#2268 - Rick Caruso

26:58Or maybe it was another arson that went up there. But it seemed like there was several fires that started very close to each other. It seems like highly unlikely. Could be that there was just three accidents that took place at the same time as these catastrophic winds could be the most sinister version of it is that somebody wanted this to happen. Maybe some mentally ill person. I know they did it. It's sickness. Yeah. It is a sick arsonists are there really sick people. Yeah. And it's a known psychological illness. There's a guy that they arrested that was a known arsonist several times arrested who had a fake fire truck and drove down.

27:39Yeah. Drove down from Oregon to do who knows what can you imagine. Yeah. Well, there's got to be really there's some stuff out there. Yeah. There's some real sick people out there. There's some weird people also that enjoy watching other people lose everything. It's very strange. Yeah. But I guess people who feel like they have nothing and they feel like the world has screwed them over and they haven't got the breaks they deserve. They literally want to walk. And there's this entitled culture that we live in that kind of tells people that the reason why other people are successful is because they've stolen from you.

28:08Right. Which is just the craziest thing to say in America. But it gives them an excuse. It gives them an excuse. And it also gives them a pathway to vent their anger and instead point it productively at their own lives. It's like, why am I in this position right now? What could I have done differently? What personal responsibility do I have for the way I live right now? Right. Instead of that, it's like, no, no, these rich people. They fuck you over. That's right. They take advantage of it. Yeah. So the water. Why? What is the explanation for why that enormous reservoir that provides the palisades with water was empty?

28:42Well, the explanation that's been said is it's out of service because the cover on it needed to be repaired. Other cover? The cover. Because you know, we're very sensitive in LA that bad things don't get in our water. So they have to keep all these reservoirs covered. Which in general, I get, I get the safety of that. But how about this? You know that you have catastrophic winds coming. Stir a pump of water in it because nobody gives a shit about what's in the water. Yeah. When you need it in your firehead. Yeah. Right. That could have been done in probably a couple of weeks. Would ever it took?

29:16Yeah. And it's not like we don't know. LA has fire season. I remember every year because when I wear, I still live in Belcanian is, you know, it's about 35 minutes from LA. Right. And it gets rough out there. It's like a lot of like big rolling hills and it gets all filled with grass. And if it catches and the winds start whipping through those canyons, the winds in California for people that don't know. Every year we get the Santa Ana winds. That's right. And they're crazy. They're crazy. Some of them were 100 miles an hour this year. That is just if you've ever been out there for that. That's nuts.

29:49And if there's fires blowing, boy. No, it's it's it's a terrible combination. I mean, the early settlers called them the devil winds. They've been there forever. Forever. To your point. They've been there forever. So just think about, you know, had the brush been cleared, had the reservoirs been full, had the fire trucks been stationed, had there been a whole series of protocols in place. Again, we could have saved some houses. He could have saved a lot of lives. A lot of lives. A lot of houses. A lot of jobs. A lot of pain. A lot of pain. Yeah. Yeah. So that's just incompetence. There's no way you could say, oh, I see why they didn't do that.

30:28Oh, I see why they didn't have the resources. Oh, it's not their fault. No, there's none of that there. No one's saying that. That's right. Everyone is saying it's a failure. It's a failure because they're not equipped to deal with the leadership they needed. Even the spin masters. Even the the greatest of gas lighters have nothing. There's not one person who's tried to pass the buck. I've not seen one successful person go on the air and say everything was done that could have been done. We have amazing leadership. We're really proud of them. We're really lucky. We have them. Not one. You're right.

31:01Not one. That's kind of crazy. It is kind of crazy because they gaslight everything. No matter what it is, everything's safe and effective. Everybody's fine. Everything's great. He's sharp as a tack. Everything's gaslight that shit out of you with everything. But with this one, they're like, but there's not nothing you could say. I agree with it because the facts are the facts. The facts are the facts. You just can't argue around the facts. And also, there's a thing that happens when an area bigger than Manhattan that's filled with the most liberal people. They're the most liberal. They're the most blue no matter who.

31:32The most like compassionate, kind people that like view being a Democrat and being a liberal as being the ultimate expression of being a good person. And they're getting slapped in the face by the reality. I think the politics have changed. It's a big weekend. Get in on the action of the big game and UFC 312 at Draftking Sportsbook, the official sports betting partner of the UFC. The men's middleweight and women's strawweight titles will be on the line in the co main events of UFC 312. And of course, pro football is crowning a champion at the big game. Just getting started, pick a fighter or a team to win this weekend.

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32:58Please play responsibly. On behalf of Boothill Casino and Resorting Kansas, 21 and over, Agent eligibility varies by jurisdiction, void an Ontario. New customers only, bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, cdkng .co slash audio. I think the reality has set in honestly and it's unfortunate it's taken this. But the reality really has set in that you've got to have competent leadership. Yes. And what happened at DWP because I was there for 13 years, 10 of which I was president, close to 10, is the head of that department got politicized.

33:38Years ago, under Bradley and under Reardon, under Han, the general manager of Department of Water and Power was always somebody who came through the ranks who was just this exceptional engineer and that department was regarded as best in class in the country as utility, bar none. The best financial rating, the best engineers wanted to work there. It built some of the most amazing projects in history, including Hoover Dam. So let's just start with that one, right? Then what happened? Politics creeped into who was the general manager. That destroys an organization. This is an organization that's not in the business of being necessarily doing what's politically important at the time.

34:28It's in the business of delivering water and power. And the failure is also there. I don't understand how the current general manager of the department, I don't know what she didn't didn't do. But the kind of failure that's on her desk where the buck stops, she needs to resign. She needs to be fired. And I opinion by the and be held accountable for whoever made bad decisions, including herself. But we're allowing this. And so the minute you allow that, that continues. This creep of incompetence is tolerated. And it shouldn't be tolerated because people lost their lives. They lost their homes. Right?

35:14Well, am I right about that? You're 100 % right. And I think you're 100 % right about politics. And the problem with politics is that people want to preserve the structure that pays them. They want to preserve the entity that they're invested in, that they have their time in, they have all their connections. And this is the weird world of politics versus the world of business. And you know, what's fascinating right now is we're getting a chance to see what happens when you take a business approach to the government in the White House. We're seeing right now with this whole USA thing where they're uncovering massive amounts of corruption and waste.

35:54And just a lot of weird shady shit with NGOs and and where an enormous amount of money is going. And you're seeing someone look at this thing that is incredibly efficient almost by design. And instead of saying, like, well, this is just how it is. And this is how these politicians get funded. So let's just keep this thing going the same way it is and make some incremental changes to try to make people happy. So we still get elected. Right. Instead of that, you're seeing a politician, a president who's coming in who can't get reelected. So he's just going ham. And he's just cleaning out everything.

36:31And people are freaking out. The same people that say we need radical change. We need radical change. We've got corruption. We need radical change. Okay, well, here's your radical change. We don't need this. But you do. Yeah. The government does. They need oversight. And they haven't had that. And because of that, you're seeing this not just waste. You could call it waste, but it's deeper. It's deeper. The fact it's corruption. And you're seeing that that corruption get weeded out. I am hoping that this is successful and that it yields a benefit to the American people, to the working class people, to everybody where they recognize like, Hey, we can't just be spending all our fucking tax money on nonsense.

37:12And it all should be done with a real clear understanding of getting results. If that happens and that's that idea spreads across the country because ideas spread. And people change their minds. And you know, and sometimes it happens one guy in the neighborhood to go, you know what? Fuck this. I'm fed up. And then I'm like, yeah, I've been kind of thinking that too. I just didn't want to say it. And then exactly right start talking. And then it's not a scary thing to discuss. And it's right. It opens the door. Right. 100%. And I think you're seeing that now. I feel it in LA. You're seeing that now.

