Rick Caruso

High-Level Overview

Real estate developer and former Los Angeles mayoral candidate Rick Caruso joins Joe Rogan weeks after the January 2025 wildfires devastated the Pacific Palisades and Altadena. Caruso, who ran Los Angeles's Department of Water and Power and led its police commission, lays out what he sees as the root causes of LA's decline, including homelessness, open drug markets, crime, over-regulation, high taxes and politicized leadership, and his outsider's playbook for fixing them. He also introduces Steadfast LA, the nonprofit he just launched to push for faster, smarter rebuilding after the fires.

The tone is earnest and optimistic from Caruso and frustrated but encouraging from Rogan, who openly wishes Caruso had won. The conversation moves from Caruso's immigrant family story and campaign, through policy specifics on homelessness, public safety, water and energy, to the fires and rebuilding, before closing on cold plunges, saunas and Caruso's political future.

The Discussion Explores:

• Why an outsider: career politicians who fear losing office versus leaders free to do what's right.
• Homelessness: wasted billions, $800,000 housing units, and scaling up nonprofits that get results.
• The fires and the failure of preparation: empty hydrants, an empty reservoir, uncleared brush and an absent mayor.
• Public safety: Bernard Parks, Bill Bratton and how police discipline rules let gangs take territory.
• Rebuilding right: undergrounding power lines, incentives instead of mandates, and workforce housing for first responders.
• Business, taxes and regulation: why companies left California and how to bring them back.
• Water and power: desalination, recycled wastewater, rain capture and nuclear energy.
• Cold plunges and saunas: voluntary adversity and Rogan's heat routine.

Deep Dive into Main Ideas

An Immigrant Family and an Outsider's Campaign

Caruso explains that his paternal grandfather immigrated to Uniontown, Pennsylvania, where he set the dynamite in the coal mines, before moving to Los Angeles to work as a gardener in Boyle Heights; Caruso's father was born in a mining camp. That history, he says, is why he ran for mayor: to give back to the city that gave his family the opportunity to build a business. He argues LA's problems are all fixable "With a little bit of backbone, a little bit of smarts."

Caruso has worked under three mayors: running the Department of Water and Power under Tom Bradley and Richard Riordan and leading the police commission under Jim Hahn. His biggest lesson is that when you're not worried about reelection, you can make decisions in the public's best interest. Career politicians, he says, cycle between city council, assembly and senate and are scared of getting a real job: "They've never had to sign the front of a check only the back." He recalls being tied or slightly ahead late in the race when Biden, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, Bernie Sanders and finally Barack Obama weighed in against an outsider. Rogan compares LA politics to a cult ignoring the experts telling them it's all failing, and adds that "the octopus has many tentacles," stalling real change.

Homelessness: Billions Spent, Little Built

Caruso says Measure HHH was supposed to produce 10,000 housing units but had produced fewer than 1,000 about a decade later, at roughly $800,000 per unit, while nonprofits on Skid Row build for about $300,000. He also criticizes the ULA tax, an extra levy on home sales over $5 million, as another layer of taxes without results. Rogan points to homelessness bureaucrats who are paid well regardless of outcomes and have no incentive to solve the problem.

Caruso's plan combined cheap, fast housing with enforcement and proven providers. He cites Boxable, a company near Las Vegas that mass-produces small units for about $60,000 to $70,000, and says he promised them a contract for 30,000 units to place on the hundreds of vacant city-controlled parcels. He insists open drug dealing and use must end, noting the famed Langer's Deli near MacArthur Park had warned it might close after 70 years. Then, he says, redirect wasted money to organizations like the Downtown Women's Center and the faith-based Union Rescue Mission, which he says achieve around a 90% success rate by meeting people where they are and providing structure, treatment, training and hope. He notes that about 20,000 women sleep on LA's streets on any given night and that it takes the Downtown Women's Center about six years to build new housing on Skid Row. His answer: cut the red tape. "Give the damn permits and say go." If you can't solve the whole problem, he asks, "Why don't we start with solving half of it?"

Rogan recalls taking a wrong turn into Skid Row while filming Fear Factor around 2003 and describes a documentary explaining how the city historically dumped vagrants there. Caruso describes a school on the edge of Skid Row that he and his wife have supported for over 30 years, serving children of working parents below the poverty line; outside its doors is "the biggest sea of inhumanity," inside is love and hope. Rogan argues no child should have to walk past that every day, and that the best way to have fewer lost adults is to give kids good examples early.

The Fires: A Failure of Leadership and Preparation

Caruso recounts being evacuated as flames approached, then learning his daughter's home had burned because firefighters' hoses had run dry. Angry, he called into Fox 11's live coverage with Elex Michaelson to report that hydrants had run out of water, and says firefighters confirmed it. He lists the failures: warnings of catastrophic winds, a reservoir in the Palisades that was empty because its cover needed repair, brush uncleared for decades despite warnings after the Brentwood fire, engines not pre-deployed, an underfunded fire department, mothballed equipment, and the mayor traveling to Ghana. "If you want to be a leader the first thing you have to do is be present," he says, and he calls for the DWP's general manager to resign or be fired.

