonviolent protests and how powerful that is, raising it as a moral issue and working with the faith community. I leave from here and I go and I meet with, actually 32 churches. So working with the first faith community is really critical to this as well. And so I've been involved, deeply involved in this.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

I'm glad you said the thing about the 88 mayors. Like, my mom was here. We drove down Wilshire. We passed through three cities. She didn't understand, right? She was like, been through three cities. Okay, last question. All right. When the strike happened, I talked to a friend of mine who is a valet, and he's not. He was not in any way an actor or a writer. And he was like, when is this going to be over? He was. He was asking me this. I was like. And it was the first time I realized that downstream, the entertainment industry was affecting everyone. Ballets, personal trainers, everyone, because of the money into it. There are a lot of people who are freaking out right now seeing productions leave Los Angeles, seeing production facilities shut down in Los Angeles. It seems as if we all moved out here so that we could go shoot in Atlanta. So what, if anything, can you do coordinating with state government to make sure that Hollywood stays in Hollywood.

[Karen Bass]

So let me just tell you that I've been working with the entertainment industry for years before I ever ran for office. My focus in the early days was on diversifying the below the line craftsman because they weren't being passed from father to son. And so we created programs that kids could go to West LA College and learn all of the below the line crafts. I made a commitment that when I ran for office I was going to work on tax credits. So in my last term I served as speaker of the House in Sacramento with Arnold and I did the first tax credit. It was in my budget. We slipped it in like at 2 in the morning. Some of the things that happen behind closed doors are not all bad and. But it was.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

I had a joke right there.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Oh, go ahead.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

No, no, I'm a lay the slide. I'm gonna respect. I had a joke right there because you said Arnold. But I like.

[Karen Bass]

Well, you'll tell me when we're done for sure.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Okay.

[Karen Bass]

It was. We did that. We put it in in the middle of the greatest recession since the depression. Okay. So that's 08 to 2010. And the idea was it was little, but it was going to grow over time. We didn't grow it fast enough. When I went to Congress, I worked on the entertainment industry, on the judiciary, with intellectual property. So looking at copyright and all of those issues, when I came back here, I joined in the advocacy for the $700 million. I was really excited about that because I said maybe finally we'll catch up with New York. When I first started it was about Toronto. Yeah, nobody even talks about Toronto.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

North Carolina.

[Karen Bass]

It wasn't about North Carolina.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Okay. Yeah.

[Karen Bass]

New York was barely kind of kicking in.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Right.

[Karen Bass]

All of that developed since because we did not grow fast enough. So what I did is again, if you there. There's a pattern to how I go about things. I believe in doing policy by putting people at the table who are impacted by it. So that's me as a community organizer. That's how you work with community and make decisions around housing and development is with community. So I have an entertainment industry cabinet. And I asked them what can I do in the city of Los Angeles that can help filming come back. They gave me A shopping list. I put all of that into policy and it's being implemented now. So, for example, they said the cost of filming is too high. Reduce the cost of filming. So I reduced the number of city staff, including the police that need to be on a location. We cut the fees. So it used to cost $100,000 to film at the observatory. It's now $30,000. I opened up a lot of city iconic buildings for filming. Our central library is amazing. So there's a lot of places like that. And then they also said we need one person in the city who we can go to to provide us a concierge service. And so I established that and now I'm working with the industry to evaluate that. But you should know, though, that it's not all for not because productions. As a matter of fact, before the governor signed the tax credit bill, filming was already coming back. I think 11 TV shows came back. And I was just with the head of SAG AFTRA on Monday talking about in this last six months, we've seen a 10% increase. Where we get into trouble, though, is that we are not Georgia. Georgia doesn't support healthcare and education and all those things. And we do. And so we can't give away the store like they do in some, especially the Southern states. And now you're competing with the uk. But my relationship with the industry actually goes back three generations. So you want to know a story? My grandmother, who I never met because she died young, worked at what is Now Sony in 1932. And you know what they used to do in South Central. And my family told me these stories. They would take big trucks and they would go to the corner of Central and Central Avenue and Slauson, and they would pick up black people and they would bring them to the studios to film. And you know what they were filming? Tarzan Plantation scenes, those. And so my grandmother, one acted in some, but she was also the teacher for black kids. Because of segregation, my mother was involved in the industry and my brothers are currently involved. One is the ancillary businesses. So my oldest brother sells custom kitchens, and he should have been put out of business when Home Depot started, but instead he figured out a niche. So in TV shows, the kitchen scene are his kitchens. So it's personal to me. I feel like I'm following the generations that came before me because my mother was born and raised in LA before black people came. You know, the majority of Black folks in LA came with the Great Migration after World War II. That's when my father came. So it's personal and I understand how significant it is to the city. It's a big commitment of mine and not just a passing issue that I just discovered.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Last question for me, and I'll just bring this full circle. We talked about how this race is interesting, just like of who's a part of it. We've had conversations on this podcast about the governor's race being similar to. I mean, it just seems to be all over the place. And when it comes to talking to voters or friends in our groups, whatever with in la, it just seems like there's just, I mean, I'll say misinformation. I talked about the sensationalism of social media. Just the conversations I hear people talking about. I'm just kind of like, what, what is happening? And it doesn't seem like they're taking things serious. And it seems like some of the people that are throwing their names in the hat reflect that. And I'm wondering, for you just to wrap it all up, what do you think is driving that? Do you think that it's people who are one issue voters? Do you think it's national politics? Do you think that it is a frustration with the pace of change that people want? And if you could answer that and then just say, what is it? As a last thought here for our viewers, what is it that you want them to hold onto as they go in to vote in this particular race?

[Karen Bass]

Well, first of all, we're dealing with a situation right now in our country where people are angry. The entire electorate is angry. Of course, I suffer from that as well, because people are not excited about incumbents, anybody that's in office. And we go through these moods where just throw them all out and we think that that's going to be a good thing. And people don't realize when you do that, then you're kind of starting all over again anyway. Excuse me. So I think that that's the depressed electorate and I think it's reflected in the governor's. In the governor's race.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Zy Van Lazen Jr.]

Mayor Bass, thank you for your time. She was very generous with her time. Her entire team is freaking out. Very generous with their time. We appreciate you so much. Thank you so much.

[Karen Bass]

Thanks for having me on.

[Rachel Lindsay]

No problem,

[Karen Bass]

Sam.