Factually! with Adam Conover - Nithya Raman’s Optimistic Vision for LA

Episode Date: May 27, 2026

Adam has been friends with LA city councilmember Nithya Raman for a long time now, and certainly didn’t expect that one day she would be running for mayor of Los Angeles. This week, Adam sits with Nithya to talk about her vision for what this city could do for its residents, how it’s already one of the greatest cities on Earth, and how Nithya made Adam believe in her before she even got into city politics. --SUPPORT THE SHOW ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/adamconoverSEE ADAM ON TOUR: https://www.adamconover.net/tourdates/SUBSCRIBE to and RATE Factually! on:» Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/factually-with-adam-conover/id1463460577» Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0fK8WJw4ffMc2NWydBlDyJAbout Headgum: Headgum is an LA & NY-based podcast network creating premium podcasts with the funniest, most engaging voices in comedy to achieve one goal: Making our audience and ourselves laugh. Listen to our shows at https://www.headgum.com.» SUBSCRIBE to Headgum: https://www.youtube.com/c/HeadGum?sub_confirmation=1» FOLLOW us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/headgum» FOLLOW us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/headgum/» FOLLOW us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headgum» Advertise on Factually! via Gumball.fmSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a headgum podcast. Hello there. Welcome to Factually. I'm Adam Conover. It's so wonderful to have you on the show with me again, especially for this week's episode. It's a little bit of a special one. You know, I talk on this show a lot about how important it is to get involved in local politics, how fulfilling it is. Many of you, when I talk to you after my live shows, folks have come up to me and said that they've gotten involved in local politics because of listening to this show. And that's one of the greatest compliments anyone pays me. Well, today on the show, I have the person who brought me into local politics here in Los Angeles for the first time in many ways. Her name is Nithya Raman. And she happens to be running for mayor right now for the city of Los Angeles. And, you know, that race has made a little bit of national news lately, so maybe you've heard of it. And, you know, I just want to say to start out that, you know, I think sometimes there's this illusion that a host like me or a comedian like me should be like politically neutral or objective. in some way or that if we talk to politicians, you know, we're being sneaky in some way.

You think about all the all the comedians who had, you know, the right wing presidential candidates on a year or two ago, but didn't really admit that what they were doing was supporting those people, right? They were like, oh, we're just talking to them. I think both of those approaches are bullshit. I think what we need to acknowledge is that everybody's a political actor in the world, right? Everybody has political opinions, myself included. And the best thing to do is be honest about.

what those political beliefs and connections are. And that is what I'm doing on the show today. I support Nithia for mayor, not just because she agrees with me ideologically or anything like that, but because I actually have a connection to her personally and to the progressive movement that she's built in Los Angeles. I just don't want to tell you about what that has been like for me on a personal level. You know, a number of years ago.

So I moved to Los Angeles a little over 10 years ago. And I really had a lot of problems. when I first moved to the city. I didn't like it here very much. I was like I don't like the car culture. I don't like the way the city is laid out. And I'm really upset about the level of street homelessness that I see every single day just walking down the sidewalk. It was something that was new to me.

And after living here for a number of years, I was like, you know what? I don't like that I walk by these folks and I don't feel that there's anything I can do. I can't even say hello to them when I walk down the street. I feel like there's a wall up. There's misery on the street. don't want to do something about it. So I found a group in my neighborhood called SELA, which is a local homelessness coalition. And I joined. And what we started doing is we go around with with bottles of water and supplies. And we get to know the people on the street. We learn their names. We become

honestly friends with them and we try to connect them with housing. I did that work for a number of years. And it was incredibly rewarding and valuable to me. Well, one of the founders of that group was Nithya. That's how I met her. And a year or two into me being involved, she ran for city council. And as you'll hear in this interview, she sat down, she told me why she was running. And she convinced me that not only could she make things better in the city, but that she could win. So I volunteered for her campaign. We knocked doors. We called people on the phone. We spread the message that, hey, there is this office called the city councilman or city council person. And if we have the right person in there, it can make your city a little bit better.

And guess what? She won. We got her into office. And I saw hundreds, thousands of people around me get more involved in city politics as a result. And it kickstarted an entire progressive movement here in the city. It's one of the most powerful things I've been a part of in my life. I put it right up there with being a part of the writers and actress strike in 2023 in my union work as being something that's really important to me. And after she got in office, I saw things get better.

Like I actually felt like I was able to improve my city by being politically active in this way. And now Nithia is running for mayor because she has seen similar problems on the citywide level, as she saw in the district. And she similarly feels that there are changes that we could make if we actually care about putting the right solutions in place that could make L.A. a better city for everyone who lives here. And, you know, that would be enough probably to have. on the show. But the other thing that's happening is that the race has become bizarrely nationalized. We have this now right-wing MAGA candidate, Spencer Pratt, who has jumped into the race, and who's getting massive headlines raising millions of dollars from national right-wing

figures. Donald Trump has endorsed him. Steve Bannon has endorsed him. And it's created a very heated and strange atmosphere in the city politically, especially, you know, I think if you're someone like Nithia who just jumped into the race in order to try to get, you know, some more bike lanes built and some housing built and try to address homelessness in a better way. So as you're hearing this, the election is going to happen in six days next Tuesday. And as we're in the home stretch, I want to bring Nithia in to talk about the race, talk about how she got into politics in the first place, talk about her feelings for L.A.,

what keeps her optimistic about L.A. and what she sees as a future for progressive politics locally when our national politics have become so toxic and so heated and awful. So her perspective, I think, is really beautiful. It was wonderful to hear it. And I think you're really going to love it. And I think you're going to enjoy this interview.

Now, before we get to it, I want to remind you that if you want to support the show and all the conversations we bring you week in, week out, head to patreon.com. slash Adam Con. Over five bucks a month gets you every episode of this show ad free. You can also join our wonderful online community. We'd love to have you. And now let's get to this interview with Nithia Rahman.

Now, before we do, I just want to be very upfront and let you know officially that I have volunteered for her campaign and all of her campaigns. I've donated to all of her campaigns over the years. I've also donated many other progressive political candidates. And also at the beginning of the year, when she first jumped into the race, I actually worked for her campaign as a contractor for the first month to help them get set up. Although currently I am simply a volunteer and donor and supporter. And I think you'll hear why over the course of this interview.

