Former reality star Spencer Pratt, who is running for mayor of Los Angeles against incumbent Karen Bass, is taking a stand for animals that are allegedly being tortured by homeless people in the community.
The mayoral hopeful has been posting about animals being abused on Skid Row and beyond for weeks, sharing graphic videos of dogs overdosing on fentanyl and one presented with his eyes sewn shut.
“As Mayor, I will stand up a dedicated LAPD task force, Tactical PAWS: Policing Animal Welfare &amp; Safety. We will end the horrific atrocities that Karen Basura (his nickname for Bass) and [coucilwoman] Nithya Raman have allowed on our streets. ZERO tolerance for animal abusers,” he wrote in a post on April 20.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
As Mayor, I will stand up a dedicated LAPD task force, Tactical PAWS: Policing Animal Welfare &amp; Safety. We will end the horrific atrocities that Karen Basura and Nithya Raman have allowed on our streets. ZERO tolerance for animal abusers! <a href="https://t.co/QyUPKpdLEB">https://t.co/QyUPKpdLEB</a> <a href="https://t.co/XDnpJk4aba">pic.twitter.com/XDnpJk4aba</a>
— Spencer Pratt (@spencerpratt) <a href="https://twitter.com/spencerpratt/status/2046277962664996895?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 20, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
“This is uncaring Karen’s legacy,” he said of Bass in response to a video of a dog with drugs in its system receiving medical care. “Unbelievable levels of evil from the druggies that are left to massacre these poor animals. This ends when I’m mayor.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
This is uncaring Karen’s legacy. Unbelievable levels of evil from the druggies that are left to massacre these poor animals. This ends when I’m mayor. <a href="https://t.co/jJ64X0sQ5R">https://t.co/jJ64X0sQ5R</a>
— Spencer Pratt (@spencerpratt) <a href="https://twitter.com/spencerpratt/status/2047197321079980376?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 23, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
In another video <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXhkUNNAdT9/">shared</a> to Instagram on Friday, he accused Bass and Raman of “facilitating the torture, mutilation, abuse, and murder of thousands of dogs by crazy drug addicts who breed them for money, set them on fire, [and] conduct Nazi-like experiments.”
Pratt says the dogs become drug testers and are frequently overdosing.
The former star of “The Hills” said that Raman allegedly “walked out” of a recent city council meeting after an animal rescue worker begged for help with the problem.
Pratt also said a rally was happening at The Barkery in Encino on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. to raise awareness and “save our pets from the zombies.”
The reality alum announced that he is running for mayor of Los Angeles on the one-year anniversary of the Palisades Fire, which is the event that he says radicalized him to make a change in his community. The Republican and former star of “The Hills” has been critical of local Democrats for their actions before and after the fires. Pratt and his wife, Heidi Montag, and his parents all lost their homes.
“The system in Los Angeles isn’t struggling; it’s fundamentally broken. It is a machine designed to protect the people at the top and the friends they exchange favors with while the rest of us drown in toxic smoke and ash,” Pratt said in part while announcing his campaign.
Pratt is a first-time candidate facing more than a dozen other contenders in the nonpartisan mayoral primary in June, including current Los Angeles Democratic Mayor Bass, who is seeking re-election. Pratt’s campaign website describes him as “Karen Bass’ worst nightmare.”

Spencer Pratt

Reality Star Rips Dem Karen Bass For Allowing Homeless To ‘Conduct Nazi-Like Experiments’ On Dogs

Animals

California

Drugs

Elections

Homeless

Karen Bass

Los Angeles

Mayor

Politics

In an early show of his leftist bona fides, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani ordered police and sanitation workers to stop dismantling the city&#8217;s homeless encampments. Now that 18 people have died on the streets amid record cold temperatures, Mamdani is reversing course.
The mayor is expected to reinstate homeless encampment sweeps — which were standard under his predecessor, Mayor Eric Adams — as early as Wednesday, <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/01/29/us-news/nyc-cops-sanitation-workers-told-to-stop-taking-down-homeless-encampments-as-crisis-spirals/">according</a> to the New York Post. It&#8217;s a major reversal for Mamdani, who <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/01/29/us-news/nyc-cops-sanitation-workers-told-to-stop-taking-down-homeless-encampments-as-crisis-spirals/">claimed</a> that the city&#8217;s primary responsibility was &#8220;connecting [homeless] New Yorkers to housing.&#8221;
New York&#8217;s Department of Homeless Services will lead encampment sweeps by issuing notices to homeless individuals to clear their encampments within one week. During that period, homeless outreach workers will make repeated visits to connect individuals with shelters and supportive services.
Curtis Sliwa, the leader of New York’s Guardian Angels, a volunteer organization that conducts homeless outreach, told The Daily Wire that homeless individuals are reluctant to enter shelters for a number of reasons. 
“First off, they’re not in control of their mental faculties,&#8221; Sliwa said. &#8220;Number two, they fear going into a shelter where they&#8217;re going to be preyed upon, where what few, few items that they may have will be stolen from them, where they can be sexually abused and physically harassed, and just again turned into a human piñata.” 
Sliwa also said many individuals who are struggling with addiction resist shelter rules, including a 10 p.m. curfew. Some, he said, believe they are better off in a jail cell than in a shelter. 
Before reversing his stance on encampment sweeps, Mamdani converted city buses into temporary warming centers during the cold streak. However, the initiative drew criticism after reports surfaced that the warming buses were difficult to locate. Mamdani took responsibility for the communication failures. “I think at the end of the day, that is the responsibility that I have as a mayor,” Mamdani said. “It’s never a moment to pass the buck to anyone else.” 
Some of the buses, which had 40 seats, were reportedly not operating at full capacity. Norman Siegel, a civil rights attorney who leads a volunteer group called the Street Homeless Advocacy Project, <a href="https://gothamist.com/news/mayor-mamdani-takes-the-rap-for-mishaps-around-warming-buses-for-homeless-people">blamed</a> inadequate signage. “As the cliché goes,” he said, “Sometimes the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.” In an attempt to address the problem, Mamdani’s team committed to additional signage in more than <a href="https://gothamist.com/news/nyc-sent-a-warming-bus-to-a-hub-for-homelessness-those-who-needed-it-had-no-idea">ten languages</a>. 
With the homeless on the streets and not in shelters or warming buses, New York City has received more than 3,300 complaints about encampments, according to 311 data.
Mamdani&#8217;s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether the encampment sweeps are a winter-only effort or a lasting policy change.

