During a recent episode of the Joe Rogan Experience, UFC commentator and podcaster Joe Rogan told former reality television star and Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioner Spencer Pratt directly that he was supporting him.
Rogan stated, “I’m rooting for you. I mean, if I lived in Los Angeles, no question whatsoever I would vote for you.”
The endorsement followed an extended discussion in which Pratt explained why he decided to enter the race, tracing his political ambitions back to the devastating Palisades fires and what he believes was a deliberate cover-up of government negligence.
Rogan shared that frustration and pointed to what he saw as systemic failures in preparation.
“The lack of preparation for the Palisades fires was astonishing. The fact that the reservoir was empty was criminal mismanagement. It was just that everybody knew that we had fires, like massive fires, that it was a dry place, and when the Santa Ana winds would blow, if something caught fire, it was a real problem. We had known that forever,” he said, arguing that the risks were long understood and preventable.
He also pushed back strongly against what he described as misleading explanations for the disaster, particularly the focus on climate change. “The narrative was, God, there was a lot of terrible, fake narratives and one of them was climate change. That was the craziest one. When I lived in LA, fire season happened every year. This is not climate change. This is not some new thing over the last couple of decades,” Rogan said.
The conversation then shifted to Los Angeles’ ongoing homelessness crisis, where Rogan suggested that financial mismanagement was a central factor behind the city’s struggles.
“There’s no other explanation other than extensive fraud. There’s no way they could be getting that much money from our taxes and have this big of a problem with cri me and with homelessness. And it’s almost like they want everybody to feel helpless,” he said.
Rogan went further, arguing that many taxpayers were only recently becoming aware of how public funds flow through nonprofit and government systems.
“I don’t think before Doge and before Elon started investigating into a lot of these NGOs, I don’t think anybody was really aware of how this all works and how there’s a whole bureaucracy, like a business that’s set up where a bunch of people get paid from this money to essentially make no improvements whatsoever,” he said.
Pratt then highlighted the contrast between chronic underfunding for the fire department and a reported $400 million in unspent homelessness funds. He also talked about the situation facing firemen.
Pratt stated, “You can’t steal that money. You want to know how sick it is right now? The fire department, their union, all the members had to take their own money to get on a ballot measure, a million dollars, as they all pulled together to get a ballot measure this coming election to get a half cent on sales tax in LA so that they could have money to fund actual things they need.”
Rogan also addressed housing policy debates, particularly proposals involving development in affluent neighborhoods like the Pacific Palisades. “It’s also insa ne to try to do that with the Palisades because the Palisades has always been a wealthy neighborhood where people with a lot of money spent a lot of money and also paid a lot of money in taxes and had these beautiful homes. And the idea that you’re going to take that over with low-income housing, well, those people are going to move out of there and there goes the tax money,” he said.
Closing out the discussion, Rogan framed Pratt’s candidacy as a potential turning point not just for Los Angeles, but for other cities facing similar challenges. “If you could really change Los Angeles and turn it around, that would be absolutely fantastic. It would be a great story. It would be really amazing and it would give hope to a lot of other cities that are experiencing similar situations where I think a lot of other people would follow your path,” he said.
