Mike Pesca on The Reason Roundtable

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Gist – Mike Pesca on The Reason Roundtable

Date: May 30, 2026
Platform: Peach Fish Productions
Featured on: Reason Roundtable with Matt Welch, Nick Gillespie, Catherine Menkew Ward, and Mike Pesca

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Episode Overview

This episode features excerpts from Mike Pesca's appearance on the Reason Roundtable podcast, focusing on two main topics: the ongoing Iran conflict and its lessons for U.S. foreign policy, and the unusual dynamics of the Los Angeles mayoral election featuring Spencer Pratt. The conversations are marked by a sharp, often sardonic libertarian tone, with panelists critiquing both political parties, the foreign policy “Blob,” and American local governance.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Lessons (or Lack Thereof) from the Iran War

(Segment Begins ~04:08)

Participants:

• Matt Welch (Host, Reason Roundtable)
• Catherine Menkew Ward
• Nick Gillespie
• Mike Pesca

Main Themes:

• Deep skepticism that the U.S. or political leadership has learned anything from the Iran conflict
• Cynical takes on both the rationale for, and outcomes of, American military intervention abroad
• The role of shifting justifications in foreign policy failures

Breakdown:

• No Lessons Learned:

  • Catherine Menkew Ward bluntly states, “We didn't learn a goddamn thing... We will be making this mistake again.” (05:26)
  • She notes the perpetual cycle of U.S. intervention without clear outcomes or strategies.

• War of Choice:

  • Nick Gillespie: “This is a war of choice, and it was a bad choice at the beginning.” (06:21)
  • He critiques both the Trump administration’s lack of clear goals and the persistent failure to heed recent history’s warnings.

• "It's Worth a Try" Fallacy:

  • Mike Pesca details how “it's worth a try” is an insufficient justification for major military action—especially under Donald Trump.
  • “I think that the 'we're not going to sign a deal unless it's a good deal' should be true of every deal. In fact, it should be unstated about every deal if you're the United States.” (08:36)
  • He doubts any substantial planning was done regarding the consequences or potential exit strategies.
  • On regime-change hopes: “When it started and the articulation was I hope the population rises up...it seems not to have been the case at all. It was just a hope.” (09:18)

• Debate Over Responsibility:

  • Matt Welch pushes Pesca: Is the Trump administration uniquely incompetent, or have other presidents fallen into the same patterns?
  • Pesca differentiates: “I don't think it's true that military applications can't work if they're ordered by the executive...There is a history of operations where you fully consider what the downsides are, but you also know what the exit strategies are.” (11:55)

• Political Lessons Not Learned:

  • Nick Gillespie references a Ted Cruz tweet, expressing concern that politicians only ever learn the “dumbest version” of whatever lesson is available, calling for more, not less, intervention (12:30).

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2. Social Media, Soundbites, and Machismo in Foreign Policy

(~14:00)

• Humor and derision are aimed at both political rhetoric and blunders in policy metaphors (e.g., mocking the phrase “choke point linchpin” in relation to the Strait of Hormuz).
• Satire of public figures' statements:
  • Mike Pompeo’s saber-rattling tweet is read, to which the White House Communications Director responds: “Mike Pompeo has no idea what the fuck he's talking about. He should shut his stupid mouth.” (14:14)
  • Catherine Menkew Ward reflects on the general decline of statesmanship and how “the largest, loudest idiot is real popular and has always been in foreign policy.” (15:26)
  • Pesca offers, tongue-in-cheek, a partial defense of Pompeo’s aggrieved tone by referencing an alleged Iranian assassination plot against him – “so yeah, you got to give him like 10%.” (15:26)
  • The section combines sharp wit and genuine dismay at the state of discourse and policymaking.

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3. Los Angeles Mayoral Election: The Spencer Pratt Phenomenon

(Segment Begins ~16:53)

Participants:

• Matt Welch
• Mike Pesca
• Nick Gillespie
• Catherine Menkew Ward

Context & Main Insights:

• The LA Mayoral race features reality TV personality Spencer Pratt as a prominent candidate, running against incumbent Karen Bass.
• The panel is both bemused and concerned by the spectacle, seeing it as another manifestation of political disillusionment and celebrity-driven politics.

