Editor’s note: In what could be one of the most consequential elections in Los Angeles’ history, the race this year for mayor sees two former allies in an increasingly sharp bid to take over City Hall. With many issues in the contest between incumbent Mayor Karen Bass, Councilmember Nithya Raman and reality TV vet Spencer Pratt impacting the entertainment industry, Deadline talks with the contenders to hear their visions for the city.
“There are things I can do, but there are things I can’t do,” states Karen Bass of her powers and influence as mayor of Los Angeles when it comes to bringing jobs back to Hollywood, creating jobs in Hollywood and stopping the decline of production here.
“I don’t have the ability to unilaterally stop the Paramount and Warner Bros Discovery merger, but that’s why I meet with the industry to say, what is it you want?” the incumbent adds of her efforts to kickstart big screen and small screen work in the City of Angels.
Just a year ago, as the legacy of the horrific wildfires burned into the minds of Angelenos, the unpopular Bass looked certain to be a one-term mayor. Adding to that, the high costs of life in L.A., the growing sense of the decline of life in the city, staggering homelessness, burglaries, boarded-up store fronts and the inability to get anyone on 911 all appeared to overwhelm the mayor.
But a year is a very long time in politics, and friends and enemies can emerge from the strangest places.
RELATED: IATSE Endorses Karen Bass’ Bid For Re-Election In Los Angeles Mayor Race
Even though she has more recently traveled to D.C. to sit down with Trump, the mayor, who fought a hard and close campaign in 2022 against developer Rick Caruso, faced off against Donald Trump’s ICE invasion of L.A. With those winds in her political sails, plus no Caruso or any big name opponent it suddenly seemed Bass would slide right back in office.
By playing the odds, and L.A.’s runoff primary system to her advantage, she very may well do just that.
Just hours before the former Congresswoman and state Assembly Speaker joins her once City Council ally and now-mayoral rival Nithya Raman and two other contenders for the top City Hall job in a series of fireside chats at L.A. Valley College, Bass was handed a leg up by Donald Trump this morning. The ex-Apprentice host offered his long expected backing to former The Hills star Spencer Pratt. Calling the The Guy You Love to Hate author a “big MAGA person,” the thumbs up for self-styled outsider and reality TV alum Pratt from very unpopular-in-L.A. Trump likely hobbled more than helped the rising candidate.
In a city where the massive majority of registered voters are Democrats, for Bass, who is polling around 30%, a race against ad savvy Pratt, who is polling in the mid-teens, could result in her being the Jacque Chirac of L.A. politics. Like the then French President’s 2002 joyless re-election over the far-right candidate Marie Le Pen, Bass could win handily over Pratt by default.
Still, a win is still a win, especially in cynical politics.
To that, Karen Bass spoke with me about Trump sticking his nose into the mayoral race, Pratt and Raman as her rivals, understanding the need for change, he real backstory behind her picking a film czar with no H’wood experience, , and the fight for more production and more initiatives in L.A. She also discussed working to prevent more fires, fighting ICE and controlling the LAPD. Insisting she is not “propping” Pratt up as a straw candidate, Bass talked about wanting to be an honest politician, the pitfalls of such an approach, her notion of the loss of truth, and the importance of the 2028 Olympics – with or without Casey Wasserman.
RELATED: Spencer Pratt Plans To Leave L.A. If He Loses Mayoral Bid: “I Will Be Done”
DEADLINE: So, as widely expected, after taking down a few of his biggest GOP critics recently, Trump effectively endorsed Pratt this morning. What’s your take on that? Good or bad for Pratt?
KAREN BASS: No surprises here, both Trump and Pratt want ICE to invade our city and kidnap our neighbors. L.A. doesn’t want a MAGA mayor, so I think Angelenos will reject him
DEADLINE: You know, word is that you are propping him up as a straw candidate to face in November and coast to a landslide, like Adam Schiff did with Steve Garvey in 2024’s Senate race.