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani Holds Press Conference At Deno’s Wonder Wheel On Coney Island

Mamdani Abandons Key Leftist Policy As Homeless New Yorkers Freeze To Death

Mamdani Reverses Encampment Policy Amid Rising Winter Death Toll

Eric Adams

Homelessness

mamdani

New York City

Zohran Mamdani

Professor Gad Saad coined the term &#8220;suicidal empathy&#8221; to describe a kind of empathy so extreme it ends up harming you. 
A prime example would be the way the West has approached immigration from third-world countries. You feel bad for people. You open your borders. A plethora of people come in and harm your civilization.
But now, it seems like we are moving beyond suicidal empathy into what I would call “homicidal empathy.” That would be exemplified by your empathy for someone getting them killed.
There’s a good example in New York City with Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who promised, “We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.”
That collectivist warmth is manifesting in people freezing to death on the streets of New York City. Despite all of Mamdani’s photo ops showing him shoveling the snow (for a man who cannot bench press 135 pounds once), I don&#8217;t think the people of New York can count on his shoveling skills.
What he usually shovels is horse crap.
Mamdani has embraced a hands-off policy with regard to homelessness. This was the policy in California. It remains the policy in places like Los Angeles. This policy is empathetic toward the homeless to the point where you&#8217;re killing the homeless.
The policy argues that they should be able to live out on the streets, that it is a form of cruelty and intolerance to involuntarily commit people who are usually drug-addicted or schizophrenic, people who can&#8217;t take care of themselves. Somehow, it is more empathetic to leave them out on the streets to get scabies or to die in the cold.
This seems to be the way the left-wing brain is working in Mamdani-land, California, and other liberal areas of the country. 18 people have died in the cold snap that has hit New York City.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2367-mamdani-leaves-homeless-to-freeze-to-death?elementPosition=5&amp;row=6&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
Brian Stettin, who served as a senior advisor to former Mayor Eric Adams in his administration, told the New York Post, “When a person is in imminent danger, there&#8217;s no debate. Whatever ideological divides we have should not have any impact on these policies during a Code Blue.”
A mumbling homeless woman who braved some Antarctic temperatures was featured on the front cover of the Post on Monday.
The Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/02/08/us-news/mumbling-homeless-woman-left-to-spend-night-on-nyc-sidewalk/">reported</a>:
<blockquote>The unidentified woman was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, slippers and two blankets as she clipped her nails, put lotion on her hands and talked to herself while hunkered down on East 34th Street across from NYU Langone Hospital as temperatures neared 0 degrees early Sunday. She refused repeated offers for help from EMS workers and cops — who explained to The Post they had to leave the shivering vagrant in the extremely dangerous bone-chilling weather because she could answer basic questions — a factor that helps meet the threshold of Dem Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s controversial homeless policies.</blockquote>
That’s Mamdani&#8217;s shtick: If you can answer basic questions such as “What day of the week is it?” “What is your name?”, then they will leave you out on the streets to freeze. 
Mamdani held a press conference over the weekend. “Stay warm. Stay inside if you can. And please, stay safe,” he said.
“You&#8217;ve implored the people on the streets who feel more comfortable on the streets to come inside. But what happens if they don&#8217;t at this point? &#8230;20 minutes out in the cold could lead to a fatality. So are you not using as a last resort at this point to bring them inside and volunteer, even if just a few hours doesn&#8217;t lead to a placement?” a reporter asked.
“Involuntary transport continues to be used in the same manner it was as the prior administration,” Mamdani replied. “And thus far, we have seen clinical determinations of a number of New Yorkers who have been deemed to be a danger to themselves or to others. And sometimes that designation comes from an assessment that a New Yorker is not adequately clothed, given the weather that they are living through in that moment. And that is going to continue to be part of the assessments that outreach workers are making over the course of tomorrow or the next day.”
Mamdani’s last resort policy says that you can only be forced indoors if you are deemed a danger to yourself or others. The problem, of course, is that if you are Zohran Mamdani and you have spent your entire career ripping down cops and treating people as though they&#8217;re committing a human rights violation by pushing people indoors, people might be a little hesitant to actually take responsibility for calling somebody a “danger to themselves or others.”
The New York Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/02/10/us-news/mamdani-wont-budge-on-involuntary-removal-of-homeless-new-yorkers-from-streets-as-cold-deaths-reach-18/">reported</a>:
<blockquote>Down in Baltimore, Mayor Brandon Scott — whom Mamdani once praised for his crime reduction efforts — late last month called the cold a life-or-death issue and ordered the police department to take people off the streets even if they were refusing services. “That direction order came from me because we cannot allow folks to be out in this kind of weather,” Scott said.</blockquote>
The fact that this has become a matter of public controversy is totally insane.
Zoran Mamdani apparently has so much sympathy for people. I&#8217;m going to put it out there: If you are out on the streets sleeping on the sidewalk, that is not a housing problem in the middle of a cold snap. That is a crazy problem if other options are given to you. No sane and rational person, by definition, who is not a danger to themselves, is sleeping out on the street in zero-degree weather. That is not a thing that sane and rational people do unless they are Arctic explorers of some type.
This comes down to Mamdani’s bizarro world empathy that legitimately gets people killed. This sort of policy, when you apply it to crime, leads to more criminals on the streets. When you apply it to homelessness, it leads to more homeless people on the streets.
The empathy that you have for the purported victim of America&#8217;s “evil, racist, abusive” system leads to the very people you are supposedly trying to help sometimes dying.
On February 6, the New York Post reported that Mamdani was still refusing to clear homeless camps and forcibly remove people from the streets, despite a rising death toll and a fresh snap of deadly deep freeze. Instead, he implored people to come inside.
If people refuse to come inside in the middle of zero-degree weather while living on the streets, it will not be solved by you imploring them.
City Journal <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/zohran-mamdani-homeless-deaths-cold-weather">reported</a>:
<blockquote>During last year’s campaign, Mamdani promised to end a program initiated by his predecessor, Eric Adams, that deploys clinicians, backed by police officers, to assess people’s ability to care for themselves and, if necessary, to transport them involuntarily to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation. He repeatedly said that involuntary commitment was a “last resort,” preferring instead an approach that would have civilian workers “help that person navigate their housing options.” He has also disavowed dismantling homeless encampments. </blockquote>
That was a proactive move by Adams to determine whether somebody ought to be on the streets or not. And Mamdani wanted to kill that. I guess the presumption was that unless they were in the throes of some sort of crime, they should never have an engagement with law enforcement.
The message being sent to the homeless is, basically, you have a right to live on the streets. And the message being sent to public service workers, cops, and mental health professionals is that you&#8217;re going to be called on the carpet if you make the mistake of bringing somebody in.
It&#8217;s nuts, it&#8217;s bad, and it&#8217;s stupid.
It&#8217;s indicative of a deeper brain rot that has set in large parts of the Left: That empathy amounts to humoring people in their delusions, even if it’s dangerous to them.

