Name: Joe Rogan Experience #2268 - Rick Caruso
Uploaded: 2025-02-05T18:00:00.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #2268 - Rick Caruso' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-02-05. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #2268 - Rick Caruso' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-02-05. Transcript available.

Joe Rogan Experience #2268 - Rick Caruso

Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out.
The Joe Rogan Experience.
Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.
Good to see you, sir.
Thanks for having me.
My pleasure.
It's great to be here.
Thanks for being here.
It is a terrible time for Los Angeles, and unfortunately, you did not win.
I wanted you to win.
Thank you.
I was rooting for you.
Thank you.
It's just the politics in LA are, it's almost like watching people who are in a
cult who
are being confronted by the cult experts who are telling them, hey, this is all
crazy
and fake, and you're ruining your life, and they're like, no, no, no, I think
it's going
to work out.
Well, there's a lot of things that aren't working out.
There's a lot of things that are.
I mean, listen, I know like you being, spending time and living in LA, it's an
amazing city.
It's amazing.
And when I ran for office, as much as I loved LA, I actually fell in love with
it more because
I got to see places that I wouldn't normally see.
And so it was really amazing, and people, and the diversity, and the dearness
of so many
neighborhoods and people.
But what's happened to LA over the last decade is just tragic, and people are
paying huge
consequences for it.
And it's sad to watch.
So if you get to the heart of it, like if you did, if you won and you became
the mayor
of LA, what could you do to try to turn this battleship around?
Because it's a big battleship.
It's a big battleship.
And people will argue that the mayor of LA doesn't have a lot of authority like
other
mayors.
You know, I learned a lot, Joe.
I worked for three mayors.
I worked for Tom Bradley when I was in my mid-20s as a commissioner.
I was the head of Department of Water and Power.
I worked for Dick Reardon.
He brought me back in to head of DWP during the energy crisis.
The department was under a lot of financial strain.
And then I worked for Jim Hunt, who brought me in to turn around LAPD, and I
was the police
commissioner, the head of the police commission.
So I've seen really good leadership.
And honestly, what we've had in the last two mayors is not good leadership, and
we're
paying a price for it.
So you may not have a lot of power, but actually, I think the most powerful
thing you can have
that I learned as a police commissioner, if you're not worried about getting reelected
or reappointed, it's really amazing what can happen.
Because you can make decisions that are actually in the best interest of the
people.
And I believe the career politicians are always worried about getting reelected.
They are scared to death of getting a real job.
They've never had to sign the front of a check, only the back.
So it's very difficult for them to even think about being out of office.
So they just circulate.
You know, they go from the city council to the state assembly to the state
senate.
And we end up with the same sort of look and feel of leadership, which is
pretty weak.
I think Dick Reardon was a good example of a guy who came in and did a lot of
great stuff.
I actually think Jimmy Hahn did a lot of great stuff as mayor.
So I would go in there with some strong leadership.
I would certainly go in there and reach across the aisle and find common ground
and all of
those things you need to do to move forward.
But I would certainly plant some really strong goals that everybody knew we
were working towards.
Because, you know, I believe that you either lead, follow, or get out of the
way.
And I really admire people who lead.
And I wouldn't mind being a little bit controversial if it's in the interest of
doing what's in the best interest of the residents.
Well, that's what I enjoyed about your campaign.
And that's what I was really hopeful about, is that it seemed like you were not
running for mayor because you wanted to be the mayor.
You were running for mayor because you're a businessman.
And you realized that this was not being run like a successful business.
You knew how to run a successful business.
You knew the difference.
And L.A. is just constantly plagued by this crony political movement.
The same people, same type of people shuffling in and out.
And it's just nothing ever changes.
Yeah.
And again, to give you a little bit of background, I am so indebted to L.A.
It sounds a little bit corny, but, you know, my paternal and maternal
grandparents, they were both immigrants.
My grandfather, paternal grandfather, was a gardener in Los Angeles.
He lived in Boyle Heights.
He started as a coal miner.
He actually probably had one of the worst jobs you could ever have in life.
When he immigrated here to a little town called Uniontown, Pennsylvania, he was
the dynamiter.
He was the guy that had to go in the lead.
Oh, boy.
Yeah, set the dynamite and get the hell out in time.
And his brother, who immigrated with him, said, come to L.A.
It's sunny.
My dad was actually born in a coal mining camp outside the coal mine.
But anyway, he was a gardener out here.
And we actually grew up in his truck as he would go around.
And they had this small little home they rented in Boyle Heights.
And I think about what L.A. gave to my grandparents, to my dad, to me, my
family, the opportunity to build a business.
And so running for mayor, the motivation was I want to give back to the city
that gave me so much.
And by the way, all the problems that we've got, you can fix them with a little
bit of backbone, a little bit of smarts.