Let's get at this conversation with Nithia Rama. Nithia, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you for having me. We've known each other for a long time. A really long time. Yeah. And in the intro, I sort of recapped how we got to know each other and your path into politics and everything. but I'd love for you to just sort of tell me, like, in your own words, like, how did you end up running for mayor?

Like, how did you get into this? What was the first time where you were like, you know, maybe I should run for office the first time? Oh, the very first time? Yeah. Yeah. Well, so, you know, we were together. We were all doing this big volunteer effort in my neighborhood, in our neighborhood. And we were trying to help people who were on the streets, get off the streets.

And I don't know if you remember this happening, but we had actually tried to reach out to our local elected representatives. Yeah. And to talk to them about where we wanted shelters and how they could do more to help us get help for people. And the person that represented me didn't take a meeting with us. Yeah. And we met with staff and we were asking for support. but I got really, I got really infuriated. And I think a lot of us did because we all felt so strongly about the need for more, more help for people on the streets,

but also like broader things, like better housing policy that would actually generate affordable housing and help people stay in L.A. and not become homeless. And it felt so much that he was kind of walking with wealthier homeowners who were opposing housing. and opposing shelters, and it felt very, very frustrating for me as a resident of his district. And so I just was like, well, I don't, we'll run against it. I'll run against him. And I'll talk about these issues. And actually, when I first started, I had no expectation that I would win. But I thought that a campaign would help us, help me and help our whole community talk about the issues that we wanted to talk about. You know, I felt like there was this burgeoning interest in in kind of positive, proactive, progressive policy on housing and homelessness.

And people were getting excited about it. And I wanted to give voice to that. I wanted to give political power to that. And win or lose, I thought we could energize people. And it ended up energizing people beyond what I even expected. It really did. I mean, well, first of all, I was part of that group, CELA. And I remember I'm personally talking to the city council office because we were going around

from encampment to encampment, getting to know people. Oh, there's Bruce. I see Bruce every week. Every week. Hey, Bruce, what would help you get into housing? Well, I got to this one place, but they kicked me out. I couldn't bring my dog or I have a partner and I couldn't get housing for my partner. That's right. They'd have some specific problem. And we go, oh, okay, if we talk to the city and we can get an accommodation here, we could actually get this person off the street. And we're putting in free effort, volunteer labor. So we go to the city. We're like, hey, can you help us with this? And they're just like, no, we won't even meet with you. Yeah.

Or just kind of like a lack of urgency, like a lack of just showing up on the streets. And, you know, I want to contrast that to what my office does when someone calls us about an encampment now. Like my staff is probably already knows who that person is by name. They're on the streets, talking to them. Our outreach teams are out there. We kind of organize around response to it. And I'm not saying it's always, you know, 100% immediately effective.

but we have reduced homelessness in the district significantly since I started. We've addressed tense and encampments by 54% in just three years. Like we are getting people off the streets and there's a kind of relentlessness to our work on this issue. That that's what I wanted to see from my local government was that relentlessness. Like I feel like this is important and I want you to feel like this is important too. Yeah. And I've felt that. And what's interesting is, you know, the question is within a lot of,

elected leader, who do they listen to? Right. And so what the old guy was doing was he was listening to the angriest, sort of wealthiest, conservative, small secrets, not like Republican, but like, reactionary or whatever you want to call them, people who would say, they'd be an encampment and they'd say, I want that gone. And they would just, you know, they would call the cops and they would move it to another corner. Right. They'd basically sweep it. And those people, they're not getting housed. They're just literally moving a block over. I would see this happen. Right. Like, we'd go visit an encampment for months and months and then one day it's gone and it's literally just across the street or it's like a couple blocks away right and then they would often come back to the same location within a week or so yeah right

and uh what you do instead is you listen to the actual people on the street like what do they what do they need in order to get into housing and folks who are trying to help and it takes a little bit longer but i've seen your office like i've worked with you guys since you've gotten an office once or twice like you'll go to an encampment and you go to each person individually and say, hey, what do you actually need in terms of housing? Like, do you have a partner? Do you have a pet? Do you have, where do you have, what do you have family, et cetera? And it takes longer. And I've seen those same conservative rich homeowners get mad because it's taking too long. And what they really want is to see the cops come bust some heads and kick some butt. And they don't actually want to see the problem solved. But that they're actually a minority,

like a vocal minority. Yeah. That's what I think. And I do think that because we've, demonstrated results because we've actually shown it's not a choice between having encampments on the streets or sending cops it's like how do you actually how do you actually address this encampment effectively how do you address this person's need effectively how do you address homelessness effectively and that and I think really proving to people and people I actually have a lot of faith in angelinos and and a belief in what the values of angelinos are like if if there is a way to address this issue the right way by by actually responding to people with dignity and and ensuring that their needs are being met, like that's the way that they want

to do it. I think when people lose, lose patience is when you're not doing anything at all. Right. Right. And that's, that's, I think, the, for me, I'm a progressive. And for me, you know, I want government to be. out there. I want government to be functioning. I want it to be proactive, present on the streets. Like, I want active government that's really out there trying to solve the problems and actually

succeeding in solving the problems because this is the way that you can actually solve them. There is no snap your fingers and get rid of these issues. You just have to work. You have to be out there doing the work. And that's what I want city government to do is be out there doing the work. it's like the most kind of visceral form of government that you can have, right? It's like so present in your life. And the difference is so clear when it's not working well. And, you know, I'm speaking a little bit cynically about, you know, there's neighbors who just want to see heads get busted.

I think you're making a good point that that sort of anger and frustration that people have is the result of decades of nothing being done. And so then the only button they know how to push is the like, I'm pissed off button. And the only response the government knows how to have is the, oh, shit, someone's pissed off. Let's, you know, do the minimal most destructive thing. The harder thing is to actually try to solve the problem step by step. You get yelled at sometimes a little bit more temporarily. But if you can actually solve the problem in the long run, then you can win allies forever.