New York Governor Hochul Holds Press Conference Highlighting Her Administration’s “Let Them Build” Agenda

Mamdani Leaves Homeless To Freeze To Death 

Death

Democratic Socialism

New York

Opinion

NYC Mamdani Holds News Conference On Healthcare At New York City Health Clinic

It’s Only Been A Month And Zohran Mamdani Is Already A Disaster

It's Only Been A Month And Zohran Mamdani Is Already A Disaster

Democrats

Leftists

Matt Walsh

The following is an edited transcript excerpt from <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1904-zohran-mamdani-freezes-16-new-yorkers-to-death?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">The Michael Knowles Show</a>.
* * *
Zohran Mamdani just made a really sad and totally predictable announcement.
When the recent winter cold front made it to New York, it was not nearly as bad as the ice storm Nashville residents experienced. There was very little ice in New York, mostly just snow. Nevertheless, 16 homeless New Yorkers died during that brief little cold snap.
Here is the new mayor of New York:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Mayor Mamdani confirms sixteen deaths during dangerously cold weather in NYC <a href="https://t.co/pQ0L9i5Yzz">https://t.co/pQ0L9i5Yzz</a> <a href="https://t.co/zHAPfvu95u">pic.twitter.com/zHAPfvu95u</a>
— New York Post (@nypost) <a href="https://twitter.com/nypost/status/2018388455508656233?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 2, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Credit: @nypost/X.com
Mayor Mamdani says,
<blockquote>A severe cold front continues to bear down on our city. Today is our 11th consecutive day of below freezing weather, and we could very well be in the middle of the longest period of consecutive sub-32-degree weather in our city&#8217;s entire history. Without temperatures rising above freezing, snow has hardened into blocks of ice. But the greatest danger posed by the sustained cold is to vulnerable New Yorkers who remain exposed to the elements. As of this morning, 16 of our fellow New Yorkers have passed away outside during this brutal stretch of cold. In 13 of these cases, preliminary findings indicate that hypothermia played a role, and three of these deaths appear to be overdose deaths. We await final results from the medical examiner&#8217;s office and will inform New Yorkers as we learn more. Each of these lives lost is a tragedy. My heart was with the family of those mourning their loved ones.</blockquote>
Mamdani blames the deaths mostly on nature, though he admits a few of them were drug deaths. 
Unlike other areas of the country where recent ice storms knocked out power for weeks, New York City is built for cold weather. Cold weather hits New York every single year. New Yorkers knows how to deal with cold weather, especially when they have competent management and government.
The people who died in New York did not die because their power went out. New York didn&#8217;t lose power. They died because they were left to die on the streets. Why were they left to die on the streets? Is this just some immutable characteristic of New York? What can we do? Throw our arms up in the air? A long-standing problem?
No, it&#8217;s not.
They were left to die on the streets specifically because Zohran Mamdani, who has been in office for just one month now, left them to die on the streets. In fact campaigned to leave them to die on the streets.
Don&#8217;t take my word for it. Here is CBS News.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Mamdani says he&#039;ll end homeless encampment sweeps in NYC" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CWjUfoi6YCg?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Credit: @CBSNewYork/YouTube.com
The reporter states,
<blockquote>Local New York Mayor Alexander Mamdani says that he will end the Adams administration&#8217;s practice of removing homeless encampments from city sidewalks. But advocates argue it will be a step backwards for the city&#8217;s quality of life. Ali Bauman questioned the mayor-elect about this tonight. For the past three years, the NYPD has been systematically removing homeless encampments from New York City sidewalks, a practice mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani vows to end once he takes office — vows to end it.</blockquote>
This is Mamdani campaigning and saying we are intentionally going to leave the homeless — who are almost entirely drug addicts and mentally ill — on the streets. And this is supposedly going to be compassionate. That&#8217;s a change of policy from the previous administration, which just left office.
A little history of New York City during the 1970s and 80s may be helpful. Back then, there were a lot of bums, a lot of criminals, and a lot of homeless people on the streets. Then-mayor Rudy Giuliani came in in the 1990s and got rid of all that. He said, No, no, no — if you&#8217;re homeless, you need to go to shelters or we&#8217;re going to arrest you, but we&#8217;re not going to leave you on the streets.
After he was mayor of New York, Giuliani reiterated the same idea about the Occupy Wall Street protests. When people set up encampments all over the city, he said, No, no, no, you can&#8217;t do this. Sleeping on the street is a dysfunctional act which harms society and the individual.
In other words, letting the homeless stay on the street is contrary to the common good.
It&#8217;s not just that letting the homeless stay on the street is good for the homeless but bad for the rest of the New Yorkers who don&#8217;t want to see them — that&#8217;s how Mamdani is presenting it. The real argument, however, is no, it&#8217;s actually bad for everyone. Because it&#8217;s bad for the law-abiding New Yorkers who don&#8217;t want criminals and drug addicts and crazy people running around the streets all the time.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1904-zohran-mamdani-freezes-16-new-yorkers-to-death?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">WATCH: The Michael Knowles Show</a></h3>
It’s also bad for the homeless because they&#8217;re susceptible to crime — susceptible to being assaulted or raped or killed. And they&#8217;re also vulnerable to the elements. It&#8217;s very, very dangerous to leave them on the streets year round, especially in the winter. And now we see the results.  This is the “warmth of collectivism.”
This is the compassion that Mamdani has promised. Leaving 16 New Yorkers dead during a totally predictable, minor cold front. And he even gives away the game in his speech by trying to mitigate his culpability by saying, “In 13 of these cases, preliminary findings indicate that hypothermia played a role, and three of these deaths appear to be overdose deaths.”
