Mayor Karen Bass Predicts Los Angeles’ Future! - What Now? with Trevor Noah Podcast

Karen Bass 0:00 Could we just make sure everyone's recording?

Trevor Noah 0:02 All right. I'm, I'm recording on my side.

Speaker 0:04 I'm recording.

Speaker 0:05 I... One second. One second.

Trevor Noah 0:07 I'm, I'm always recording. Please note that all calls are recorded for quality assurance purposes.

Speaker 0:14 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 0:17 [upbeat music] This is What Now? With Trevor Noah. Happy Mayor of Los Angeles Karen Bass Day everybody.

Speaker 0:34 Hey.

Speaker 0:35 Happy Karen Bass Day.

Speaker 0:36 Happy Karen Bass Day.

Trevor Noah 0:37 I love speaking to mayors because-

Speaker 0:40 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 0:40 ... after, after years of years of speaking to politicians I have been told by, I would say like the majority of politicians, that mayors have the most direct impact on, on your life. Like, if you live in a city, a mayor has more of an impact on your life than the president of your country does. And most people don't think this. Most people are out there in the streets, especially in America. I've noticed like in America it's all about national politics. Christiane, I feel like of all of us you have the highest stake in this conversation, 'cause you are a resident of Los Angeles.

Speaker 1:11 I do.

Trevor Noah 1:11 Are you not?

Speaker 1:11 And, you know, I've had some experience with mayors. Boris Johnson was the mayor of London.

Trevor Noah 1:17 [laughs]

Speaker 1:18 And then became the prime minister. So I have a lot of feeling. I've had the worst mayors. I had de Blasio.

Trevor Noah 1:25 [laughs]

Speaker 1:26 I had Boris Johnson, and Karen, I have no view of it right now because, I mean, uh, is, she's currently reigning as the mayor.

Trevor Noah 1:33 I, I wanna speak to her about, um, I mean, everything obviously. But, you know, LA right now, I think one of the big topics obviously is homelessness.

Speaker 1:42 Yeah.

Speaker 1:43 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:44 I find that people are more angry at homeless people than they are at the situations that make people homeless.

Speaker 1:51 For sure.

Speaker 1:51 Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:51 Like they make it, they make it seem like people leave home, kiss their family, and they're like, "All right, honey, I'm off to be homeless. See you soon." Do you know what I mean? And it's like, no one wants to be homeless.

Speaker 2:00 Listen-

Speaker 2:00 Yeah

Speaker 2:00 ... that actually is-

Trevor Noah 2:00 You know how you know that nobody... Yeah, you know how you, you know how you know nobody wants to be homeless? Is because all homeless people try to build homes. Have you ever noticed that?

Speaker 2:07 Yep.

Speaker 2:08 Yeah.

Speaker 2:08 Yeah, especially like in LA. It's such an expensive city. I think I've, I've only had the misfortune and fortune of re- living in really expensive places, London, New York, LA. And this LA housing, there's an affordable housing crisis here.

Trevor Noah 2:23 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2:23 Um, and it's just like it's no surprise that there are people who have full-time jobs and they live in their cars. Like that-

Trevor Noah 2:31 Yeah

Speaker 2:31 ... that's a thing that like blows my mind.

Trevor Noah 2:32 Yeah.

Speaker 2:32 I'm like, you have people who are doing all the right things, right? They went to school.

Trevor Noah 2:36 Yeah.

Speaker 2:36 They got a job, or they went, they have a trade. Like, they are contributing to society.

Trevor Noah 2:41 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2:41 And they still can't afford an apartment. And even if you're not contributing to society, I don't believe that you should have to live on the street. You understand?

Trevor Noah 2:49 Mm-hmm, yeah.

Speaker 2:49 Like, that, that's my view of the social contract. Um, and it's just ex- LA is terrifyingly expensive. LA's a place where, like, rich people [laughs] are nervous. So that makes you think, like, what is going on here? And I don't know, how does a mayor fix that? Because I think LA in many ways starts to suffer from all of the bigger problems that America has federally sometimes.

Trevor Noah 3:11 Yeah.

Speaker 3:11 You know? I don't know.

Trevor Noah 3:13 I hear what you're saying.

Speaker 3:14 If it, if it comes up while you're talking about the homelessness and everything, I have two questions if I could sneak in two.

Trevor Noah 3:21 It depends on what they are, Josh, but go ahead.

Speaker 3:23 Okay. Well, one is, uh, about how you balance, or if you can balance, making illegal something that can inevitably happen to a person. To me, the way that we've in America made homelessness illegal-

Trevor Noah 3:38 Yeah

Speaker 3:38 ... is like tantamount-

Trevor Noah 3:39 Yeah

Speaker 3:39 ... to making becoming old illegal.

Trevor Noah 3:42 Yeah.

Speaker 3:42 But it's an inevitability-

Trevor Noah 3:44 Mm-hmm

Speaker 3:44 ... under certain circumstances.

Speaker 3:45 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 3:45 Yes.

Speaker 3:45 Uh, and then-

Trevor Noah 3:46 It is, it is something that is completely out of your control.

Speaker 3:48 Yeah.

Speaker 3:49 Yeah.

Speaker 3:49 And then the second thing is about if she feels the need or thinks there will be a need to override or overpower the people, uh, in the way that a lot of LA residents end up voting against their own interests, 'cause they're worried about their property value. They don't want this piece of land becoming-

Trevor Noah 4:11 Yeah

Speaker 4:11 ... single family housing or whatever.

Trevor Noah 4:13 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Speaker 4:13 So then eventually someone may have to step in and be like, "I know that you think you're doing what's best for you, but it's ruining everything" And if she thinks the state should have that type of power or if she thinks she'll have to do anything like that. Because it's gonna keep getting worse, you know?

Trevor Noah 4:32 It's, uh, it's, um, it's the classic case of NIMBYism, right? Not in my backyard.

Speaker 4:36 Yeah.

Speaker 4:37 Yes, exactly.

Trevor Noah 4:37 Like-

Speaker 4:37 And it's so easy to become that person, Trevor.

Trevor Noah 4:40 Oh, it is. It is.

Speaker 4:40 But I'm like, "Lewis, who's that? Who's that walking down the street?"

Trevor Noah 4:43 [laughs]

Speaker 4:43 C- can you go and check? [laughs]

Trevor Noah 4:45 [laughs]

Speaker 4:45 Like, I'm like, "H- who stole our lemons? Someone's been stealing my lemons-

Trevor Noah 4:49 [laughs]

Speaker 4:49 ... from my lemon tree. We have a lemon thief."

Speaker 4:53 Oh, my goodness.

Speaker 4:53 And they take them in, like, bundles. And I'm like, "Who's st- you just have to ask. Just ask me. I'd give you my lemons."

Trevor Noah 4:59 [laughs]

Speaker 4:59 "There's a lemon thief." And I'm, like, speaking to the neighbors about it. And I'm like, I'm supposed to be a socialist, and I'm getting furious about lemons. So yeah.

Trevor Noah 5:07 Oh, wow.

Speaker 5:07 Yeah.

Speaker 5:07 The NIMBYism, it happens. It comes to all of us, and we just have to fight it.

Trevor Noah 5:10 It does, it does come to all of us.

Speaker 5:12 It, yes.

Trevor Noah 5:13 It's funny, I used to steal lemons all the time, so. Well, not steal, actually. I used to walk around neighborhoods with my mom when I was, when I was younger, and we would find all the streets where people had fruit trees. And all we would do is just take ... It was like blackberries, um-

Speaker 5:32 So you would steal people's fruit?

Trevor Noah 5:33 Blackberries, apples, lemons-

Speaker 5:35 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 5:35 ... limes, um, peaches, anything that we could find hanging. I, we didn't even think of it as stealing. It is a tree that is growing.

Speaker 5:45 No, no, I, if, the thing is, they take a lot of the lemons, Trevor. They take like 10, 10 lemons at a time. And if you ask me, I will give them to you. Like-

Trevor Noah 5:52 Wait, wait. How do you know, wait, how do you know it's one person taking 10 lemons and not 10 people taking one lemon?

Speaker 5:57 That's a good point. But I, I, my spirit tells me it's one person-

Trevor Noah 6:01 [laughs]

Speaker 6:01 ... taking a bunch of lemon. I, I just, on a spiritual level. You know Nigerians. You know, uh, you know when a thief-

Trevor Noah 6:07 You can feel it. You can feel something-

Speaker 6:09 I can feel a thief

Trevor Noah 6:09 ... something inside you.

Speaker 6:10 You say, "Thief, oh."

Trevor Noah 6:11 [laughs]

Speaker 6:11 I just know it [laughs] Nowhere. Maybe, listen, people knock on the door and ask. I, if you ask, take-

Trevor Noah 6:18 I have never thought an owner of a lemon tree cares about the lemons on it.