BASS: So, let me just say that I’m not propping him up.
DEADLINE: OK.
BASS: I do not take Spencer Pratt for granted. Yeah, you have an angry electorate. It is important that you know people that I be very clear that we have reduced street homelessness. The crime rate is down to 1960 levels. We are fast tracked 42,000 units of housing, but ..
DEADLINE: Not to be rude, Mayor Bass, but people don’t feel that. I’ll give you an example: a friend of mine said to me, I love L.A., and he really does love L.A., but he felt that the city is starting to feel like Detroit in the 1990s with better weather. That, even with LA28, World Cup games, and more, we’re in a managed decline process. Part of the problem for many, certainly as I hear it, is that politicians are micro-bragging over stats with the status quo gets worse.
BASS: I think that we have things that we absolutely need to do better.
We have some 34-year-old problems, like our infrastructure, By the way, when I got in office, I was shocked to discover our city has never had a comprehensive plan to fix the infrastructure. It’s basically up to whatever council member you have. So, the last two years I spent time invested a lot of staff time in developing a comprehensive infrastructure plan. I rolled it out a couple of weeks ago because our city constitution, which is called the charter, is so old that we literally have to make changes to our charter in order to repair our infrastructure. So, there’s a lot of parts of the city that I feel are quite out of date, but I have, you know, and plan to continue to move past the status quo. The status quo cannot continue.
DEADLINE: But isn’t part of that, the anger you spoke of, that’s why in so many elections the last decade, here and all over, people are voting for whoever promises the most change – and the votes often go to the ones, for better or worse, who promise it the loudest and with the most showmanship?
BASS: Let me just tell you two things about me. I’m a workhorse, not a show horse, and that’s a problem. So, you know, yes, I should be way more out there..
DEADLINE: L.A. is Showtimeland, as Magic Johnson will tell you.
BASS: Exactly.
DEADLINE: In that context, who do you think will come in second place in the primary and face you in November?
BASS: I mean, I go back and forth, I think Nithya and Spencer are going neck and neck. But here’s what worries me more than social media, the truth.
DEADLINE: How do you mean?
BASS: There’s no such thing as the truth anymore. People can make up anything.
I’ve heard stuff about myself, places I’ve been, things I’ve said, money I’ve stolen – none of it true, and it doesn’t matter. You can say anything, that’s what worries me. Basically, it dumbs down the electorate. It basically says we can tell you anything, and there’s no such thing as really truth that really worries me, and that then colors all these other challenges we face.
DEADLINE: Yet, to that – you slag Trump, condemn his ICE invasion of L.A., but show up in the Oval Office recently smiling with him. That muddies the truth of the situation, no?
BASS: Number one, I know how to work those systems. I know how to fight with you one day and work with you the next, because the reality is there is no city that can function without federal support. Period.
The reason I was in the White House is because I need $8 billion to rebuild the infrastructure of the Palisades, specifically for that reason, is why I was there. Now I have no problem going out and having a press conference or confronting the soldiers in MacArthur Park. It helps that I served in Washington, D.C. I know how to do both. As mayor I have to be able to do both.
DEADLINE: On another issue of optics, IATSE gave you a big up endorsement today, other Hollywood guilds are getting in line, as are a lot of self-proclaimed progressives. In 2026, do you think that matters?
BASS: First of all, they mean a lot to me to receive those endorsements. Just to provide a context, I’ve also worked with the unions in the entertainment industry and worked on entertainment industry issues for a very long time, even before I ever thought about running for office.
So, when I came here and became mayor, I set up an entertainment industry council to guide what my policies are going to be. Our first order of business, and you know, the first strike happened five months after I took office, was working behind the scenes with the studios and labor and focusing on advocating for the tax credits. Once the tax credits were going through, and it looked like it was going to pass, I met with my cabinet and said, what can we do in the city of L.A. to help with production? So, working with the industry, they came up with a shopping list of what they wanted, and I did all those things. They wanted the cost of filming to be reduced, so I eliminated a lot of the red tape in the permitting process. We reduced the cost of film at a lot of iconic locations.