37:46Like I said, it's terrible that it took this kind of tragedy to have people seeing it. I'm a big believer. It can change. I'm a big believer that LA can turn around. I'm a big believer we can fix the problems. I'm a big believer we can fix the problems in California. I really am. And I think we have started to turn this corner where people are saying, you know what? What do your Democrat or Republican to me sort of doesn't matter? Are you competent? Do you have experience? Are you going to make decisions for the right reason? When I was a president of the police commission, it was the most amazing experience because Jim Hans -Mair, we have a police department that was failing miserably after the Rodney King riots.

38:32The police department was under the federal, a federal consent decree. A federal judge was overseeing it. We had Bernie Parks who was the chief of police. I don't know if you remember Bernie Parks. It was probably there when you were living there. He looked, he came out to the central casting. Very handsome, proud black man and wore the uniform beautifully, rose through the ranks. Super nice guy. We were friends. Jim Han calls me and says, hey, I want to appoint you as a president of the police commission. And I said, Mr. Mair, I really appreciate it, but I don't want the job because I knew what the job was going to entail, potentially having to fire a very, very popular chief of police.

39:13And he's two or three times call back. I finally did it. So glad I did because I learned so much from the experience. At the end of the day, decided we needed to move on and have a different chief of police. What was wrong? What was he doing? What he was doing, Joe, is he had put in procedures, discipline procedures that were so onerous on the officers that one officer's were leaving. But more importantly, the bad guys, particularly the gangs, were very smart that they would start filing complaints in certain areas that they wanted to control around the city. And so the officers started getting all these complaints on their record.

40:03And once they did, it held up any kind of promotion or transfer. So what did the cops start doing? They started saying, I'm just not going to go to that area. And the minute they abandoned that area, the gangs controlled it and crime was going crazy. How clever. Yeah, right? Yeah. So I would go to the chief and say, come on, you got to change the discipline process. Nope, not changing a thing. Very stubborn guy. He had all the answers. But yeah, and I don't mean that I'm it's facetious. He didn't have all the answers, obviously. But so that was a main problem. So if you had an area of the city that bordered LA County, LA city crime was rising.

40:43LA County was going down because the sheriffs are actually proactively and not in an abusive way, proactively policing. LAPD was retreating. Cops were upset. Cops were leaving. The academy is empty. All of these things are happening. Had to change leadership. I had people burning me in the city. I had to do the infogy. Literally my wife would call me and say, Oh my God, they're burning you outside of city hall. They're marching. It was crazy to put pressure on me to keep Bernie Parks. Not because Bernie Parks was the best chief of police because it was politically correct to do that. And I remember calling Jimmy Han the mayor and I said, I'm going to make a recommendation.

41:27And you're probably not going to like it because you're going to come under a lot of heat. And to his credit, he said, just do it's right. I'll take the heat. And I recommended we hire Bill Bratton. And we brought this guy in to LA, his Boston accent and all, best cop in the country, built a team around him. We got crime down to levels not seen since 1950. Doing all the right things, engaging the community, senior lead officers, walking the beat, getting to know the neighborhoods, started hiring. People wanted to be a member of LAPD. There was now back a pride in it, completely turned it around within a couple years.

42:14But that all came and then Jimmy lost re -election because the black community unfortunately abandoned him because of not keeping Bernie Parks. It's one of the reasons. But he did the right thing. He didn't care about his political future. He cared about the city. He never gets enough credit for this. And I just learned that lesson, which I talked about earlier, if you've got the freedom to make a decision without worried about getting elected, it's probably where the president's head is. I'm just going to do what I think is right. It really is amazing what can happen. So let's get more people like that who just understand, let's do what's right for people.

43:00I'm in public service. Serve the damn people. It almost seems like at this point, you need someone who's outside of politics to run for office. I think you do. Because everybody knows it sounds self -serving, but I think you do. Of course it would sound self -serving coming from someone who wants to be your outside of it. One to be the mayor. But I think that's the correct response because the people that are in it are just too tied in. They're too tied in to the two beholding. They're too beholding. It's entwined. The octopus has many tentacles. It's wrapped around everything. It just stalls all progress and change.

43:39And no real radical change can ever be met. No one wants to go with it because it's going to disrupt all their different ideas and businesses and people are going to look like they're responsible or incompetent. So they don't want change. They want to pretend that this is the only way to go forward. And that if someone does come along and changes things radically, I mean, it makes them all look terrible and it's dangerous. Yeah. Dangerous for business. Yep. They're not in the business. They help people. They're in the business of keeping their job. 100%. Yeah, and that's what's gross. It is really gross.

44:11It's gross. And it seems like the only way that that ever gets resolved is you have to bring in someone who's a businessman or a businesswoman. Someone who understands business, who's outside of this political system and says, I've studied this for years. There's a lot of things that could be fixed. They're not being done and we could do it. Yeah. And you know the issue with that is it's such a tough system. There's so much that gets thrown at you. Yeah, like the whole entire party of the Democrats came to go after you. I know. And I was a Democrat. I'm very moderate. Yeah. You know, I'm physically very conservative.

44:49I'm socially liberal. But they were, so what gives the incentive to the person on the outside to do it? Right. Nothing. And that's what we've got to figure out. Listen, I, I've got high hopes for San Francisco with their new mayor again, an outsider came in. And one, I think that's great. I hope he does great. I hope he changes the city. That place was amazing at one point. Tom, I just love going to San Francisco. I haven't gone a year. It's just too crazy. No, it's terrible. It's a dump. It's unbelievable that one of the oldest greatest cities in the country has just completely fallen to, but no course correction until now.

45:27I'm hopeful for this new mayor as well. And I'm also hopeful that a lot of the new young tech people are fed up. Yeah. You know, I think the new people who grew up with the internet understand the corruption and the bullshit. Whereas the old people from a couple decades ago were really just spoon -fed bullshit from the mainstream media. And they thought that this is the only way to be. Like we're the kind, intelligent, well -read progressive people on the West Coast. It's our responsibility to be compassionate, you know, and to be the most charitable people possible. And they just didn't realize like you're you're not doing anybody a service by letting them camp out in front of your house.

46:03The small math. That's not, none of that's good. That's right. It's all real bad for them. It's all real bad for your kids. Yep. And all those businesses moved out. Yes. All those businesses moved out San Francisco just became insane watching all these enormous chains just pull out. And then people get angry and cry racism when they pull out like, what are you doing? You're not happy. It's just from the outside. It's like moving to Texas was such an eye -opener too. I know. You jealous. You know, being here in Austin today, all the new buildings going up. Yes. I said to my wife, oh my god, look at this.

46:39It's booming. It's booming. There's freedom. Go to a restaurant last night. People are happy having a great time and there's new buildings going up and high rises and the city's clean everywhere I drove around last night today. Just a map. This episode is brought to you by Buffalo Trace Distillery. Actually have some Buffalo Trace cigars here. They just sent me one of the world's most award -winning distilleries that's been making whiskey the same way for more than 200 years made as a tribute to the rugged free spirited pioneers who blaze their own trail to new frontiers. It embodies the perfectly untamed spirit of independence.

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48:09Franklin County, Kentucky, Buffalo Trace, American, family -owned, independent, and perfectly untamed. I kill it. But it's also, you know, I talked to Stephen Adler who is the former mayor of Austin Great Guy and you know, he was explaining to me the homeless situation. We had a long talk about it because it really boomed during a COVID. And he was saying, look, L .A. is too big. I think I can fix the problem in Austin and they did an enormous job. They did a fantastic job. They bought a bunch of hotels. They put people up. They started programs. They put a lot of effort into it. But they were only dealing with a few thousand homeless.

48:46They had like 3000. Like that's a nothing. This is what Stephen Adler was saying. He was saying, you could fix that. You can't fix it when it gets to 80 ,000, 90 ,000. He's like, it just gets too big with the bureaucratic process. Like as government functions today without the outside are coming in and making radical change, the way it functions today, he's like, I don't know. He goes, I think I can fix Austin. I think I can fix Austin before I get out. I think you did a great job. You're still problems. You're always going to have problems. You're going to have mentally ill people. You're going to have drug addicts.

