EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,082 words- 0:00 – 15:00
(drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast,…
- RCRick Caruso
(drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.
- JRJoe Rogan
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music plays) Good to see you, sir.
- RCRick Caruso
Thanks for having me.
- JRJoe Rogan
My pleasure.
- RCRick Caruso
Great to be here.
- JRJoe Rogan
Thanks for being here. Uh, it is a, uh, terrible time for Los Angeles.
- RCRick Caruso
Yup.
- JRJoe Rogan
And, uh, unfortunately, uh, you did not win. I wanted you to win.
- RCRick Caruso
Thank you.
- JRJoe Rogan
I was rooting for you.
- RCRick Caruso
Thank you.
- JRJoe Rogan
Uh, it's just, the politics in LA are, it's- it's almost like watching people who are in a cult, who are being confronted by the cult experts who are telling them, "Hey, this is all crazy and fake, and you're- you're ruining your life." And they're like, "No, no, no, I think it's gonna work out." (laughs)
- RCRick Caruso
(laughs) Yeah. Well, there's a lot of things that aren't working out.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- RCRick Caruso
There's a lot of things that are. I mean, listen, I know like you, being, spending time and living in LA, it's an amazing city.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's amazing.
- RCRick Caruso
And when I ran for office, as much as I loved LA, I actually fell in love with it more because I got to see places that I wouldn't normally see. And so it was really amazing, and people, and the diversity and the dear-ness of so many neighborhoods and people. But what's happened to LA over the last decade is just tragic, and people are paying huge consequences for it and, um, it's sad to watch.
- JRJoe Rogan
So, if you get to the heart of it, like if you did, if you won and you became the mayor of LA, what could you do to try to turn this battleship around? 'Cause it's a big battleship.
- RCRick Caruso
It's a big battleship and people will argue that the mayor of LA doesn't have a lot of authority, like other mayors. Um, you know, I learned a lot, Joe. I worked for three mayors. I worked for Tom Bradley when I was in my mid-20s as a commissioner. I was the head of Department of Water and Power. I worked for Dick Riordan. He brought me back into head of DWP during the energy crisis. Uh, the department was under a lot of financial strain. And then I worked for Jim Hahn, who brought me in to turn around LAPD and I was the police commissioner, the head of the Police Commission. So I've seen really good leadership. Um, and honestly what we've had in the last two mayors is not good leadership and we're paying a price for it. So you may not have a lot of power, but actually, I think the most powerful thing you can have that I learned as a police commissioner, if you're not worried about getting reelected or reappointed, it's really amazing what can happen.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- RCRick Caruso
'Cause you can make decisions that are actually in the best interest of the people and I believe that career politicians are always worried about getting reelected. They are scared to death of getting a real job. They've never had to sign the front of a check, only the back, so it's very difficult for them to even think about being out of office, so they just circulate. You know, they go from the city council to the state assembly to the state senate, and we end up with the same sort of look and feel of leadership, which is pretty weak. Um, I think Dick Riordan was a good example of a guy who came in and did a lot of great stuff. I actually think Jimmy Hahn did a lot of great stuff, uh, as mayor. So I would go in there with some strong leadership. I would certainly go in there and reach across the aisle and find common ground and all of those things you need to do to move forward, but I would certainly plant some really strong goals that everybody knew we were working f- working towards 'cause, you know, I believe that you either lead, follow, or get out of the way. And I really admire people who lead, and, um, I wouldn't mind being a little bit controversial if it's in the interest of doing what's in the best interest of the residents.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, that's what I enjoyed about your campe- campaign, and that's what I was really hopeful about is that it seemed like you were not running for mayor because you wanted to be the mayor.
- RCRick Caruso
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
You w- you were running for mayor because you're a businessman and you realized that this was not being run like a successful business.
- RCRick Caruso
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
And you knew how to run a successful business.
- RCRick Caruso
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
You knew the difference. And LA is just constantly plagued by this crony poli- political movement. This- these- the same people, same type of people shuffling in and out.
- RCRick Caruso
(laughs) Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And it just, nothing ever changes.
- 15:00 – 30:00
Right? …
- JRJoe Rogan
- RCRick Caruso
Right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- RCRick Caruso
Give the damn permits and say go.
- JRJoe Rogan
I first encountered Skid Row when we used to film Fear Factor downtown.
- RCRick Caruso
Oh. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And I, you know, I'd heard of it. I had no idea. And we were driving, we, we, we, we had done a bunch of the Fear Factor stunts in, uh, abandoned buildings.
