CNN’s Jake Tapper confronted Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt on Thursday over his past conspiracy theory about the Sept. 11 attacks.

Pratt, a Republican, is considered to be a long shot to win against LA Mayor Karen Bass. Although his chances remain slim, they have risen substantially in recent weeks as conservative media has begun to embrace him. Arguably, Pratt’s biggest boost came when President Donald Trump praised him for his campaign and claimed the fellow former reality TV star was a “big MAGA person.”

During a Thursday interview on CNN’s The Lead, Tapper brought up a 2009 clip from Pratt’s appearance on InfoWars. In the clip, Pratt claimed 9/11 was “100%” an “inside job.”

“I can’t even believe that it took me seeing your film to know about Building 7,” Pratt told Alex Jones at the time. “How did that not hit the mainstream media?”

Tapper then asked Pratt, “Do you think that 9/11 was an inside job?”

Pratt explained that he now believes the attacks were a result of “negligence of the people in power,” saying:

The reality is people in charge fail us as taxpayers, and when you’re listening to that audio, that’s a 21, 22-year-old person. I’m now 42 and have experienced city negligence, state negligence, and I’ve learned a lot about it. It’s actually worse than a conspiracy. It’s that we have people in charge that make mistakes that get people killed.

So unfortunately, you know, I was young and naive to understanding how there are people that will fail citizens across the board. I would have to go back and look at all that. I haven’t watched any of those things in 20 years or whatever, but I bet now with my fresh eyes of surviving the city’s negligence that burned 12 people in my neighborhood alive, 7,000 structures, and seeing how fast the internet said that was a conspiracy and how I had to be like, no, this is how it happened, this, this and this — now with new, fresh eyes, I’m sure I would look at that a lot different.

Tapper pressed further, asking Pratt if he regretted his previous assertion of 9/11 being an inside job. Pratt admitted to having “20 years of regret,” but insisted his past comments don’t “connect” to his “mission” for Los Angeles.

Watch above via CNN

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