Speaker 6:21 I know. I know.

Trevor Noah 6:22 I mean, the fact that they even say, like, "If life gives you lemons, make le-" Like, the f- you know what I mean.

Speaker 6:26 Yes.

Trevor Noah 6:26 That tells you lemons themselves are really not, like, a, a, a s- a sought after produce.

Speaker 6:31 [laughs] Okay. Some-

Trevor Noah 6:32 'Cause think about, think about what that phrase even means. It's like, "If life gives you lemons," i- if life brings the worst to you, try and make something good out of it, and then Christiana's there fighting like, "This is my worst."

Speaker 6:42 I'm just, I'm j- I'm just, I'm just a grateful person.

Trevor Noah 6:45 Okay.

Speaker 6:45 Even for the lemons in my life.

Trevor Noah 6:47 When I was growing up in the township in South Africa, nobody had anything. And what I mean by that is you, you had the very bare minimum. Everyone had a, a basic structure. Uh, you know, sometimes you didn't have running water inside the house, so there was a shared tap or faucet, you know, in, that, that connected a few houses. There were outdoor toilets, et cetera. Everyone had nothing, the bare minimum. And because of that, everyone shared everything with everyone, and what I mean by that is, like, space. Like-

Speaker 7:20 Mm

Trevor Noah 7:21 ... someone would walk through your yard to get to another yard, and it was just like, "Yeah, this is the shortest way possible." So you would walk through your neighbors' backyards all the time, and you'd just greet people. "Hello, hello, hello, hello."

Speaker 7:32 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 7:33 "Sanbonan, ebo, yebo, ye-" It was like, yeah, because I mean, what are you ... Of course, you need to move through my space to get to another space, and it's convenient. I get that. And there, there were all of these instances where people were, quote-unquote, "infringing" on another person's space, but it wasn't felt that way. It wasn't, it wasn't treated that way. And interestingly, you'd see one family in the neighborhood, they would start to do well. You know, a parent of theirs would get a job in the city or whatever it was, and then they would build a wall, would be the first thing they'd build around their house. The houses had no walls, and then there'd be a wall.

Speaker 8:11 Mm.

Trevor Noah 8:11 And then they would put, like, spikes on the top of their wall so that you couldn't climb over the wall, and then they would get a car at some point, and then they would get ... And it's amazing how as the people got more money, they became more and more isolated from the community around them. They stopped speaking to people as much. They stopped getting the occasional weak tie that would meander through their yard and have a random conversation with them. Their children played in their yard and were never in the street, and all of a sudden became ostracized from the other kids. And it's amazing to me how in this machine that we live in, we've all been conditioned and we've all been taught to get as much as possible, but then in that, you know, like, like, the ring from Lord of the Rings, once you have your precious, you, you, you, you are terrified of sharing it with anyone or anyone taking it from you.

Speaker 9:00 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 9:00 And so you have to become, like, a, like, a, a Gollum that goes into a cave and hides with your precious. And we don't realize what we lose, funny enough, you know? And, and by the way, I'm, I'm guilty of it in many ways. I think many of us are.

Speaker 9:11 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 9:11 But you take for granted what you lose. You take for granted the fact that you're constantly not with the people around you, because you're constantly afraid that they will want to take the toasters in your garage, when in fact you don't need that toaster. You didn't care for that toaster.

Speaker 9:26 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 9:26 And the thing you actually need in your life is community and somebody to look after your kids who you actually like, who you didn't hire from an app, who's forced to be on that app-

Speaker 9:34 Oh my gosh, Trevor

Trevor Noah 9:34 ... because they also don't have ... It's just like a, it's just like a wild-

Speaker 9:36 You're speaking my language. It's funny, Lewis walks with Obi every day to school.

Trevor Noah 9:41 Yeah.

Speaker 9:41 So he does about 10,000 steps a day, which in LA makes him a crazy person, 'cause no one walks in LA.

Trevor Noah 9:46 It really does.

Speaker 9:47 Every time we walk in, we run into friends who are driving. They're like, "Why are you walking?" And Lewis is like, "Well, this is the way we see people, and we see the world"

Trevor Noah 9:56 Yeah. Mm-hmm

Speaker 9:56 ... "and we get to know our neighbors." And in a car-centric city like this that, where your friends can live completely across town-

Trevor Noah 10:03 Yes

Speaker 10:03 ... it's really isolating, and there aren't many ways to actually find that community you're talking about. You know what I mean?

Trevor Noah 10:09 Yeah.

Speaker 10:09 'Cause you're always in your car, or you're always at work, and then you go and buy something from the supermarket, and then you come home.

Trevor Noah 10:16 Yes.

Speaker 10:16 And I, I, it's something I've been like, "Oh, I'm in LA. I know all these people, but I never get to see them." And it's 'cause, like, everyone's in their own mini fortress [laughs] and if you want to go-

Trevor Noah 10:24 Yeah

Speaker 10:24 ... on a date you have to hire a babysitter through an app who may quit two weeks later. Not that that happened to me.

Trevor Noah 10:30 [laughs]

Speaker 10:30 But it happened to me. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 10:32 Yeah. But yeah, okay. We're gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna jump, get ready for the mayor. We're gonna talk about, uh, homelessness, crime, and what it is like being the first woman, I think, and then the second African American mayor in LA, which is pretty wild. It's crazy that in 2023 there are still first anythings.

Speaker 10:55 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 10:57 But let's get into it. Mayor Karen Bass. [upbeat music]

Karen Bass 11:04 Mr. Trevor Noah.

Trevor Noah 11:05 Well, well, well.

Karen Bass 11:06 How are you?

Trevor Noah 11:07 She is good.

Karen Bass 11:09 Good.

Trevor Noah 11:09 Thank you for the time. Good to see you. We're rolling? Oh, okay, then, then we can, we can jump into it. I guess, um, jumping straight into it in, in the most, uh, apt way possible, congratulations. You just celebrated one year-

Karen Bass 11:24 Yes

Trevor Noah 11:24 ... of being the mayor of Los Angeles.

Karen Bass 11:26 Yes. It ha- has been an exhilarating year.

Trevor Noah 11:28 Yeah.

Karen Bass 11:29 Really has. Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 11:29 How, how many moments have you regretted taking the job?

Karen Bass 11:32 [laughs] You know what? I haven't.

Trevor Noah 11:34 You haven't?

Karen Bass 11:35 I really haven't, no.

Trevor Noah 11:35 Not even once?

Karen Bass 11:36 No.

Trevor Noah 11:37 I don't know if I believe that.

Karen Bass 11:38 No, but I will tell you, though, I wake up some mornings going, "I'm a mayor?" [laughs] But, but no regrets, no.

Trevor Noah 11:47 It's, it's a massive job.

Karen Bass 11:50 It is.

Trevor Noah 11:51 Being a mayor of any city is, is a monumental task. Being the mayor of Los Angeles is, I mean, is akin to being, you know, a governor in some places-

Karen Bass 12:03 Right. That's right

Trevor Noah 12:04 ... and a president in other places-

Karen Bass 12:05 [laughs] That, that's true

Trevor Noah 12:06 ... because, because of how much your job entails. Let's, let's get into that aspect of it-

Karen Bass 12:11 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 12:11 ... to help me understand, and I think for many people who'll be listening to this. What, what is the mayor of Los Angeles tasked with doing? What is, what, what is under your scope?

Karen Bass 12:21 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 12:21 What are you capable of doing?

Karen Bass 12:23 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 12:23 What are you not capable of doing? What's the job of mayor?

Karen Bass 12:26 Well, let me give you a couple of examples. Um, the job, Los Angeles is one city in a county of 88 cities.

Trevor Noah 12:34 Mm-hmm.

Karen Bass 12:34 Los Angeles just happens to be the largest. A mayor is not in charge of schools. The mayor is in charge of the police department and 44 other city departments, but social services like healthcare and the jails and other poverty-related programs-

Trevor Noah 12:51 Mm-hmm

Karen Bass 12:52 ... I'm not in charge of.

Trevor Noah 12:53 Huh.

Karen Bass 12:53 So I work in conjunction with the county. Now, the good news for me is that because I've been involved in politics, not just as elected office-

Trevor Noah 13:02 Yes

Karen Bass 13:02 ... but I'm being on the ground as an organizer and activist, I have deep long-term relationships with everybody on every level. So that has helped me tremendously.

Trevor Noah 13:10 It's funny you say not schools particularly. Y- I cannot tell you how many people have said to me, "You're speaking to the mayor, talk to her about the schools."

Karen Bass 13:18 Right. Well, you can. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 13:19 "Talk to her about the schools."