49:23You're going to have people that have just been abused their whole life and they're just destroyed mentally and then they're out and then you have schizophrenia and all these other. It's very sad. It's very sad. We clearly need better mental health institutions set up in this country to deal with a lot of these people because that's a lot of it. And a lot of it happened during the Reagan administration when they changed the closed them down. Yes. They closed down mental health institutions and just said you're on your own and just let these people lose on the street and then you're on top of that.

49:52You have the crack epidemic that comes around at the same time. It's chaos. Just full chaos. And you saw, like I saw the changes in the cities. I saw the changes in the news. I saw it, you know, and people were recognizing that this is like a new a new problem. But it's never been like Los Angeles where you're driving on a street. You just see blocks and blocks of tents. It's just like how is this not fixed? You're not even allowed to litter. So if you're not allowed to litter, how are you allowed to do that? There's definitely a couple of standards that are different. I'm not giving up that it can be fixed though.

50:32And I understand there's a big difference with solving for 3000 versus 80 ,000, whatever the number is. But it can be fixed because it has to be fixed. I think it has to be fixed by an outsider as well. I agree with that. What's the point was ultimately really? Yeah. Is like, you know, being in the system. I agree with that. There's no doubt it has to. And again, somebody that's willing to risk their political career by doing the right thing for the people on the street. These are human beings that have a right to be given a chance to have a better life. And a lot of people are there, you know, just because everything went wrong in their life.

51:09And God bless them. And you got to try to fix it. And the ways to the money in doing it is a crime. Anyway, we've talked about it. But I'm still hopeful. I know I run overly optimistic in life, but I think it can be done. Well, it's worked out well for you. Well, I've been pretty fortunate and blessed in my life. Working hard and being overly optimistic, actually works out sometimes. A lot of times. Yeah. Okay. So, so let's talk about law and order. That's a giant issue in Los Angeles. People do not feel as safe as they used to feel. They feel like there's more violent crime. It's more unreported crime.

51:48And maybe more concerning is that people get arrested than immediately get released. Right. And there doesn't seem to be any repercussions for that. Right. So what would you do to change that? Well, thank goodness. Stay long. I changed. I mean, that's another really good example of what happened in California that they repealed the law that allowed anything under $900 to just be a misdemeanor. It was insanity. It's happening. Just insane. And they weren't bundled. So you could like in a serianim fashion, keep stealing $900. Right. Every hour. Yeah. It's on the top. It was still a misdemeanor. So that law changed.

52:26Great progress. Holding bad people accountable is really important. I'm also a big believer to give people a chance to rebuild their lives. No doubt. Goes hand in hand. But we made a big change by getting rid of George Gascon as a district attorney who was not prosecuting and allowing people. It was just a turnstile. You got arrested. You were let out. What can we get to the heart of that? Sure. What's the motivation for that motivation for doing that? Yes. That well, I probably want to explain it right because I don't I don't agree with it is that from a social justice standpoint, quote unquote, you don't want to overpopulate the prisons.

53:12You don't want to hold people and take away their life for a minor crime. But a lot of it wasn't minor crimes. A lot of it wasn't minor crimes. There was one of them that was a guy who was this crazy homeless guy who pulled a knife on a sheriff. And then two weeks later, there at least somewhere a little short time after that. I don't know if it's two weeks. Attacked a man with his family with a machete on the beach. Yeah. No, I know. You're right. You're right. I mean, that's a violent. George did. Yeah. You're right. You're absolutely right. And I can't explain it because it's just it's so messed up.

53:46I don't even know how you justify letting somebody out of jail or not holding them with bail. Any of that. I don't understand it. I think most people got to the point. They were so worried about where crime was going. They did finally get rid of George. And we brought in Nathan Hawkeman. And I think Nathan's doing a great job. So I can't I can't explain it. But the fear is that it's done on purpose. This is the fear. Oh, of course it is. That's the fear. The great fear is that there are people in this world that want LA and major cities in this country to be in complete disarray to have constant chaos and to be able to push liberal prosecutors and then push even more liberal prosecutors to go against them and continue this cycle and make it so that people live in a constant state of fear.

54:37And what's the end goal of that? It has to be profit. I mean, someone has to be profiting off of it. Profits off of that. I don't know. Ask George Soros. Yeah. Right. I ask the people that fund these like extremely liberal district attorneys that all seem to have the same idea. But do you think that cash trail? I do. I do think that time is turning. And I know that Elon Musk wants to do sort of the exact opposite like to try to find he's been talking about that financing people that are much more reasonable in that believe in law and order. Well, Nathan is a good example of that. I mean, that's great.

55:09We need fair laws. We need kind justice. We need we do need rehabilitation. But we also need to protect people that aren't criminals. Of course. That's the primary thing. It's protect the general public. Serve and protect. Right. That's the whole idea. Yeah. We need to protect everybody else. And then the people that were life did them wrong. And they've wound up like let's figure out a way to actually rehabilitate them instead of just putting in them encages. Yeah. And people are doing that. I mean, there's some very successful programs that are doing that. But I agree with you. I mean, we got to get back to the point where governments primary function is to protect the public and give them the ability to prosper.

55:47Give them the ability to build a business. Raise your family. Keep your community safe. It's just so basic. It's so basic. It's gotten upside down. Yeah. That's what's crazy is that when you order thrown out the window without law and order, no one is safe. That's right. You don't understand that if you just don't go after bad people, then they have no fear of doing whatever they want. And then you're letting them out on jail. So out of jail. So then you've got more of them out than ever before perpetuate. There was a podcast that I listened to where there was a former gang member who was talking about how they're going to let 70 ,000 hard criminals out of the LA jails.

56:22And he's like, I'm getting out of town. This guy was a hardcore gang member. He's like LA is going to get too crazy. And then next year, it's just nuts. And you know, there was the whole defund the police movement, which was just catastrophic that that whole and is seeing politicians, including Kamala Harris, seeing politicians openly say and post it on Twitter. We need to defund the police, which is just crazy. It is. It doesn't mean as long as it can be. Yeah, certainly hold bad cops accountable. Certainly have better training. Certainly have higher standards. But defunding the police like, what are you talking about?

56:59You need to do the opposite. That's right. You need to train them better. Refund them. Right. Definitely make the bad ones accountable. Definitely make people feel safe that they're interacting with police officers. But respect these people. Respect these people that are protecting your life. That's right. Because all those people, when something goes down, they call 911. They're furious when cops don't show up. That's right. All these people who talk shit about the cops that are protected. Defund the police. You're protected by armed security people. And you're saying, defund the police. This is fucking nonsense.

57:30It's nonsense. Couldn't agree more. And for people that suffered because of this defund the police thing and this whole wave of crime that went through LA in the wake of it all, those people are the people that you can get to. The people that saw it, experienced it, know the consequences of this foolish direction that everything is going in. Those are the people that you can still reach. And I think it could be reached with a person like you that is a compassionate, kind, liberal guy and it comes to social issues, but understands business and understands accountability. And that you have to see positive results.

58:09You have to do what needs to be done to get those positive results. You can't just do the same shit over and over again and pay more people and we need a bigger budget. You know, like, oh, let's raise the boat. We've increased the budget to fix the problem. That's you're not fixing it. Keeps getting bigger. It's just nuts. It's not it. It needs someone outside the system. And that's why I was really happy to talk to you. And that's why I'm really happy that you're still involved because a lot of people like yourself that are very wealthy and you don't have to do this. This is not going to be, you're not going to make money doing this.

58:41Like this is probably going to be a huge strain, a tremendous amount of pressure. But some people feel calling and they feel like I think I can do something and fix this that other people maybe won't be able to do. I appreciate that. And I do. I do because what's the alternative? We stay in the same path. It gets worse. The alternative is it gets worse. It's going to get worse. More and more people are leaving. More and more businesses close down. But here's what really hit me on the campaign. And I was telling our family. I've got four kids and they're 35 to 25 and incredible people. And my wife is wonderful.

