His Worst Nightmare MAGA Panics Over This Progressive Candidate Taking Over

IHIP News

Los Angeles City Council member and mayoral candidate Nithya Raman joins IHIP News to discuss her progressive campaign, the failures of current

Key takeaways

• A majority of Los Angeles voters rejected the incumbent mayor in the primary, signaling deep dissatisfaction with current leadership.
• Raman emphasizes that progressive policies like housing reform and homelessness reduction are not radical but necessary for city functionality.

Main topics

• Los Angeles mayoral race and political discontent
• Housing affordability and tenant protections

Notable quotes

"People are fed up with a city that is pricing them out every single week and that this city hall doesn't seem to be focused on the cost of housing."

Conclusion

Nithya Raman presents herself as a pragmatic, results-oriented progressive who challenges the

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:04) Joining me on IHIP News is Los Angeles City Council member and candidate for mayor, Nithya Raman. Nithya, welcome to IHIP News. We're hoping that this is a big stop for all people running for office. Tell me, you're in a heated, you were in a heated primary with Karen Bass and Spencer Pratt. And what I took from that was that people in L.A. are pissed right now. So pissed that a lot of Democrats were throwing parties for Spencer Pratt. Pratt. What happened? What's the breakdown for those of us that don't live in Speaker 1 (0:37) LA? Speaker 2 (0:38) Well, Speaker 1 (0:38) I think you're right that people are fed up here. And what you saw in that primary election was that two thirds of voters didn't vote for an incumbent mayor, which in a city like Los Angeles is incredibly rare. That almost never happens. But I think that that speaks to how... how exhausted people are with the state of things here in this city, where this mayor has proven to be unprepared for emergencies, whether it was the Palisades fire last year or whether it was the Boyle Heights fire that happened just a couple of months ago. People are fed up with a city that is pricing them out every single week and that this city hall doesn't seem to be. focus. This mayor doesn't seem to be focused on the cost of housing and bringing down the cost of housing, which is pushing working families out of the city. People are fed up with the fact that our essential services, things like streetlights, things like sidewalks are broken and just not getting fixed. In the city of Los Angeles right now, the time to fix a broken streetlight has gone from a month to a year under this mayor. And that is the second largest city in the richest country in the world. And I think people are just very, very tired of what feels like an establishment politics that just does not care about them. Speaker 2 (2:00) Yeah, I recently moved to New York. I've been a New York resident now for a year. And I have the luxury of living in Mamdana Stan. And this guy, like people. he's reminding us of what government is supposed to do and he's everywhere he is everywhere on bikes on foot all over the city but somebody can just like instagram story like hey mom donnie there's a pothole here and he just he has mobilized people to fix and to do stuff and it's like oh okay this is the way government is supposed to work what do you think the breakdown is with karen bass i had her on the podcast i don't know probably a year and a half ago so i really liked her um i think it was before the fires and all that but you know a lot of people in america are not focused on what goes on in specific cities other than fox news just saying they're hellscape you know communist shitholes and whatever so what has happened what is the breakdown with mayor bass that has caused people to be so mad that they would throw parties for spencer pratt which that's what shocked me the most Speaker 1 (3:08) yeah so this is a yeah it is a very blue town and i think the frustration is very very real here with with the mayor and i just want to say about mayor mamdani i think for me like i'm a i'm a big-hearted progressive right i i'm here because i'm an urban planner by training i love cities and to me if a city can work for its residents it is like the purest expression of how government can play a positive role in people's