Breakdown:

• The Celebrity Candidate as Political Symptom:

  • Matt Welch: “History tells us Spencer Pratt can't fix Los Angeles...Pratt’s Loudest fans fundamentally loathe modern day LA.” (16:53)
  • Pesca notes the rise of Pratt is less about his own appeal and more a reflection of dissatisfaction with the status quo: “It's very hard to consider Spencer Pratt without considering the failures of Karen Bass who is probably still going to win.” (18:55)
  • He concedes that Pratt may be voicing “a lot of legitimate angst of real Angelenos,” even if his methods are performative.

• Homelessness and Policy Description:

  • Pesca: “His analysis of the homeless...has a lot more truth to it than the NGO way of thinking of the homeless, which is not solving the homeless problem.” (19:42)
  • The ability to vividly describe problems is credit to Trump and, now, to Pratt, but effective policy remains absent.

• Establishment Responses and Inertia:

  • Nick Gillespie quotes: “It really is important to understand why [Spencer Pratt] is even in the conversation...There is something tragic about a major American city...that cannot get a local government that isn’t completely idiotic and incompetent and spendthrift.” (20:59)

• Calls for Pragmatic Local Reform:

  • Catherine Menkew Ward: “I don't see any evidence of, like, hey, here's my resume and I could fix this city in practical ways...that's the case for getting a Fox News contract or whatever.” (23:50)
  • Nick Gillespie suggests some Texas and Florida cities benefit from bipartisan tension producing pragmatic outcomes, a model lacking in LA and San Francisco. (25:13)

• Pesca on Policy Description vs. Execution:

  • “The describer of the problem has a major leg up in today's politics, and that's essentially Donald Trump's gift.” (26:34)
  • But in a solidly Democratic city, even accurate diagnoses won’t lead to outsider victories.

• Comic Relief & Naming:

  • Catherine: “Can we just pause and appreciate his name is literally Pratt? If you wrote this as a novel, your editor would be like, calm down, change the name of this character.” (27:47)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Foreign Policy Cynicism:

  • Catherine Menkew Ward: “We didn’t learn a goddamn thing...We’re going to make this same mistake again. We’re going to think we know better than the rest of the world. We’re going to try and fix it from afar and end up worse off than we began.” (05:26)

• On Why “It’s Worth a Try” is Not Enough:

  • Mike Pesca: “It’s worth a try is an inadequate criteria of an operation of this magnitude and method and especially of an operation undertaken by Donald Trump.” (08:36)

• On Political Sobriety:

  • Nick Gillespie: “All of the people who have some access to power learn the dumbest version of their lesson...The real problem is that we didn’t bomb enough countries, that we didn’t occupy enough countries and that worries me.” (12:41)

• On the Nature of American Local Governance:

  • Nick Gillespie: “There is something tragic about a...city that cannot get a local government that isn’t completely idiotic and incompetent and spendthrift.” (21:42)

• On Performative Politics:

  • Catherine Menkew Ward: “Spencer Pratt, I guess, might be okay in some of his analysis... but that’s not a case for being the mayor of a city. That’s the case for getting a Fox News contract or whatever.” (23:50)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [04:08] – Opening of Reason Roundtable Iran conflict discussion
• [05:26] – Catherine Menkew Ward’s scathing assessment: “We didn’t learn a goddamn thing”
• [06:21] – Nick Gillespie critiques: “war of choice”
• [08:36] – Mike Pesca on “it’s worth a try” and critiquing military action rationale
• [09:18] – Pesca on the empty faith in regime change
• [11:55] – Debate on whether poor foreign policy is Trump-specific or systemic
• [14:14] – Pompeo tweet and White House profane retort
• [16:53] – Pivot to Los Angeles mayoral race and the Spencer Pratt phenomenon
• [18:55] – Pesca’s take on the root causes of Pratt’s appeal
• [20:59] – Gillespie on the dysfunction of LA government
• [23:50] – Catherine Menkew Ward on national failure to reward competent local politicians
• [26:34] – Pesca & Gillespie on the value (and limits) of problem description in politics
• [27:47] – Comic banter about Pratt’s name

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Tone and Style

The conversation maintains an irreverent, satirical, and often exasperated tone characteristic of Reason Roundtable. The hosts mix sharp policy critique with sardonic humor, highlighting the dysfunction and absurdity of both national and local politics, as well as the carnival-like nature of celebrity candidacies.