59:18I'm really incredibly blessed with all of that. I was so worried when I decided to run for mayor of the impact on the family, right? A little bit scary. High profile. All these kind of things. It ended up being the greatest experience. And we would go into neighborhoods, hard working neighborhoods of people that just wanted the ability to work hard and live their life. That would just want the ability to allow their daughter to be able to walk to school on her own and not have to walk around an encampment or for fear that there would be somebody that would attack her on the way to school, right?

59:53The most basic things. And we'd give them a hug. They would cry. We would cry. And I would tell the kids that cry is hope. And what we're seeing there is for the first time, there's actually somebody coming into their neighborhood. A neighborhood that historically doesn't vote in large chunks. So the politicians forget about them, right? Because they're not likely voters necessarily. But we were trying to mobilize it. And we were also trying to give a voice to people that don't have a voice. How inspiring that was for me. That's what fueled me. And you're right. I don't want to career as a politician.

1:00:38I want a career of being able to give back and help and take the group of people that have the least voice, but are some of the hardest working people of our society and give them an opportunity to grow. That was my grandfather as an immigrant, as a gardener. But he had the opportunity to raise his family where he didn't have to worry about all this shit. It's just changed so much. So I believe we've got to get our elected officials. If we take people who are the hardest working, the dearest people that have the most impact because of crime, because of homelessness, because of being overly taxed, all of these kind of things.

1:01:27And we give them hope and a path forward. Everybody benefits from it. You start solving so many problems, Joe. There's a little school in the middle of the heart of the worst part of Los Angeles with the homelessness and skid row. And it's called Patelos Ninos. And my wife and I have been supporting that school for over 30 years now. You outside the doors is the biggest sea of inhumanity of homeless people. Just strewn out on the street, drugged out, all of terrible mental health conditions. You open that door and it's beautiful and caring and loving in this school that we support. There's a series of schools.

1:02:14Takes in children from six months to five years old. The parents are all working parents below the poverty line working parents. So they're working in the sweatshops, whatever the case may be. They're living down on skid row and apartments, two or three families in an apartment, working their tail off to just survive. And then to be able to get their child in this school to cost them nothing. It's fully supported. Those are the dearest we just children in the world. We love going down there. Our kids have worked down there since they were little kids. We do a Christmas party form. And what gives us such joy is seeing the hope in their eyes.

1:02:53And I know it sounds corny, but it's such an important path that we've got to get our elected officials to be more supportive of that and get more of these kind of schools and give more of these families the opportunity to do well because they want to do well. But the system is frankly against them. And that's what I wanted to change more than anything. Well, let's talk about that. This school, there's no reason why they should have to encounter that environment outside that school. You're right. There's no reason. This is not nuclear waste. This is not something that can be cleaned up for five million years.

1:03:29We have to leave it alone. This is human beings. This is human human devastation out there in the street. The fact that these kids have to encounter that. First of all, what does that do for your sense of hope and your future of the world? This is what you're seeing every day. You absorb that from your environment. The sadness and the devastation all around you and you're seeing people with lost lives out in the street right in front of your school. When you're a young kid and you're developing mind and that's the environment that you encounter all the time like that is going to fuck your head up forever.

1:04:02And then there's the question of the sweatshops. Why? How come people that work their tail off constantly have to live three, four families in an apartment? What the hell is going on there? I agree. But that's what I'm saying. That's what I think we got to start fixing. Yes. Right. And if you start fixing that now, your point is right. These kids having to see that every day. They're being yelled at by people as they're walking through the doors and all that. It's terrible. But thank God that school is there because if that school wasn't there, they got nothing. Right. They're on the street. It's amazing.

1:04:42I mean, the problem outside the school, that should be fixed. That should be a public health issue. I mean, if you're worried, the future human beings, if you want to look at this country and you want to make America a great place, what you want is less people. They're going to lose it life. You want less losers. The best chance you can have less losers is start them off on a good path when they're young. That's right. And if you're starting them off on a good path when they're young, if you're giving them the tools that they need to have a successful life, giving them hope, giving them examples of good people that you could strive to be like, what would Mike do?

1:05:26I'll say, it's done. I admire that person. Having people around you that are examples of someone who lives a life that you admire. When you're just seeing people peeing on themselves and throwing up and walking through the streets just covered in cardboard shelters and tents, that's not hope. You're not going to see good examples. What are you depending on for your examples? That's a travesty. That should be cleaned up immediately. Let's talk about that. What could be done for Skid Row, which is probably the worst example of LA's homeless problem? It's the same thing with any place else that we talked about.

1:06:08I believe supercharge these organizations like Apollo's and Inus that are doing well, that are really changing lives, like the downtown women center, like common concern. Union rice commission. There's dozens of them. Where do you put all those people? There's not all these people on the streets. You got 100 ,000 people on the streets. There's endless land. The city of Los Angeles has something like over 300 or 400 parcels of land that are vacant. They're just sitting at vacant, densify them, build on them, build housing, absolutely do it. Skid Row, there's a lot of opportunity to do that and a lot of organizations that will do that.

1:06:50But we can never say, well, create enterprise zones. I mean, I wanted to create enterprise zones. You go to South LA or whatnot. There's areas that they were burned out years ago from the riots that have never been rebuilt. Create an enterprise zone, give tax incentives to go down there and build housing. The tax code, when I was a young lawyer, they changed all the tax laws. They had a lot of tax credits, a lot of incentives to do things. It's a great way to incentivize businesses, mobilize the private financial markets to invest and do things. There's an enormous amount of capital in this country, where the wealthiest country in the world, especially LA.

1:07:30LA is so wealthy. State of California, fifth largest economy in the world. We have an economy larger than India. It's nuts. It's nuts. And do we have problems? Of course, can you imagine if we fixed the problems with this state could do? It would be incredible. There's nothing like it. And so I think we just have to have some really basic goals of how we're going to change things little by little, start attacking them, but start getting people off the streets, start building, start giving the incentives to do it. Break some eggs as you're doing it because you're saving lives. And I think once you get that in motion, it starts taking off.

1:08:16I really do because people do not want to continue the way we're continuing. And if there's a handful of people that do who cares? God bless them. Yeah, leave them there. But that's not the far majority of the people. I think those handful of people are fed a narrative. And the narrative is there's one way that's good. And there's one way that's evil. And there's the right wing people that want to be fascists, totalitarian dictators. And they just want the wealthy to get wealthier and they want the poor to starve. And then you have the left wing side that has this idea of compassion it, care, and letting everybody be themselves and let people camp out and let, you know, and we need to treat people like human beings.

1:09:01And then not homeless. They're the unhoused and you start reframing things. And it's just a bunch of nonsense. And unfortunately, these people are all conditioned to think that everybody opposed to them hate civil rights, hate women's rights, hate gay rights. And the right wing hard core fascist assholes. What we need is someone, this is one of the things that may be happy about you, is that you need someone who appeals to people's sense of kindness and caring. And, you know, being a progressive person in terms of like social issues. But yet understands human nature and understands business. Like you have to do things if you want to change things.

1:09:46You can't just throw money at it. You can't just have a bunch of people that are just bullshitting and not getting anything done. And this is the problem with LA that we say. Well, there's no doubt. But don't you think that is changing now? Right, we've talked about that. I think it's changing. I think it's changing. But you know, LA will snap right back to the old way. I mean, if you just give a couple of good years, they'll be convinced that, you know, we got to fight that good fight. They'll go, we got a fight that good fight. There's too much at risk. There is too much at risk. I do think it all really depends on how successful Trump is in this four years that he has.

