Mayor Karen Bass on Marines in Los Angeles

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This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker.

Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour.

I'm David Remnick.

When Karen Bass was elected mayor of Los Angeles in 2022, she won in part because of a promise to address this city's pervasive and very deep housing crisis.

But now there's a different crisis at her doorstep.

Los Angeles is very much an immigrant city.

According to the census, more than a third of the city is foreign-born.

The Trump administration has been targeting LA as part of what the president called the largest mass deportation operation in history.

ICE raids have swept up immigrants who are in the U.S.

legally and in some cases are American citizens.

In June, as protests against ICE developed, Trump sent a military force of thousands of troops, National Guard and even Marines, into Los Angeles, very much against the will of Mayor Bass Bass and the governor, Gavin Newsom.

Some have gone home, but some troops are deployed in the city even now.

In Los Angeles, a battle has taken shape between a federal government that asserts an absolute mandate and a local government that says we represent our people and will take care of our issues.

I spoke recently with Mayor Karen Bass.

Mayor Bass, how are you?

Good, good, good.

I'm holding up good.

You know, we haven't had any raids in a few days.

And so I'm doing just fine.

So that's what counts for being good, is not having any fires and not having any raids in a few days.

How distorted is that?

And you know what?

And our men and women are going home.

And that's very meaningful to me because to see the National Guard misused.

And I think that most people don't understand who the National Guard are.

You know, they're part-time.

They have lives.

Do you talk to people in the National Guard?

How do they feel about what they've been given?

I have not personally talked to people this time.

I certainly talked to them when they were in the Palisades, you know, during the fires.

And we were ever so grateful because they were there for a really long time.

Those are deployments when our young people, and they are, you know, young relatively, they're leaving school, they're leaving their families, they're leaving their jobs.

Well, I guess what I'm asking, are people in the National Guard or in the police force, are they angry about what's going on?

Do they?

Yes.

You hear that.

Yes.

Yes.

I know they are resentful because they know they're just props.

I mean, there's a big article in the paper today talking about how they're doing nothing.

I mean, at most, remember their assignment, two things.

They were guarding a building, two buildings where nothing was happening for days and days.

There's 4,000 people here, or 2,000, whatever the thousands, okay?

Meanwhile, they're just at a camp doing nothing, doing absolutely nothing.

Aaron Powell, you've described your city as being in the midst of a federal takeover.

Seizure, yes.

Okay, now, and also your sanctuary city.

Describe what that's supposed to be and why that conflicts with the federal seizure.

Sure.

The policies that we have here originated 45 years ago.

And it was during the 80s when, or before that, when there was an influx of immigrants, especially from Central American countries, because of the Civil Wars.

And that population, when they came to Los Angeles, then became easy prey for a criminal element to prey on them.

And so the Los Angeles Police Department was concerned that this population would not report crimes.

And so a policy was put in place that said that the Los Angeles Police Department would not cooperate with immigration enforcement.

Now that policy has been refined over the years, but really because there was a sense of absolute fear and desperation, policy has been extended.

I mean, you had a few years ago Governor Abbott sending people here

to, right, from Texas.

And then you had the first Trump administration where they were, you know, separating kits, and they were doing random stops then, too, but

not with masked men jumping out and just, you know, arresting people randomly.

They weren't doing that, but there was that sense of fear then.

I wonder how much communication you've had.

with the administration.

Have you ever gotten a phone call from President Trump or Stephen Miller or Christine Ohm?

And, you know, Stephen Miller is an Angelino, born and raised here, and for some reason has had, I guess, hatred for his city.

And so a lot of people view this as him inflicting revenge on the city of his birth.

But I will tell you that, yes, I refer to it as the federal seizure of power from our government, from our governor,

taking over the National Guard and deploying them inappropriately.

Yes, we had protests here yes at the end of very peaceful protest there was some random vandalism and violence our police department our sheriff's department had the ability to bring that under control of which they did because in the beginning i told you the national guard was just deployed to to cover a building they were not involved in crowd control they had absolutely nothing to do with quelling the violence and the vandalism that happened.

