his viral campaign ad<\/a> offered voters a new perspective on his candidacy beyond his entertainment persona while painting his opponents as a part of an elitist political class. His campaign has pushed out other viral AI-generated content mocking his opponents.<\/p>\nWhat did LA mayor candidates debate?<\/p>\n
The three candidates debated policy on affordability, public safety and more during the debate, hosted by NBC4 and Telemundo 52. <\/p>\n
Bass touted LA\u2019s progress on helping more people get off the streets. <\/p>\n
\u201cHomelessness was going up year after year, and under my watch, it is the first time we\u2019ve had a decrease in street homelessness,\u201d Bass said. \u201cWhile it went up in the country 18%, it came down in Los Angeles 17.5%. I have expedited the building of housing because our No. 1 issue in this city is affordability.\u201d<\/p>\n
But, as one Los Angeles Times analysis found, 40% of people who participated in the city\u2019s $300 million homelessness program, called \u201cInside Safe,\u201d returned to the streets. <\/p>\n
Raman made promises to reduce encampments ahead of the 2028 Summer Olympic Games. <\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s actually build out a real system that can get as many people indoors as possible,\u201d Raman said. <\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s not put them into $100,000 a year motel rooms for a year or more per person. This system is not fiscally sustainable, and we must work to end this crisis with urgency and with accountability right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pratt interjected, \u201cI will go below the Harbor Freeway tomorrow with her, and we can find some of these people she\u2019s going to offer treatment for. She\u2019s going to get stabbed in the neck. These people do not want a bed. They want fentanyl or super meth.\u201d <\/p>\n
The former reality TV antagonist, who doesn\u2019t have experience in public office, said he\u2019s \u201cgoing to surround myself with the smartest people in the world.\u201d <\/p>\n
The Los Angeles Times gave Pratt props for his performance as \u201ca boisterous bro with enough charm to call himself \u2018humble\u2019 without coming off as obnoxious.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe dominated the flow of conversation without coming off as commandeering, even interrupting Raman at times to let Bass speak. At one point, he even said \u2018Sorry\u2019 when he had taken up too much time and the moderators cut him off.\u201d<\/p>\n
But, as the report noted, Bass has the backing of major unions in Los Angeles as well as the Democratic Party after former Vice President Kamala Harris endorsed her last week. She defended her record but kept a measured tone in comparison to Pratt. <\/p>\n
LA mayoral candidates find some consensus<\/p>\n
Los Angelenos vote for mayor on June 2. All three candidates raised around half a million dollars or more during the last fundraising cycle. Bass has the larger war chest with $2.5 million in cash on hand. <\/p>\n
At the debate, Bass attacked Raman for her lack of success while serving as an LA city councilwoman and leading one of the \u201cmost important committees\u201d on housing and homelessness. <\/p>\n
Raman became the first South Asian woman elected to the City Council in 2020. Raman responded by stating that the council is composed of 14 other members.<\/p>\n
Bass, Raman and Pratt reached a consensus on the need for increased public safety and a lifeline for Hollywood. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe need post-production tax credits, and Councilman Raman will tell you, \u2018My husband\u2019s a producer blah, blah, blah,\u2019\u201d Pratt said. \u201cThe reality is, she\u2019s been in power for five years now \u2026 both of these people have been the reason why there\u2019s no more Hollywood.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Pratt suggested, Raman did make note of her husband\u2019s career as a longtime writer in the entertainment industry. <\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like the mayor\u2019s role is really to be the loudest advocate for the best possible version of the policies that we need, including a tax credit that has no cap, that is guaranteed years into the future, so that production, so that studios, can actually invest here,\u201d Raman said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reality TV star Spencer Pratt confronted incumbent Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass on the debate stage on Wednesday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[48,52,51,47,50,49,11547],"class_list":["post-305486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-news-feed-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}