Karen Bass 13:21 I'm happy to talk about them, but I have no authority because-

Trevor Noah 13:23 You have no authority over them.

Karen Bass 13:24 No, I do not. But-

Trevor Noah 13:25 Do you, do you think people know what you, what you have authority over and what you don't?

Karen Bass 13:29 Oh, no. Absolutely not. But I'm gonna tell you something, Trevor. This is my third office. I was in the state office-

Trevor Noah 13:34 Mm-hmm

Karen Bass 13:34 ... and the federal office.

Trevor Noah 13:35 Mm-hmm.

Karen Bass 13:35 People have no idea what any of these offices do. So whenever I have a community meeting, I have to spend the first half hour doing civics.

Trevor Noah 13:42 I wonder, who, who do, who do you think we should blame that, is that, is that schooling? Is that education? Is it-

Karen Bass 13:48 No.

Trevor Noah 13:48 ... uh-

Karen Bass 13:48 I think it's our American culture.

Trevor Noah 13:51 In what way?

Karen Bass 13:51 Because Americans are very apolitical and ahistorical. Now, ask somebody about a sports team or a celebrity-

Trevor Noah 13:59 [laughs]

Karen Bass 13:59 ... and they can tell you everything. Ask them who governs the schools and who takes care of the trash and, I don't know, it's, it's the congressperson. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 14:08 They can tell you exactly how many home runs somebody has hit-

Karen Bass 14:10 Exactly

Trevor Noah 14:10 ... but, but not who's running their neighborhood.

Karen Bass 14:12 That's right.

Trevor Noah 14:13 Your, your journey is, in many ways, almost, it's almost perfectly designed for you to be at this moment in your life. You know-

Karen Bass 14:20 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 14:21 ... I was, I was, I was reading through your history and through your life and, I mean, it's, it's quite a story journey. When, when you were a young girl, your, your father really, I guess, inspired you and, and, and, you know, through the things that he showed you, inspired you to become an activist.

Karen Bass 14:37 Right.

Trevor Noah 14:37 You wanted to be part of changing your world. That's not what most kids want.

Karen Bass 14:42 [laughs] It's not.

Trevor Noah 14:42 That's not what most kids dream of. What was it about activism that made you think, "I wanna get involved in that"?

Karen Bass 14:47 Oh, you know what? I think it was the time period, the historical time period when I grew up, where change was happening all over the country-

Trevor Noah 14:54 Mm-hmm

Karen Bass 14:54 ... and really all over the world. So it was the civil rights movement, and as a kid, I was watching it on TV with my father. And he would explain to me what the South was like because he was from the South.

Trevor Noah 15:04 Right.

Karen Bass 15:05 He was part of that generation that came post-World War II.

Trevor Noah 15:08 And so you thought to yourself, "This is it."

Karen Bass 15:10 Absolutely. All I wanted to do was hurry up and grow up so that I could be a part of a movement. That's what I wanted to do.

Trevor Noah 15:16 What was the first movement you were a part of?

Karen Bass 15:17 Uh, really at school. You know, working as a, um, a middle school activist, and then the first campaign I worked on was Bobby Kennedy's presidential campaign.

Trevor Noah 15:26 Wow.

Karen Bass 15:26 And I was in the ninth grade.

Trevor Noah 15:29 Wow.

Karen Bass 15:30 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 15:30 What were you doing as part of the campaign?

Karen Bass 15:32 Oh, you know what I did? I signed up my mother to be a precinct officer.

Trevor Noah 15:37 Really?

Karen Bass 15:38 But I did it. She never knew. [laughs] Not until many years later.

Trevor Noah 15:41 [laughs]

Karen Bass 15:42 So I went up and down my block, I knocked on the doors, and I told them why I thought Bobby Kennedy would be the best president.

Trevor Noah 15:47 And what, what were you saying at this age?

Karen Bass 15:48 I was saying-

Trevor Noah 15:48 Why, why did you think he'd be the best president?

Karen Bass 15:50 Well, you know, there were two things that were happening then. It was 1967, '68.

Trevor Noah 15:54 Yes.

Karen Bass 15:54 It was the war in Vietnam, and it was the student movement-

Trevor Noah 15:58 Mm-hmm

Karen Bass 15:58 ... and the civil rights movement. It was kind of the end of the civil rights movement, the b- Black Power movement.

Trevor Noah 16:03 Yeah.

Karen Bass 16:04 And I was talking about how I thought he would end the war and how I thought he would improve, you know, civil rights. And I was very passionate about it. I believed it very deeply. And then when he was assassinated, my whole world just collapsed because then I really kind of lost faith and said, I mean, Martin Luther King was killed.

Trevor Noah 16:22 Right.

Karen Bass 16:22 Kennedy was killed, and people, activists were being killed every day. Student activists, uh, Black Panthers, you know.

Trevor Noah 16:30 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Karen Bass 16:30 There were always these murders. And so that made me really kind of, for a, a few years, kind of lose a little hope. So I left the country when I graduated high school. I was 17. I had never been anywhere. You know, my family had never been on an airplane. But I, I worked through school and I graduated on Thursday and I left the country on Tuesday and didn't know what the heck I was doing.

Trevor Noah 16:50 Where did you go?

Karen Bass 16:51 [laughs] I went to London and, uh, woke up the next day in a hostel going, "What did I just do?" But fortunately, I bought a round-trip ticket.

Trevor Noah 17:00 Mm-hmm.

Karen Bass 17:01 But I, 'cause I thought I was leaving.

Trevor Noah 17:02 [laughs]

Karen Bass 17:02 I mean, I'm done.

Trevor Noah 17:03 You thought you were gone forever?

Karen Bass 17:03 Yeah. I did.

Trevor Noah 17:05 What brought you back then?

Karen Bass 17:06 Uh, well, fortunately, I had a round-trip ticket.

Trevor Noah 17:08 Right.

Karen Bass 17:09 But when I was over there, they were, uh, people were protesting to free Angela Davis, and I knew Angela Davis. I met her because she was a teacher at UCLA, and I used to ride my bicycle to UCLA and sit in her classes. And so I felt kind of embarrassed that people around the world were, uh-

Trevor Noah 17:26 Fighting to free

Karen Bass 17:27 ... to free somebody I knew.

Trevor Noah 17:28 Yeah.

Karen Bass 17:29 And so I went home and I said, "No, I need to go home and I have to make change at home." And that's where I've been. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 17:36 You know, making change is, is a, a task that I think oftentimes sounds a lot easier than it is.

Karen Bass 17:43 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 17:43 Because I think many people want to make change.

Karen Bass 17:47 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 17:49 Most people do not want to put the work in f- for that change to actually take place.

Karen Bass 17:54 Yeah. That's true.

Trevor Noah 17:56 If I say to an activist, "What is the hardest part of being an activist?" They will say to me, "It's realizing how slow change actually is-

Karen Bass 18:03 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 18:03 ... on the ground."

Karen Bass 18:04 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 18:05 "How slow it actually is." People talk about Karen Bass before she was Karen Bass working in state office or in, on a, on a federal level or as, as mayor. Everyone says you were, you were connected to the people.

Karen Bass 18:18 Right.

Trevor Noah 18:18 You had this affinity for the people-

Karen Bass 18:20 That's right

Trevor Noah 18:21 ... for, for, for what was happening on the ground. I guess my question is, is two parts. One, do you think that has led to or that has been part of the reason you've been able to be successful politically? And secondly, what do you think other politicians miss by not being on the ground before they get into politics?

Karen Bass 18:38 Well, I think what, uh, a lot of people miss is their purpose. Like, why are they running for office? Why are they there?

Trevor Noah 18:44 Mm.

Karen Bass 18:45 I think a lot of people look at it as a career, or they say, "Well, I'm running for this because I'm gonna run for that." To me, I've always been driven by the issues, and I think it's always critical to leave your ego outside and stay focused on what you're trying to do. But Trevor, you hit it, uh, on for why I've been happy now, because I'm back on the ground. [laughs] And I'm back doing things that I was trying to do, really, 30 years ago.

Trevor Noah 19:10 Right.

Karen Bass 19:10 But I was, you know, I was a community activist running a community organization, but I didn't have the authority or the power. We were trying to deal with homelessness in 1993. We were trying to take over motels, and everybody thought we were crazy.

Trevor Noah 19:23 Was it, was it worse back then? Or-

Karen Bass 19:25 No. No, no, no.

Trevor Noah 19:26 No. It's, it's-

Karen Bass 19:26 No, homelessness then was in South Central and Skid Row.

Trevor Noah 19:30 Okay.