I think this happened when a largely peaceful protest broke out against ICE in L.A.

in June.

Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noam said this, and this is a quote, we're staying here to liberate this city from the socialist and the burdensome leadership that this governor, that this mayor had placed on this country.

Now,

what did socialism have to do with this?

Well, that's why I said that I don't recognize the Secretary anymore.

I served with her for eight or ten years in Congress, and that's not the Christy Noam I knew.

You had a good relationship in Congress?

Yes, yes, yes.

Really?

Tell me about this.

Well, I mean, it's not like we were close friends, but we both were consistently in the gym every morning.

Would interact.

Chatting it up.

Chatting it up and working out.

Very cordial relationship.

There was never any hostility.

She knows who I am.

She knows the dedication I had when I was in Congress.

And And so to refer to our city in that manner.

The other thing that the administration did very deliberately was they tried to paint a picture of our city as there was massive civil unrest.

Well, we are 500 square miles and the protests took place in about maybe two square miles.

And it was graffiti.

The graffiti was terrible from my point of view.

I was very upset about that.

And also there was some vandalism that happened.

I mean, you know, there was some looting that happened one evening.

I imposed a curfew.

That curfew brought everything under control.

Nevertheless, a spokesperson for DHS said that arresting you, the idea of arresting you, the mayor of Los Angeles, was, quote,

on the table.

Whatever.

I mean, that's...

Whatever, said the mayor.

That's the silliness and lack of seriousness.

I mean, why on earth would they arrest me?

I'm not.

But you're laughing now.

And obviously,

this is serious business.

As the mayor, as a politician, as somebody who has some sense of what's going on both in her city and in Washington, what is this really about?

So I really believe we were a test case.

That's why I've described L.A.

as a Petri dish.

They wanted to, on the nation's second largest city, basically teach us a lesson, show that they could come in and do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, and however they wanted.

And they were putting every other city in America on notice.

Mess with us, we'll come for you.

That is how bullies behave.

And that's why I get so angry because after spending the years in Congress that I did, I had a close relationship with our military.

One, because a lot of what I did in Congress was related to foreign policy.

And so to see our troops misused like this, to see Marines, you know, know, deployed in Los Angeles, Marines who are trained to kill foreign enemies overseas, we had no problems here that we could not deal with locally.

So, you know, we've, I mean, every city has, talk about a national championship.

When the Lakers win, you have mayhem for a day or so, and some, and you have vandalism, and you have those things.

So this was Laker championship plus.

And our local law enforcement could deal with that.

There was no citywide disturbance

because there was no need for it.

Then, you have to say what was the reason.

And the reason is, like I said, I believe they experimented with us.

I believe they were putting other cities on notice.

And it is just a gross misuse of federal power.

I'm speaking with Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, and we'll continue in a moment.

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This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.

I'm David Remnick.

I'm speaking today with Los Angeles Mayor.

Karen Bass.

LA has been targeted by the Trump administration for weeks following local protests against ICE raids on neighborhoods and businesses.

Several thousand people have been arrested in raids since June.

The city of Los Angeles has joined a lawsuit filed by the ACLU saying that raids and detentions by the Department of Homeland Security were unconstitutional.

And a federal court issued a temporary restraining order just this month.

How many people in Los Angeles have been arrested and even possibly taken elsewhere?

Well, this is one of the reasons why we joined the lawsuit because we don't know how many people.

The lawsuit was basically charging this excapade as racial profiling, as an abuse of power, and basically calling on the federal government to stop the random seizure of people.

And so that was one of the reasons why we joined the lawsuit is because the people that were detained, number one, we don't know the numbers.

They have been denied access to legal counsel.

They have been denied access to their family members.

So you literally have situations where a family member disappears, doesn't come home.

You can assume maybe they were detained, but you don't even know.

Because

if they were at a workplace and the workplace was raided, you know that.