They basically froze like Jack Nicholson at the end of “The Shining.”
He then seems to avoid taking responsibility by saying, “&#8230;and three of these deaths appear to be overdose deaths.”
Like that&#8217;s better. Like it’s good that they chose to die, as if they were consenting adults. First of all, you can&#8217;t consent when you&#8217;re crazy, or when you&#8217;re addicted to all kinds of vices, or when you&#8217;re underage, or when there are all sorts of things that compromise our consent.
So Mayor Mamdani&#8217;s whole policy is based on a misconception of freedom — what freedom really is. Like all liberals, he thinks freedom is just neutrality in choosing. Well, some people choose not to do heroin, but some people choose to do heroin, and who are we to say which is the better choice?
It&#8217;s a misconception of freedom. It&#8217;s a misconception of the common good. It&#8217;s a misconception of what&#8217;s good for everybody. The common good is not just the random collection of all the individual goods of people, some of which are contrary to each other. In this kind of utilitarian calculation that tries to lead to the greatest utility for the greatest number, the common good is what we all share — what is good for all of us, what is not diminished by any individual good.
It’s also a misunderstanding of compassion. It is not compassionate to just ignore people. It&#8217;s funny because the Left accuses the Right of this: you just ignore people. You retreat to your nice neighborhoods and your penthouses and your money, and you ignore your common man. You don&#8217;t think you&#8217;re your brother&#8217;s keeper.
Sometimes the Right is guilty of that, especially the more Libertarian Right. The Left is just as guilty of that. Oh, just leave people to their degradation. Leave people to their vices. Leave people to their destructive behaviors — be it sexual ideologies, be it just license more broadly, be it with regard to living on the street — just leave them there.
It&#8217;s fine. You know, who are you to intervene? Who am I?
Well, I&#8217;m a reasonable person, and I&#8217;m a member of society, and I&#8217;m a citizen. And the consequences of all three of those misconceptions from Zohran Mamdani are that 16 people die on the street, whether from drugs or from exposure. That&#8217;s the “warmth of collectivism.”
What would have been more compassionate for the homeless: Zohran Mamdani, who says all sorts of sweet things about the homeless and leaves them to die on the street, or Rudy Giuliani, who talks a little tougher, who seems a little bit meaner, but who protects those people?
Where&#8217;s the real compassion?
That&#8217;s it. We&#8217;re one month into Mamdani — one month in — and you&#8217;ve got homeless ice cubes lining the streets of New York, some of which also have heroin and fentanyl in their blood.
We&#8217;re in for a real treat with Mamdani.

The Deadly Consequences Of Zohran Mamdani’s Homelessness Policy

Liberals

Snow

Winter Storm Fern

New York City&#8217;s Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, promised on Thursday to end homeless encampment sweeps when he takes over next month.
Mamdani said he would discontinue a priority enacted by current Mayor Eric Adams, who attempted to clear out &#8220;makeshift, unsafe houses&#8221; that have popped up throughout the city, The New York Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/12/04/us-news/mamdani-to-stop-all-sweeps-of-homeless-encampments-as-nyc-mayor/">reported</a>. The mayor-elect will stop the sweeps despite city officials receiving more than 45,000 complaints about the homeless encampments so far this year.
Mamdani argued that the Adams administration&#8217;s policy has failed because it did not connect &#8220;homeless New Yorkers to the housing that they so desperately need.&#8221;
“We are going to take an approach that understands its mission is connecting those New Yorkers to housing,” Mamdani added. “Whether it’s supportive housing, whether it’s rental housing, whatever kind of housing it is, because what we have seen is the treatment of homelessness as if it is a natural part of living in this city, when in fact, it’s more often a reflection of a political choice being made.”
New York City currently <a href="https://portal.311.nyc.gov/article/?kanumber=KA-02253">urges</a> residents to &#8220;report homeless people who have established encampments on public property,&#8221; adding, &#8220;In New York City, obstructions and encampments are not allowed.&#8221;
Mamdani cruised to a landslide mayoral election victory over former New York Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa last month in part because of his focus on affordability and housing. Mamdani vowed to build more affordable housing in the city and said he would push to freeze rents in some apartment buildings.
50% off DailyWire+ annual memberships will not return for another year, so don’t miss this deal! Join now at <a class="c-link" href="http://dailywire.com/cyberweek" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="http://DailyWire.com/cyberweek" data-sk="tooltip_parent">DailyWire.com/cyberweek</a>.
He did not specify how he would address complaints about homeless encampments or if he would remove the city&#8217;s online complaint portal. New York City&#8217;s homeless population has skyrocketed in recent years, largely due to the massive influx of illegal immigrants, <a href="https://www.osc.ny.gov/press/releases/2025/01/dinapoli-numbers-homeless-population-doubled-new-york">according</a> to the New York state government. In January 2022, an estimated 45,343 people were in the city&#8217;s homeless shelters. Just two years later, there were nearly 90,000.
Mamdani&#8217;s opposition to the sweeps is partly based on a 2023 audit released by New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, which found that during Mayor Adams&#8217; homeless encampment raids, only a small percentage of homeless people removed from their makeshift housing accepted temporary shelter with the city, Fox News reported.
&#8220;The evidence is clear: by every measure, the homeless sweeps failed,&#8221; Lander argued.
The Adams administration has pushed back on the audit, saying that Lander&#8217;s findings took the data &#8220;out of context.&#8221;
“Cherry-picking numbers and sharing them out of context paint a disingenuous picture as these cleanups have actually connected more than 500 New Yorkers to safe, stable housing,” City Hall said on Thursday.
“New York City continues to have the lowest rate of unsheltered homelessness of any major city in the nation,” City Hall added.