1:10:24And the structure that he sets up and how he can kind of, if it really shows people that, hey, guess what? Gay people aren't losing rights. Hey, guess what? Women aren't losing rights. Hey, guess what? Civil rights aren't being eroded. This is not what's happening. And then the whole country benefits. If we see GDP go up, we see the homelessness, jobless, joblessness go down. That would be you amazing. It would be amazing. Then maybe people could wake their mind up to the fact that you're not in this binary system. And that you really shouldn't be a part of a team. You should be a part of team America.

1:10:58And team America is like, we want the whole thing to be better. Everybody, all of us. Wouldn't that be great? It'd be amazing. It can be done. It can be done. It can be done. Most people, I think, are reasonable kind people. Most people. Yes. But I think people get trapped in ideologies. And California is one of the better examples of a place. It's just trapped. You're either a Democrat or you're a fucking asshole. That's how you look at it. Oh, God. That's how people look at it. Yeah. I think there's a lot of that. There's a lot of that. I have a little bit more. Again, I run a little bit more optimistic in the faith of my fellow Angelinos and Californians that I think there's a real desire to make significant change.

1:11:42I really do. I'm hearing a lot of that. Even from some of my most liberal friends, they want change. Oh, yeah. Well, you can push people up a tool point. Yeah. Yeah. Now, I do think the success of Trump is going to have a big influence on that. And so, especially in California, because the majority is very leery. Right? Yes. Los Angeles, very leery of that. And if he could do more of what he did that day at that press conference out in the palisades, it would be great. Because he did show a compassion. He did show a strength. He showed that what he cared about was the people getting back in their homes.

1:12:28And let's take care of them. He showed an impatience with the bureaucracy that was, you know, they were spinning it boy. The elected officials that day. And he was pushing back on it. Yeah. Very professionally, very nicely. But he's very handling people this time around. I was impressed. A lot of the way he used to communicate with people and he's much more even and measured. Yeah. I was much more effective. I agree. I was impressed. And like I said earlier, he's a builder. He's a successful builder. And I would love to him to give a little blueprint to the city of LA and say, you know, here's the 10 things you need to do.

1:13:10Yeah. And it should only take that. I mean, that's what we're doing. This new foundation I launched with a bunch of really smart thought leaders in industry have come together. We launched it yesterday just to go tackle problems. Don't tell me what the problem is. Without the solution. I just live by that. And there is a solution to every problem. It may not be the solution you want. But there's a solution out there. So work towards it. And I'll give you an example. You know, I've been pushing since the fires. We've got to underground all the power lines. You can't go rebuild the palisades or Altadena.

1:13:44The way it was built 70 years ago. Right. It'd be insane. It's insane. So underground the power lines redo the water mains redo the fire, higher firing system, blah, blah, blah. And I get this pushback. We don't have the money. We don't have the time. You just had the largest urban disaster in the history of the United States. $250 billion worth of damage. And you're telling me you don't have the money to do the right thing. Didn't we just have the largest infrastructure bill in history? Passed about a year ago. We must have the money and we'll find the money. But that can't stop you from doing what's right.

1:14:25So this organization I put together is to go be the advocate for those homeowners to be the advocate for those business people that lost their businesses and work alongside government and say, listen, we'll solve the problem for you and hand the blueprint to you. So we're going to hold you accountable to implement it. What is the answer when they say we don't have the money? If you have California, which is just insanely enormous economy. So and very high tax rate. One of the highest. That's right. So you have high taxes. So you have an enormous economy. That means you got a lot of money. Right.

1:15:00So where's the money going? Where the money is gone. I can't tell you. You know, we used to have a surplus in California. Now we have a deficit. So if that happens at your home or my home, that means we mismanaged our money. It's pretty simple. Yeah. In solving the problem for the palisades are all Tadina on the electric issues or the infrastructure issues. Listen, the city has bonding authority. Department of water and power has bonding authority. There's federal grants or state grants. There's private capital. We're going to go solve that and give some answers to the city. But my point is the answer can't be let's not do what's right.

1:15:42We've done enough of that. The answer has to be we're going to go do this and now we're going to solve how to pay for it. And we're going to do it quickly to get people back in their homes and start building again. And I believe we can bend the curve. If somebody thinks it's going to take five years, let's go figure out how we get it done in two years. This is where private enterprise needs to come in and help the government because the government alone can't fix this problem. It's too big. They work too slow. You need innovation and entrepreneurship that private enterprise brings. We saw that in COVID with project warp speed and getting the medicines that were needed at the time.

1:16:22We saw it at 9 .11 on getting the rebuilding done. And we need to implement the same thing and Los Angeles to get the city rebuilt because it's an impact on the American economy to have the size of two manhattens. Two manhattens. That's our business. Can you imagine that? That's insane. 14, 15 ,000 structures. It's so hard for people to imagine that. I just went back like I was telling you, I was there a couple weeks ago for the UFC. And you know, you see it and when you're flying over, it just doesn't even make sense. Yeah. We see we we showed the drone footage as well of the pal sites. It doesn't make sense.

1:17:01Yeah. So much devastation. All todena is gone. Gone. Gone. Which is and you know, all todena, my friend Jimmy Doer was just talking about this the other day in a video. It was this beautiful like nice neighborhood. Oh, yeah. Three line streets and cottage homes. Dears sweet neighborhood. And gone. Yeah. Gone. One of the nice neighborhoods, like a beautiful neighborhood of drive through. Yeah. Gone. And those people mostly, Joe, as you know, so many of them, there's no safety net. Right. I mean, very moderate income. Right. You know, working class, hard working class people. And I was I've been telling all the elected officials, you got to have programs that start supporting people because they are down and out.

1:17:46They have nowhere to go. And we we've got to do something to help them, you know, day to day to live. One of one of the things that was bothering me was they were talking about replacing all those beautiful streets that were filled with single family homes with big apartment buildings. And then it would just ruin that area. Can't do it. Yeah. Can't do it. It's wrong. Yeah. This is not the time to be reimagining anybody's neighborhood. No. On the backs of the devastation and the pain. I've been really vocal about that. And this is, you know, this is the creep you get what you're talking about. This social justice.

1:18:27Well, now let's say in the palisades, let's start building a whole bunch of low income housing. I'm all for low income housing. I'm building workforce housing for our employees that are low income because I want to make sure they have a home. So I'm all into that. But now is not the time to do it in a neighborhood that's been devastated. And there's also, you're going to have people that won't be able to move back to their neighborhood because they may not be wealthy, but they may make more money than what is required to move into a low income apartment. They can't move back. Don't do that. That's not fair.

1:19:06If you want to do that, what I've told the elected officials is provide an incentive, not a requirement. If you build some low income units in an apartment building you're replacing, we, oh, let me back up. So we have this crazy law in the city of Los Angeles. Crazy law in the city of Los Angeles is something of this effect. I mean, I get it exactly right. If you tear down an existing apartment building that's market rate, you have to replace it with low income housing. Okay. I think all of it. Maybe it's not all of it. I think it's the majority of it, but whatever the number is, okay. My point is when you do that, you provide a disincentive to reinvest in the city.

1:19:54Yeah. So let's turn it around and provide an incentive. Say if you close, knock it down and rebuild, or it's burned down on the palisades and want to rebuild, then give a bonus density and allow that person to build more to compensate them for providing housing that is low income. It just seems to be more fair. How would you do that? How is that work? Let's say you have a 12 -unit apartment building that burnt down in the palisades. Instead of requiring low income housing for, let's say, 20, 30, 40 percent of it, say instead of building 12, we're going to let you build 20 units. And out of the 20 units, give us six units that are low income housing.

1:20:37Whatever the numbers are. But let's have governments start thinking about an incentive -based system. I mean, you look at your life or my life or the people that work here, the harder you work, the more that you do, you're more rewarded. You're not required to work harder. You're incentivized to work harder or work smarter. And I think if we build that kind of thinking into government to provide capital, to provide investment, especially on the rebuilding, you can have some social policies that are very important and very good like low income. What I would even say is, why don't we give an incentive to build workforce housing in the palisades and Altadena?