But if they were walking down the street and, you know, walking wild Latino and they just got snatched and nobody saw them, your family member just doesn't come home.

You don't know what's happened to them.

You know, I read a story about one park in L.A.

where horse-mounted

federal agents came in on horseback and they raided the park.

Tell me about what happened there.

What park was it and what exactly took place?

MacArthur Park.

First of all, it is a beautiful park in the center of town, but the park has historically, for the last 30 years, off and on, has had very serious problems.

It's been a focus of mine for drug dealing, for gang involvement, for criminal activity.

It's just been real problems.

But it is an example of how local law enforcement, community organizations, and elected officials can manage.

We have had over a 40% reduction in violent crime at that park.

We've had a major reduction in trafficking of stolen goods.

So we have had a concentrated effort at that park.

So I think the reason why they chose to have a show of force in that park was once again, just to show us we're here and we can do whatever we want.

Because the sad thing is, is that on that day when the soldiers, and they were National Guard, there were, we don't even know the various forces that were there walking through.

Do you know they walked through a children's summer camp?

That's the side of the park they chose to walk through.

The kids had to be ushered inside really quickly because no one wanted the kids to see that show of force.

These kids were Latino kids.

I went and talked to a couple of the seven and eight-year-olds without prompting from me.

The first thing they started talking to me about was their fear of ICE and what was going to happen to their family.

So that's why they didn't want the kids to see this because the kids would right away assume that's who it was.

So it was a ridiculous show of force.

They did nothing while they were there.

They pulled guns on health care workers that were in the park trying to help the people who were addicted get into treatment.

You've said lately you've been learning about ICE and military actions only via rumor,

that you're not getting any alerts from Washington.

There's no sense of

even a trace of cooperation or collegiality.

It seems all oppositional.

But I have to tell you, though, that I don't think they know.

Because when you have masked men driving through the town, just stopping periodically, I don't think they know.

It doesn't seem to be organized in the sense that we know the cartel is running drugs over here, so let's go surround this.

It's random car washes, it's random street vendors, it's random home depots.

Let me just say a couple of other things.

There is the obvious human toll on this in terms of the families, the disruption of families.

But this is a city that is dependent on immigrants.

And this is a huge economic blow to our city overall.

So obviously we've been dealing with the devastation from the wildfires.

And the statistics, which I think are way underrepresented, say that about 40% of the workforce in construction are immigrants.

I think that's an undercount.

When you do a raid near Al Tadena, which is outside of the city of Los Angeles, but where the fires were devastated, the Eaton fires.

When you do raids near a Home Depot and we're trying to get the area rebuilt, this is going to impact our ability to rebuild the city.

Now, the irony of this, I was singing the praises for the administration, which is a controversial political thing to do in my city, okay?

What were you singing, the Trump administration's praises?

I believe in giving credit where credit's due.

And one of the reasons why we're on track for the fastest recovery in California history is because the administration deployed a historic number of Army Corps of Engineers.

They're weeks away from clearing over 6,000 lots.

So people are beginning to rebuild now.

And if you compare that to other fires, we're months ahead.

Do you give props to the Trump administration who's cooperating there?

Openly.

And I will tell you, much to the chagrin of a lot of Angelinos who can't bear that.

If you're doing something right, I'm going to tell you.

And by the way, I was in constant contact with the administration then.

The contact has pretty much closed off.

I will continue.

When we get past this, hopefully there'll be more communication.

But I'm not going to stop

reaching out and attempting to dialogue with them.

And hopefully it will

get better.

Now, during the Biden administration, early on, immigration was, in fact, surging in this country and at a chaotic level.

A number of Democratic officials at state and local levels complained to the White House.

Did the influx of migrants, generally from Central America, cause problems in Los Angeles and what were they?

Aaron Powell, well, let me just tell you that during those years I was in Congress, I can absolutely emphatically say no, they did not cause problems in the city of Los Angeles.

