‘Good way to do it’: Spencer Pratt AI ad draws attention to LA’s problems

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]Now, a truly wild race is on in Los Angeles for the office of mayor. And with a whole host of unresolved issues in the city, ranging from crime to homelessness to the fallout from those horrendous wildfires, current Democrat Mayor Karen Bass hasn't exactly done much to keep the people's support. So, step forward, Republican candidate Spencer Pratt, who has gone viral online around the world for his powerful campaign ads. Here's a look at a little bit of one of them.

[00:00:32]>> This is where Mayor Vass lives. You notice something? Or here where Nitia Ramen's $3 million mansion sits. They don't have to live in the mess they've created where you live.

[00:00:44]This is where I live. They let my home burn down. I know what the consequences of failed leadership are. That's why I'm running for mayor.

[00:00:53]>> Incredibly powerful stuff. and his supporters are getting behind him, making their own ads using AI.

[00:01:05]Next.

[00:01:18]It's a real gorilla media campaign out there. But when it comes to real gritty debates, Pratt doesn't shy away.

[00:01:26]>> The reality is, no matter how many beds you give these people, they are on super meth. They are on fentanyl. The DEA statistic says 93% of this is a drug addiction problem. I will go below the Harbor Freeway tomorrow with her and we can find some of these people she's going to offer treatment for. She's going to get stabbed in the neck. These people do not want a bed. They want fentanyl or super meth.

[00:01:50]>> All right. To talk about this and a lot more in California, let's bring in deputy editorinchief of the California Post. Great newspaper there, Barkley Crawford. Barkley, welcome to the program. Thanks for joining me. Tell us about this outsider candidate who is running a fascinating campaign that I think has captured a lot of attention online, including in Australia. Does he have any chance of actually unseating Karen Bass becoming the next mayor?

[00:02:20]>> Well, that's that's still to be seen definitely. But what he has done is really energized this race, really set fire to it in a way. Well, that's the wrong term, I guess. But what he's really done is he's got he's got people talking. He's got people saying, you know, this is someone who's offering us something different from the status quo in LA, the status quo that's led them to this. I mean, we're talking about a $15 billion economy, but it has just horrendous problems with homelessness, with drug addiction, with general costs, uh, the whole gamut of problems it has.

[00:02:54]And Spencer Pratt is seen as a an agent of change here in in a in a city that's desperately crying out for it.

[00:03:01]>> Well, the thing, Barkley, that strikes me also is that he's somebody who I believe he's a lifelong Angelino and he's just at that age where he's old enough to remember what Los Angeles was like before the whole place went to complete hell. There must be a constituency for people who say, "Hang on, we don't have to live like this." is because I'll tell you what, the last time I was in Los Angeles and this was at the end of the pandemic, you know, it was already really in a very sorry state. I was afraid to say.

[00:03:32]>> Yeah. I mean, Spencer's come from a very different place, you know, like he's he's made his name essentially as a reality TV villain. I mean, he's on record as saying he did it cuz he wanted to get famous. That was his that was his sole goal. But he's always had a great love of Los Angeles. As you said, he grew up here, spent his whole life here.

[00:03:49]But that all sort of changed after the fires in 2025 when he famously, well, not famously when he infamously lost his home, his uh home in the Palisades along with with thousands of other people. And he really transformed from that uh reality TV figure, villain figure to someone who was really relatable. Um he he he he ran a campaign, they let Us Burn. He he did really well on social media, obviously. He's very good on TV, so he knows how to communicate and he's built his campaign from the ground up like that. He's built it up as an independent, not as a Republican or a Democrat. And he's when he decided to run in January on January the 7th, I mean, a lot of people just thought it was a joke, but he's really built something quite strong because again, he's done it outside of the traditional avenues. He's done it on social media.

[00:04:41]He's very big on Instagram like you just showed the the the videos that he's done and his supporters have done. He's really drawn attention to himself and to the plight of Los Angeles. And this is something too that's really quite new.