Which I do think, you know, we've done, we've demonstrated that in the district. and I think I've converted some folks who were skeptical initially. Yeah. And I know I've gotten elected twice in a fairly moderate district relative to many parts of L.A. And I've gotten, I've won over people who were skeptical initially because we've done the work and we've delivered. Not everyone, of course. Yeah. But I, but I, that's what I want.

Like I'm not, I don't know. there's all this ideological stuff right, left, you know, progressive, conservative, moderate. It's like I think the majority of people, at least in L.A. are kind of clustered around the same values. And like if you can just demonstrate to them that the city is working for them, they will keep the faith. Yeah.

And you've also won, despite the city political machine trying to murder you a couple times, which let's get into that in a second. Just saying on progressive for a second. Yeah, sure. Because when you say progressive, you know, there's the way Elizabeth Warren uses progressive, for example, in national politics. When I hear you say it, to me, it reminds me of the reading I've done about like what progressive meant in like the 20s or the 30s, like the sort of New York City progressives who, you know, there was misery and there were problems on the street and these folks wanted good government. Yeah. They wanted a lack of corruption.

and they wanted the government to simply, hey, can we build some fucking public pools? Can we address, you know, street poverty? Can we? And so much of like what we think of as like New Deal liberalism and et cetera and a lot of the welfare state or a lot of just the government caring for people or just doing anything. Yeah. Was a result of people at that time saying, hey, could we have the government do anything to help people in a practical way? There's a real practical piece of it. And it's not that I don't, I'm not also excited about the Elizabeth Warren national level progressive movement as well.

But at the local level, I think it does mean something in some ways that's more universally palatable. Yeah. You know, just a government that's out there fixing the problems that we have and functioning for people. And that that is the thing that's inspired me in my work. I am, you know, I'm trained as an urban planner. I love cities. I love cities for so many reasons, but one of the biggest reasons is because I think you can really demonstrate to people why government can be a force for good at the city level, like really concretely. And the first time you ran for city council, I remember really distinctly, like you and I had lunch and I knew you from CELA, but you're like, hey, I'm running for city council.

And you sort of laid it up for me. You're like, hey, so there's not that many city council seats in. LA, 15, 16? 15. Excuse me. I always think 16's around her number, so I always think 16. But then you'd have tie votes all the time. So you have to have an odd number. Good point. Okay. So, so and that means each of those people represents hundreds of thousands. Yeah. Here in Los Angeles, we have the largest city council districts in, in the country, 260,000 people. Wow. And so yeah, they were big council districts. So you sat me down and you were like, hey, we represent hundreds of, this position represents hundreds of thousands of people. It has a lot of power. Yep. We have recently changed our city council election cycle to align with a national election.

So a whole bunch of new people are going to come in and vote. Yeah. And previously the guy the people, the guy in the position before was basically sort of didn't want you to know who he was. Right. We're like, we're sort of hiding. We're not really doing that much. But this is a position that can really make the city better and we can win. And I don't know if I went that far.

As you said. You convinced me in that conversation. Okay, good. Maybe I was making the case then. I don't remember how hard you made the case where I saw it. Good, good, good. But when I saw you run across. I'm proud of me six years ago for doing that.

Well, I saw you do that again and again with people around the district where you sort of, your campaign was almost, hey, did you know there's something called a city council person? Right. And you can vote for them. Yes. And guess what? If you had someone in there who was actually working, it could make the city a little bit better. Yeah. And I saw people like myself.

I had lived in the district for years. I had never even thought about this position. I didn't know the name of the person who had it. And then after your campaign, it was about a year and a half long, suddenly I did know the name of the person. I was invested in city politics in why I hadn't been before. And then I actually saw stuff get better in the district.

And I had like hundreds of friends and community members who I saw go through the same thing. Oh, yeah. No, I voted for Nithian. Oh, yeah. She's really great. And oh, do you know what's up with this encampment? And oh, did you hear about this that went on in City Hall? Like, people were suddenly paying attention.

And I feel like the connection of the political office to the practical reality of the city that you live in and improving it was like, it's the most basic connection. But it was one that was not being made for people until you ran in this district. Yeah. And I think one of the things that I was excited about is that our city has the capacity to control a lot. And I would say here it is the city council, but also the mayor's office. we have the ability to do things about renter's rights that the city just wasn't taking action on. And I was able to take action on it in city council. We passed some of the strongest renter protections in the entire country.

We have universal just cause eviction protections here. I was able to lead the effort to lower allowable rent increases for rent stabilized units, which impacts, you know, millions of residents who live in those units. Like there is real power in our city. government to impact people's lives that I think I was able to really kind of deliver on for constituents, not just in the kind of the service provision and constituent services in the district, but also in legislation citywide, which is really, really fun. And it's, it's really amazing the, like the practical things you've done to make life better

for renters, for example, who are very rarely represented in city government at all. you've also had a huge amount of pushback against you. As soon as you won, there was a recall effort, which almost immediately failed. Yes, they are supposed to collect thousands of signatures. I don't think they collected nearly any. But it made huge waves in the press that there was an effort at all. Sure. Then when the Fed tapes came out, which folks might remember a couple years ago,

there were these horrible tapes of these leaders in city government and city labor, sadly, saying horrible racist things about other elected. and specifically saying that they were going to try to maliciously redistrict, like gerrymandar your district away from you in order to give you a bunch of voters who would kick you out of office. Yes. They said that they were doing this on tape. It was national news.

And they still successfully did it. Well, the tapes, yeah, the tapes leaked a year later. Oh, excuse me. They had already done it. So, and I remember when the lines were being redrawn, what they were mostly talking about was redrawing the lines to benefit themselves. I was kind of collateral damage. They were like, oh, and by the way, let's put her district in the blender because she's not an ally.

Let's put her district in the blender. Because she's not an ally. But mostly what they were doing was redrawing the lines to benefit their own incumbency and to benefit their allies' incumbency and to punish their perceived enemies, including me. And they did it. They did it successfully about a year after I got elected. And so I was redrawn into a district that had fewer renters that was less diverse, less. less, you know, less younger voters. But I still managed, yeah, I was able to get reelected in that district, which was really exciting.