And let me tell you, too, that when Abbott was sending migrants to our city, because we've had such a long history of immigrants coming to the city, we have very strong institutions that work with them, nonprofit community organizations that have been in existence for almost five decades.

And so they do have an elaborate network of infrastructure and support that probably a lot of other cities don't have.

And so we were able to deal with people coming in the city.

When you look back on it, do you think declaring Los Angeles a sanctuary city, and it's not alone, but do you think declaring sanctuary city for Los Angeles in some way provoked the Trump administration, Stephen Miller, et cetera?

No, I don't.

Again, because it's been a long-standing policy here that has been updated on numerous occasions.

And my first job as mayor is to protect Angelinos.

And I will tell you that people were feeling extremely vulnerable, terrorized, afraid

when he was reelected because of what happened in the first administration, and they were crying out for protection.

Now, again, the protection was already there.

That policy had been in place in decades.

So it was, you know, new, improved, changed a little bit in collaboration with community members.

But my first job is to protect my city.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: How do you feel about the fact that Trump has all but shut down immigration on the southern border.

Well, you know, again, I think in

some economies, some local economies, it has impact.

You know that immigration is critical to our economic vitality in the country.

Now, we were already suffering before the raids, a downturn in our economy from other tactics and strategies of the administration, most notably the tariffs.

Are they on?

Are they off?

We have 40%,

40% of the nation's goods come through our ports in Los Angeles.

We have the largest port in the Western Hemisphere.

So we were already suffering for an economic downturn.

The last thing we needed was to scare an incredibly significant percentage of our workforce from going to work.

Aaron Powell,

the President of the United States may deny it or think it's a Chinese conspiracy of some kind, but climate change is a reality, as as you've only learned through the most bitter, bitter experience in Los Angeles.

And yet, it's very hard for cities or municipalities, states, whole countries to reorder themselves radically enough to prevent things like the fires you've just been through.

The reality of your topography, your weather,

the scale of those houses are such that I worry, and I'm I'm sure you worry profoundly, that this is going to happen again.

Right.

Yes, that's absolutely right.

You know, one thing I'm very proud of being an Angelino and a Californian is that climate change is not controversial.

Everybody understands, embraces.

But then again, you have these weather events that, as a person born and raised here, I mean, what do I know about hurricanes?

I know earthquakes, but what do I know about hurricanes?

And the idea that here in January, we had hurricane strength winds and no water.

And so that what I have said to my city is that we're going to have to learn how to deal with weather events that we have no experience with.

So what do you have to do better, spend on, and radically reform and keep people safe?

Right.

And that's a difficult one.

For example, you could raise that with a lot of the properties that were destroyed, not just in the Palisades, but in the Malibu area, along the coast, whether or not they should rebuild.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: What's your answer?

I mean, I live in New York.

We've had the Rockaways.

We have houses that are right up against the beach or Jersey Shore.

And the habit that we have is

the politicians always say this right after, we shall rebuild.

And so we do a lot with federal money.

Is that what we should be doing?

Should we be building in places that that are so vulnerable that it's a possibility or even a likelihood that the same awful thing will happen again?

Aaron Ross Powell, so one of the things that we're trying to do here is offer incentives to people to rebuild in a much more resilient way.

Because rather than saying we're going to ban you from rebuilding because that's a can of worms, as you can imagine, I could say you can't rebuild here and how long would that last?

Because individuals would sue and more than likely, they would be granted because it's property rights.

Because basically, you're talking about a taking and whether or not we would be able to seize somebody's private property because we don't think they should rebuild.

That's one strategy, not a road that I'm going to go down.

But then there's another strategy that is the road I'm going down, and that is providing incentives, expediting people who are rebuilding, but will rebuild in a resilient way.

And so, providing the education, providing the access to rebuilding in a resilient way, home hardening.

There's a lot of things that people have learned over the years because of climate change that can be embraced and we can move forward with encouraging people to do.

Finally, I want to ask you a question about what it's like to be you.