Karen Bass 19:30 And it was probably, we didn't, we didn't count, but I could guess it was probably maybe 3,000 or 4,000. And just think now in the city, not the county, in the city it's 46,000.

Trevor Noah 19:41 46,000-

Karen Bass 19:42 46,000

Trevor Noah 19:42 ... in the city alone.

Karen Bass 19:43 That's right. If you add the county, you gotta add another 20,000. That's why you see tents everywhere. Before, we didn't have tents. There were shopping carts.

Trevor Noah 19:52 Uh-huh.

Karen Bass 19:52 That's what homeless people did-

Trevor Noah 19:54 Uh-huh

Karen Bass 19:54 ... was push shopping carts. And then the grocery industry figured out the technology so they couldn't get the shopping carts. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 19:59 And that's changed, and that's why we see the tents now.

Karen Bass 20:01 Right. That's right.

Trevor Noah 20:02 So let's, let's talk about the issues and, I guess, how they're, I mean, they, they're inextricably intertwined with what you do now.

Karen Bass 20:10 Right.

Trevor Noah 20:10 When, when your campaign launched, it very quickly became a national campaign-

Karen Bass 20:16 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 20:17 ... that was about a local, you know, race.

Karen Bass 20:20 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 20:21 I, I, I don't think I've ever seen a mayoral race get the, the amount of attention that this race did.

Karen Bass 20:26 Oh.

Trevor Noah 20:26 You know, you were running against Caruso.

Karen Bass 20:28 Right.

Trevor Noah 20:29 And it, it was this race where I think he was spending, I think in total he spent $100 million, $104 million, if my numbers are correct-

Karen Bass 20:37 That's right

Trevor Noah 20:37 ... on the ground.

Karen Bass 20:38 That's right.

Trevor Noah 20:39 Your campaign spent $5 million.

Karen Bass 20:42 [laughs] A little more.

Trevor Noah 20:43 A little more?

Karen Bass 20:43 Yeah. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 20:43 How much was it exactly?

Karen Bass 20:45 I raised 9 million.

Trevor Noah 20:46 Okay, okay.

Karen Bass 20:46 And then other people contributed 5, so it was, uh-

Trevor Noah 20:49 Okay, so the, okay, so the external contributions were 5, and then-

Karen Bass 20:51 Right.

Trevor Noah 20:51 Okay. But I mean, still, that's, that's-

Karen Bass 20:53 Exactly right

Trevor Noah 20:54 ... that's a huge return versus the spending. Let's start with that. Do you think there is too much money in political races now?

Karen Bass 21:01 Oh, gosh, yes. And the problem is, is that if you have personal wealth, there are no limits at all. I was subject to limits. I mean, I could only ask somebody for $1,500. So my $1,500 and he could write a $40 million check, and it was ... You know, he's worth 5 billion, so.

Trevor Noah 21:17 Wow.

Karen Bass 21:18 You know, 100 million is, I don't know, tip money.

Trevor Noah 21:21 Wow.

Karen Bass 21:21 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 21:23 Yeah, that's a huge difference.

Karen Bass 21:24 Exactly.

Trevor Noah 21:25 Was that, was there a part of you that thought to yourself, "What am I doing? I'm running against this guy"?

Karen Bass 21:29 No.

Trevor Noah 21:29 I mean, I mean, it's the guy who, he made The Grove. People were like-

Karen Bass 21:31 Yes

Trevor Noah 21:31 ... "We love The Grove."

Karen Bass 21:32 Ex- I do, too. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 21:33 He can make, can he make all of LA The Grove? It seemed like such a wonderful proposition.

Karen Bass 21:36 That's right. That's it.

Trevor Noah 21:37 And here you were running up against what seemed like an immovable object-

Karen Bass 21:41 Right

Trevor Noah 21:41 ... just grinding and, you know, going from one speech to the next, from one issue to the, to the other. You were both talking about the same issues but in very different ways.

Karen Bass 21:50 Right.

Trevor Noah 21:51 And it seems like, I mean, the votes turned out accordingly. It seems like your message resonated with voters in a different way. Because LA, you know, like many cities in America and in the world, in my opinion, post-COVID-

Karen Bass 22:05 Mm

Trevor Noah 22:05 ... has really been dealing with a, uh, an explosion of homelessness.

Karen Bass 22:09 That's right.

Trevor Noah 22:10 Everybody has an opinion on this issue.

Karen Bass 22:12 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 22:12 Very few people have offered solutions in and around this issue. And when you step-

Karen Bass 22:16 And very few people have an understanding of the issue.

Trevor Noah 22:18 Well, let's start with that.

Karen Bass 22:19 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 22:20 What is causing this rise in homelessness? Why is it that you have, just as you said, in the city alone, 40,000 homeless people?

Karen Bass 22:28 That's right. Well, you know what? Um, it's important to look at the categories of people that wind up unhoused.

Trevor Noah 22:33 Yeah.

Karen Bass 22:33 They might not be able to be in a house because their wages aren't high enough. But it also might be that they've been evicted before, their credit is bad, they were incarcerated. They might be a teenager. You know, there's 9,000 children who are unhoused with their parents.

Trevor Noah 22:48 Wow.

Karen Bass 22:49 And then there's also a lot of foster children, that when they term out of foster care at 18-

Trevor Noah 22:55 They have nowhere to go

Karen Bass 22:56 ... or 21, they have nowhere to go, or you don't have first and last month's rent. So there's the economically unhoused. But you know, the fastest growing sector of, of homeless people are senior citizens who are in their late 60s and 70s. Maybe they worked in a shopping mall all their life. No 401 [k] , no pension. You can't live here on Social Security-

Trevor Noah 23:15 Yes

Karen Bass 23:15 ... if you even have it.

Trevor Noah 23:17 Yes.

Karen Bass 23:17 And then they get priced out of the rental market, and they are homeless.

Trevor Noah 23:20 That has to be one of the scariest stats I've read, and in many ways one of the most pertinent, I feel, because when people have conversations about homelessness, I, I've, I've noticed that there is oftentimes a, i- it's almost like a resentment that people have towards the homeless themselves.

Karen Bass 23:40 Well, because they believe that they're homeless because of their own fault or bad decisions.

Trevor Noah 23:44 Right. But, but when-

Karen Bass 23:45 And they don't look at the circumstances.

Trevor Noah 23:46 I mean, that says something about a situation that's larger than just, like, people who wanna take drugs and not live anywhere.

Karen Bass 23:52 Exactly. And that is a common viewpoint, that everybody who is unhoused is either a drug addict or mentally ill.

Trevor Noah 23:59 Mm-hmm.

Karen Bass 23:59 And of course, that does comprise some people. But you know, if I was out on the street for a couple of weeks, I can't tell you I wouldn't use drugs, and I can't tell you that my mental health wouldn't be compromised.

Trevor Noah 24:09 Right.

Karen Bass 24:09 A lot of times it's the chicken and egg. You know how some people get addicted, they take meth to stay awake at night so they don't get assaulted. You have women w- uh, suffering from domestic violence. You know, there's a lot. You have veterans, and listen to this one. This one's crazy. A veteran winds up homeless because he or she might take veteran benefits.

Trevor Noah 24:31 Yeah.

Karen Bass 24:31 Then that means they make too much money to qualify for veteran housing. So they have to choose between their benefits or housing. So all of these reasons are why people wind up homeless. You have a lot of people who were formerly incarcerated.

Trevor Noah 24:45 Mm-hmm.

Karen Bass 24:46 And they can't go home because their brother might be a felon.

Trevor Noah 24:49 Mm-hmm.

Karen Bass 24:49 And they don't have any place to go, and nobody's gonna rent to them, and no one's gonna hire them. So, you know, it's a lot of circumstances that have led to the explosion. And what I describe is is that number one is the evisceration of the social safety net that we used to have.

Trevor Noah 25:05 Which was?

Karen Bass 25:06 Really bad ... Well, we had better healt- healthcare in terms of substance abuse and mental health. Um, there were programs that people could be in. And, and LA used to be a heck of a lot cheaper. This city used to be affordable.

Trevor Noah 25:18 Mm-hmm.

Karen Bass 25:19 I remember that, where I worked as, as a young person, worked part-time, went to school, and still afforded to live on my own. You couldn't possibly do that now. So all of these reasons lead to the problem, but I also believe that really bad policy decisions were made when I started Community Coalition 32 years ago. That's when it was, uh, the war on drugs and all the laws, instead of helping people with-

Trevor Noah 25:44 Right

Karen Bass 25:44 ... addiction by drug treatment, we just locked everybody up. And then now, 30 years later, we're letting them all out to the street. So the reason why I ran, because I was perfectly happy in Congress, you know that. You inter-

Trevor Noah 25:57 Yes, yeah

Karen Bass 25:57 ... interviewed me. I told you how much I loved Africa. That was my-

Trevor Noah 26:00 Yeah

Karen Bass 26:00 ... big thing. It was a hard decision to leave, but I was so afraid that if he won, that we were gonna have flashbacks to 1990s, and we were gonna start criminalizing the very people because people get so angry. That's why it was so important for me to win and to prove that the problem was solvable by getting people out of the tents and into motels. [percussive music]

Trevor Noah 26:23 We're gonna continue this conversation right after this short break. [upbeat music] On day one after winning the race, you, you, you stepped into your role, and the first thing you did was declare a state of emergency.