[00:04:54]And I think the power of these AI video generation programs, it does something new because what I'm seeing here is something I've never seen before, which is that supporters are really out creating really incredible content. I mean, I showed a little bit of that.

[00:05:08]Have you ever seen a campaign like this, you know, anywhere where you've had people making viral stuff to support a candidate that's so powerful?

[00:05:16]>> I don't think so. I mean, we did see a bit of it with the Trump the last Trump presidential election. True, but not to this scale. I guess that sort of also talks to the fact that AI has just got a lot better. But it's a really really good way to communicate the problems, I think. Uh, very very good way to do it.

[00:05:33]But let's not forget he's where why he's caused so much excitement this week, is because of his appearance at a at a proper televised debate, which he did last night and did really well. I mean, NBC's own viewer poll found that 89% of those who watched it said that he won the debate. And he did that not just with with gimmicks and and and and clever animations and so forth. He did it with proper arguments, proper figures and facts and was able to counter his his opponents really well, particularly the mayor.

[00:06:05]>> Yeah. Yeah. And you know, just talking about the state of things in Los Angeles, everything I read about there just seems to be pretty horrific. You know, we hear about the crime, the homelessness, all the drugs, all of that. But I was struck by this report this week that also Los Angeles has seen, like so many other left-wing places, a huge uptick in anti-semitic violence. I think 6,200 anti-semitic incidents in one year. That'd be about 17 a day if my maths are correct. Um, what do you make of this rise of anti-semitism uh in Los Angeles, which I always remember being younger, uh, had a proud sort of history of a Jewish community, a prominent one.

[00:06:44]>> Well, it's it's the second biggest Jewish community in the US after New York. So, it's it's a very prominent Jewish community here. I mean, this again goes to the whole that was it came out of the the response to um October 7th, you know, where there was the the pro the protest to that and it's been fueled again by the response to the to the war in Iran. And it's just it it it is really quite unchecked, you know what I mean? Like there is is quite a big association with with Israel and Jews.

[00:07:15]And it's it's it's a problem that someone is going to have to it's not just in LA though. It's it's across it's across the US. This has been a real growing problem.

[00:07:24]>> Yeah. Well, in Australia too, as I'm sure as I'm sure you know. Um finally, also though, I just want to ask too about the bigger race going on in uh California here, the contest for governor. And I'm amazed that Democrat candidate Katie Porter, she's still in this um having been caught previously on camera screaming at staffers and once allegedly dumped a pot of scalding hot mashed potatoes on her now ex-husband's head. Um she's pressing on and I was struck by this from a debate where she said that illegal aliens should get health care.

[00:07:57]>> Congresswoman Porter, your thoughts on the idea of funding health care for undocumented immigrants statewide?

[00:08:04]>> Yes.

[00:08:05]Yes. And and to >> and that's by the way what I think Californians deserve as answers to these questions, Alex.

[00:08:11]>> And for critics who say that we can't afford it. What do you say to that?

[00:08:14]>> We can't afford to have people who are sick.

[00:08:17]>> I mean, I feel like I'm listening to something coming from another dimension when I hear somebody say that. Tell us about this race here. And because Gavin Newsome, I think, is term limited out.

[00:08:28]Where is this all going? And is this Republican candidate I keep hearing about at all a potential chance again to make California turn away from turn away from heading into the rocks?

[00:08:39]>> Yeah, it's been a very lackluster uh campaign from the Democrat side. Uh the front obviously the the front runner that the the first front runner that had to pull out was um Eric Swallwell who who left in spectacular circumstances when it was revealed he a whole host of women came forward to say he'd acted at the very least inappropriately and one even said that he'd raped her. So he pulled out. The next best then we've had the next best here is Basera who you know he was an HS he worked as for the HHS under Biden um was was terrible by all accounts and but he's the one that's now the dem top candidate at this stage.

[00:09:20]Then of course you've got Katie Porter.

[00:09:21]We all know about her. She's attempted to make light of of the fact she abused staff by releasing an attack ad, but that hasn't gone down well at all. So the field's really it's it's really lackluster.