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Summary Takeaway

This episode distills deep skepticism towards American foreign policy learning curves and the functioning of local politics, both typified by leadership inertia, performative rhetoric, and a preference for soundbites over substance. The guests see parallels between celebrity-fueled rises like Trump and Pratt and the widespread inability—or unwillingness—of political establishments to genuinely reform or deliver competent governance.

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Transcript

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[Catherine Menkew Ward]

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[Mike Pesca]

It is Saturday, May 30, 2026 from Peach Fish Productions. It's the gist, but I'm not Mike Pesca. I'm Milo Pesca, his son. You know, we have the same last name sharing the same first initial. It kind of gets a little confusing sometimes when we go to the dmv,

[Commercial Narrator]

but regardless, Mike is not here today,

[Mike Pesca]

but he was recently on the Reason Roundtable podcast to discuss the ongoing Iran conflict, the unstable ceasefire negotiations, and whether anyone in Washington has a coherent explanation for what the United States is trying to accomplish. Today we're going to air two segments from the appearance, the second one even better than the first, and if you want to hear the full thing, the link is in the description. So from one son to his father, Mike Pesca, on the Reason Roundtable.

[Commercial Narrator]

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[Mike Pesca]

We all need advice, but it's not always clear who to ask, even in 2026. Enter how to the long standing Advice show and Ambie Award nominated Best Personal Growth podc. That's back with new episodes and a new host. And that host. Here's the reveal. It's me, Mike Pesca. Each week I tackle a listener question ranging from travel to finance to relationships and beyond, with help from world class experts who actually know what they're talking about. Think of it as eavesdropping on someone else's therapy session without the copay or awkward silence. No question is too big or too specific. Some topics how to protect the elderly from scammers, how to take psychedelics therapeutically, and of course, how to emigrate to the Netherlands as a throuple. You've got questions. We'll find the answers, so follow how to with Mike Pesca on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Matt Welch]

Welcome dementoids and dementites to the Reason Roundtable podcast, your weekly jolt of libertarianism brought to you by the magazine Free Minds and Free Markets, which you should totally subscribe to. I am Matt Welch, subbing in for a vacationing Peter Suderman and joined by Nick Gillespie, Catherine Menkew Ward, and sixth man of the year in the podcast world, Mike Heska. Gracias Miguel for joining us. And let's just go straight to it. The Iran Deal. So we taped this podcast about six hours before it is posted, which is perilous in a good week and then on a bad week. The variance of possible outcomes with the Iran war, and I'm still trying to figure out how to pronounce that country's name, is that it could be all over. It could be negotiated. In fact, Iran could join the Abraham Accords according to Donald Trump, or we could be doing a big war all over again because they're already shooting at each other in the Strait of Hormuz. So given that variance, Catherine, I thought maybe you could lead us in a round of discussion about what did we learn from this particular war? What's a useful lesson that we can think about the next time we decide to go blow some stuff up?

[Catherine Menkew Ward]

We didn't learn a goddamn thing Matt, thank you so much for asking. We will be making this mistake again. The headline at the top of the New York Times right now says, tensions rise as Iran threatens to retaliate against US strikes. I don't know what the US strikes are since it's sort of a ceasefire, but sort. I don't know what the retaliation would be. Nobody does, really. Marco Rubio says talks are ongoing, which is now the least reassuring phrase in the English language, and we learn nothing. We're going to make this same mistake again. We're going to think we know better than the rest of the world. We're going to try and fix it from afar and end up worse off than we began.

[Matt Welch]

You don't sound like you're being very helpful.

[Catherine Menkew Ward]

Sorry. You know what else isn't helpful? This whole war, the whole thing, from start to finish. Unhelpful.

[Matt Welch]

Nick Gillespie, what is a lesson that you take from all of this, besides Catherine's very nihilistic and unproductive suggestion that we're always screwed?

[Nick Gillespie]

Yeah. You know, this is a war of choice, and it was a bad choice at the beginning. You know, when it started in whatever, late March or late February, early March. It is not the continuation of, you know, nonstop act of aggression since 1979. We did, you know, Trump. It's not we. Trump did not build a consensus. He does not have a clear set of goals for this. It should not be comforting to anybody that Marco Rubio, who you mentioned about an hour ago, said, we're not going to sign a deal unless it's a good deal. You know, this is the Secretary of State as well as 45 other offices in the federal government. If that's the best you can say about something, this was not good. And to double down on what Catherine was talking about, we did not learn the lessons of the past 20 years in American foreign policy, and I hope we're not doomed to repeat it this time. It is not first time, it's tragedy. Second time, it's farce. This isn't a farce. Deeply disturbing. And I think, unfortunately, the Trump administration has kind of backed itself into a corner where it can't really end things without regime change. But there is almost certainly no way to induce a regime change in Iran without a massive escalation, which I could also see him doing, which would be disastrous for everyone.