Karen Bass 26:41 Correct.

Trevor Noah 26:41 Um, now, as I understand, that, that gives you, uh, a breadth of power that you don't necessarily normally have.

Karen Bass 26:48 Right.

Trevor Noah 26:48 And it enabled you to do things that you felt needed to be done immediately.

Karen Bass 26:52 Right.

Trevor Noah 26:52 One of those, which was controversial, and I understand why, is you wanted to get as many people off the streets and into hotels. Help me, help me understand this, and help, help the listeners understand this concept of taking people who don't have homes, you know, unhoused people, homeless people, and then putting them into hotels. Whose hotels are these?

Karen Bass 27:11 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 27:11 Who's paying for the hotels? And why is that even considered a part of a solution?

Karen Bass 27:15 Sure. Well, you know, the interesting thing was because we all went through COVID, that's exactly what happened in COVID. So we didn't invent anything new.

Trevor Noah 27:23 Mm-hmm.

Karen Bass 27:23 We learned from that experience, and guess what? Nobody was going to hotels or motels during that time, so it was fine. So we're not putting people up in the Four Seasons. We're putting people up in the Snooty Fox. I mean-

Trevor Noah 27:35 Right, right

Karen Bass 27:35 ... in, in motels that are in the community. And I think that the motel owners that didn't want anything to do with us years ago realized this was a pretty good deal. They didn't have to rent their rooms by the day or in some places by the hour.

Trevor Noah 27:47 Right.

Karen Bass 27:47 They didn't have to do that. They had guaranteed customers, guaranteed tenants all month because we try to rent out the entire motel.

Trevor Noah 27:56 Uh-huh.

Karen Bass 27:57 And then we contract as the city with a community-based organization. They provide the meals and the social services. So people aren't just left there on their own. Uh, they have counseling, they have, uh, services, and they have three meals.

Trevor Noah 28:09 Is this, is this a viable long-term solution?

Karen Bass 28:11 No.

Trevor Noah 28:11 I, I ... Okay.

Karen Bass 28:12 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 28:12 Right, 'cause in my head, I don't think putting people in a hotel forever seems like it's gonna, it's gonna work long term-

Karen Bass 28:17 No

Trevor Noah 28:18 ... even just as a, on a, on a cost level.

Karen Bass 28:19 Right. I think it's gonna work for a few years.

Trevor Noah 28:22 Okay.

Karen Bass 28:22 But we are also fast-tracking the building of housing. So that's the big problem here in LA, is that for so many years, the no growth or slow growth movement-

Trevor Noah 28:32 Mm-hmm

Karen Bass 28:33 ... restricted building housing, and so we didn't build the housing that we need. For example, the state requires us, has required us, to build half a million units of housing in the next 10 years. Now, I don't know how we're gonna make that happen, but literally we're required to do that, and we will be fined if we do not accomplish that.

Trevor Noah 28:52 And so is this, is this a number that is based on how the population is projected to grow?

Karen Bass 28:57 Exactly, and also what the population's needs are now. So for example, there's a lot of people who are not considered homeless.

Trevor Noah 29:05 Mm-hmm.

Karen Bass 29:06 But there's three families living in a one-bedroom apartment.

Trevor Noah 29:08 Mm.

Karen Bass 29:09 And I consider that homeless, unless they choose to live like that, and, and not too many people do.

Trevor Noah 29:14 Right.

Karen Bass 29:15 They're living like that because they need three paychecks in order to pay the rent. Why is the rent so high? Because there is a, a, a severe shortage of housing. So because the no growth and slow growth movements were so successful all up and down California, the state legislature got tired of the NIMBYism on a local level.

Trevor Noah 29:34 Mm-hmm.

Karen Bass 29:34 Started passing a lot of state laws to preempt the blocking of building. And then what I was able to do, especially after declaring a state of emergency, it did give me the extra power so I could cut through the red tape to say, "Let's fast-forward building." So that's what I'm doing. Now, we're putting people in motels.

Trevor Noah 29:52 Mm-hmm.

Karen Bass 29:53 But we're also fast-tracking the building. And that half a million units, I'm not... I'm referring to all types of housing, not just housing for the poorest-

Trevor Noah 30:01 Right, right

Karen Bass 30:02 ... uh, in the city.

Trevor Noah 30:03 Do, do you think that the homeless issue that we're seeing, particularly in urban areas and particularly in, in, in, you know, Democratic strongholds, is a problem that is ... In, in, in many ways, I feel like it could be a problem that is seen as a failing of the whole party if it isn't worked on because, you know, the Democratic Party for so long has said, "We are the party of the people-

Karen Bass 30:31 Right

Trevor Noah 30:31 ... on the ground," you know? And, and where the Republicans have said, "Hey, we, we're about business, and we're about, you know, tax breaks," et cetera, et cetera. But if you have Democratic cities That have high homeless populations

Karen Bass 30:44 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 30:44 ... it seems like the promise is failing. It seems like, you know, the allure of the idea isn't what, what, what it's supposed to be. Do you, do you feel like there's an extra weight on you as a mayor of Los Angeles to prop up, you know, one of the legs of the Democratic Party's table?

Karen Bass 30:59 Uh, no, I don't feel that, but I feel incredible pressure [laughs] in order to get this problem solved.

Trevor Noah 31:07 Pressure from-

Karen Bass 31:07 Absolutely

Trevor Noah 31:08 ... from the people? Just-

Karen Bass 31:09 Well, uh, it's, i- internal pressure. I mean, this is why I'm, I'm doing this. This is why I ran. This is why I've loved my first year, because nothing gives me more pleasure than to go out to the tents where the people are, to talk to them, and then to see them three days later in a motel or a week later, you know. I remember this one woman who said she was taking showers all day long because she was so happy that she could take a shower.

Trevor Noah 31:33 Oh, wow.

Karen Bass 31:33 You know? Uh, there's, there's things like that-

Trevor Noah 31:35 Yeah

Karen Bass 31:35 ... that make it extremely rewarding and-

Trevor Noah 31:37 How many, how many people have you moved, by the way?

Karen Bass 31:39 Uh, in our program of Inside Safe, it's been, and that's where we're getting you in a tent and moving you into a motel.

Trevor Noah 31:45 Okay.

Karen Bass 31:45 It's been close to 2,000, but this year as a whole, we've moved 21,000 off the street, and there's a variety of ways we have done that.

Trevor Noah 31:55 21,000 people-

Karen Bass 31:56 Right

Trevor Noah 31:56 ... moved off the streets?

Karen Bass 31:57 Right. Uh, so they've moved off the streets because we were given vouchers.

Trevor Noah 32:02 Uh-huh.

Karen Bass 32:03 And we were able to get people, uh, in housing with those vou- vouchers. That's been one of the problems. Years past, including like last year, LA turned back thousands of vouchers to the federal government because they couldn't figure out how to use them. Some of the red tape has been insane. I'll give you two examples-

Trevor Noah 32:22 Yeah, please

Karen Bass 32:22 ... made crazy. One is, [laughs] I can't let you use a voucher unless you prove income. Well, you've been on a, in a tent for five years. How do you prove nothing?

Trevor Noah 32:34 Right.

Karen Bass 32:34 And then, I can't let you use a voucher because you don't have a government-issued ID. Well, if you gave me a motel, I'd have an address where I could have a government-issued ID. So I went to the federal government, to HUD, and fortunately, our great HUD secretary, Marcia Fudge, who I served in Congress with, uh, spent months talking to them, and now they've waived that. They said, "Well, you know what? I'm gonna assume you're poor enough because you've been living on the streets."

Trevor Noah 32:59 Right. Right.

Karen Bass 33:00 So that barrier went away, so that allowed people to, uh, to get housed. So-

Trevor Noah 33:05 It's, it's so crazy how often you hear that as a story in America. It's like, it becomes the, the cycle. It's, it's really just chicken and the egg, chicken and the egg.

Karen Bass 33:12 Yep.

Trevor Noah 33:13 Egg and chicken, chicken and the egg. You know, I, I remember hearing a story of a, a man who was living out of his car, and he was sleeping in the car in Santa Monica. And then because he was sleeping in the car, he got fined.