Mamdani Sides With Homeless Encampments Over NYC Taxpayers

Social Issues

Numerous organizations have latched onto the homelessness crisis in the United States to advocate for &#8220;Marxist, anti-capitalist, or anti-American ideologies,&#8221; according to a report published last week by conservative watchdog, Capital Research Center (CRC).
In the 113-page <a href="https://capitalresearch.org/app/uploads/Infiltrated-Report-1.pdf">dossier</a>, CRC identifies multiple groups that are part of &#8220;extremist ideological movements advocating&#8221; for certain policies to address homelessness. The report refers to this network of leftist groups as the &#8220;Homelessness Industrial Complex,&#8221; which helps shape policies that are &#8220;counterproductive&#8221; and fail to address the root problems of the homelessness crisis.
&#8220;Many of the groups over time have moved away from a focus on directly serving people who suffer to advocacy, which is to say political fighting,&#8221; CRC President Scott Walter told The Daily Wire, adding, &#8220;Some groups have gotten seriously radical.&#8221;
The report, which CRC put together in cooperation with the Discovery Institute, a conservative think tank, combs through numerous organizations and highlights how they have pushed some of the most extreme leftist talking points. The report also analyzes the financial data of leftist networks and identifies how they have spent billions of dollars in their supposed effort to address homelessness, while the crisis has only spiraled further out of control.
Researchers with CRC looked into dozens of nonprofits that signed onto a Supreme Court amicus brief in last year&#8217;s Grants Pass v. Johnson case, opposing arrests and fines for homeless individuals who violated city ordinances. In that list of organizations, researchers found many groups that don&#8217;t focus solely on addressing homelessness, but also push radical leftism on other issues.
The National Harm Reduction Coalition, for example, supported defunding the police and told drug abusers that “no one knows what’s best for you better than you. Whatever drugs you use, we want you to be safe and healthy.&#8221; In 2022, the National Harm Reduction Coalition received 73% of its $12.8 million funding from government grants.
San Francisco Rising, another leftist organization that signed onto the Grants Pass v. Johnson amicus brief, is open about its political activism, calling itself an “electoral alliance” working “to build political power with working-class communities of color.”
The Center for Constitutional Rights filed another brief for the Grants Pass v. Johnson case, urging the court to oppose the city&#8217;s efforts to enforce the law against homeless individuals. The Center for Constitutional Rights <a href="https://ccrjustice.org/home/press-center/press-releases/legal-group-israeli-colonial-domination-necessary-context">defended</a> Hamas&#8217; October 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel, arguing that “Palestinian resistance fighters” had the right to “carry out attacks on military targets.”
Join us now during our exclusive Deal of the Decade. Get everything for $7 a month. Not as fans. As fighters. Go to <a href="http://dailywire.com/Subscribe" target="_blank" rel="noopener">DailyWire.com/Subscribe</a> to join now.
The Western Regional Advocacy Project, another nonprofit highlighted by CRC, espouses anti-capitalist rhetoric and has made <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CA_k3KChdZ1/">calls</a> to &#8220;Abolish Police.&#8221; The group&#8217;s executive director, Paul Boden, <a href="https://thestreetspirit.org/2025/05/07/the-roots-of-neoliberal-fascism-in-america-and-what-we-can-do-about-it/">wrote</a> an article in early 2025 arguing that the Trump administration is instituting &#8220;neoliberal fascism&#8221; in America.
&#8220;The essence of extreme radicalism is fury that America is a horrible place, and for those people, they want to exploit the homeless because they can point to the homeless as supposed evidence that the country is horrible,&#8221; Walter said. &#8220;If that is what you&#8217;re doing, you don&#8217;t want there to be fewer homeless people. You want their suffering as vivid and as widespread as possible. And if they were in an institution that was helping them with their mental or their substance abuse, instead of being out on the streets, that&#8217;s not very good for your PR campaign.&#8221;
Other far-Left groups that are involved in housing and homelessness advocacy have openly pushed Marxism. The Autonomous Tenants Union Network <a href="https://atun-rsia.org/who-we-are">says</a> that it fights &#8220;for a world without landlords and without rent&#8221; and then adds that it wants to &#8220;end capitalism itself.&#8221;
Stomp Out Slumlords, a D.C.-based member of the Autonomous Tenants Union Network, <a href="https://www.stompoutslumlords.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/SOS-2023-report_web.pdf">wrote</a> in 2023, &#8220;We’re not going to get to communism without moving people to talk to their neighbors first, and more importantly, doing it ourselves. Here in DC, exercising tenant purchase rights or pushing for rent freezes aren’t going to immediately decommodify housing, true. But these are the small-scale sites of disruption from which we can build working-class power into something much bigger.&#8221;
The Manhattan Institute&#8217;s Christopher Rufo, who has written extensively about America&#8217;s homelessness issue, said in the foreword to CRC&#8217;s report, &#8220;The rhetoric of &#8216;housing is a human right&#8217; and &#8216;abolish homelessness&#8217; is seductive, but it functions as a smokescreen.&#8221;
&#8220;Behind it lies a set of interests dedicated to dismantling enforcement, expanding bureaucracies, and keeping streams of funding flowing into activism rather than into effective service delivery to those in desperate need,&#8221; Rufo added.
The Trump administration has sought to address the homelessness crisis by focusing on law enforcement and rehabilitation. President Donald Trump also signed an <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/07/ending-crime-and-disorder-on-americas-streets/">executive order</a> in July that aims to move &#8220;homeless individuals into long-term institutional settings for humane treatment through the appropriate use of civil commitment&#8221; to &#8220;restore public order&#8221; and to redirect federal funds toward &#8220;Effective Methods of Addressing Homelessness.&#8221;
&#8220;Surrendering our cities and citizens to disorder and fear is neither compassionate to the homeless nor other citizens,&#8221; the order stated. &#8220;My Administration will take a new approach focused on protecting public safety.&#8221;
The Trump administration has faced backlash from leftist groups over its move to clean up homeless encampments. The Southern Poverty Law Center is another group that has inserted itself in the homelessness debate while advocating for leftist ideologies. The SPLC has frequently been slammed for smearing conservatives. CRC found that the SPLC often &#8220;engages in homelessness policy by submitting amicus filings that oppose enforcement.&#8221;
After Trump signed his July executive order, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/resources/guides/trump-executive-order-homelessness-faq/">argued</a> that the order &#8220;promotes unlawful and out-of-date approaches that are rooted in anti-Black racism and bias against people with disabilities.&#8221;
Walter said that rooting out the &#8220;Homelessness Industrial Complex&#8221; in the United States remains a &#8220;huge challenge&#8221; that &#8220;will take years.&#8221;
&#8220;It will take years because there&#8217;s so much money and inertia behind the current bad industrial complex on this,&#8221; Walter added. &#8220;So much of this is state and local, not federal. The federal money is often funding bad state and local things, so it&#8217;s not like the feds have no role or no leverage, But if Portland and Seattle and San Francisco and Los Angeles want to continue to be foolish and hurtful, it will not be easy to change because they are the tip of the spear for dealing with this.&#8221;

