Rick Caruso — Billionaire LA real estate developer (The Grove) and 2022 mayoral candidate who narrowly lost to Karen Bass. A former DWP president and LA police commissioner who served under three mayors.
The gist
Caruso and Rogan dissect what they see as a leadership crisis in Los Angeles, from a homelessness population they peg near 100,000 to the wildfires that destroyed entire neighborhoods. Caruso blames career politicians, bloated bureaucracy, and waste, citing $800,000-per-unit government housing versus far cheaper nonprofit and modular alternatives. He recounts the January fires, the reservoir that sat empty and fire hydrants that ran dry, and faults the mayor for leaving town. The conversation ranges across crime and the recall of DA George Gascon, over-regulation driving businesses out, sky-high taxes, desalination, and nuclear power. Caruso frames himself as a moderate, fiscally conservative but socially liberal outsider who wants to bring a business approach to government, and the two riff on cold plunges and saunas before he says politics is still in his future.
Big reveals
- Caruso says Obama, Biden, Harris, Pelosi, and Bernie Sanders all flew in to campaign against him, describing LA politics as a 'closed loop' threatened by an outsider.
- Recounts learning his daughter's home burned because 'the hoses ran dry,' then going on live Fox 11 that night to break the news that LA had run out of firefighting water.
- Reveals the Palisades reservoir was empty during fire season, allegedly out of service for a cover repair, when catastrophic winds were forecast.
- Floats the 'most Sinister version' that someone may have wanted the fires to happen, noting arson arrests including a man with a fake fire truck driven from Oregon.
- Tells the story of firing popular police chief Bernie Parks and hiring Bill Bratton, getting LA crime to levels not seen since 1950 - a move that helped cost Mayor Jim Hahn reelection.
- As a 'big land owner in the Palisades,' opposes requiring low-income housing in rebuilt fire zones, favoring density-bonus incentives instead.
- Hints at a future bigger than mayor - possibly governor - but says rebuilding LA comes first.
- Rogan declares he is 'never leaving Texas' and will 'never live in a big city again.'
Things worth remembering
- LA's HHH program aimed to build 10,000 homeless units over 10 years but reportedly built under 1,000, at roughly $800,000 per unit.
- Nonprofit builders on Skid Row average about $300,000 per unit versus the government's $800,000.
- Caruso claims organizations like the Downtown Women's Center achieve roughly a 90% success rate helping the homeless.
- The Palisades reservoir holds an estimated 11 million gallons and sat empty during fire season.
- LA's DWP once built Hoover Dam and was considered the best-in-class utility in the country before politics 'crept in.'
- Former Austin mayor Steve Adler told Caruso Austin fixed its ~3,000-person homeless problem partly by buying hotels, but said LA's 80,000-90,000 scale is too big.
- California repealed the law making theft under $900 a misdemeanor, which had let people repeatedly steal just under the threshold.
- The fires caused an estimated $250 billion in damage across an area Caruso likens to 'two Manhattans,' some 14,000-15,000 structures.
- Rogan cites a 20-year Finland study showing a 40% drop in all-cause mortality for people using a dry sauna four days a week.
- Caruso says DWP's Intermountain Power Project in Utah was the cleanest coal plant in the country and is now being converted to hydrogen.