[Matt Welch]

Talked of Rubio's comment. Doesn't he have to say that? Doesn't the Secretary of State or any one of the Trump administration?

[Nick Gillespie]

He could shut up. Yeah. No, I mean, but it's like you can actually, you know, say here is what would make a good deal other than unconditional surrender of Iran, you know, and it's just that, you know, the rationale for this war kept changing even as the first set of bombs were dropping and it continues to. So, you know, without knowing why we got in the war or why how we would end it an incredible way, it just, it, it's a long, slow bleed that's not going to get better anytime soon.

[Matt Welch]

Pesca, were you cautiously optimistic at any point did you support this or at least have hope that it would work on those early morning hours of March 1st?

[Mike Pesca]

Hope, yeah, optimistic maybe more so than some sort of consensus of the Blob. But I think that the we're not going to sign a deal unless it's a good deal is should be true of every deal. In fact, it should be unstated about every deal if you're the United States. What I learned to answer your question, Matt, the first one is that it's worth a try is an inadequate criteria of an operation of this magnitude and method and especially of an operation undertaken by Donald Trump. Now it's worth a try. Might have been okay with Maduro in Venezuela, maybe not. Maybe it just worked out and so that's why we think it was worth the try.

[Matt Welch]

Did it though?

[Mike Pesca]

Well, you know, these are good questions. It certainly seems to have worked out and that that's the one that they point to as the success. But it's worth a try. Maybe could never work with Donald Trump, but I don't think it could work with present day Donald Trump who's in his yolo and no care or consideration for the possibility of second or third order effects. So just take one example. When it started and the articulation was I hope the population rise rises up, I said to myself, I don't know what I don't know. Maybe the CIA has been planting the seeds of this and it seems not to have been the case at all. It was just a hope. And there were a number of things of this magnitude, like maybe the Strait of Hormuz won't be this choke point linchpin of geopolitics that we always thought it was. But that also seems not to have been considered. It's not. Is that even a second order effect? That's like a 1.1 order effect when you bomb Iran. So it's worth a try. Couldn't work in this situation. Definitely not with this guy.

[Matt Welch]

Catherine, before I ask a follow up question to Mike Pesca do you score on the choke point linchpin metaphor?

[Catherine Menkew Ward]

Hate that so much. It can't be linchpinning and choke pointing in the same place. That's not even physically possible.

[Matt Welch]

That's why there's nothing happening in the straight of Hormuz except pain and the blocking of helium, which is.

[Mike Pesca]

It's a choke lynch. Now most lynching, you know, results in the breaking of the neck, but I think we're going with choke.

[Nick Gillespie]

Imagine, you know, flash forward to, you know, August when kids birthday parties can't get the helium they need for balloons. The Democrats are going to take everything

[Catherine Menkew Ward]

and the nation's zeppelin fleet will be horrifically depleted.

[Matt Welch]

I would like to just use this.

[Mike Pesca]

Oh, the, oh the humanity.

[Nick Gillespie]

We call them blimps now because Nazi tinged.

[Matt Welch]

And tell people, do not ever suck gas directly from the helium machine that inflates balloons. You'll die. Happened to a kid at my school.

[Nick Gillespie]

Really? Yeah, I'm sure. Listen, he was probably on a bunch of other things. Matt.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. Did you die from the ingestion or by floating into utility lines?

[Matt Welch]

Pesca, though, by pointing at Donald Trump. Aren't you baking in kind of incompetence dodge? Like, isn't whatever is true about Donald Trump in this case that like, you can't really trust him to do this? Is also true for Joe Biden. Is also true for Barack Hussein Obama. Is also true for kind of everybody. Like Obama did Libya and that worked until it didn't. You know, shouldn't we be learning a more structural lesson about the application of power?

[Mike Pesca]

Dude, no, I don't, I don't think it's true that military applications can't work or if they're ordered by the executive, they won't work. I think the somewhat limited bombing of Fordeau and those facilities months ago did quote, unquote work. And I think that there is a history of operations where you fully consider what the downsides are, but you also know what the exit strategies are. Sometimes they don't work in US history and sometimes they work so well we don't even really think about them. Like Noriega.