And you won kind of massively because you won in the primary. Yes. Yeah. Which was, I think, a surprise to many, especially because your opponent was like pretty well-funded. Had a lot of groups backing him. Including landlords who were really mad that I had helped spearhead these renters' rights and these protections in the council and they spent a lot of money against me. And yeah, I won in the primary, just barely avoided a runoff, which was great. But it was exciting to have won in the primary in an election,

which was so contested and where the lines had been redrawn to keep me out of office again. Yeah, I mean, literally a huge percentage of your district didn't even know who you were because they hadn't voted for you the first time. Right. And yet you won them over. So this is a lot of pushback from a lot of different sources, right? Landlords groups, you know, moneyed interests, but then also, you know, the people who were talking about you on that tape were literally just the people who had been running city government for like a decade. Just the establishment sort of machine, people who know how to get in office and stay there.

And here you're coming in just as like someone who's just trying to help make the city a little better in a couple ways. Yeah. And there's this like, you know, metastatic response against you. You know, oh, we can't have that. Right. Where does that come from? Like, why do we have a city government and a system and a machine that is against making people's lives better when those are the people voting, right?

The people whose lives are being made better are the ones who are the voters? Yeah. I mean, I think that there is a very cozy system of funding that happens in City Hall that when it's challenged, it just becomes harder to win re-election, right? So we have a lot of political donations flowing into the city from the landlord lobby, from Airbnb, which is a massive funder to local elections, from the police union. And I think when you disrupt the easy pathways to getting campaign cash and independent expenditures or packs that support you, I think the traditional political machine pushes back, right?

Because it's making it harder to get elected. It's much easier to get elected if you can just get the support of these big, powerful, vested interests and just move on. And I think my election, which, by the way, has been replicated in other parts of the city, which is really exciting. People have run against incumbents. Progressives have run against incumbents talking about renter's rights and won again and again. You were the first person to be an incumbent in like 20 years to unseat, to like even challenge and successfully unseat an incumbent. And then after you, I think at least three other districts out of 15 did in the next like five years. Yes, that's right. And now we've got a small progressive block or, well, let's say a sizable progressive.

We have a serious progressive block on the city council that actually fights for stuff. And so you're at the beginning of this like really big sea change in city politics. So please, please go on. I just want to point that. Well, no, I just, I think that that talking to the talking to renter's rights issues ended up being very good politics. talking about excessive spending on, on, on, you know, police contracts, which were kind of hugely bad for the budget, talking about that, ended up being good politics because people get mad about that. People want to understand, you know, who their legislators are legislating for and they want to know who is funding these local elections and pushing our city in directions that may not be speaking to the needs of Angelinos. And I think that that has been a potent,

political effort here in Los Angeles. And it's good. I think people paying attention and people understanding how our money is being spent is really important and how our rules are being made is really important. Where campaign cash is going is really important to understand. Yeah.

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One of the biggest spenders is the LAPPL, which is the police union. And my understanding is a big part of the reason why is they just literally want the existing cops to be paid more every single year. They want more money out of the public coffers. And they pay to support politicians that will do that. And as a result, we massively have overpaid our police force in a way that's not keeping us safer, but is like draining money from other places, right? Yeah, we pay about half a billion.

more a year now for a thousand, five hundred fewer cops than we did just a few years ago. Yeah, because of the way these contracts are structured. And, you know, my husband's a union member. Like, I think public employees should be paid well. We should be, you know, everyone should be, it's very expensive to live in Los Angeles. People need to be paid. But I think when you're making decisions that are politically motivated that are designed as a local elected representative, when you're making decisions that are designed around. getting campaign cash.

Yeah. I think that is a problem for Los Angeles, and we should not be doing that. And whether it's a police contract, whether it is restrictions around short-term rentals and Airbnb, home sharing, whatever you want to call it, these are all decisions that I think need to be discussed publicly that we need to talk about in ways that really get,

you know, grapple with how policies may impact our lives. here. And then we should be making the best decisions for Los Angeles, not for campaigns. Yeah. So let's be really specific because this is part of why you decided to run for mayor after being a city council member for six years was that you saw our current mayor make, and I've seen you speak about this on the campaign trail. So this is why I'm able to start this for you. I'm not trying to speak for you. But my understanding is the mayor made one of these massive concessions in the budget process to, or sorry, the contract process for the police union that like basically bankrupted the city.

Yeah. Please go on. Oh, no. It just, I mean, I think, but yeah, the 2023 police contract, which I voted against, ended up giving more money to the union than the city really even had. That had knock on effects for our budget. And then last year, we ended up having a billion dollar budget deficit here in the city of Los Angeles, billion with a B, enormous budget deficit.

And the city had to cut essential service. in response to that. So we cut everything from staffing for fixing streetlights to people fixing potholes and money for all of these things that are also part of what makes life in L.A. livable, right, in response to that. And so we ended up now having something like 30,000 streetlights across the city of L.A. that are out. And the average repair time for a broken streetlight going from just a month or two to now a year. Wow. Because of how massively we had to cut our staffing and our ability to respond to these

essential services. Our quality of our streets has gone down. Our ability to be able to build out unarmed crisis response has gone down. We aren't funding immigration defense at the rate that we used to. During the Trump administration's, you know, horrific actions on our streets, we were not able to fund as a city support for immigrants who needed it desperately. We funded it at a lower rate than we did during the last Trump administration because of this mayor's decisions.

And to me, as a local representative, that makes me really, really frustrated and angry about the way in which our dollars are being spent in the city of L.A. And my understanding is when this contract was being voted on or put forth by the mayor and was voted on by the city council. Yes. Everybody knew that this is what would happen because the numbers were so massive. Yeah, people knew. We had done the analysis.

The city administrative officer had done the analysis. People understood the impacts of these contracts, but they voted in support of them anyway because of, again, kind of this political, political situation. So the city itself, the city's own research department or whatever analysis is saying, okay, here's the results of this in black and white. Right. It's going to be so much money. There'll be a billion.

dollar buff budget deficit in a little bit and yet the mayor is proposing it and it's an even larger raise than the cops had wanted and most of the city the majority of the city council is going along with it. And so why are they going along with it? Is it just for narrow political gain? I think so and I think it's hard because I think in I think it is also a hard discussion to have with your constituents, right? Voting for this kind of contract. symbolically might suggest to the public that you are actually pro-public safety and voting against that contract

might suggest that you're anti-public safety. I voted with the cops or against the cops. It boils down to that. But I don't think it has to be that black and white and I think Angelinos are really capable of nuance. Yeah. And I do think we can have a different kind of conversation which says, yes, we need 911 response.