1:21:23Where the workforce housing goes to the first responders, firefighters. Police and teachers. So now you can have firefighters, police and teachers living in the neighborhoods they're serving. As you know, LA is so expensive. Most of the cops drive two hours to get home and two hours to get to work, same with the firefighters. You want them to be in the neighborhood they serve. That's a great public policy. I think - You were the random incentive. Especially in a place like the Pacific palisades, I think people deeply resent the idea of being forced to have any kind of low income housing. The idea is that it's hard to live in the palisades.

1:22:02It's expensive. It's beautiful. It's an incredible piece of land or it was before the fires devastated it. It was a glorious place to live. It was very difficult to afford to live there. So the people that made the most money were the ones who could buy the homes there. They don't want someone to open up low -income housing in the same neighborhood that's very difficult to live in. The whole idea is that you make enough money where you could live in a place that's very difficult to live in, but it's beautiful and it's really safe. And that's what the palisades was. They don't want this to be replaced with low -income housing.

1:22:36They don't want incentives for it to be replaced with low -income housing. Yeah, I don't know, Jill. I think there's people - I think there's a lot of people that would be very excited to have workforce housing, especially if you tell your workforce housing into first responders. And I think there's people that would allow - That's different, though. That's different. It is. It is. Apartment buildings. Yeah, but even in a department building. Even in an apartment setting, I think it can work. I mean, listen, I think there's people of the palisades that would very much welcome affordable housing, low -income housing.

1:23:08I certainly wouldn't have a big landowner in the palisades. But what I don't like about it is the requirement. Off the backs of people who have lost everything. That's just not right. That's not the time to do it. If you want to go rezone stuff, let the place get rebuilt and let people get back on their feet and then go have that discussion. It's a timing issue on it, in my opinion. But listen, there's a lot of issues the city's got to tackle to get these places rebuilt. It's immensely complicated. And again, I mean, I'll be very honest, the government just cannot do it alone. There's just no way.

1:23:46There's just no way. One of the things that people complain a lot about California is regulations. Yeah. And how regulated it is and how difficult it is to start businesses and to maintain businesses. Hugely over -regulated. What can be done about that? You cut through the red tape. We have more regulations. It's insane to run a business. I run a business, obviously, in LA and in California. And it's to the point that you would never, I would never restart the business in LA and in California. It's too expensive. The tax rates are too high for everybody. Not just people that are making money. I'm talking about people who are moderate, hardworking people.

1:24:26It tax rates too high. But the regulation on small businesses in Los Angeles, you have businesses now closing because of it's over -regulated. And then it got even frankly worse post -COVID. Because a lot of the restrictions they took away during COVID in order to allow businesses to survive and restaurants to operate. They started taking them away. Like just having outdoor dining. Like why would you do that? Why would you make it more difficult for a small business owner to operate a restaurant? So that gets back to like the business approach to running government. Let people prosper. Have a system.

1:25:03There's certain laws you need, obviously, to operate safely and smartly. But let have a system that people can earn money, become successful. What's the cause of a more regulation? How does it start? I don't, Joe, that's a good question. I think that there's a group of people that feel like government is the only way that society can be safe and regulated. That people left on their own, we'll go crazy and do terrible things and running around the streets. It's just not the way it works. Capitalism is a really good system. We've proven that. And over -regulation starts squeezing capitalism to the point that it pushes out people from investing and creating jobs and creating opportunity.

1:25:52And LA is gone to the point. It's certainly over the bridge and needs to get pulled back. I mean, I can't even tell you how over -regulated it is. And then on top of it, in LA now, we have two few cops. And so the obligation to protect your property is getting pushed to private landowners. So like on our shopping centers, we have a very safe environment, friendly environment, family environment, all those kind of things. We're very protective of. LAPD wants to do the right thing. They don't have the resources. So we've had to supplement it. Millions of millions of dollars of private security. And that's a whole other problem because what about the individual landowner in a neighborhood that doesn't have the kind of protection they need?

1:26:39And they don't have the police force to protect them and running a business. It becomes impossible. And again, those things are just fixable. They really are fixable. So regulations, water, law and order, what are the things are our giant issues about LA that you think need to be addressed? Well, I think we have to on the positive side, I want to be more business friendly. I want to invite businesses back to California. I want to invite businesses back to LA. That's tough, so I know. I want to get Elon back to LA. I don't want him to leave LA. I've told him that, you know, and I think he would come back.

1:27:24I think all these businesses would come back. Sure. If it was reasonable, if it was reasonable, it didn't leave because it was awesome. That's what people have done. I didn't leave because it was awesome. Right. I left because I just didn't want this group of people that I thought were inept telling me what to do. Of course. And they gave you in a weird way. They gave you the incentive to leave and not the incentive to stay. Yes. I want to give people the incentive to stay. Start your business, grow your business, raise your family. Let's protect you, clean the streets. You know, all of those basic things are really important.

1:27:56And again, Joe, maybe I'm overly optimistic in it, but it can come back. And I think California, if unleashed, is just a mighty powerhouse, it could really change the direction of this whole country. The innovation that we have in California, the technical knowledge, what's happening in our universities, some of the best in the world, what's happening in the tech field with AI, it's all based here in California. And you've got to let that flourish, you know, set the platform that's encouraging these youngest brightest minds to come here and start your business. Right. And do the right thing. And you've made the point you're absolutely right.

1:28:37I've talked to a lot of the tech people, you know, they want a different leadership that is supporting the growth of technology that's going to change the world. It's going to happen somewhere. We saw it happen in China with their new AI company. And we better be prepared to be the best at it. And we have to provide the platform to do that. So in order to incentivize people, if they wanted to come back to California, you've got these enormous taxes. So something has to be done on a state level, not just on a city level, to address that. That's right. So how do you address that? Yeah, you should have competitive tax rates.

1:29:21I don't know why California needs to tax people much higher than any other state. Why would you? The cost of operating a state, you know, you've got very sophisticated states, very dense states. It's a matter of setting priorities. And we've got to look at the tax code and make it fairer. We've got the highest gas costs in the country. Why does it go into gas in California? It costs more than a gallon. Well, isn't that because in California, you required to sell gas. It's refined in California. I don't know if that's the case. That's the case, Jamie. But I know I think I think the gas in California is also highly taxed.

1:29:58Of course. I wouldn't have. This tax is based. This is the question though Rick. It's like, where's all this money going? If you don't know, it's insanely high tax rate. But yet you don't have any money to fix the power lines. You got to insanely high tax rate. But you can't clean up the homeless problem. You even though you throw a lot of money on it, where's that money going? I know that's not going to the school system. They need to get these super nerds that are a top of this department of government efficiency and set them loose. Set them loose on California. We've got a lot of smart people in California along with them that really want to help the system.

1:30:31I think the minute you bring some really smart people, this is what I did with this foundation. You look at the list of people that are donating their time and talent. It's just brilliant people. I made one phone call to each of them. Would you give me your time and talent? I don't want a dollar from you. Yes, I'm in. Whatever it is, I'm in. That's what we need to do more of. Is have the elected officials have the courage and the competency to reach out and get the smartest people in different industries to come in and help get their ideas and implement them. That's the greatest form of government.

1:31:12Whether you're a Republican or a Democrat, it doesn't really matter if you got great ideas. If you're a big thinker, that's what I would do. I am doing. On a state level, like the taxes for the state, that would have to be addressed by the governor, right? The governor and the legislature. What could be done about that? I think you've got to rebuild it. Joe, I don't want to give you a specific proposal here, but it doesn't need to be as high as it is in order to operate the state of California. If the state of California has their priorities right of what they're spending money on. By the way, the best way, and we learned this from Reagan, to raise revenue for the government, is to allow businesses and families to grow and create jobs and industries, not to suppress them.