[Matt Welch]

That worked as least. Introducing the.

[Nick Gillespie]

You know, if I may just follow up, Matt, on, you know, lessons not learned. In the prep for this, you talked about a Ted Cruz tweet.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah.

[Nick Gillespie]

Where Ted Cruz is raising, you know, stately concerns, statesmanship concerns about all of this. But his answer was basically, we really need to get serious and start destroying the country. This is what worries me the most, is that you, you know, it's not Just that we don't learn lessons from this. But all of the people who have some access to power learn the dumbest version of their lesson. They, you know, of the knowledge and wisdom they had going into a situation. So I think you might see, you know, I, you know, you know, insanity on the part of Trump, you know, just like, who knows what happens. But then on a kind of neoconish right, you're just going to see, you know, this. The real problem is that we didn't bomb enough countries, that we didn't occupy enough countries and that worries me.

[Matt Welch]

Pursuant to this, Catherine. And you can talk because I was going to throw it to you anyways, but it's very difficult to consult my notes, as you know, because my computer will shut down so I have to look which is here.

[Nick Gillespie]

Computer's fault bad.

[Catherine Menkew Ward]

Thanks, Grandpa.

[Matt Welch]

I want you to respond to a tweet exchange, Catherine, because that's always good content for us. Mike Pompeo, pursuant to what Nick just said, tweeted out the deal being floated with Iran. Seems straight out of the Wendy Sherman, Robert Malley, Ben Rhodes playbook. Pay the IRGC to build a WMD program and terrorize the world. Not remotely. America first. It's straightforward. Open the damn straight, deny Iran. I can't do it. Access to money. Take out enough Iranian capability so it cannot threaten our allies in the region. Let's go to. Which was responded by the White House Director of Communications, Stephen Chung. Mike Pompeo has no idea what the fuck he's talking about. He should shut his stupid mouth. You're just making them stop your mouth.

[Catherine Menkew Ward]

I'm mad that you just made me laugh at lat like, I know, I know we're supposed to be the, I mean, are we supposed to be the grownups in the room? I sometimes feel like I need to be the grownup in the room and I can't be a grownup in that room anyway. So I mean, it's. It, it is true that that does not seem to me to be the right path and I guess to foreshadow some of what we will maybe talk about later in the show, there seems to be this real conflation between the idea of what sort of powerful and thoughtful like kingly statesmanship would be versus just the kind of like alpha male warrior nonsense that, that the Trump administration has like fallen into here. There's like a, you know, oh, are we, are we like a global power who rules justly and wisely in a far seeing way, or are we just like the largest, loudest idiot in the room and largest loudest idiot is real popular and has always been in foreign

[Mike Pesca]

policy to offer Can I offer one word in defense of Pompeo and his psychology? Remember he was reportedly almost assassinated by Iran. Right. Iran nearly succeeded in orchestrating the assassination of Mike Pompeo in Europe in 2022. Josh Dawsey's book revealed. So yeah, you got to give him like 10%.

[Catherine Menkew Ward]

He can be annoyed here. He's allowed to get a little more aggro.

[Mike Pesca]

You know I also more skin in the game than the rest of us and the skin is loose with Pompeo.

[Nick Gillespie]

Well and he did it the old fashioned way, right? Gastric bypass. Gastric. I do want to give Trump before we leave this topic Matt, I do want to give Trump may far seeing and he created the best possibility for not going to a destination wedding of a family member in human history.

[Mike Pesca]

Right.

[Nick Gillespie]

And he knew this was coming a year ago. You know, that's when it probably started with the bombing of Iran back in last year. I think give him credit for that.

[Mike Pesca]

Among the call it the I call it the Patina Accords.