Yes, we need armed response. We need to be able to preserve this as part of our public safety responses for sure. But how do we ensure that we're able to also sustain our city, but actually also deliver on that public safety response effectively. And how do we make those kinds of decisions? That, I think, is the conversation that people want to have, frankly.

But we don't have that. We just have these black and white. Are you pro-police? Are you pro-police? Are you funding the police or you defunding the police? And it's not actually, that's not actually what is the conversation that I think people in L.A. need to be having right now.

What's funny is if you ask people, you know, if someone is all mad, oh, you voted against giving the cops more money, but a public safety is important, right? I want well-funded police. If you ask that same person, like, okay, we gave the cops this massive raise. Do you feel like if you call 911, the cops will show up quickly and help you with your problem? Right. Is that a trust that you have in the system currently? Does anybody in Los Angeles feel that way? I think they'd say no.

I think a lot of people feel let down by the public safety or especially. here. And I think part of it is that that contract increase, which was supposed to be designed to retain and even increase our police force, didn't work to do that. We've actually seen a shrinking of our police force over the last few years, and that shrinking has continued despite these efforts. How you actually solve that is a different set of questions that we're not even talking about right now. Like, that's like, how do you fix the recruitment pipeline? How do you make the personnel department work better? How do you make sure you're retaining employees better? Like, that's a conversation. that we should be having, that we're not having.

And by the way, our investment in this that is so massive that it has bankrupted other parts of our city, has made it impossible for us to deliver on other very important aspects of public safety. For example, making sure our 911 calls are picked up in a timely fashion. We're not hiring those call takers, you know. With the literal call operators. Yes, we can't hire them as much. We're not hiring civilians in our police department who do a lot of the work that is necessary for delivering on public safety outcomes. but we can't hire them because we don't have the money,

which means that armed officers are actually assigned to those roles, which actually makes our public safety response worse or can make it worse. And we can't invest as much as we need to in a citywide system of mental health crisis responders, which could actually take a lot of call load off of LAPD. So many of the calls that are coming into 911 don't require armed officers to respond. And actually, in some cases, maybe much more safely handled with a mental health crisis worker showing up to de-escalate and to respond to that situation, but we can't invest in that citywide because we don't have the money. And so the question is really like, what are we doing about

building out the system of public safety response that's robust, that answers the needs of Angelinos that shows up when you call for help and it's the right person that shows up? We're not having that, that discussion at all. That's the conversation that we should be having, but because of the way that politics works, because of the way that campaign cash works, because of the way in which our local media environment, which is completely eviscerated right now, talks about these issues, we just end up in this really, I think,

a very thin conversation about these issues when we should be having a much richer nuanced conversation that can bring Angelinos in instead of alienating them from their city. Yeah, and what's funny is that thin conversation is so, frustrating because you're now running for mayor. Yeah. And you're getting it from both sides. First of all, the LAPL is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars against you. You're the only candidate that they're spending that money. I believe it's now well over a million. Oh, okay. Excuse me. Thank you. Yes. And so you've got

you know, with money from landlords in there. Karen, yep, we've got Karen Bass and we'll say his name for the first time, Spencer Pratt, saying that, you know, you want to defund the police. You want to take money away from the cops. Then you've got folks in the left saying, oh, you know, you, she loves. She loves you. She loves the cops or whatever. It's because, you know, you've been sort of whipsawed on saying defund or not saying defund, which is the thin piece of the argument. When what I hear you actually saying is, look, we're spending, we are spending way too much money on police for stuff that we're not getting for services that we're not getting. If we want to spend less on that, we need to fund unarmed crisis response, right? Which we're not able to do. And you're trying

to move us towards that and the cops are spending money to try to stop you from doing that. And so you're, you seem to be the person who's actually trying to bring sanity to the way that we fund law enforcement in this country. And everybody, but everybody else in the political system is just sort of screaming about the very simple, unnuanced version of it. How does that feel? I think that we are in a moment where that kind of nuance is really just hard to have though in our politics overall, whether it's local or national. I mean, you see it playing out everywhere. And I think that this moment is a particularly hard moment for that kind of conversation. Yeah. Because of the way in which, again, we have a, we don't have a robust

local media environment. We know, LA Times is shrinking. We don't have another local paper that is taking the place of that. We don't have a lot of, we have less people watching TV stations and, you know, where are these, where do we have? And then, of course, our social media environment is kind of driven and fueled through outrage. More so than ever. More so than ever. Yes, that algorithmic response to how we talk about these things. None of it is conducive to having these real discussions and also these real policy interventions that can get us to a better city. And I, you know, to me, it's a place where I think we just have to be pushing really hard on a better, better version of Los Angeles.

And I want to be doing that. I am doing that. Yeah. Well, and that was my, like, hope for your campaign and my happiness that you were running. Yeah. like, okay, that at the very minimum, a campaign for mayor can be an opportunity to actually have these conversations and to bring light to, you know, the decisions that were made around the police contract that, you know, were not fully discussed at the time. But as you've been

making that argument, we have also seen the first time in my experience the sort of like nationalization of the election with Spencer Pratt. Yeah. ascendancy to, you know, media stardom on this. I mean, he's basically, it's been really shocking to watch. He's basically literally doing a Donald Trump 2.0 on a local level, former reality star running against an unpopular establishment Democrat woman on a policy of locking up homeless people and immigrants. And he's getting all this press coverage of,

could he really do it? Whoa, isn't it crazy he's running? Oh, all this anger. And then as a result, the national right-wing. movement is the national MAGA movement is like, oh, this is our new guy. He's, oh, Spencer Pratt's 40-something. Donald Trump is 80, you know, so maybe this is the new Donald Trump. They're pouring money and attention into the race. And like literally, the race is currently one of the hottest things in right-wing media. Like, if you look at any of the sort of like right-wing outrage slop sites, there's an

we talked about this, there's an article about me and the Daily Mail about an Instagram reel I made about the race. Which is like, not. not newsworthy, right? But it's literally just their farming clicks and money off of this. And you're woke and this is about, yeah. And I'm a hate object because I'm woke, as are you. And so I don't think this is probably what you anticipated when the race began. Is it?

