When it comes to public safety, I listen to police chiefs and cops, not to a cable-news station.
Eric Garcetti
No sane person would run for president, right?
If you want to cut crime, if you want to end homelessness, you have to deal with sexual violence, sexual harassment, and domestic violence.
I'll never stop listening to police officers over politicians.
I'm an average American. As I joke, I'm the average Mexican American Jewish Italian mayor of the most diverse city in the world.
Homelessness is like public education - something that for far too long we haven't put the resources or love or attention to.
I am a passionate, committed composer, and the guy I used to write musicals with, once he was able to ditch me and get a better composer, actually won the Tony.
If I hear that Quito, Ecuador, is doing something to have a whole area of town that's zero emissions, and we're thinking about that in Los Angeles' downtown, I'm like, 'I better catch up.'
Mayors in any city are pretty non-partisan people where it's problem solvers.
Latinos are not monochromatic. You know, they trace their ancestry back to South America, to Central America, to Mexico, like in my family, and the Caribbean. And it's - we're a very diverse group. And we care about a lot more than just immigration, though we're passionate about having sensible immigration policies that don't go after our families.
The Olympics have been an amazing part of Los Angeles' history. In many ways in 1932, they put us on the map when people didn't even know where Los Angeles was. In 1984, they were the first profitable Olympics of the modern era.
The problem with the Democratic Party is, we're like, 'If we just get another presidential candidate in there, everything will be OK.' We should be focusing on school boards, city council races, state legislatures.
Pete Buttigieg is one of my closest friends as a mayor.
I think it's really important to talk education, to talk infrastructure, to talk good jobs and the future of work.
Don't run for mayor if you don't want to basically be working all the time.
Withdrawing federal funds to prevent radiological or biological terrorist attack - that doesn't just hurt Los Angeles: that hurts America.
The struggle of African Americans is everybody's struggle.
People will give you the responsibility, even the authority, to go after the big things, the visionary things, the reaching for incredible opportunities, if they trust that you're running a city well. And if you don't run a city well, conversely, you can't do the big things.
If you can speak Spanish, then you can have a stronger connection with the residents of Los Angeles.
As mayor, I've traveled to China, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, and Mexico to meet with heads of state and business leaders to promote trade with L.A. companies and through L.A.'s seaports and airports - because that generates L.A. jobs.
I don't spend much time on the computer at all, so I do most of my email on my phone if I do any at all.
I won't let anybody, even the most powerful person in this country, trample our values or our Constitution. And no matter who's in the White House, I am incredibly vigilant about that and will continue to fight that fight.
I think it is time for a radical federalism in this country, where people trust innovation coming from the local level and ramp that up.
I want to turn momentum on traffic. I want to make in a dent in homelessness on the way to eradicating it on our streets. But there's always something else to do tomorrow. And you have to be at peace knowing you're not going to finish it all.
If a sanctuary city means that our police department does not enforce federal immigration laws, then we are one. But declaring yourself a 'sanctuary city' also signals to a lot of people that you are protecting hard-core criminals, which I don't, and I don't believe in.
We're looking to rebrand L.A. Not in some sort of radical way, but we've forgotten to sell this city, internationally and nationally... it's important for us to say who we are.
The reason I like Steve Aoki is because I can trace my love of electronic music all the way back to when I was listening to not just new wave but to YMO [Yellow Magic Orchestra] which, to me, was the ultimate Japanese band and launched synth electronic music.
I lived in Burma for a couple of summers in the '90s, working with the democratic resistance that had fled to the jungles.
I look forward to working with the White House in areas like infrastructure, where President Trump says he wants to spend a trillion dollars. Great - we'd love to start right here in Los Angeles.
The cost of housing in L.A. has increased dramatically because more people want to live here. They come to Los Angeles every day, not just from around the United States but from around the world.
When President Trump got out of the Paris climate accords, we got 412 cities to say we will do it instead, because we're on the front line with our firefighters dealing with historic fires and floods.
Mayors are really good at dealing with things practically.
I'm a typical mutt American. I have an Italian last name. Half-Mexican, half-Jewish.
I've worked closely with presidents, especially with President Obama, and I realized that what good leaders do at the national level is no different than what we do at the local level.
I'm in what feels like a pretty transparent fishbowl as mayor. People see you at the market, people see you at the diner, people see you wherever you are, talk to you. You don't shave, they're taking selfies of you. You come back from your jog, they're talking to you.
I think I bring a perspective that local communities are what make this country great, and they are the laboratories of democracy.
I prioritize my daughter and my wife.
The fact is, there are far more customers for American products outside of the U.S. than there are here at home. With open markets and a level playing field, American workers can out-compete workers anywhere in the world.
We need a pro-worker trade approach that puts American jobs - not corporate profits - front and center.
Aggressive government spending during the Great Recession was absolutely necessary.
Environment, homelessness, infrastructure and immigration - I'm very focused on all four, which are critical to the success of Los Angeles.
In presidential elections, I think people focus way too much on ideology.
Cory Booker I've known since 1993. We used to be part of the L'Chaim Society at Oxford University together.
On my mom's side, the Jewish side of the family, I come from a family of musicians who are pianists, so I've always loved cultural expression.
I don't want to bring a European city or an east-coast city to the West Coast.
I think, for me, the biggest issue is poverty in general, poverty in this time of plenty. It's reflected in homelessness. It's reflected in educational gaps. It's reflected in racial disparities.
I think connected to poverty is the trauma of poverty. It's not just a material thing; it's a psychological thing that we have no mental health system in this country.
The classic rules of American politics are dying, if not dead, if you look at the last two presidential elections. An African-American could never be president until one was; a TV reality star couldn't become president until one was.
The White House is not where power comes from in this country. The cities and the local communities of this nation are prepared to save Washington - and not vice versa.
I'm progressive, and I'm practical.