If you're equipped right, bring together some really smart people.
You can fix everything.
And to your point, what happened when I was tied at the end of the race and
actually a little bit ahead?
You know, Biden flies into campaign.
Kamala flies into campaign.
Pelosi.
Bernie.
And at the end of the day, when we're 10 days before Election Day, they finally
convinced Obama to do a message.
And so the system is so it's a closed loop.
Right.
And the idea that somebody was going to come in the tent that's an outsider was
horrifying to him.
And, you know, we would laugh about it as a family.
It's like you might as well just load up Air Force One all at one time and
bring everybody out.
Right.
But I loved every minute of it.
And, you know, I hope at some point that system is changing.
And I think people are getting more frustrated lately.
And they're looking for people who are competent rather than just people who
may share ideology.
All right.
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Well, you saw the difference in the California electoral map, right?
Yeah, for sure.
The difference between 2020 and 2024, how many different counties went red that
were blue historically.
So let's break down the problems with L.A. and what could be done to fix it.
What do you see as like the primary issues of L.A. right now?
Well, you know, you've got a homeless problem that continues to grow.
So let's talk about that.
Okay, 70,000 people in L.A. County.
Covered on that, it's at least 70,000.
I mean, if they have a real accurate count.
But the real question is, why?
And why is so much money spent on it and no results?
We've covered it on this podcast that there's people that are bureaucrats that
work for this department of homelessness,
and they're making a quarter million dollars a year.
And they have no incentive whatsoever to make anything better because it doesn't
hurt them.
They're not paid based on whether or not they clean up the homeless issue.
They're just paid.
So the longer the homeless issue goes on, the more they keep their job.
And it's a profitable job.
And they just rant on and on about we need housing.
Like, that's not the problem.
But, you know, I had a plan, and I'm confident my plan would have worked.
Let's talk about housing for a minute.
L.A. and L.A. County, they put in a tax called HHH to build 10,000 units.
At least about a year ago, I think they had maybe short of 1,000 units built.
That's amazing.
Over 10 years.
Over 10 years.
I'm amazed they built one.
Yeah, I know.
But you know what they built them for?
1,500,000 a unit.
Wow.
That was the cost of it.
If you go to the sector, the nonprofit sector that's actually doing amazing
work with the homeless, like down on Skid Row, Ground Zero, they're building on
average 300,000 a unit.
But what happens in the city, in the government, there's so many layers of
waste on top of waste on top of waste.
It's ridiculous.
So, yeah, you're right.
Very little is happening.
Almost no housing is being built by the government, even though they have
massive taxes.
We got another tax called ULA.
When you sell your home, you have to pay another 5 percent, over $5 million.
So there's taxes on top of taxes.
There is a solution to the homeless.
So let's give – I'll just give you an example.
There's a company called Boxable outside of Vegas, and they're building units
that are 500, 600 square feet.
On average, they're about 60,000, 70,000 a unit.
This young guy figured out how to build a – basically a production line to
knock these things out.
And when I was campaigning, I said to him, when I win, I'm going to give you a
contract for 30,000 units.
And there's so much open space, Joe, in and around Los Angeles that's
controlled by the city.
And we're going to start getting people in homes, getting them taken care of,
giving them the service they need.
But the other thing we need to do, you can't have open drug dealing on the
streets.
We welcome it.
And if you look around MacArthur Park, the great old Langer's Deli, and the
poor owner, Norm Langer's, who basically said, after 70 years, I've got to
close my restaurant.
It's terrible.
Terrible.
Amazing old place.
And then, you know, Mayor Bass promised, I'm going to be down there.
I'm going to clean it up.
We're going to fix it.
It hasn't changed in six months since she said that.
It can be cleaned up.
It can be fixed.
You've got to have some backbone.
It's – a lot of it is a mental health issue, correct?
Very much so.
Probably half.
And drug addiction.
Drug addiction, a lot of that comes from mental health issues as well, right?
Yeah.
So what could be done – I mean, you're dealing with an enormous population of
people that have this issue.
It's probably closer to 100,000 in L.A. County.
Maybe.
I mean, that's the high estimates, right?
So let's say 70,000 to 100,000 people.
You have a lot of people.
What could be done to have some sort of a large program that gets real results
with helping these people with their mental health issues and helping these
people with their drug addiction issues?
I think you start first by enforcing the law and don't allow the sale of drugs
on the street and holding the drug dealers accountable.
Not just the sale, but the open use.
I mean, meth – cooking meth right out in front of everybody.
You're right.
All of the above.
I mean, literally in downtown, there's tents that are run by the drug dealers
where everybody knows to go to get their drugs.
So you've got to start there.
But I'm a big believer that government alone can't solve major problems, right?
Right.
And you've got or