- RCRick Caruso
Hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know, it makes good backdrops.
- RCRick Caruso
Sure.
- JRJoe Rogan
Creepy. Um, and when I went there, one time I took a wrong turn. And, uh, I went, like, right into the meat of everything. And I was like, "This is insanity." And this was 2004? 2003?
- RCRick Caruso
Hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
So this is 20 years ago, 22 years ago. And even back then, it was bananas. And-
- RCRick Caruso
Come see it now.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, I've heard. Well, we watched that documentary, is it the Carlyle Hotel, Jimmy?
- RCRick Caruso
I think so.
- JRJoe Rogan
One of the, the documentaries on the, one of the old downtown, uh, hotels. And it went into the history of Skid Row and that what Skid Row was, they would take people, they would arrest them for being vagrants somewhere else and they'd bring them to Skid Row and just leave them there and basically box them in.
- RCRick Caruso
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And leave them in this area. And they had, you know-
- RCRick Caruso
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... soup kitchens-
- RCRick Caruso
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and places-
- RCRick Caruso
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... where they could get food, and they were allowed to just sleep on the street, and so they just stayed there. And so they essentially, instead of fixing this problem of homeless people-
- RCRick Caruso
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and mentally ill people, they just pushed them into this one area.
- RCRick Caruso
That's right.
- JRJoe Rogan
And they said, "Let's just b- you know, we got a, a spot we can just stick them. Let's take it here."
- RCRick Caruso
We can turn our back on it.
- 30:00 – 45:00
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- RCRick Caruso
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- RCRick Caruso
And, and what happened at DWP, 'cause I was there for 13 years, 10 of which I was president, or close to 10, is the, the head of that department got politicized. Years ago under Bradley and under Reardon, under Hahn, 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 a 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. It's in the business of delivering water and power. And th- the failure is also there. I don't understand how the current general manager of the department, I don't know what she did and 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, in my opinion, by the mayor, 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 'cause people lost their lives, they lost their homes, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Well-
- RCRick Caruso
Am I right about that?
- JRJoe Rogan
... you're, you're 100% right. And I think you're 100% right about politics. And the problem with politics is that people wanna preserve the structure that pays them. They wanna preserve the entity that they're invested in-
- RCRick Caruso
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... that they have their time in, they have all their connections-
- RCRick Caruso
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and, and this is the, 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-
- RCRick Caruso
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... i- in the White House.
- RCRick Caruso
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
We're seeing right now with this whole USAID thing, where they're uncovering massive-
- RCRick Caruso
Uh-huh.
- JRJoe Rogan
... amounts of corruption and waste and, and 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 and make people happy-"
- RCRick Caruso
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
"... so we still get elected."
- RCRick Caruso
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Instead of that, you're seeing a pol- a p- 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, and people are freaking out. The, the same people that say, "We need radical change."
- RCRick Caruso
Right. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
"We need radical change. We've got corruption. We need radical change." Okay, well here's your radical change.
- RCRick Caruso
(laughs) Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
"We don't need this!" But you do.
- RCRick Caruso
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
The, the government does. They need oversight-
- RCRick Caruso
Yeah, of course.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and they haven't had that, and because of that y- you're seeing this w- not just waste, you can call it waste, but, uh, it's, it's deeper. It's deeper than waste.
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
Uh, and he was…
- RCRick Caruso
- JRJoe Rogan
Uh, and he was saying, "Look, LA's too big. I think I can fix the problem in Austin." And they did a, an enormous-
- RCRick Caruso
How did they do it?
- JRJoe Rogan
... jo- They did a fantastic job. They bought a bunch of hotels, they put people up, they started programs. They, they put a lot of effort into it.
- RCRick Caruso
Good.
- JRJoe Rogan
But they were only dealing with a few thousand homeless people.
- RCRick Caruso
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
They had like 3,000. Like that's enough-
- RCRick Caruso
Nice.
- JRJoe Rogan
And this is what Steven Adler was saying. He was saying, "You could fix that. You can't fix it when it gets to 80,000, 90,000." H- He's like, "It just gets too big with the burea- pro- bureaucratic process." Like, as government functions-
- RCRick Caruso
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... today without the outsider coming in and making radical change. The way it functions today, he's like, "Oh, it's just too big."
- RCRick Caruso
I don't know.
- JRJoe Rogan
He goes, "I think I can fix Austin. And I think I can fix Austin before I get out." And I think he did a great job.
- RCRick Caruso
That's good.