1:32:02The many you keep overtaxing people, all you're doing is giving people the incentive to leave, which we've seen, the Exodus. If you start giving people a rate that allows them to be benefited by staying in the state of California, that business will grow and California is going to make more revenue. It's not a rocket science. It's not a rocket science. People have more money. It's better for everybody. Right. If you get some jobs, you get people off the streets. Yeah. You know, this whole thing starts changing the dynamic. How great would that be? It would be pretty incredible. I just don't think it's possible.

1:32:41It's just a daunting task. It is a daunting task, but okay, I'm not throwing flowers at you. Look at what you've accomplished in your career. That was a daunting task. Yeah, but I didn't think about it. It just sort of lucked out. It wasn't luck. Yeah, it was a little bit of luck. Everybody's got a little bit of luck. For sure. It was a hell of a lot of hard work and you were very focused and you had your head down and you just kept going forward. So it can be done. Yeah. I couldn't do what you did. Yeah, you could be done. I just want to go in a tangent for a second. Sure. Okay, my boys got me addicted to taking an ice bath.

1:33:19Okay. You're insane. What's the temperature of yours? 34. Oh my god. Okay, I saw a picture of you removing a sheet of ice. Yeah. Yeah. I'm nowhere near the stuff that you are. Obviously, it's not that hard. It's just three minutes and I'm the rest of it. I'm 50. I'm 50 is cold. Yeah, and I'm addicted to it. Yeah, it's great. You win for three minutes. You'll still get the benefits of 50. Okay. What I get at 30 is much more suck and getting through the suck is part of it. Is it? Yeah, as long as the suck part. Sucks for about a minute. Yeah, the first minute. The first minute really sucks. Yeah, that's with me at 50.

1:33:59Yeah, I took a breathing. I got some stem cells shot into my shoulder recently. When I do that, you have to take like 72 hours because the actual, the inflammation is actually good from the initial injection to heal the area. And so I took three days off and it's funny. Just taking three days off when you get back in the suck is worse. Yeah, but it doesn't for me, it doesn't get any easier though. Doesn't after the first minute? No, no, no, no, no, like, oh, every day, every day. Yeah, it gets a little easier. It never gets easy, but it gets a little, it's like it's easier now, like three days, like now I'm like four or five days in.

1:34:34It's like, so when I pop the lid off of it, I just, I don't even think about it. I just go get in there. Yeah, just shut up. Put the timer on. Get in there. Just sit. Yeah, just sit there. I do love it. But the thing about it is the way you feel when you get out is so amazing. Yeah. You feel alive, you feel energized, you feel like your brain is firing, all your endore. It kicks up your dopamine levels by 200 % at last for hours and hours. Yeah. You feel wonderful. And that's the thing. It's like we need to delay gratitude. You need to delay these, this people like to like feel comfortable now.

1:35:12You need to delay that. Yeah, put that on the side. I like that. Just suck it up for a while. Yeah. And doing that, forcing yourself to have voluntary adversity, just like have three minutes a day that's horrible is going to make the whole rest of your day better. Yeah. That's only three minutes. How much time he's been on Instagram? Just flip it through nonsense. Just look at it bullshit, getting upset at Twitter going on to one of these people talking about like three minutes. No, it's a dig to me. I never thought I would be addicted to it. I love it. I love it. And the other thing I love, which I heard you do, is the infrared?

1:35:47Yeah, I do that too. I do that today. Yeah. I do it every day. Yeah. I love it. Oh, you're talking infrared, sauna. I do a red light bed every day. I do a regular sauna, a dry sauna because I think there's more research that's been done, particularly at a Finland. You know, they did a 20 year study where they showed a 40 % decrease in all cause mortality for people who use the sauna four days. Really? Yeah. More than an infrared. Just a, a little fashion. Just not more than an infrared. I think like infrared is definitely beneficial. I think the whole idea is heat shock proteins. The whole idea is raising your body temperature to the point where your body develops these heat shock proteins in order to mitigate the effects of the extreme heat because you can really only tolerate that extreme heat for certain amount of time.

1:36:33A regular dry sauna gets way hotter. So my sauna, I like to keep it at 196. So I get in there at 196 for 25 minutes. Wow. And it's not fun. It's not fun. It sucks. But that stress of doing that is what makes your body stronger. It's the response. Your body's response to that extreme stress that makes it stronger. And this is what develops the heat shock proteins. And this is what is responsible for this. There's an EPO -like effect on your blood where you have more red blood cells. It raises your endurance. It's like a, like almost like static cardio. Even though you're sitting there, you know, I wear a heart rate monitor sometimes when I'm in there.

1:37:17And my heart's jacked up to 147 beats a minute at the end. Wow. I mean, it's pretty high at that. When you're hitting that 21 minute mark and you're looking at your walks, oh, Jesus Christ, four more minutes of this shit. And then has your is your recovery quick once you get out of your heart? Yeah, once you're down. I'm so used to it. But another benefit is living in Texas. When I go out in the heat in the sun, it doesn't bother me at all. My body's fully adapted to being hot. You know, it's just it's hot every day. And this just that's again, it's just voluntary adversity. It's forcing yourself to do something physically.

1:37:50And it makes the rest of your day way easier. Okay. So you should get into politics, voluntary adversity. I would way rather have people like you on and try to help you out. Okay. I appreciate that. I'm grateful for that. Zero interest in getting involved myself. Is this where your interest end though? Is it just mayor stuff? Or do you ever look bigger than that? I don't know. You know, right now, honestly, I was looking at a lot of a couple of different options. And then when January 7th hit with the fire, the world sort of stopped. And I want to spend a lot of time right now trying to get it rebuilt.

1:38:27There's going to be time for politics for me for sure. It's probably not right now. Do you think like one day like governor or one day like maybe president? Well, I don't I, you know, come on. Come on. You know what I want to do? I look at it and I don't mean this in a morbid way. I mean it in a positive way. I'm at the I'm sort of at the back nine of my life, right? And I've had an incredible life. And so what can I do like that's really meaningful at this point? And I enjoy public service a lot. I enjoyed when I worked for three different mayors. And so I do want to do something at some point.

1:39:07But the question for me is where is the place that I can do the most good and and have a good time doing it by the way. Because I like having fun. And where does that intersect? And so as time goes on, I'll figure that out. And whether it's the governor or whether it's the mayor, I'm not quite sure. But I want to do something at some point. But now I really want to get the place rebuilt. Let's get moving. What is that involved? You wanted to get the place rebuilt. So how long is this woman still going to be the mayor for? Well, she's there for, you know, I think about 18 months or so. And she already announced before the fires, she's going to run for reelection.

1:39:50But we'll see how that plays out. As a private citizen, it's this group that I put together that's going to work really closely pushing the city, finding solutions, sort of calling out when they're not doing what they need to be doing. And I'm hopeful that that's going to be really effective. And like I said, bending the curve, shortening the timeline to get people in. And that's going to take most of my time. And most of my day, I got a small mighty staff that I hired for it. I'm going to fund it myself. I'm going to use all the resources from my company and the talent we have in the company to help find answers to rebuild it.

1:40:29We got guys like, you know, Joe Lonstayles, a part of that group. One of the biggest thinkers around. I got the head of Parsons. You know, one of the great Gensler architectural firms. Everybody's donating time and talent. And so we want to push the needle on this thing. And then politics will come down the road. We'll figure that out. Well, that's sounds wonderful. But it seems to me that like, unless you're at the cockpit, unless you're you know, controlling the direction of the city. Yeah. It's going to be very hard to really change things in a meaningful way. It's a it's a good challenge for sure.

1:41:03But I can't I can't change the leadership that's there now. And the problem is now. Right. Right. So I got to figure out how I helped the leadership be successful. Has the leadership adjusted their perspective based on this enormous failure of the fire? Because it seems like politically that's a giant handicap for them. Right. Obviously it was a huge disaster. So yeah, in order to get reelected, you have to give these people some faith that you've recognized that you've made some errors. And they're going to do things to have. I haven't heard that. I haven't heard that. That sounds crazy. Yeah.