What has this been like for you? It has been, I mean, it's certainly been interesting. I can tell you that. Okay. Yeah. I thought, you know, I got into this race thinking that I would talk about bike lanes and housing policy and how we need more housing in L.A. And how Karimbas is trying to stop more housing from being built and, you know, and public transit and how we need to pay attention to metro and have more buses running on time. And wow, this is not, now we're talking about crystals and magas.

And, you know, it really has become a very different election from the one that I thought I would be getting into. Yeah, in every way. Yeah. I mean, how has this affected you personally? Again, knowing you before you ran for any office, and just as like a person who's trying to make the city better, to find yourself. in like the middle of this. Can we talk about what you told me when you came in about what was happening in your front yard

when you came this morning? Yeah, so I woke up this morning to a sound of commotion outside of my window and I looked out the window and I realized that there were people setting up what was, I think, a fake encampment, like a homeless encampment outside of my house. Multiple people

gathered there filming it to make a shooting something with cameras and things like that outside of my house. Yeah. I think to make a political video that would talk about how I don't want this at all,

but how I'm, you know, that this is somebody who wants encampments on our streets, that she lets encampments be there. Even though really my entire work on city council has been how do I actually address homelessness effectively and how do we make this how do we end street homelessness in LA and how can I demonstrate that that we can do it in my district and I have demonstrated it.

Yeah. But the opposite. You have cleared encampments more than the previous occupancy. Yeah, so much more. And but yes, but they want to make a political point about, you know, the way in which I talk about policies on this issue. And so I'm sure that they were filming something that was going to be now again, a video outside of my house where this is happening.

So I just was, you know, I, it's been, I have little kids. Yeah. They didn't see it, luckily, this morning. But, you know, I'm, I feel badly that, that I'm even subjecting them to that at all. But it, but it has definitely, this has gone far beyond, far beyond what I expected the campaign to be about. I, again, thought it would be about bike lanes and management of the Department of Transportation. To me, a lot of this looks like an attempt to just push people out of caring about politics at all. I mean, what you're talking about is, I would say that rises to the level of harassment on some level.

Well, I mean, I asked for it. I ran for mayor. Sure, you ran for mayor. But to like, yeah, I put myself out there. So personal and so much, you know, like the Pratt campaign has made it about your house personally a couple times, right? And like, I wish it was worth as much as he was saying, but let's not say, let's take, let's remove her aspirin for a second. The personal hostility of it. Yeah.

Right. Right. The, the, the, the anger and the vitriol that's leveled against you personally and leveled against anybody who cares about this, right? Like, you know, even in my posts about the campaign, it's full of Spencer Pratt fans who do not, or bots who do not live in Los Angeles or maybe not be real people who just will like say horrible things in your comment section. And I think part of the point is to make to make average people feel bad and disengage. Disengage. Right.

Yeah. I don't know if that that is certainly the outcome of what they're doing. And I guess I would just take I would just take a step back and look across at Los Angeles right now. And the reality is that Spencer Pratt is polling well. Like we've been neck and neck in some polls. There's a couple polls in which he's ahead. there may very well be a Pratt-Bass runoff. That means five more months of this.

I don't think ultimately Angelinos will pick him, but there's always that fear. I didn't think it would happen nationwide. And here we are again thinking about that. Did it happen twice nationwide. But I do think that what he's tapping into is what pushed me to run in the first place, right? Which is that people here are looking at local politics,

looking at policies that they want to believe can work. And then a city government that is not ensuring that they're working on the streets. Like if we are taxing ourselves to address homelessness, then our city's response should be effective, should be far more effective than it is, right? And that's what I've tried to do. And I've delivered on in my district in many ways. And I think the whole city should be pushing up against that. But when it fails people, they turn away and I think there's a there is a frustration and an openness to a much darker approach to these issues that doesn't align actually with people's values. But when you're so frustrated about the lack of results on the streets, when you're so

frustrated about a city that can't even keep the streetlights on, how are you going to trust that it can address homelessness? You know, like that's that is a dark moment in Los Angeles. It is a dark moment in Los Angeles. And I really believe in the city so much. that we can do better and I believe that we can deliver for residents. But the city has to work so much harder to do that. And it has to be honest with people about the tradeoffs that we're making. It has to be honest with people about the policy conversations that we're having. And to me at the

mayoral level right now, none of that is happening. And I want it so badly to happen. I want it so badly to happen for L.A. Yeah. I mean, it's so frustrating to watch people. I mean, of course everyone's upset about homelessness, but for someone to run and, you know, what Spencer Pratt is, I don't even want to say proposing to do about homelessness, the things that he's saying he would like to make happen are a unconstitutional, B won't work. C are more expensive than anything that you're proposing, right? And because he's literally talking about just like throwing people in prison or creating internment camps or things like that, right? Whereas you're talking about here are solutions that are research-backed, cheaper, things you've already done.

And things that have demonstrated to work. And we've shown that it can work, absolutely. But yes, these are not realistic plans to respond to this issue. But again, with frustration also, these, you know, snap your fingers and make it disappear promises become a lot more seductive to people. Yeah. And frustration can lead you to very, you know, I think places that are that are at odds with the reality of how you actually have to move on these issues. But I will also say that we need to be doing better in L.A. on these issues like citywide, we need to be demonstrating to people that we can address rising housing costs, that we can protect tenants, that we can address homelessness effectively in every neighborhood.

we can make sure that our basic city services are functioning, but that will just take a lot more, a lot more work and effort on our part. And again, just real management of the city and a real pushing of our city in a much better direction, which this mayor is not doing. I mean, the urgency to make this city work for residents, an urgency to say,

I can't take these residents for granted. I can't take these voters for granted. granted. I can't take Los Angeles for granted. That urgency is just not there. And I've seen that over the last few years. And I don't believe it has to be that way. I think the thing that frustrates me the most, and I'm just curious how you feel about it, is, you know, if you look at the, you know, you, Karen and Spencer, right, as the three candidates, you've got sort of three forces or movements in the city. You've got the sort of sclerotic establishment, you know, all the money pours in to get what it wants doesn't really serve the people status quo,

right, that everyone's unhappy with. You've got pure like id and rage and bloodlust that is going to cost more and not solve anything effectively, right? And then you have a movement of people who are like, hey, what if we actually just let's look at the problems, let's try to address them in a way that will actually solve them, that will save money, that will make the city better. I'm like, hey, let's make the city work for people. Like, that is our task ahead, is how do we keep communicating?

