Spencer Pratt Clashes With Reporter in Feisty Interview on LA’s Homeless Crisis: ‘They Wanna Do Drugs!’

Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt (R) slammed the city’s approach to handling its homelessness crisis and shared his game plan for fixing the problem in a feisty back-and-forth on local TV that went viral over the weekend.

Pratt was prodded about how he would tackle the issue in an interview with ABC 7 reporter Josh Haskell on May 22. The ex-reality TV star contended that the bigger issue is that most of the homeless people are abusing drugs, not a lack of housing.

He also called out Mayor Karen Bass (D) for just throwing tax money at the problem, but not doing anything to address the drugs.

“What are your plans for the over 40,000 homeless in Los Angeles?” Haskell asked.

“Yeah, well, they’re not homeless — they’re drug addicts. Most of these people are addicted to fentanyl and meth. This isn’t Spencer making it up-” Pratt started to say.

“Are you saying they don’t have homes?” Haskell jumped in to ask.

“There is places for all of these people to sleep in LA. No matter what anybody tells you, we have housing and shelter for everyone living on the street,” Pratt said. “They are choosing to be on the street because they wanna do drugs, they don’t want rules, they want to have animals to abuse. This idea that they’re forced on the street right now is a lie that our city is perpetuating.”

He then said the city has spent $24 billion to house the homeless, but that most would rather stay on the streets and “torture” animals and do drugs.

When Haskell brought up Pratt’s plan to build treatment facilities for the homeless and said it would take “time to build the facility,” Pratt scoffed. He said it would take just days to do it.

Pratt added that LA has been taken advantage of by “scam NGOs” and “scam homeless nonprofits” that bus homeless people into the city.

“These are products to a lot of people,” Pratt said.

He said if he becomes mayor, they can all go to Seattle, where democratic socialist Mayor Katie Wilson “will welcome them.”

Haskell’s conversation with Pratt grabbed a lot of attention on X over the last few days, with one clip racking up 31 million views by Tuesday morning.

Pratt’s interview comes as his odds of advancing in LA’s mayoral race have surged. (LA will vote on the top two candidates.) Prediction market Kalshi gives Pratt an 81% chance of going up against Bass in the election, though Bass is still the heavy favorite to win.

Watch above via ABC 7.

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