Leftist Groups Exploit The Homelessness Crisis To Push ‘Anti-American Ideologies,’ Watchdog Says

Leftist Groups Are Using The Homelessness Crisis To Push 'Anti-American Ideologies': Watchdog

Anti-American

Leftism

Marxism

Trump Administration

WASHINGTON—Building off President Donald Trump&#8217;s executive order targeting crime and disorder on American streets, Senator Tom Cotton is introducing legislation aimed at cleaning up the nation&#8217;s capital.
The Daily Wire can first report that the Arkansas Republican will introduce the Prohibiting Encampments on Public Grounds Act on Tuesday. The bill would make it unlawful to set up, maintain, or establish camps or temporary abodes on public property in Washington, D.C.
“Our nation’s capital should be a point of pride, not littered with homeless encampments that endanger visitors like the thousands of Arkansans who visit each year,&#8221; Cotton told The Daily Wire. &#8220;This bill would clean up D.C.’s public property and allow law enforcement officials to maintain order in the streets of our nation’s capital.&#8221; 
Those who violate the terms of the bill would be fined $500, imprisoned for up to 30 days, or both.
<div id="attachment_953593" style="width: 838px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-tom-cottons-new-bill-supercharges-trumps-efforts-to-make-d-c-safe-again/president-trump-signs-executive-order-urging-cities-to-remove-homeless-off-streets" rel="attachment wp-att-953593"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-953593" class="wp-image-953593 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2227000494-828x576.jpg" alt="" width="828" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2227000494-828x576.jpg 828w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2227000494-300x209.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2227000494-768x534.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2227000494.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 828px) 100vw, 828px" /></a>WASHINGTON, DC &#8211; JULY 25: A person sleeps in Freedom Plaza on July 25, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)</div>
The president&#8217;s executive order, signed July 24, directs the Attorney General to reverse judicial precedents and end consent decrees that are block state and local governments from committing &#8220;individuals on the streets who are a risk to themselves or others.&#8221;
Trump&#8217;s order was aimed at &#8220;making America safe again,&#8221; one of the president&#8217;s major campaign promises. It also requires Attorney General Pam Bondi to work with other administration officials to prioritize grants for both states and municipalities that enforce bans on &#8220;open illicit drug use, urban camping and loitering, and urban squatting, and track the location of sex offenders.&#8221;
The executive order focuses attention on providing both shelter and mental health resources to the homeless, and, in addition to allowing programs to exclusively house women and children — as opposed to men who identify as transgender women — it blocks sex offenders who are receiving homelessness assistance from being housed with children.
The Trump administration has argued that shifting the homeless into long-term institutional settings for humane treatment is the best way to restore public order, pointing to the highest number ever recorded of individuals living on American streets on a single night during the last year of the Biden administration: 274,224.
Most of these individuals are addicted to drugs, have mental health disorders, or both, according to a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/07/ending-crime-and-disorder-on-americas-streets/">fact sheet</a> from the White House, which argues that federal and state governments have spent billions seeking to address homelessness without addressing the root causes.
Asked last week about homeless individuals sleeping outside the gates of the White House, the president responded: &#8220;I think it&#8217;s terrible and we&#8217;ll have them removed immediately.&#8221;
&#8220;We&#8217;ve gotta get the mayor to run this city properly,&#8221; he told reporters.