How do we keep pushing? I mean, I see this. When I first thought about getting into the race, I saw that it was Mayor Bass and Spencer Pratt, who were the two most viable candidates in the race at the time. And to me, I felt a real sense of urgency around that moment. Like, this is going to be a race, which is going to have these kind of polls that are going to be corrosive for L. L.A. Like this kind of, this kind of conversation is corrosive for L.A. This kind of discussion is corrosive for L.A.

And it has the capacity to divide and to bring us apart in ways that I think are really dangerous for this city at a time when the threats and the challenges that are facing us are very, very real. So I do think it's upon us to come together to figure out how to unite, to figure out how to talk about these issues in ways that are really focused on kind of material improvements for people. how do we make people's lives materially better? How can we unite around issues that that matter? How can we make sure that we're moving in a shared direction that delivers for people? Like that is the most profound pathway forward for me. Well, I think you underlined it there when you said talking about the material improvements to people's lives so that they can, you know, imagine what will be different if they support policies that will make their lives better. So let's end by talking about that a little bit.

Like when you envision a Los Angeles, you know, 10 years from now, right, that has done some of the things that you hope to do in office. Yeah. How does the city look different physically and in the lives of the people who live here? You know, for one big issue that has driven my campaign is really around housing affordability and how much housing costs here. Yeah. We've passed really strong protection. for renters, I want to make sure that renters who are facing real challenges in their house, in their home, facing, you know, potentially landlords who are bad, you know, bad actors,

who are trying to push them out, that they feel like they can lean on the city. So I've proposed creating an office of tenant protections that reorients the housing department, not just as a bureaucratic entity that's out there to look at the rules, but really to secure communities. Yeah. To make sure that people facing these pressures have a city that they can leave. lean on. And that will be, I think, a very, very big change from the way in which people engage with the bureaucracy today that mostly, again, brushes them off instead of seeing it as their

mission to keep them housed and to help them address unfair evictions, to help them address bumps in their life that may lead them to have housing insecurity and really to keep them housed as much as possible. I want to build more housing in L.A. We have to make it easier to build more housing. We have the most unaffordable city. We have the highest rent burden population of any city in America and the fewest homes per adult of any city in America. Wow. And those two facts are deeply connected and they're both the product of city policy that has restricted the construction of new apartments in this city for decades. This has been part of L.A.'s kind of political landscape for a long time was a pushback against new housing. I think we need to

make it a city that really says yes to housing rather than delays and denies new housing. I think we can build it in neighborhoods that are not facing real gentrification pressures pressures that are not. We can plan for it in ways that will prevent displacement of vulnerable communities. Yeah. That requires planning and that requires engagement with residents and with neighborhoods. But you can absolutely make sure that the city is getting out of the way, getting red tape out of the way. It takes two plus years sometimes to even get approvals from the city to build the housing that we say we desperately need. Yeah.

Right. And by the way, that timeline is even longer for affordable housing. Yeah. That's wild. We have to get the city to be one that says yes to new housing. And there's this odd, I think, sometimes competition that you'll see in, you know, left-of-center housing conversations where there's almost like a war between. people who want, you know, rent control, stronger tenant protections. And they say, we don't need to build new housing.

And then there's the people who say, well, all we need to do is build new housing. And I'm like, it's very clearly both. Like you very clearly need like renter protections and you need to build new housing. And we can do both. And you are the person like who by the way has done both and wants to do both more. I just find that it be such a funny division because you'll see these wars between, you know, the Yimbys and, I don't know, the renter protection people that seem unnecessary to me. I think that they, it can be a hard, it can sometimes be a hard thing to unite.

And there's definitely been policy discussions where the safeguards that we've put in place for new housing production to protect existing renters, you know, I'm told by even affordable housing developers that they'll prevent the construction of new housing, right? So I don't, policy wise, it's not an easy. conversation to reconcile. But to me, yes, protecting tenants and producing new housing are two sides of the same coin. And I get so many calls in the district from people who have a terrible living situation, a landlord that is not caring for the unit that they're in, that's trying to potentially push them out. They're feeling incredible stress. And they have nowhere to go. They have no options because there is just not enough other housing that is affordable to them. And housing follows the laws of supply and demand. If you have more housing, housing costs go down. We've seen it happen

in other cities and we've seen it happen even in Los Angeles where actually new rents have been lower because there was an influx of production from like five or six years ago that has actually lowered some of the rents here in Los Angeles or at least stop their rise. In certain places? Yeah. Well, there was an investment that like it's a long timeline for new housing to come on the market. But that influx of new housing from a few years ago is actually now leading to rent's flatlining here instead of going up at the pace that they were, which is a big, good change for L.A., something that we desperately need, and we need to do more of. And to me, these two policies are really just exactly what we need to be doing in order to stabilize

Los Angeles in order to keep it a place of real opportunity for people instead of a place that is pushing working families out of the city every single week. And I see it happening in my district. I see it happening across the entire city, and we don't have to let it be this. way anymore. Yeah. One of the things that made me most excited when you jumped in, and I've told this story a bunch of times to friends, is, you know, I texted you. There was a rumor going around that you were going to jump in. And, you know, I've gotten to know you well enough over the years that way. We have your own number. Yeah. And I texted you, hey, I don't know if you're going to run.

You have every reason not to, but, you know, I would support you if you did. And what you wrote back to me was this is the greatest city in the world and people need to fucking remember that. That was like, that was the first thing you texted me back. And I cannot tell you how much I was waiting for someone to say that to me. Because I've spent 10 years living in LA going,

I kind of want to go, I miss New York. I want to move back. I don't like the, I don't like having a drive that. I've just been a stick in the mud about it, right? And, and what you saying that to me made me realize, LA is so, talks down on itself so much, so, so much.