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[Matt Welch]

Next Tuesday so a week from today there's going to be election for LA mayor which has kind of caught the nation's attention or at least among people who are political obsessives on Twitter or wherever else people go these days because of Spencer Pratt, the second ranked candidate behind incumbent Mayor Karen Bass. He's a reality TV show guy who has been I think investing like zero money in actual advertisements. Just like cranking out and retweeting AI like art about the campaign, about the dystopian LA governance and such. Like a lot of people are excited about his candidacy. There's also another woman named Nithya Raman, I believe is how you say her name when I don't have notes in front of me who is likely to push this into a runoff if nobody gets to the 50% threshold. I was struck over the weekend by just kind of a preponderance of tone in coverage about Spencer Pratt as he is doing things. So Rolling Stone magazine, noted expertise in California politics, said that history tells us Spencer Pratt can't fix Los Angeles. A friend of podcast and Reason, Gustavo Arellano, says that quote, Pratt's Loudest fans fundamentally loathe modern day la. Strong stuff. The LA Times says that LA is safer than it's been in decades. But crime is an issue that's dominated the mayor's race and people are spending a lot of time sort of tone policing that. In interviews when he's asked about the homeless problem, he says they're a bunch of drug addicts and they're like, that's not nice to the unhoused. I've seen a lot of people worried about pictures of like people making okay signs because they're. It's obviously white power. Pesca, you're the most adjacent to being a lib on this podcast. Have we Learned nothing in 11 years? It's just like the same stupid reaction to Trump and now we're doing it in la.

[Mike Pesca]

I mean just by the fact that he will definitely not be going to Ghana. Spencer Pratt positions himself as the second most likely person to run that city. So it's very hard to consider Spencer Pratt without considering the failures of Karen Bass who is probably still going to win. You know, she's 80% in the prediction markets and up in the polls and it's just a such a dominantly Democratic city and if you're going to have a Republican come in, he has to be a certain kind of Republican, which is not a Spencer Pratt Republican. So what I think Spencer Pratt does is symbolizes in the best light a lot of the legitimate angst of real Angele knows who don't loathe L A which would be, you know, the worst follow up song to a hit ever.

[Matt Welch]

Although Rennie Newman does he load that lane?

[Mike Pesca]

Maybe I don't, I don't know, like he could maybe. I want to see the Pixar movie where that's the theme song. Yeah. So Spencer Pratt is this reality star who you would think doesn't raise serious points and when you watch him in interviews, is very truculent and takes on the interviewer if he senses the interviewer challenges him in a non serious way. And I guess is trying to do with AI videos what the Iranians did with the Lego videos. I mean if it's working for them, it could work for him. So you add up all that stuff and it just seems, oh, I mean to many people, I don't know about our friend Megan down for instance, but to many people it seems like totally unserious candidate guy is just a symptom of all that is wrong in politics. And maybe you could say, you know, there's going to be some sort of expression of anti bass sentiment. But I think he's on to a couple of things and I think his analysis of the homeless is maybe goes over the top to get attention but has a lot more truth to it than the NGO way of thinking of the homeless, which is not solving the homeless problem. So I mean, you know, let's just say a valuable backward walking God of Hopi legend.

[Matt Welch]

Nick, did you see any person that we know personally weigh in on this, on this campaign about Spencer?

[Nick Gillespie]

Oh yeah, yeah, Friend of reason, Drew Carey said on Threads, which it's nice to see somebody using that as like a primary platform, I suppose, but he said fuck this guy. And he said Spencer Pratt is a serial grifter and you really can't be seriously thinking of voting for him. I think on a profound level he's correct. And if any of us watch the Hills or remember Spencer Pratt from that, I mean, he is a jackass. He's a professional jackass. But Matt, to your point, and I, and I guess to Mike's as well, Spencer Pratt, you know, is almost certainly not going to be the mayor. He would almost certainly be terrible because he doesn't have any kind of administrative, you know, experience or anything like that. But it really is important to understand why he is even in the conversation and know the interviews I've seen with him where he's really compelling is when he's, you know, standing in his, in his RV parked in Pacific Palisades where his house burned down and nothing has happened since whenever that happened, you know, a thousand years ago or something like that. As somebody who's lived in LA and I love LA and I love modern LA where it's just, you know, mixing and roiling and, you know, bizarre and shifting out of Hollywood into other types of, you know, industries and things like that. You know, there is something tragic about a major American city, a definitive American city that cannot get a local government that isn't completely idiotic and incompetent and spendthrift. So you know, I, I think the question is like, will the power establishment in L. A learn anything from this in the way that it seems like the establishment in San Francisco learned from its ultra woke, ultra stupid governance of the past 20 or 25 years. And unfortunately I don't think that's happening.

