Waching daily Mar 7 2018

-I'm always fascinated to talk to mayors,

because, obviously, we spend a lot of time on this show

talking about national politics.

And the people there spend a lot of time

in their home districts

but, obviously, a lot of time in D.C.

You spend all your time living where you serve.

You live amongst your constituents.

Are people always coming up to you

and telling them their problems?

-Of course.

It's the most direct democracy you can have.

I mean, people find you at the grocery store.

People find you at the park.

I mean, they'll come up to you and tell you anything.

You're, like, kind of a confessor and a priest.

They'll say like, "Hey, Mayor, I had a great date last night."

You're like, "Awesome!"

Or somebody will come up -- "I had a terrible date last night."

"Well, let's talk about that. Why?"

-Yeah. Did you run on a dating platform?

-I did. I did. -Yeah. Okay.

-That can be taken two ways, but I'll...

-Yeah, exactly.

-No, I basically also have my parents as my constituents.

So, you know, if you've had a Jewish mother ever before --

Like, it's like I'm at a community meeting.

They're like, "The traffic's really bad

on the West Side of L.A."

I say, "I know. My mom called me yesterday.

She had trouble getting to my dad."

And, so, it's a very accountable thing.

But, all joking aside, it's also where politics still lives.

It's a place where you can listen to people,

solve their problems, and actually accomplish something,

which is so different than what we see in Washington.

And that's not unique to L.A.

That's every local community, I think, where we live.

So, you know, don't give up on American politics

just because of what you hear coming out of D.C.

-And do you think, in general, there's more optimism and...

[ Cheers and applause ]

There's a better chance for optimism and change

on a local level than there is on a national level.

-Yeah. And, you know,

most politics happens locally, anyway.

I mean, it didn't matter whether it was gonna be

President Trump or President Clinton.

Most of the work you're gonna do on environment

is in your own backyard.

Most of the work you're gonna do on jobs,

on education, on your commute and transportation.

And people forget that,

because I think we cede a lot of power to Washington, D.C.

But look at these kids in Florida.

Like, that's their local community.

There's more leadership coming out of our teenagers

than coming out of Washington, D.C.

And I also think it's practical leadership.

People have strong beliefs in our cities,

our local communities,

but they also want to see the job get done.

They won't settle just for

a tweet, a re-tweet, a counter-tweet.

They want us to actually fix the street, like, do something.

-Yeah.

-And then the nice thing about being a mayor --

if I don't fix it, I'm on that pothole.

-So more streets, less tweets?

-Absolutely.

[ Chanting ] More streets, less tweets.

More streets... I like that.

-Well, of course, one of the problems in L.A. --

You mentioned potholes.

Obviously, traffic's a huge deal.

You guys have the Olympics coming in 2028.

And I feel like this is the first time in a long time

that I've heard someone actually got a good deal

as a host city for the Olympics.

And you have an initiative called Twenty-eight for '28.

-Yes.

-Is this about public transportation

or just general traffic?

-Yeah, well, we're the, unfortunately,

not only the car capital but the traffic capital of America.

But voters -- The same night that President Trump

was elected, there was other stuff on the ballot.

And we passed a $120 billion initiative

to build 15 transit lines in L.A., where cars reign supreme.

And by '28 -- 2028 -- when the Olympics come,

we'll have 28 of those projects done that are

improvements of roads, new lines.

A lot of middle-class jobs, too, that you can't export.

And I think people talk about politics --

they say words like "infrastructure."

What does that mean?

It means me getting home to my wife, my daughter.

It means me deciding I can make it to that date on time,

take that job.

We forgot to talk about things in human terms.

So, we're accelerating all this cool stuff for the Olympics.

I'm really proud that America will get the Olympics back

for the Summer Games, the first time since 1996.

And we're gonna make money off of it,

'cause we have everything basically built in L.A.,

from the Rams' stadium that's gonna be coming up,

using UCLA as our Olympic Village.

So we can focus on providing sports to a bunch of kids

leading up to then and after.

-That's really exciting. -Yeah.