Karen Bass 33:29 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 33:29 Because he got fined-

Karen Bass 33:31 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 33:31 ... he now had to pay the fine. He couldn't pay the fine-

Karen Bass 33:34 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 33:34 ... and so then he got a summons.

Karen Bass 33:35 Right.

Trevor Noah 33:35 He got a summons to appear in court.

Karen Bass 33:37 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 33:37 He couldn't go to court because he was gonna either lose his job or go to court, and so then there was a warrant out for his arrest. And then now he had a warrant, and now here you, you have this person who's now basically gonna go to jail possibly, when all they were trying to do-

Karen Bass 33:51 Well-

Trevor Noah 33:52 ... was sleep and live

Karen Bass 33:54 ... well, well, he also might have gotten his car towed.

Trevor Noah 33:56 Yeah. This, it-

Karen Bass 33:57 And, and he can't get his car out, which means he's now lost his car-

Trevor Noah 34:01 Yeah

Karen Bass 34:01 ... which means he's lost his job, which now he's in a tent.

Trevor Noah 34:04 So, so have you, have you found ways to decriminalize-

Karen Bass 34:07 Yes

Trevor Noah 34:07 ... being homeless? Because it's ... You, you know, um, Josh, who, who's, you know, one of the people on the podcast, we, we, we talk about each episode before we go on. He said something that I really loved, which was, he said, "It's interesting how America will criminalize something that may be inevitable and out of your control."

Karen Bass 34:27 Right.

Trevor Noah 34:28 Because other crimes are an action-

Karen Bass 34:31 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 34:31 ... an action that you should have been able to avoid.

Karen Bass 34:33 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 34:35 Being homeless isn't one of those. How do you, how do you criminalize something like that, and what have you done to, if you've done anything, to, to decriminalize being homeless?

Karen Bass 34:43 Well, you hit on what, what my concern was about my opponent, is that, and that was my flashbacks to the 1990s, is that the level of anger and disgust in the city toward the unhoused population was so high-

Trevor Noah 34:58 Right

Karen Bass 34:58 ... that I was afraid if the wrong person won, that they would just criminalize folks. Because there was a lot of talks about three strikes, meaning I'm gonna give you two tickets.

Trevor Noah 35:08 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Karen Bass 35:08 And on the third ticket, if you don't move or if you haven't disappeared, I don't know where you're supposed to go to, then I'll arrest you. Now, you get arrested, you're gonna be out in five hours, and you're either gonna be right back there or you'll be someplace else.

Trevor Noah 35:21 Mm-hmm.

Karen Bass 35:22 It doesn't solve the problem. That was my fear. That was my drive. So I didn't care how bad the [laughs] campaign got. That was my passion about winning this election.

Trevor Noah 35:32 It's a, it's a tightrope to walk as mayor, I always think, you know, because you're in this interesting position where on the one hand you have to deal with everything that is happening.

Karen Bass 35:45 Right.

Trevor Noah 35:45 On the other hand, you have to deal with everything that people think-

Karen Bass 35:49 Exactly

Trevor Noah 35:50 ... is happening.

Karen Bass 35:50 Yes. Yes.

Trevor Noah 35:51 And the think is oftentimes more powerful than-

Karen Bass 35:53 Yes

Trevor Noah 35:53 ... the what is.

Karen Bass 35:54 Yes.

Trevor Noah 35:54 If people feel like there's more crime-

Karen Bass 35:56 Right

Trevor Noah 35:57 ... then they, they think there's more crime.

Karen Bass 35:59 Right.

Trevor Noah 35:59 So they act accordingly, even if the crime hasn't gone up. And-

Karen Bass 36:02 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 36:03 ... and I, I, I wonder how you deal with that.

Karen Bass 36:05 The way I view it is crime is an emotional issue, and if your car was stolen, there's a crime crisis.

Trevor Noah 36:10 Oh, yeah. Definitely.

Karen Bass 36:11 And you do not care about the data. Or if you go back to what you were saying a few minutes ago in terms of democratic cities, well, the reason why crime is up, it's because we've been too liberal and we don't enforce the law.

Trevor Noah 36:22 Yes.

Karen Bass 36:22 But you could look at Republican-led cities, and the crime is even higher or definitely no difference, regardless of the laws that have been passed. So people right now-

Trevor Noah 36:31 Why, why do you think, why do you think, then, the narrative is around Urban cities and democratic cities. What, what, what do you think that is?

Karen Bass 36:39 Well, I mean, I think part of it is race. Absolutely. So you ask me the pressure I feel as the nation's second-largest city, absolutely I feel the pressure because the perception is, and, and it is a deliberate narrative that Republicans are good at pushing. So look at New York. 100,000 migrants sent to New York?

Trevor Noah 36:59 Mm-hmm.

Karen Bass 36:59 Well, we have buses coming into LA, but not to the extent of Chicago or New York. You can't tell me that's not done to destabilize those cities. In Chicago, you have a brand-new mayor. He's been in less time than I am. He has to hope to host the Democratic Convention in the next few months. Imagine that pressure. So some of it has been orchestrated and pushed. It's a Republican narrative, and what's, uh, what do we have in common with the large cities? They're predominantly people of color. And so regardless of what the crime rate is, they will say the crime is out of control in-

Trevor Noah 37:32 Right

Karen Bass 37:32 ... Democratic-led cities. Their mur- murder rate is higher. Their crime rate is higher.

Trevor Noah 37:37 Well, generally, where there's more guns, there, there are more people being shot.

Karen Bass 37:41 [laughs] Yeah, you think?

Trevor Noah 37:42 I, I, I mean, I find it's, it's a very simple stat to follow, by the way. It's, it's not as complicated as people would think.

Karen Bass 37:46 All right.

Trevor Noah 37:47 Um, but, but that doesn't mean that LA doesn't have its issues.

Karen Bass 37:49 Yes.

Trevor Noah 37:50 Um, how do you, how do you find the balance between being a mayor who is actively trying to make people feel safe-

Karen Bass 38:03 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 38:04 ... whilst at the same time acknowledging that for a long time people have felt, and beyond feeling, people have experienced overpolicing-

Karen Bass 38:14 Right

Trevor Noah 38:14 ... that makes them feel unsafe at the very safe, at, in the, you know what I mean, at the very same hands of-

Karen Bass 38:19 Oh, yes

Trevor Noah 38:19 ... the people who are trying to pro- quote, unquote, "protect them." Like, how do you, how do you find that balance? Because I'm sure on the one hand, every time you say police, police force, protect, et cetera, there's going to be a contingency of your base who says, "What, what are, what are you doing? Why are you even working with the police?"

Karen Bass 38:34 Exactly.

Trevor Noah 38:35 The police are, are the bad guys, quotes, unquote-

Karen Bass 38:37 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 38:37 ... in many ways.

Karen Bass 38:38 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 38:38 And then on the other hand, you have a large part of your, your constituency who will say, "No, why aren't you working more with the police? Why aren't you-"

Karen Bass 38:44 Right

Trevor Noah 38:44 ... "fully handing over to the police?" How do you, how do you f- strike that balance? How do you walk the line?

Karen Bass 38:49 So one thing about, about a city, and I certainly have to, uh, uh, to say this to some people who come from either/or perspective, it's both/and. So, uh, I set up an office of public safety. That's a traditional office.

Trevor Noah 39:02 Mm-hmm.

Karen Bass 39:03 Works with the police and fire, et cetera. But I also set up an office of community safety, which is not looking at law enforcement driven solutions. So I have always been about how do you prevent crime? So when I started a community coalition in the '90s, the first thing we did was organize the youth component to recruit high school students so they wouldn't get in, uh, get involved in gangs, because we had the Crips and the Bloods and 1,000 homicides, you know, that particular year.

Trevor Noah 39:32 Yeah.

Karen Bass 39:32 So I wanted to divert young people away from gang involvement, and by the way, that was building on my own life experiences growing up because, and the Panther Party did that a lot.

Trevor Noah 39:42 Yeah, they did.

Karen Bass 39:42 As a matter of fact, there was a lot of gangs involved, but they got young people involved in politics, so that's what I did. That's, I got involved, um, when I was older, in high school. Then I was involved in a lot of direct political activity, whether it was protesting the war or whatever was happening at that particular time. And so we, we involved a lot of high school students, and I have to tell you that, uh, two of those high school students are working for me, heading up the, um, homeless effort, the street outreach.

Trevor Noah 40:12 Wow.

Karen Bass 40:12 And, uh, they are now, uh, in their mid-40s. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 40:15 That is amazing.

Karen Bass 40:16 Exactly.

