Mayoral primary candidate Nithya Raman on why Los Angeles needs a shake up at the top.

Um, uh, you've been around for a while, right? I mean, and not everybody would necessarily know the work that you've been doing over the last six years that I know that you're, you're keen to build on.

It's, it's quite a big step kind of stepping out of your comfort zone and, and, and becoming very public with, with this campaign and certainly taking on, uh, Karen Bass, who you've been, who you've been working with.

W- um, what kind of drove you to do that initially?

You know, I have been proud of the work that I've been able to do at City Council for the past few years.

We've passed some of the strongest renter protections in the country in a city where the cost of living is extraordinarily high.

In my district, I've been able to reduce tents and encampments significantly, over 54% over just a period of three years.

But I will say that here in Los Angeles, things have felt like they are moving in the wrong direction for some time now.

I think the fires really accentuated that, um, and the aftermath where residents did not get the support they needed from the city to recover felt like a real failing on the part of the city.

Overall, I would say that this mayor, um, has not led with the urgency and focus that this moment in Los Angeles demands.

We have an extraordinary cost of living crisis driven by the rising cost of housing, and we haven't had a deputy mayor of housing for the last two years in City Hall.

We just do not have a focus on the issues that matter for Los Angeles, and Angelenos could feel that.

They could feel that rudderlessness on the streets, and for me, in City Hall, I could feel that as well.

And so I chose this moment to step up, particularly looking at this mayoral race where we had a incumbent, um, representing a very broken status quo, which has resulted in worse conditions here in LA, and a MAGA Republican who is polling scarily well here in this city, which is seemingly so opposite to everything that he represents.

Um, but I think frustrations, when frustrations are this high, people turn to even a right-wing, um, person for answers, and I think that's a very dangerous moment for our city.

Well, we've had experience of a reality TV show person previously, uh, now in the White House who claimed that they could fix this and fix that and, you know, make life better for everybody and, and, and sadly, none of that has happened.

If anything, the country is struggling far more now with the cost of living and everything else, starting wars and...

But we'll, we'll, we'll come onto that a, a little bit later.

Hopefully, people have learned their lesson about, about choosing people off the television.

The, the, the reality is that, that it's very easy to come in as an outsider and go, "I'll fix this.

I'll fix that," as, as Trump has done, but not actually understand the workings of the political system and even how kind of budgets and certainly city councils, uh, work.

I- is that-- How important is that, to have the...

You know, you've been in for almost six years.

You have a lot of experience in understanding how the vote works and how to get things through.

Uh, uh, is that insider knowledge that you have essential in these times?

I think it is important to understand what pushes forward success in City Hall.