You know, you're caught out of the country at a bad time when the fire started.

You get a gale force wind of,

well, what can I call it?

A shitstorm of criticism for that.

And lots and lots of criticism every single day of your being in office.

It's just the nature of the beast.

Right.

How to explain what it's like to be you.

Someone once described my job as putting your head in a pencil sharpener every day, but I don't see it that way.

But your job sounds a lot like that.

I'm going to remember that example.

Let me just say that one, I knew what I signed up for.

And why the hell did you sign up for it then?

I signed up for it because we had a massive humanitarian crisis on our streets.

And, you know, 46,000 people sleeping on the streets in the nation's second largest city was just more than I could bear.

And then I was also afraid that the direction the city was heading was going to be a very punitive direction.

And I just was having flashbacks to the policies of the 90s that resulted in a massive increase in our prison population because you just can't incarcerate mental illness, addiction, and abject poverty.

And so that's what I came back to do.

And I have felt very good about the fact that we have been able to get people off the street.

So that's why I did it.

But I am also, you know, very, very focused.

This is the last office I will ever run for.

And I think it's important to know when your time is up and to quit.

And so I will put my all into this.

I keep my eyes on the prize.

I don't take things personally.

Even when I had all of the criticism and hate, frankly, I knew that people were grieving.

And one of the stages of grief is anger.

And people feel better if they can target their anger somewhere because some of what they were angry at me for were totally beyond my control.

But I will tell you, being out of the country was very painful.

And I describe it as, you know, if you have a, if you're out of town and a member of your family or one of your kids gets in an accident or is sick, it doesn't matter where you were or why you were there.

You feel awful about it.

And I had to deal with it personally.

My brother lost his home in the Malibu area.

So I'm having to deal with it personally and professionally at the same time.

Now, I'm sitting here in New York City.

You're in Los Angeles.

You now have some experience, some of it good, some of it bitter, after being mayor of L.A.

for a while.

And it looks like Zoran Mamdani is probably going to be the next mayor of New York City.

And he has proposed any number of things like rent freezes,

state-run grocery stores,

and he's aroused a lot of excitement in the city at the same time.

When you look at his policy proposals, do you say, all the more power to you, I think you'll get those through, and that's a great idea.

Or do you think, as some people do, that he's kind of dreaming and that, in fact, being mayor is a lot more complicated?

Aaron Powell,

let me just tell you, there's no question in my mind that being mayor is very complicated.

And a city like New York and a city like Los Angeles, the complexity of the issues that you have to deal with.

And not only that, but being mayor, you're responsible for everything.

The weather,

you know, why did this happen?

You know, why can't you fix the insurance industry?

Why, you know, so it's kind of like anything and everything.

The shock is what the day-to-day is like.

I don't know how long he's been in the assembly, but even in the assembly, you know, you can do kind of the long-term thinking.

But at the end of the day, the buck stops with the speaker.

And so, you know, if he is successful, then he's going to be held accountable for the things, you know, that he said, just just as I am.

People are okay, homelessness is down, but people still see homeless people.

Well, yes, I haven't solved the problem that's been in existence for 40 years in two.

Now, Trump threatened to take over New York City if Mom Dani wins the general election.

Now, as somebody who has a little experience with Donald Trump, how would you advise Mom Danny about how to deal with that kind of threat and President Trump in general?

Well, my sense of the culture of New York is New Yorkers are fighting us in their DNA.

And I can't imagine that New Yorkers would put up with it.

And we haven't here.

And, you know, and I'm claiming victory because they've, you know, reduced the number of troops by 2,000.

I hope that we will be able to maintain our temporary restraining order and it will become permanent and they will go home.

Mayor Bass of Los Angeles, thank you so much.

Thanks for having me on.

I've appreciated the conversation.

Karen Bass served in Congress for over a decade and she was elected mayor of Los Angeles in 2022.

I'm David Remnick.

Thanks for listening today.

Hope you enjoyed the program and see you next time.

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