Donald Trump Meets With Republican Senators At The NRSC

EXCLUSIVE: Tom Cotton’s New Bill Supercharges Trump’s Efforts To Make D.C. Safe Again

Donald Trump

Tom Cotton

Washington

A New Jersey Republican mayor ripped Jon Bon Jovi, saying the singer turned his town into “ground zero for homelessness.”
Toms River Township Mayor Dan Rodrick said a restaurant run by Bon Jovi’s nonprofit JBJ Soul Foundation, is causing more trouble than good, especially after it added a temporary pop-up location at the Ocean County Library, per <a href="https://www.nj.com/ocean/2025/04/nj-mayor-blasts-bon-jovis-soul-kitchen-for-homeless-gathering-near-library.html">NJ.com</a>.
He said the restaurant opening has led to homeless individuals being bused into the area, a move which the mayor claims is causing problems for the local community.
Per the outlet, the temporary restaurant is not a traditional soup kitchen or pay-what-you-can establishment, but instead, they serve three-course meals and allow diners to pay it forward and cover a future meal for anyone who can’t afford it. Patrons who can’t pay are offered the opportunity to volunteer in the community kitchen in exchange for food. 
The pop-up restaurant at the library opened in February and is slated to be shut down in May after its permit was extended from the initial closure date of March 31. The other location is permanent. 
&#8220;We don&#8217;t want to be ground zero for homelessness. We don&#8217;t want to be a dumping ground for the homeless problem in the state of New Jersey. The state of New Jersey needs to step up and take care of this problem. They have the resources, and bussing people in from all over to Toms River is not a safe situation,&#8221; Rodrick told Fox News Digital in an <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/jon-bon-jovi-slammed-turning-nj-town-ground-zero-homeless">interview</a>.
The mayor also noted that many of the homeless people encountered are “from outside the town, outside the county and, in some cases, outside the state of New Jersey.”
Rodrick said he hasn’t spoken to Bon Jovi directly but is frustrated that the restaurant opened in the area, which already has been struggling with its homeless population. Per NJ.com, the municipality does not have a licensed shelter, and last year residents shot down a proposal to build a 17-bed facility on the property of a local church.
&#8220;[Bon Jovi’s] already operating … something in the Silverton section of town. But it was like a restaurant where people go, and they pay for their meal, and they feel good that the money&#8217;s going to be used for something. But this pop-up thing at the library was primarily geared toward making the library, the public library, ground zero for homelessness,&#8221; Rodrick told Fox News.
The mayor also said that the issue began when the Ocean County Board decided to open a warming center, which led to nonprofits &#8220;bussing people into town.&#8221;
&#8220;We wound up with dozens and dozens of people being dropped off downtown every single day at the library no less, where a mom should feel comfortable walking into the library with her daughter and get a book. You shouldn&#8217;t have to walk through gangs of two dozen intoxicated or mentally ill homeless individuals, and that&#8217;s the real issue here,&#8221; he said, noting that there have been several police and EMS calls from the library in recent weeks.
Rodrick also addressed a potential financial incentive for the nonprofits. “These people are being dropped by in our community by agencies pretending to be homeless advocates who get paid by the head to import homeless people into our town from all over the state and the East Coast,” he said, per <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/04/05/us-news/bon-jovi-feuds-with-jersey-shore-mayor-over-eatery-for-the-poor/">The New York Post</a>. “These agencies are making millions of dollars importing homeless. Their plan is not about compassion; it’s about people wanting to profit off the homeless issue.”
In a <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/04/05/us-news/bon-jovi-feuds-with-jersey-shore-mayor-over-eatery-for-the-poor/">statement</a> to the New York Post, Bon Jovi and his wife, Dorothea, who both run the nonprofit, said, &#8220;The JBJ Soul Foundation and JBJ Soul Kitchen are committed to ending homelessness through real solutions. We are not here to just move people around or force them into the shadows. Our Foundation has built nearly a thousand units of affordable and supportive housing.”
&#8220;Through our JBJ Soul Kitchen, we connect people to resources and services. Whether they need employment, mental health support, or housing, we try to remove the barriers that are keeping them from thriving, not just surviving,” it says.

Jon Bon Jovi

NJ GOP Mayor Says Jon Bon Jovi Turned His Town Into ‘Ground Zero’ For Homeless

NJ Mayor Says Jon Bon Jovi Turned His Town Into 'Ground Zero' For Homeless

Celebrities

New Jersey

U.S.

United States

Dawn Robinson, best known for her role in the popular 1990s R&amp;B group En Vogue, recently revealed on YouTube that she is homeless and has been living in her car for three years.
The 58-year-old said in the video clip shared on Tuesday, “You guys, for the past three years, I have been living in my car.” She sighed with apparent relief, adding, “I said it, oh my gosh, it’s out.”
She mentioned that some people had told her not to tell the truth about her living situation. Robinson said they said, “You shouldn’t talk about it because you’re a celebrity and what if they judge you?”
“I’m like ok and what if?” the singer continued. “What if they judge me? So what? We’re all judged. Life is life.”
<iframe loading="lazy" title="YOUR NEW LIFE IS IN THE SCARY 🫣" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/s7MU-2VBN2w?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Robinson went on to explain how it all happened. She told fans she’d been living with her parents in Las Vegas in 2020 but then took her manager’s advice to move to Los Angeles. She stayed with him briefly before moving into a hotel for eight months. 
The En Vogue singer said her manager was the reason she never made the move from the hotel to an apartment, claiming he was “playing games” and coming up with excuses for why the potential rentals she found wouldn’t work out.
“Sometimes &#8230; people want to trap you and keep you in a situation where you’re vulnerable and depending on them,” she said in the YouTube video. “So I got out of there.”
That’s when Robinson started looking into adopting a “car life” instead of renting a traditional apartment. “I felt free,” she said. “I felt like I was on a camping trip. It just felt like it was the right thing to do.”
The singer stressed that her purpose for sharing the video wasn’t to earn pity from fans.
“It’s not ‘Woe is me,'&#8221; Robinson said. “I’m learning about who I am. I’m learning myself as a person, as a woman.&#8221;
&#8220;I miss my family. I miss everybody I was connected to,” she added. “But I needed to do this alone. &#8230; I needed to do this for me.” 
The En Vogue singer said she’s happy with her choices. “I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished out here,” she told viewers.
“Be spontaneous,” Robinson concluded. “Do the scary. F*** fear.”