Trevor Noah 40:17 That's actually amazing. Do you, do you think, do you think that the government, uh, both large and small, has done a, has done a terrible job of reaching out to people? You, you know, 'cause it's interesting you talk about the gangs. I've always said-

Karen Bass 40:29 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 40:29 ... and I've always been fascinated by how gangs do the very thing that governments say they are unable to do.

Karen Bass 40:36 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 40:36 And that is reach out to every youth and make sure that they feel involved.

Karen Bass 40:40 Right.

Trevor Noah 40:40 There is no gang that ever says, "Oh, you can't get to the kids." There's no gang that ever says-

Karen Bass 40:45 Right

Trevor Noah 40:45 ... "We can't get them involved. They're not interested."

Karen Bass 40:47 Right.

Trevor Noah 40:47 They go out there. They have outreach. They really just try and connect with people, and I mean, it's towards, you know, a, a violent cause, unfortunately.

Karen Bass 40:56 Right.

Trevor Noah 40:56 But the essence of it is, is, is fundamentally sound. Like, do you, what do you think the government could be doing, uh, to, to, to, to reach out and to connect with young people to make them feel like there's a hope that they can work towards?

Karen Bass 41:09 And you know what I've found over the years is that it is not difficult. It's just that we are not committed to doing it. Um, because what we did is we provided a safe alternative for gangs. What a lot of people who are drawn to gangs, a lot of young people are, it's a surrogate family.

Trevor Noah 41:24 Mm-hmm.

Karen Bass 41:25 It's doing what you described. It's providing you protection. It might be providing you an income.

Trevor Noah 41:30 Mm-hmm.

Karen Bass 41:31 It's providing you all of these things in a negative way.

Trevor Noah 41:34 Right.

Karen Bass 41:34 Well, if you provided those things in a positive way, people would not get involved. But as a society, we refuse to invest in long-term solutions. We always invest in law enforcement and suppression activities.

Trevor Noah 41:50 Right.

Karen Bass 41:50 But we will not address root causes. That's why I started the organization in the '90s. That's why we started the youth component, and I'm happy to say that 30-some years later, now it's been about three or four cohorts, almost generations of young people who graduate out of that program, and they become involved in some way in their communities. Now they're all over the country, and we've tracked them and stayed, um, connected to them, and now that program, that model has been replicated around the country. But I do not find it to be difficult. I find that we just refuse to invest the resources.

Trevor Noah 42:27 When, when you talk about enjoying an exhilarating year of being mayor- I wonder what your most frustrating moments have been. I know you're a very-

Karen Bass 42:34 Yeah

Trevor Noah 42:34 ... positive person.

Karen Bass 42:35 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 42:35 But I, but I'd love to know what you wish you could have done more of or what you wish you could have done. Like, are there, are there aspects-

Karen Bass 42:41 Oof

Trevor Noah 42:41 ... of your job where you go, "I, I wish I could do this, but I can't"?

Karen Bass 42:45 Every day, but I will tell you, um, I wished I knew, uh, what I know now about the bureaucracy, and I'm afraid-

Trevor Noah 42:53 Oh

Karen Bass 42:53 ... that there's so much more [laughs] I don't know. So in other words, I gave you two a- two crazy examples, three if you include the veterans who-

Trevor Noah 43:00 Yes. Yes

Karen Bass 43:01 ... don't qualify.

Trevor Noah 43:01 Right, the vouchers. Right.

Karen Bass 43:02 But there's a lot of internal bureaucracy that is just done because it's always been done, and that's one thing, that's one statement that makes me crazy. We do it this way because we've always done it this way. Well, how's that working out for you? 46,000 people on the street. So d- doesn't it make you think that maybe there's a better way of doing things?

Trevor Noah 43:22 Yeah.

Karen Bass 43:22 So just the inertia of, "Well, this is the way it's always been done," or for people who think, "Well, I can't do something differently."

Trevor Noah 43:29 Mm-hmm.

Karen Bass 43:30 That's where it's been helpful that I never worked for the city before, so I feel like I just parachuted in and this stuff looks crazy. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 43:38 [laughs]

Karen Bass 43:40 And so, and I'm, I don't believe... I mean, to me, I'm not gonna violate the law, but if it's not a law, then don't tell me I can't do it. If there's people dying on the street, don't tell me I can't get them off the street.

Trevor Noah 43:53 Hmm.

Karen Bass 43:53 But what our policy basically had been up until now is you have to stay on the street until we build you a house. That's insanity. You asked me whether or not, uh, we would do the motels forever.

Trevor Noah 44:04 Yeah.

Karen Bass 44:04 No, it's way too expensive. But what our city did that New York, uh, didn't do, or rather I should say what we didn't do and New York did, New York years ago invested in long-term interim housing.

Trevor Noah 44:17 Yes.

Karen Bass 44:17 And New York also passed a policy that says you have a right to housing. So we never developed long-term interim housing. We said we don't want anybody in interim housing. We want them permanently housed. Well, that's just wonderful, but then you have this bureaucracy that it takes five years to build something. So I've been trying to dismantle all of these bureaucratic hurdles.

Trevor Noah 44:41 Mm-hmm.

Karen Bass 44:41 But I had to learn them, and I wished I would've come in knowing about them.

Trevor Noah 44:46 What's, what's the one thing you wanna do now? Like, if... I know there's something on your list-

Karen Bass 44:50 Yes

Trevor Noah 44:50 ... that you're working towards.

Karen Bass 44:51 Yes.

Trevor Noah 44:51 Something that you're trying to overturn, something you're trying to change, something you're trying to fix. What is it?

Karen Bass 44:55 So we have the people in the motels, and as I mentioned, the community-based organization takes over. But Trevor, we have stretched these organizations way beyond their capacity.

Trevor Noah 45:05 Yeah.

Karen Bass 45:06 So now I'm trying to think of a new way to provide the kind of supportive services that people need because I don't think you stay in housing your whole life for free.

Trevor Noah 45:15 Right.

Karen Bass 45:15 Well, that, that's a good deal if that was the case. [laughs] But I think two years with strong supportive services should be able to mainstream most people out. But then there are people that are profoundly mentally ill who will need to be taken care of the rest of their life. So you asked me what I hope to do next is pay attention to the service delivery for the people that are in the motels, and then fast-track as fast as possible the building of housing.

Trevor Noah 45:42 [lips smack] It feels like there was a time in America when mental health was maybe not spoken about more, but definitely dealt with more. It feels like there was a-

Karen Bass 45:51 That's correct

Trevor Noah 45:51 ... it feels like there were more mental, you know, hospitals. There were, there were places where people could go for psychiatric care. It-

Karen Bass 45:57 Right

Trevor Noah 45:57 ... and it, it almost feels like that's fallen away as, as an idea. It, it's, it's like one minute the hospitals existed and now those hospitals have sort of been replaced by jails and prisons.

Karen Bass 46:07 Uh, well, that's 100%. What happened was 50 years ago when Ronald Reagan was, was, um, a governor and then he goes on to be president, basically dismantled all of the hospitals because bad things were happening in them. But we, we closed the hospitals, but then we made a commitment that we would build community-based services.

Trevor Noah 46:28 Mm-hmm.

Karen Bass 46:28 Never happened.

Trevor Noah 46:29 Oh, okay.

Karen Bass 46:29 It never happened. So now in California, next year voters will have an opportunity to vote for what we should have done 50 years ago. So you are 100% right. That's why it, us not having enough money is a lie because it costs way more money to incarcerate somebody-

Trevor Noah 46:46 Right

Karen Bass 46:47 ... than it does to take care of them. Just like you asked me about gangs, our country, our city, our state has refused to invest in our people, and especially people who are the poorest. We have no problem saving the world-

Trevor Noah 47:02 Mm-hmm

Karen Bass 47:03 ... or destroying the world [laughs] however you wanna look at it. I mean, if it's the defense budget, it's unlimited.

Trevor Noah 47:08 Right.

Karen Bass 47:08 We think nothing of $50 or $60 billion that we're gonna give to another country for, you know, a war that they're fighting or rebuilding that they need to do, but we refuse to invest in the American people. This is the richest country in the history of the world. It is inexcusable for people to be sleeping on the street. [gentle music]

Trevor Noah 47:26 Don't go anywhere, 'cause we got more What Now? after this. [gentle music] If there was one part of your job that you could include, like one thing that you currently don't have-

Karen Bass 47:45 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 47:46 ... under your umbrella but you wish you did, what would it be?

Karen Bass 47:49 Health.

Trevor Noah 47:49 What would you love to work on?

Karen Bass 47:50 Health.

Trevor Noah 47:51 What aspect of it?

Karen Bass 47:51 It would be the health department. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 47:53 [laughs]

Karen Bass 47:54 It would be my ability to control the health department and some of the county agencies. Um-

Trevor Noah 48:00 But would you, what would you change?