1:41:40But you know, I'll be really honest with you. I'm always honest with you with everybody. When you're a leader and you weren't around to help prevent the problem, probably highly unlikely you're going to be able to fix the problem. If that was your judgment. Yeah. Right. Right. So if your judgment was, I'm going to go out of town when this catastrophic event is about to hit the city that I'm in charge of. You probably don't have the judgment to get it fixed. I hope I'm wrong. But what I'm going to do whatever I can to help because the problem is bigger than the politics and the problem is bigger than her.

1:42:23And the people that are suffering shouldn't be suffering because of her or anything that she did or who she appointed that failed in their job. We've got to do a workaround. It's the only option I've got right now. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what I'm going to do. That's very practical. Is there anything else that you would think of that needs to be discussed about LA and that you think could be fixed? You know, we cover the regulations. Yeah. What about desalination? Absolutely should be done. Great idea. I tried it when I was ahead of Department of Water and Power. Yeah. Got flaught by every environmental group there is.

1:43:04Why? They think we're going to empty the entire ocean. It's crazy. There's so much water right there. It's crazy. First of all, we're dumping sewage. You know, there's tertiary treatment where water is potable. We dump sewage secondary treatment. It doesn't hurt the ocean, but we're dumping it. Take it to tertiary treatment. Put it back in the natural underground aquifers and save it. Yeah. Right. I mean, the abundance of water that goes into the ocean is sort of what you start out with. D -sale brilliant. Yeah. Absolutely. We should be doing it. We should have desal plants supporting Los Angeles and big parts of the Southern California.

1:43:47Also, it creates jobs. It creates jobs. You can do it where it's environmentally safe. Absolutely. And it has it has a redundancy of power that comes off of it also that's helpful because we've got a power shortage in California. Absolutely. And we've got more and more demand in our grid than we know how to supply right now. And again, back in the day, work as a redundancy of power. Well, because you you've got to generate a lot of power for the D -sale. When the D -sale is not operating, you're still got an operating power plant there. So you can skew up the operation in order to have additional energy coming off your D -sale plant.

1:44:26Mm. Okay. And you've got to build a power plant to D -sale because of the amount of power it consumes to clean the water. And how much water could be desalinated? Like how much of an impact can they actually have? Does it depend upon the size of the plant and how many of them are on the side of the plant? You can, yeah, depends on the size of the plant. So you can easily, they should be set up though like at various intervals along the coast. And you'd probably fix the entire, I mean, California could be completely green. Well, listen, it could be, but it's also, you mix, you mix sources of water.

1:45:00Like right now in LA, I'll just take LA, you've got the aqueduct that's bringing water down the William O 'Hull and built at the turn of the century, right? He was brilliant on how he did it. There isn't one pump. It's all gravity flow that comes down from Inio County, Owens Valley comes down. It was a whole bunch of controversy and everything, but put all of that is sort of been fixed. That water comes down. There's some water that comes down from the state. There's water that Los Angeles has natural aquifers. We pump, right? Again, if you, and then you add diesel to it, then you have one more supply that's backing up supply.

1:45:41And then of course, you want to capture rainwater, which we do a terrible job of. We let it go in the ocean. We don't capture as much rainwater in Los Angeles as we should. Probably not much at all. But even with the sewage, why wouldn't you just spend the investment and take the treatment and put it back in the aquifer and have clean water? Yeah. It's just a constant supply. All we're doing now is we're dumping it in the ocean. Yeah, that's very stupid. And again, it's doing the same thing you've always done and hoping for a different result. Yeah. What was the pushback from the idea of desalination plants?

1:46:19Because there's a long line of thinkers that there should be no power plants along the coast of California because of the emissions. So years ago when I was president, DWP, under Tom Bradley's leadership at the time, converted all the old oil plants on the coast to gas to be clean. There's better technology now. You know, you can convert those, they're testing out hydrogen and convert them to hydrogen plants. There's a big plant that DWP built in Utah when I was president called Intermountain of Power Project. It was the cleanest cold burning plant in the country at the time. This is probably 25 years ago, now 30 years ago.

1:47:02They're now testing and converting it to hydrogen, which will be absolutely clean. That's smart. Right. So we need - We need - Mix oxygen. Right. Yeah. We need more - The question is how do you boil water? Pick your source. That's what a plant does. A plant boils water, creates steam, spends a turbine, you got electricity. Right. You know, so whatever kind of fuel you want, we built - We were partners in Palavirty, which is the nuclear plant in Arizona. We need more - nuclear plants in this country. Yeah. I was gonna get this to that. Right. So and I don't know why the leadership in this state, you know, hasn't been aggressive in building more clean burning plants because we need them.

1:47:43Nuclear has a negative stereotype in the public eye. Unfortunately. Yes, unfortunately. Because of Chernobyl, three mile island, because of Fukushima, people think nuclear, they think disaster, they think terrible waste. Right. You can't get away from it. It pollutes the ground forever. But it can be made very safe. But it can be made much safer and much cleaner. And it's not being done because we're - And then also people have to understand that if you go back to the cars that were on the road at the time these nuclear power plants were built, those cars were polluting like crazy. You got a brand new car.

1:48:20The emissions are far less. Yeah. Or you get it Tesla. You have none. Right. So like, why would we look at the same old architecture of these night like the Fukushima ones, prime example, that only had one backup generator. The backup generator went out. They were done. They have them now where they can actually shut them down. They have the - There's new designs. Oh yeah. And listen, Palavirty again is probably 20 or 30 years old. It's been an incredibly performing plant. Never has had a problem. So again, this is where you sort of get into what your point is, get somebody from the outside who's thinking big, who's thinking outside the box, who wants to change the landscape for a - for the better way of having a quality of life.

1:49:07And is willing to think big. And you're going to get kicked in the head sometimes. And not every idea is going to make sense and - and work. But you only get there if you throw enough good ideas out on the table that you figure things out. Right. And so when you take a look at Los Angeles, when you take a look at California, I'm hopeful that you get leadership that just starts looking at things differently and will make some small moves that turns into big changes. So we'll see. I'm - again, I'm optimistic about it. Well, I'm optimistic too. I am. I mean - We're going to get you back there. Good luck.

1:49:40I'm never leaving Texas. Okay. I'll never leave it a big city again. I think you get too big. It's just people become a burden. I think there's a psychic aspect to it. Yeah. You know, the just the mindset of living in a smaller place is more relaxed. Yeah. It just feels better. I get it. Yeah. I get that. Especially raising a family. Yes. But I did love living in LA. I lived there for 25 years. I loved it. Yeah. Thought it was awesome. Had a great time there. You know, I still miss parts of it. I still miss the comedy store. And I still miss, you know, there's there's amazing aspects to LA still.

1:50:21And there's an amazing group of human beings that live in LA still. It's an incredible city. Yeah. But the problem is everyone knew that it was amazing and everyone knew that everybody wanted to go there. And so they just sort of took everybody for granted. Yeah. And they said, look, let's just test the shit out of this people. We they're staying. They're not going anywhere. It's California. Where are you going to go? That's still that attitude. Yeah. That's the one doesn't. Doesn't work. That's what I felt. And that's what you hear from the governor and the two you hear from people when they brag about California, you know, about instead of addressing why are people leaving?

1:50:57They talk about how great California is. I work, I can ask. Yeah. Yeah. I'm still. But not as much as before. And there's a reason you run a downward trend. Yeah. It's the government. And not as much as we could. Yeah. Not as much as could. Yeah. Well, listen, Rick, whatever you do, I wish you the best. Thank you. So I really, I do hope you run for mayor again. And I hope you win this time. And I hope you can enact some of these ideas that you have because I think they're very, very promising. And I think government needs people like you, people from the outside. I really do. So thank you very much.

1:51:26Thank you very much.