And I cannot tell you how much I was waiting for, like it really opened up like a well of actual civic patriotism about Los Angeles that I didn't know that I had after living here for a decade. And it made me go, oh, hold on a second. Like the Spencer Pratt type people, the rage people are running on, this city is garbage.

It's a hellhole. It's horrible here. Spencer Pratt literally says he's going to move if he doesn't win. And then, you know, the Karen Bass or politics as usual camp is like, we can't do better. We can't really do better. This is about the best we can do. Root for the Dodgers and like hold your nose, right?

And the fact that you're coming in with positivity about LA. Yes. Despite facing all the challenges and like looking at them on a more granular level than anybody else, despite getting all this wave of hatred from Spencer's people is like the most important thing to me about the way that you're running. And so where does that come from for you? Like that when you say L.A. is the greatest city in the world. I bet a lot of people are even like, wait, really?

No, it absolutely is. Tell me why you say it. Oh my God. It absolutely is. It is like the one of the most diverse places I've ever lived in. I've ever even been in. It is a place like when I, I grew up on the East Coast in a suburb outside of Boston and faced pretty intensive bullying and racism my, my entire childhood when I was, you know, in school. And, and I came to L.A.

and the feeling here of acceptance and inclusivity is so palpable. And I just was like, oh, I can have kids here. Like my kids would be welcome here. My kids will be, you know, embraced here. And it was just like such a different feeling. But it's also just a place of opportunity. Like you show up here and you are, this city in so many ways for me, like invites people to dream their dreams here. It invites people, whatever you want to do, whether it's, you want to, you know, be in the entertainment industry or you want to get a job here and send money back home to wherever your family is, whether you're, you know, somebody who is, you know, from a place in America where, where, you know, you just don't feel like your values fit in.

Like this place is a place that welcomes people and invites people to dream big. and that feeling is so real here. And I've never been in another place in the world that that has that feeling. Never. Like New York, to me, doesn't have that, to be honest with you. I've been there plenty, live there. And, you know, it's just hierarchical. And, you know, who do you know?

And no, this is like, come here, build your dreams. This is the city for you. Anyone is welcome. and that feeling of opportunity is just, it's part of the molecular nature of this city. And it is so magical. It is so magical. And I love it.

I don't know of another place in the world that has that. And I just feel so lucky to have been part of this city's, like, political culture for as long as I have. And the fact that I get to represent it is like such a privilege. I can't believe that I get to do this. And to be able to even run for mayor to go around the city and to talk to people about their hopes and dreams and their challenges. Like what a lucky life I have. Like what a lucky city we live in.

And it's just like it's incredible. That's really beautiful. No, it is genuinely. Because I also know that like the thing that you're doing is not easy. And, you know, I've been close enough to it. there's been plenty of times that being involved in local politics has really worn on me. Or I'm like, oh, people are like yelling at me about this or this part's bumming me out.

And like, why don't I just like get stoned and go to the beach, you know? Like, or be the kind of comedian who doesn't get involved in politics and then people won't hate me. Right. You know, like I've seen a lot of entertainers. Remember Matthew McConaughey was going to run for governor of Texas and then he didn't. And I was like, I know why he didn't. It's because half of the people would hate him.

And he can't handle that. Right. Right. And so that, that stuff. is real. It really grinds on you. Yeah. And so I guess I want to end by saying, we could have end by saying, hey, vote for Nithia on June 2nd.

I think that's implicit. Yes. If you get into second, by the way, then Spencer Pratt will not go to the general. We won't have to hear about this motherfucker for the next six months. Correct. So that would be really nice. For me personally, if people would consider, I would love to not have to hear about them anymore. But for all the folks who don't live in L.A. and are like,

you know, should I get involved in local politics myself? It's difficult. It's stressful. What are the rewards of doing it? Can you just speak to that for a second more? I, you know, local politics are just getting civically engaged in, in your city is the most rewarding thing that, to me, anybody can do. Yeah. It makes you feel connected to your neighborhood.

It makes you feel connected to your neighbors. Especially if you're doing like a volunteer type of thing, you, it changed, being a volunteer in my neighborhood changed my life. It gave me a sense of purpose and belonging that was so intense and that connected me so deeply to my neighborhood and to my neighbors. And I would just highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for something to do who wants to stop staring at their phones who is tired of the AI slop and algorithmic movement of social media who wants to come out into the world. Like go get involved. because it can be so beautiful. It can be so beautiful. That's really beautiful and it connects me to how I first met you because that was me saying,

I want to be involved. And I'm sick of walking by misery on the street every day and not feeling like I can do anything about it. And like by being a part of the group that you founded, I gave me that connection. And that's what pulled me into local politics in the first place. So I'm grateful to you for like providing that example and an opportunity for. for me and so many other people like me to get involved. And I'm grateful to you for running. And I'm grateful to you for being here.

Oh, I'm grateful to you as well. And thank you for continuing to stay engaged and for keeping it a positive and exciting place. Like, it, you know, it's nice to be here and talk to you about that. Thanks so much for being here, Nithia. Thank you. Well, thank you once again, Nithia, for coming on the show. If you want to learn more about our campaign, you can do so at Nithia for the city.com. If you live in Los Angeles, don't forget the primary election is on June 2nd.

of course, no matter where you live, don't forget to vote whoever you choose to vote for, and please be politically active wherever you happen to live for whatever candidate you happen to align with the most importantly. That is the most important thing that any of us can do. If you'd like to support this show directly, you can do so at patreon.com slash Adam Conover. Five bucks a month gets you every episode of the show, ad-free.

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everybody here at HeadGum for making the show possible. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you next time on Factually. That was a HeadGum podcast. Hi, I am Mandy Moore. Sterling K. Brown. And I'm Chris Sullivan. And we host the podcast, That Was Us, now on HeadGum. Each episode, we're going to go into a deep dive from our show, This Is Us.

That's right. We're going to go episode by episode. We're also going to pepper in episodes with different guest stars and writers and casting directors. Are we going to cry? Yes. A little bit. Often. A lot.

A whole lot. That's what I'm hoping, man. Listen to that was us on your favorite podcast app or watch full video episodes on YouTube or Spotify. New episodes every Tuesday.