DEADLINE: Another thing you did, in the last year, was appoint a film czar, but there was some criticism from a variety of corners that while Department of Public Works Commissioner Steven Kang is very well qualified, he doesn’t know Hollywood …
BASS: Um, I basically left it up to the industry as to who they wanted. It actually took them a long time to come up with a list of what they wanted, but because that’s how I believe that policy should be done. Then they wanted a person, and I basically said give me resumes.
DEADLINE: That’s surprising, but honest.
BASS: I’m a big believer in being straight and honest with people.
DEADLINE: How so in other ways?
BASS: There are things I can do, but there are things I can’t do. I don’t have the ability to unilaterally stop Paramount and Warner Bros Discovery merger, but that’s why I meet with the industry to say, what is it you want?
DEADLINE: Alright …
BASS: Let me just go back to that for a minute. The industry, when I asked them to give me resumes, and they thought about it for a long time, then they came to the conclusion that they didn’t want an industry person. They wanted a person who knew the intricacies of the city. That’s why we went with Steve Kang.
That was the industry’s request that we provide concierge service, and so we do that. He literally, when anybody hits a bump in the road, literally will make the general managers or departments do what’s needed to facility. So, so my first answer to answer to you is, is that it’s super important that I be honest with what I can do and what I can’t do to distinguish between mayoral powers and the power of advocacy, and so when it comes, like, to federal tax credits, that’s an advocacy role, when it comes to getting the getting the tax credits to be, you know, to get rid of the cap, that’s a state decision, but my role then is advocacy. When it comes to what I can do here in terms of the permitting process, I’m in charge, I can go through the red tape, so it’s important to provide that distinction, because you know there’s macro factors.
DEADLINE: One of those larger factors is the $111 billion purchase of Warner Bros Discovery by Paramount, which, among other things is anticipated to see job losses and a lot of pain.
BASS: Right, right, right, exactly.
Frankly, I’m going to feel that pain in my family because my family’s involved in the industry and have been for three generations. But let me also say that my opponent has been on the city council, or been in city hall, twice as long as I have…
DEADLINE: You mean Nithya Raman?
BASS: Yes, and she has never initiated one thing for the industry,, and has recused herself from everything. I understand she has a familial connection, but, but the, she has not shown any leadership at all while being on council, so it’s hard for me to understand how, then you show major leadership as mayor.
DEADLINE: To that, let’s talk about one of the major criticisms of you as mayor – the devastation of last year’s fires and what looked like disinterest, incompetence and buck passing even as thousands still haven’t been able to rebuild. So, lots of promises are made in a campaign and certainly a lot of Pratt’s rise is his own story of losing his house, but once the votes are in, what are you going to do to protect L.A. from more fires if re-elected?
BASS: First of all, not if I get reelected, but now.
What I started doing immediately after the fires, the first thing was to change the leadership. We had to have an overhaul of fire department leadership, that was number one.
There have been a lot of recommendations, how to make sure this never happens again. Those recommendations are being implemented, many of them have been implemented. The other thing that I’ve been doing since then is that every time it’s even hot, when we pre-deploy, we are aggressive now, you know, clearing the brush. There was a problem in the Palisades, where part of the brush was state and part of it was city. I actually don’t care anymore. Yeah, I’m going to clear brush. I don’t care if it’s on the state. So, we have been very, very, very proactive, and we do have over 400 houses that are actively under construction now. People are beginning to move back. The biggest obstacle now is the insurance industry and the banking industry.
DEADLINE: When you talk about obstacles – what about the Olympics? They are coming up fast. Casey Wasserman seems to have weathered his Jeffrey Epstein storm, but another hurricane is on the horizon with L.A – the costs of LA28. Over a billion dollars is estimated for security, but the feds will likely help out. However, the city is responsible for the first $270 million in losses, then the next $270 million is on the state, but then the next $540 million is on L.A. – that’s crushing an already over stretched city budget, no? A debt that slams the door shut on any other initiatives.