[Matt Welch]

Catherine. Nick, name checked. Frisco. Can you think of any other place in America right now where the reform is happening from within the house? I mean, we're talking about reelecting Karen Bass like Karen Bass was like Ghana. Like the mayor and the, and the one like, deal in the Pacific Palisades, that was empty, that shouldn't have been empty. And the incompetence and just everything associated with that. You know, they reelected Gavin Newsom. They protected him from a recall. Bro was like bulldozing sand onto skate parks during COVID and eating at the French Laundry. And he won by saying that Donald Trump is a meanie. And people like, yep, I'm not going to, not going to do that. Is there any other place where you can see this, like, people saying, oh, you know what, we've governed badly. Let's change course within our party?

[Catherine Menkew Ward]

I mean, it seems like the main thing that is happening all over the country is either one, do you or do you not like Donald Trump? Obviously, we saw that in the Massie race in Kentucky. We saw that in the state Senate races in, in Indiana or wherever. That was like, there's. So there's the just the Trump everything is a Trump referendum thing. And, and that, tragically, is like a huge part of it. And then, you know, I think there's just the politics as punditry thing. Like Spencer Pratt, I guess might be okay in some of his analysis about what's going on at the TV soundbite level of la. And that's the case for him, but that's not a case for being the mayor of a city. That's the case for getting a Fox News contract or whatever. And I think that, that those two things are the main thing that's happening. And I don't see any evidence of, like, hey, here's my resume and I could fix this city in practical ways. Here they are. And then people are like, yeah, we want that. Let's vote for that. I just don't see that happening anywhere in the country right now. I mean, maybe it's happening in, like, small towns that I have no visibility into. Maybe the dog catcher elections in Des Moines are, like, going really well on substantive governance. I hope so. That would be great. But I don't know.

[Matt Welch]

That's an open call for all listeners and viewers of this podcast to email us with examples, because we want to feel.

[Catherine Menkew Ward]

Yeah, even though I would like to be happy.

[Nick Gillespie]

I mean, this may not be quite exactly what you're looking for, but if you look at Texas has like, four of the 10 largest cities in the country. And when you look at places like Houston and Austin in particular, and Houston, longtime Republican strongholds, has been Democratic in leadership for a while. City Austin is like this, too, where you have a Democratic city, you know, A blue city in a red state, kind of decent governance starts to happen because they're, they're not, you know, fixated on kind of racial purity or anything like that. They tend to be pretty pragmatic about things like homelessness and, but also on like building policy and zoning and things like that. Houston has its own interesting kind of, you know, long history and basically letting it rip all the time. But, yeah, you know, this is, you know, to me, this is the question, is there a way to replicate that in states that are more monocultural? And you have the flip. I'm sorry, just in places like Florida, where in Florida it may be changing, but you have places like Miami that, you know, longtime Republican kind of stronghold, now more Democratic. So it's, you know, in a, in a deeply red state, things seem to be working, but it seems like you need that kind of friction. You're not going to do it from the same party.

[Mike Pesca]

As far as the Texas cities where rents are coming down in Austin and Dallas, it does help not to have supply constraints as a near religion. And so you definitely don't have that in L. A, which is a major part of the problem. But, Katherine, one thing that you said, I do think that the describer of the problem has a major leg up in today's politics, and that's essentially Donald Trump's gift. He vividly describes the problem and so probably won't work in L. A because someone who's an avowed Republican, not a moderate business oriented Republican or conservative, is never going to win. And then you blame. All right, where is the pressure from Bass going to come? And you just mentioned Nithya Rahman, but, you know, a couple of years ago she got a lot of attention for blaming Toyota for making their catalytic converters too easy to steal.

[Matt Welch]

Yep.

[Mike Pesca]

So this wasn't the only policy position she's ever had. But this is who we're drawing from to possibly pressure Karen Bass to get better governance. It doesn't seem the San Francisco example where some more moderate challenger emerged, didn't happen in L. A. And maybe there's something. Nick, what you're talking about, about the crazy schizoid nature of the city that doesn't allow it to happen. But it's sad for the city, I

[Catherine Menkew Ward]

do think, also, can we just pause and appreciate his name is literally Pratt. Yeah, like that. If you wrote this as a novel, your editor would be like, calm down, change the name of this character. It's just. So, anyway,

[Mike Pesca]

That's it for today's show. The gist is Pretty produced by Cory Wara. Jeff Craig does How To Ben Astaire is our booking coordinator, Kathleen Sykes does the gist list and Michelle Pesca is extraordinary in her role as coo uparoo. Thanks for listening.

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