Karen Bass 48:02 Well, I, I would definitely infuse, uh, healthcare in much bigger ways. So for example, health is at the root of a lot of homelessness. But right now, homelessness is just viewed as a housing problem. And it's, a- and the disconnect, because, you know, my background, by the way, I have a lot of lives. One of my other lives was working in the emergency room-

Trevor Noah 48:23 Yes, yes

Karen Bass 48:24 ... as a nurse and all that.

Trevor Noah 48:25 Right.

Karen Bass 48:25 PA nurse. And so, uh, I do not understand, it does not compute to me that you don't see the relationship between health and homelessness.

Trevor Noah 48:35 Mm-hmm.

Karen Bass 48:35 I met a woman, uh, in a, um, temporary housing who became homeless because she had cancer. So she was sick. She didn't understand why she was sick. She kept missing work. She got fired. She went to the doctor, discovered she had cancer. She didn't have healthcare either.

Trevor Noah 48:51 Oh, no.

Karen Bass 48:52 So she wound up living in her car, and then she lost her car, and then she wound up living on the street, and I met her as she was on the men, you know, she was in a temporary housing.

Trevor Noah 49:02 Yeah.

Karen Bass 49:03 So a lot of health conditions out there. Everybody thinks about substance abuse and mental health.

Trevor Noah 49:08 Yeah.

Karen Bass 49:08 But I've seen diabetes. I've seen heart disease. I've seen high blood pressure. I've seen a lot of different health issues.

Trevor Noah 49:13 Especially living in a country where people cannot afford to get sick, you know?

Karen Bass 49:17 Right.

Trevor Noah 49:17 That's, that's one of the biggest things I've noticed people terrified of in America. You know, when I, when I speak to random people, when I listen to stories, people will say, "My greatest fear is that I will get sick-

Karen Bass 49:28 Right

Trevor Noah 49:28 ... in this country, because the first thing I need to do is go see a doctor. I don't know if I can afford to do that."

Karen Bass 49:33 Right.

Trevor Noah 49:34 "And then if I eventually do get to see a doctor, the thing they tell me may be the fact that I cannot afford to live anymore." And so they wait until it's too late. It's an emergency room issue.

Karen Bass 49:44 Right.

Trevor Noah 49:45 And as you, like you say, before you know it, someone's living on the street because they spent their life savings trying to save their life.

Karen Bass 49:51 Well, prior to Obama and the Affordable Care Act, health was the number one cau- the leading cause of bankruptcy, the leading cause. But I have to tell you something, Trevor, when I worked in healthcare, this was not the case. Healthcare was not always a for-profit industry.

Trevor Noah 50:06 Mm-hmm.

Karen Bass 50:07 That changed in the '80s. One thing that was completely, um, considered inappropriate was advertising medicine-

Trevor Noah 50:15 Yeah

Karen Bass 50:15 ... advertising healthcare. That wasn't legal.

Trevor Noah 50:18 It's really strange when you see it, by the way, when you come from another country.

Karen Bass 50:21 Uh-huh.

Trevor Noah 50:21 Every second ad in the US is l- like a pharmaceutical ad, a drug ad, and it's really strange.

Karen Bass 50:28 But it-

Trevor Noah 50:28 "Ask your doctor about," and it's like, what?

Karen Bass 50:30 But it'll tell you 20 reasons why you'll die-

Trevor Noah 50:32 Yeah

Karen Bass 50:32 ... if you take this medicine too.

Trevor Noah 50:34 [laughs]

Karen Bass 50:34 Which, by the way, is completely legal, meaning that it is to protect them from lawsuits.

Trevor Noah 50:39 Right.

Karen Bass 50:39 It really isn't medically based.

Trevor Noah 50:41 Mm-hmm. You are somebody who, all your colleagues have, have, have labeled you as two things. They say you are, you are tenacious, and they say you are motivated. And even speaking to you, I can see you, you have a, you have a cautious optimism, but also a joy in, in trying to solve the problems. You, you-

Karen Bass 51:00 I do. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 51:01 Yeah, you, you, you have a, you, you, you take pleasure in, in, in solving the puzzle. Um, before I, I let you go, I'd love to know what now. I mean, we, you know, we've talked a little bit a- about, um, uh, working with the homeless crisis. We, we've talked about, you know, law enforcement and, and its, its broader state right now. But if we look at year two-

Karen Bass 51:24 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 51:24 ... going into year three-

Karen Bass 51:26 Mm

Trevor Noah 51:26 ... and then your final year as, as mayor, what would you hope the people of Los Angeles, and maybe the people in other parts of America would see? Because I think many of the issues in LA-

Karen Bass 51:35 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 51:36 ... are mirrors or different versions of issues that you see all across the country. So what would you hope to now do going from year to year?

Karen Bass 51:44 Well, I want, at the end of my, uh, term, I want people to believe, to believe that the problem is solvable, meaning it won't be solved, but that they can see the way out of it.

Trevor Noah 51:56 Hmm.

Karen Bass 51:57 And by the way, I mean, we have the World Cup coming in 2026-

Trevor Noah 52:01 Yes

Karen Bass 52:02 ... a Super Bowl in 2027, two Olympic Games in 2028. So I am hoping that that will serve as a catalyst. I mean, the reason we're getting the Olympics is because we don't need to build any major stadiums.

Trevor Noah 52:14 Yeah.

Karen Bass 52:15 So I'm trying to run around and get everybody to say, "When the Olympics comes, we can't hide 70,000 people."

Trevor Noah 52:21 [laughs]

Karen Bass 52:21 'Cause then you're talking about the county.

Trevor Noah 52:23 Yes, yes.

Karen Bass 52:23 We can't hide them. The games aren't gonna be for one day.

Trevor Noah 52:26 Mm-hmm.

Karen Bass 52:27 So we either solve this now, or what the news coverage is gonna be, wonderful games, wonderful venues, and then they're gonna cut away and show the contrast. In this city, people are living like this.

Trevor Noah 52:39 Mm-hmm.

Karen Bass 52:39 They're left to live in destitute.

Trevor Noah 52:41 Mm-hmm.

Karen Bass 52:41 So I'm trying to get all of the movers and shakers to see this is our alternative, and I actually believe that we can get there. I really do.

Trevor Noah 52:50 I really, I, I really hope so. Wow. Okay. Well, um, Mayor Karen Bass, it's funny, every time I speak to you, you have a different title in front of your name-

Karen Bass 52:59 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 52:59 ... which is, which is really fun for me.

Karen Bass 53:01 This is the last one.

Trevor Noah 53:02 Um, oh, it is?

Karen Bass 53:03 Yes.

Trevor Noah 53:04 What, what does, what does that mean?

Karen Bass 53:05 This is the last one. That means I'll run for re-election. I'm done with elected office after that.

Trevor Noah 53:09 Huh. Oh, now I have to ask why before I let you go.

Karen Bass 53:12 Because it, it's enough.

Trevor Noah 53:14 Yeah.

Karen Bass 53:14 I mean, I think it's, you know, I think it's, it'll be time. It'll be time, but I will always be involved in change.

Trevor Noah 53:21 Okay.

Karen Bass 53:21 I'm not somebody that ever planned to do this all my life.

Trevor Noah 53:24 Yeah.

Karen Bass 53:25 I was doing a lot before this, so I'll always be involved in change, but I don't need to be an elected official until I die.

Trevor Noah 53:32 Huh, I like that for you.

Karen Bass 53:34 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 53:34 I like that, and you know what? You, you, you deserve it.

Karen Bass 53:37 Thank you.

Trevor Noah 53:37 You deserve it.

Karen Bass 53:38 Thank you. Thank you.

Trevor Noah 53:38 Well, thank you so much. Congratulations.

Karen Bass 53:39 It's great to talk to you.

Trevor Noah 53:40 Yeah, congratulations on the year.

Karen Bass 53:41 Really appreciate it. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 53:41 It's, it's really wonderful seeing you again, and, you know, I hope when we're chatting in a year we'll be celebrating the next achievement and the next one and the next one, and I wish you the best of luck-

Karen Bass 53:49 Thank you

Trevor Noah 53:49 ... because I think everybody wins if you win.

Karen Bass 53:51 Thank you. Thank you, thank you.

Trevor Noah 53:52 Thank you. [upbeat music] What Now? with Trevor Noah is produced by Spotify Studios in partnership with Day Zero Productions, Fullwell 73, and Audacy's Pineapple Street Studios. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Ben Winston, Jenna Weiss-Berman, and Barry Finkel. Produced by Emmanuel Hapsis and Marina Henke. Music mixing and mastering by Hannes Brown.