BASS: Well, I feel very strongly about our ability to host these events.
Remember too, 28 is 28, two years from now. We also have an event in a few weeks called the World Cup coming to L.A., and the US Open for golf just wo days after next month’s primary. So, in the lead up to the Olympics, I’m going to take full advantage of those events.
DEADLINE: How?
BASS: Make sure our neighborhoods benefit economically, especially with what happened last June with ICE and terrorizing the Latino community. We want to make sure that these events are uplifting for our neighborhoods, people profit and they help be prepared for the Olympics. I will tell you, I don’t care what city it is, I don’t care what year it is. There is always anxiety and criticism and reticence over the Olympics. And then they happen and everybody goes, oh, it was so amazing. I was here in 1984 I remember everybody was freaked out. 42 years later, we’re still celebrating 1984.
DEADLINE: And Casey Wasserman, when the sordid Ghislaine Maxwell emails came out, you talked about him resigning. That seems to have subsided. Where do you stand on that right now?
BASS: I did call for him to step down. I also acknowledge it is the decision of the board.
DEADLINE: Yeah…
BASS: A lot of people think that I run LA28 or that I’m in charge of LA28, I’m not. LA 28 as you know, is an independent nonprofit organization. The deal for the costs was cut years before I was even thinking about being mayor, you know, that deal is just about 10 years old. So, I inherited that.
DEADLINE: Yeah, but you are the boss now and you have the local bully pulpit…
BASS: What I hear from LA 28 is that the fundraising is way, way, way ahead of schedule. We should not, they should not go into a deficit, but you are correct. If they do, then there’s a part of that deficit that we would be responsible for. I do not want to see that happen. That’s why it’s in everyone’s interest that the games be successful, and I’m going to work very, very hard, not just to make the games successful, but to make them profitable for the city of Los Angeles.
DEADLINE: You have talked about your experience, and using that and your relationships as leverage to get things done, here, in Sacramento and in DC. The last year saw the federal government swarm the city with violent immigration raids and abductions. Provocative and cruel moves by Trump, Kristi Noem, Steven Miller and the rest of the MAGA gang that looked aimed for confrontations, of which there were some downtown around the detention centers and federal buildings ..
BASS: Yes …
DEADLINE: I get you broke bread with Trump to achieve big and expensive goals, that’s realpolitik in action. But why don’t we see our local police protecting the people of L.A. from ICE and the feds? I know the state’s no masks law has been caught up in court, but why aren’t the LAPD arresting ICE and DHS for disturbing the peace, at the very least?
BASS: I know, this was a difficult thing for people to understand.
At the end of the day, the power of the federal government supersedes all power, state power local power. So, it’s incumbent upon me to tell people sometimes things they don’t want to hear, and so in terms of LAPD, you’re not going to have police agencies fighting each other. That’s not going to happen.
As for ICE, here’s one thing I knew. I knew that this was an experiment, and it was starting with us.
DEADLINE: An experiment for a larger crackdown?
BASS: I’ve been in contact with all the other mayors. We share policy policies, we share strategies. When it comes to your police department, you can give them all the orders every day of the week, they’re not going to go out there and fight with another agency. Again, it’s one of those things that I have to tell people, but I believe in being honest, regardless. I am not going to sugarcoat something because it would help me politically.
DEADLINE: Sure, but the big support you have received from the L.A. Police Protective League union certainly creates an impression linking you with the LAPD…
BASS: The idea of the police union support, one thing has absolutely nothing to do with the other. By the way, I have spent decades working on criminal justice reform and police reform. As a matter of fact, before I was involved in the anti-apartheid movement, I was in the Coalition Against Police Abuse. So, I have a very long history doing this work.
I’m honest about what can be done, and what we have to work towards, and sometimes being honest hurts me
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