Spencer Pratt says he doesn’t care about national politics after Trump backed his bid for L.A. mayor

Former reality TV star and Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt rebuffed a potential endorsement from President Donald Trump, telling NBC News on Thursday, “I don’t need anyone’s endorsement but mothers’. That’s who’s getting me elected.” Pratt, who has focused his insurgent campaign against incumbent Mayor Karen Bass on calling for better wildfire management and combating homelessness, added that he’s chosen not to comment on Trump or national politics on principle throughout his campaign. “My race is a local race. I don’t care what’s going on in the, in the national politics, in other states. I am running for a local position,” Pratt, 42, who gained political prominence last year by criticizing city and state leaders online after his house burned in the destructive Los Angeles wildfires, told “NBC Nightly News” anchor Tom Llamas. The president last week told reporters about Pratt, “I’d like to see him do well. He’s a character,” adding, “I assume he probably supports me,” and, “I heard he’s a big MAGA person.” “This, this right here, what you’re doing, you having this conversation is what’s destroyed local elections,” Pratt told Llamas when pushed on a potential Trump endorsement. “People don’t care. In L.A., they want to feel safe, they don’t want to step in human poop,” he said. “I don’t need to have personal opinions about anybody that doesn’t affect them stepping in human poop.” Pratt’s remarks come just days before the June 2 mayoral primary election, where candidates from all political parties are running on the same ballot. If a candidate wins a majority of the vote on Tuesday, they’ll win the election outright. If no candidate wins outright next week, the top two vote-getters will advance to a November runoff. The race has tightened in recent weeks between Bass, Pratt and Los Angeles Councilwoman Nithya Raman. A University of California, Berkeley-L.A. Times poll out Thursday had Bass leading the pack with support from 26% of likely voters, Raman in second place with 25% of voters, and Pratt in third with 22% of voter support. The survey puts all three candidates within the margin of error. Pratt, who came to fame as a reality TV star on the 2000s MTV show “The Hills,” is running as a Republican and has drawn comparisons to Trump. He became involved in politics after last year’s widespread wildfires in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood in Los Angeles, where Pratt and his wife lost their home. He spent months after the wildfires railing against Bass and California Gov. Gavin Newsom for their mismanagement of the fires. The idea of running for mayor, Pratt said Thursday, only arose in the aftermath of his online virality following the fires. “I got on this mission, it was never to run for mayor. I started this to expose the corruption and the negligence of our city leaders, and when I got to the farthest distance I could, where I proved they were obstructing justice, altering after-action reports after the fire, and there was nothing more they could do, that’s when I organically got in the race, because no one else was going to run,” Pratt said. He added that campaigning for the post hasn’t been “fun,” and that he and his family members have suffered security risks and death threats. The reality TV star — who was once known as TV’s “bad boyfriend” — also dismissed concerns that voters cared about his eccentric past reality TV persona, his love for healing crystals or personal financial mismanagement. “They don’t need to worry about what I was before my house burned down and before I got in the race,” Pratt said, adding, “I don’t need to convince anybody about my past, I’m living in the present. I’m speaking about what everyone sees with their own eyes.” He called himself the “look-around candidate,” who was urging voters to take a look at the wildfire destruction and homelessness crisis around them and vote for change, rather than sticking with the status quo. The former “Hills” star also expressed disdain for politicians, saying his concerns about California’s current leadership are what led him to run. “I don’t admire any politicians. I don’t like politicians. I didn’t want to be a politician. I didn’t want to be a mayor. I’m forced into this because politicians are failing us as taxpayers,” he said. In the interview, Pratt also outlined some of his policy priorities, which include increasing water reserves in Los Angeles to help firefighters more quickly manage spreading wildfires, and increasing firefighter hiring and retention. The former reality TV star added that he planned to secure private funding from billionaires to build a campus on federal lands to house homeless drug addicts and assist with their treatment. “I went to Washington with all the people that build the prefabricated homes. It’s actually cheaper to build an entire city of prefabricated homes with treatment facilities and medical [centers] than just launder money into buildings in L.A.,” Pratt said, adding, “I have plenty of very successful philanthropic billionaires that I’ve met with that would love to invest in this.” He added that this could be a policy idea where he could partner with the Trump administration, despite not having spoken to the president about this plan. “I know the federal government would want to partner to get these addicts the treatment and to have the money that’s being laundered through the NGOs stop, and they will know that these are results, where it’s going to be mandatory treatment,” Pratt said. He also pledged to make life more affordable for all Angelenos by removing layers of bureaucracy to make it easier to build more housing. “You can only make things more affordable by putting more money in people’s pockets, and the way I’m going to do that is get rid of all this red tape,” Pratt said. “The buildings in Los Angeles, it takes years to build any affordable housing. I’m actually going to make sure that we build faster than any other city, and if the building people aren’t up to the speed, we’re going to find new people.” Llamas’ interview with Spencer Pratt will air tonight on “Top Story with Tom Llamas” at 7 p.m. ET.