He explains that DWP was once best in class, run by career engineers, until the top job became politicized. He and Rogan note that the Santa Ana winds, which early settlers called "the devil winds," have always been part of LA life, and that no one has seriously claimed everything possible was done. They discuss suspected arson and a man with a fake fire truck arrested after driving down from Oregon, and Rogan decries a culture that tells struggling people that successful people stole from them. Caruso credits President Trump for flying out and pressing local officials to get people back in their homes, saying it helps to have a builder in the White House.

Crime, Policing and the Bratton Turnaround

Caruso welcomes California's repeal of the rule that made many thefts under a set dollar threshold misdemeanors and the replacement of District Attorney George Gascón with Nathan Hochman. His most vivid story is from the police commission. After the Rodney King riots, LAPD was under a federal consent decree. Chief Bernard Parks, whom Caruso liked personally, had imposed discipline procedures so onerous that gangs learned to file complaints in areas they wanted to control; officers with complaints couldn't get promoted or transferred, so they avoided those areas, and gangs took over. Caruso recommended moving on from Parks despite protesters burning him in effigy, and Mayor Hahn backed him, telling him to do it and that he would take the heat. They hired Bill Bratton, who built a team, restored pride and brought crime down to levels not seen since the 1950s. Hahn later lost reelection, which Caruso says proves the value of leaders who don't care about their political futures: "serve the damn people."

Rogan calls "defund the police" catastrophic, noting that people who pushed it are often protected by armed security, and says the answer is better training, accountability and respect for officers. Caruso agrees, adding that under-policing has pushed businesses like his to spend millions on private security, which ordinary homeowners can't afford.

Rebuilding With Incentives, Not Mandates

Through Steadfast LA, Caruso says volunteers from major firms are donating time to develop solutions, and he lives by one rule: "don't tell me what the problem is without the solution." He wants the Palisades and Altadena rebuilt with underground power lines, new water mains and modern fire hydrant systems, rejecting claims there's no money after a disaster he estimates at $250 billion. Funding can come from bonds, grants and private capital, he argues, citing Operation Warp Speed and the post-9/11 rebuilding as models of private enterprise helping government move fast.

He opposes using the tragedy to force density or low-income housing onto devastated neighborhoods, calling it wrong to impose requirements "off the backs of people who have lost everything". Instead of mandates, like LA's rule requiring replacement of market-rate apartments with low-income units, he proposes incentives such as bonus density: let an owner rebuild 20 units instead of 12 in exchange for some affordable ones. His favorite idea is workforce housing for firefighters, police and teachers so they can live in the neighborhoods they serve rather than commuting two hours each way. Rogan pushes back that many Palisades residents paid to live somewhere exclusive and won't want any such housing, and Caruso concedes it's a timing issue best discussed after people are back on their feet.

Taxes, Regulation and Bringing Business Back

Caruso says he would never start his business in California today because taxes are too high for everyone and regulations are crushing small businesses, citing post-COVID rollbacks of outdoor dining permissions. He wants Elon Musk and other departed businesses back, and argues, borrowing from Reagan, that the best way to raise revenue is to let businesses and families grow rather than overtax them into leaving. He notes California has swung from surplus to deficit and has among the highest gas prices in the country, and says the state's innovators, universities and AI companies need a platform to flourish, especially given China's AI advances. Rogan wonders where all the tax money goes and suggests sending DOGE-style efficiency experts to California.

Water and Power: Desalination and Nuclear

Drawing on his DWP years, Caruso calls desalination a "great idea" he tried to pursue but that was fought by environmental groups. He also argues LA should treat sewage to a tertiary level and return it to natural aquifers instead of dumping it in the ocean, capture far more rainwater, and pair desalination plants with power generation for grid redundancy. He praises William Mulholland's gravity-fed aqueduct, notes that the Intermountain Power Project in Utah, once the cleanest coal plant in the country, is being converted to hydrogen, and calls for more nuclear plants like Palo Verde in Arizona, which he says has performed without problems. Rogan adds that modern nuclear designs are far safer than those involved in past disasters like Fukushima.

Cold Plunges, Saunas and What's Next

In a lighter tangent, Caruso says his sons got him addicted to cold plunging at 50 degrees, while Rogan uses 34 degrees for three minutes and says the first minute is the hardest. Rogan describes sitting in a 196-degree dry sauna for 25 minutes, citing a Finnish study linking regular sauna use to a 40% reduction in all-cause mortality, and frames both as "voluntary adversity that makes the rest of the day easier. Asked about his future, Caruso says he's on the back nine of his life and wants to do something meaningful in public service, possibly as mayor or governor, but for now his focus is rebuilding. He remains optimistic that California, if unleashed," can be a powerhouse again, while Rogan, who loved his 25 years in LA, says he'll never leave Texas.

Conclusion

Rick Caruso makes a clear, detailed case that Los Angeles's crises stem less from impossible problems than from politicized, risk-averse leadership. His prescriptions are practical: fund what works, cut red tape, enforce the law, use incentives instead of mandates, invest in water and power infrastructure, and bring in outsiders who don't need to protect a political career. The Bill Bratton story and his account of the fire failures make the stakes concrete. Rogan's enthusiasm is obvious, and whatever listeners think of Caruso's politics, the episode is a substantive look at how a major American city might be rebuilt, and why he believes "there is a solution to every problem."

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