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, there's still problems. You're always gonna have problems.
- RCRick Caruso
Sure.
- JRJoe Rogan
You have cities.
- RCRick Caruso
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You're gonna have mentally ill people, you're gonna have drug addicts.
- RCRick Caruso
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You're gonna 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 o- other-
- RCRick Caruso
Yeah. It's very sad.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's very sad. You know?
- RCRick Caruso
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
We clearly need better mental health institutions, uh, set up in this country to deal with a lot of these people, because that's what-
- RCRick Caruso
No doubt.
- JRJoe Rogan
... a lot of it... And a lot of it happened during the Reagan administration when they changed the-
- RCRick Caruso
They closed them down.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes. They closed down-
- 1:00:00 – 1:15:00
Right. …
- JRJoe Rogan
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 in your, your future of the world? Like, you-
- RCRick Caruso
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... this is what you're seeing every day? Like, y- you-... you, you absorb that from your environment. The, the, the, the sadness-
- RCRick Caruso
Of course.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and the devastation all around you, when 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 a developing mind, and that's the environment that you encounter all the time, like, that is gonna fuck your head up forever.
- RCRick Caruso
Yeah. It's very tough.
- JRJoe Rogan
And, and then there's the question of the sweatshops. Like, why, why, how, why, how come people that work their tail off constantly have to live three, four families-
- RCRick Caruso
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... in a, in an apartment? Like, what the hell is going on there?
- RCRick Caruso
I, I agree.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- RCRick Caruso
But that's what, that's what I'm saying, that's what I think we gotta start fixing.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- RCRick Caruso
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, you know, by people as they're walking through the doors and all that, it's terrible. But thank God that school is there, 'cause if that school wasn't there-
- JRJoe Rogan
They have nothing.
- RCRick Caruso
... they got nothing.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- RCRick Caruso
They're on the street.
- JRJoe Rogan
No, it's amazing.
- RCRick Caruso
And-
- JRJoe Rogan
But I mean, uh, the problem outside the school, that should be fixed. That should be a public health issue. I mean, if you're wor... Uh, the future human beings, uh, uh, if, if you wanna look at this country and you wanna make America a great place, uh, what you want is less people that are gonna lose at life. You want less losers. The, the best chance you can have less losers is start them off on a good path when they're young.
- RCRick Caruso
That's right.
- JRJoe Rogan
And if-
- RCRick Caruso
Well said.
- JRJoe Rogan
... if you're starting-
- RCRick Caruso
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... 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, like, "What would Mike do? I, I probably wanna do what he does."
- RCRick Caruso
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
"He would get up and get this done, and you know, I, I admire that person." And having people around you that are examples of someone who lives a life that you admire.
- RCRick Caruso
Yeah.
- 1:15:00 – 1:19:03
All of it? …
- RCRick Caruso
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 'cause I wanna make sure they have a home. So, I'm all into that. But now's not the time to do it in a neighborhood that's been devastated and there's also... You're gonna 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. If you wanna do that, what I've told the elected officials is provide an incentive, not a requirement. If you build some low-income units in, 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. The crazy law in the City of Los Angeles is something to this effect, I may not 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 that's-
- JRJoe Rogan
All of it?
- RCRick Caruso
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- RCRick Caruso
So, let's turn it around and provide an incentive. Say, if you close, knock it down and rebuild, or it's burned down in the Palisades and wanna rebuild, then give a bonus density and allow that person to build more to compensate them for providing housing that is low income, right? Just seems to be more fair. Everybody gets what they want.
- JRJoe Rogan
How would you do that? How does that, how does that work?
- RCRick Caruso
Well, 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% of it, say, "Instead of building 12, we're gonna let you build 20 units. And out of the 20 units, give us six units that are low-income housing." Whatever the numbers are.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- RCRick Caruso
But let's have government start thinking about an incentive-based system, right? 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, right? 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, why don't we give an incentive to build workforce housing in the Palisades and Altadena where the workforce housing goes to the first responders, firefighters, um, 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.
- JRJoe Rogan
I think-
- RCRick Caruso
Do it around an incentive.
- JRJoe Rogan
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. It's expensive, it's beautiful, it's a, uh, incredible piece of land, or it was-
- RCRick Caruso
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... before the fires devastated it. It was a glorious place to live. Like-
- RCRick Caruso
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
It was very difficult to afford to live there, so the people-
- RCRick Caruso
It's true.
- JRJoe Rogan
... 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.
Episode duration: 1:48:14
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