Dawn Robinson

En Vogue Singer Says She’s Been Living In Her Car For Three Years

En Vogue Singer Admits She's Been Living In Her Car For Three Years

Entertainment

singer

A Louisiana judge paused further efforts by state officials to clear a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/homelessness">homeless</a> encampment in <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/new-orleans">New Orleans</a> ahead of a series of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/taylor-swift">Taylor Swift</a> sold-out concerts over the weekend.
The decision came after city officials began relocating about 75 individuals who were living in tents under an overpass close to Caesars Superdome, where Swift performed. The city expected the shows to lure 150,000 people to the area, which prompted the relocation, per <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/judge-blocks-sweeps-homeless-camp-new-orleans-taylor-swift_n_671e1714e4b03aa5c1cd6761">the Associated Press</a>. Louisiana Republican Governor Jeff Landry ordered the relocation.
Judge Lori Jupiter issued a temporary restraining order on Friday, mandating that officials refrain from relocating individuals without legal proceedings. Her ruling said that residents at the encampment must be informed they can leave freely and prevented state law enforcement from discarding personal belongings without judicial oversight. This order remains in effect until November 4.
The decision came after a lawsuit filed by residents of the encampment argued that state police violated their constitutional rights. They said they had personal items seized and destroyed and were forcibly moved from where they were living. The suit claimed that enforcing officers said, “The governor wants you to move because of the Taylor Swift concert.”
<a href="https://www.amiracist.com/?_gl=1*jtghwp*_gcl_au*ODQ1NjYzNTg2LjE3Mjg5MDk3OTE.*_ga*MTc2NzM0NDQ2NS4xNzI4OTA5Nzkx*_ga_CZKR9ZYKJP*MTczMDEyMDgwOS40OS4xLjE3MzAxMjA4MzkuMzAuMC4w">MATT WALSH’S ‘AM I RACIST?’ NOW STREAMING ON DAILYWIRE+</a>
Governor Landry’s office said the sweep was part of an ongoing campaign to address homelessness and safety in preparation for Swift&#8217;s tour stop and the upcoming Super Bowl in February, which will take place in New Orleans in February 2025. 
The governor’s communications director, Kate Kelly, said, “As we prepare for the city to host Taylor Swift and Super Bowl LIX, we are committed to ensuring New Orleans puts its best foot forward when on the world stage.”
However, advocacy groups argue that the sweep disrupted ongoing efforts to connect the resident homeless population with housing resources and social services.
One nonprofit head who works with the homeless complained about the sweeps. 
“Some people were frightened and left, and that’s not good,” Martha Kegel, executive director of Unity of Greater New Orleans, said. “Because then all the work that we did to assess them and document their disabilities and, you know, work with them on their housing plan has now been wasted.”

Taylor Swift

Judge Blocks Homeless Camp Sweeps Ahead Of Taylor Swift Concerts

Judge Blocks Homeless Camp Sweeps Ahead Of Taylor Swift Concerts In New Orleans

Courts

Louisiana

New Orleans

When Vice President Kamala Harris announced Tim Walz as her running mate, nearly 9 in 10 Americans said they had no opinion of the largely unknown Minnesota Governor.
Within hours of the selection, the legacy media began the task of explaining to the American people how the man they’d scarcely mentioned on their airwaves was actually one of the country’s preeminent Democratic leaders. Viewers were bombarded with breathless coverage of “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/22/arts/television/tim-walz-dnc.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Coach” Walz’s</a> “<a href="https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/tim-walz-has-bde-no-not-that-one-the-psychology-behind-big-dad-energy-125956374.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Big Dad Energy</a>.” There were also glowing reports of the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/02/harris-walz-minnesota-policy-democrats-election.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">progressive utopia</a> he’d built for Minnesotans.
Wanting to see the results of Walz’s time in office for myself, I traveled to Minnesota to hear from the people who have lived under his leadership for the past six years.
The first person I spoke with was Liz Collin, a journalist who’s spent decades covering the state. As she walked us through the mostly empty downtown, with boarded up buildings and open drug use, Collin explained how the city has changed under Walz’s tenure, while taking exception to the media portrayal of the governor.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wEU2QnxhkQA?si=L279xcn8yMFIfcVt" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
“He’s being sold as this moderate ‘aw-shucks’ guy who will give us some dad jokes. But there’s never been a more radical governor — ever — in Minnesota history,” Collin said.
According to Collin, the turning point for the city — and state — came during the Black Lives Matter riots that engulfed Minneapolis and St. Paul following the death of George Floyd.
Those riots, which ultimately damaged or destroyed more than 1,500 properties and caused $500 million in damage to the Twin Cities, went on for more than three days and nights before Governor Walz finally deployed the National Guard.
In the aftermath, Collin says Walz’s anti-police rhetoric fueled a mass exodus from the state’s police force, most notably in Minneapolis, where hundreds of officers resigned or retired. “You have a police force in Minneapolis that’s down about 40% from where it was at the beginning of May of 2020.”
Now, Collin says, the few remaining officers in the city have been hamstrung with new “progressive” policies curtailing their ability to stop crime. Among other things, police in the city have been restricted from pursuing suspects of non-violent crimes, while another “use of force” policy required officers to contact a supervisor before placing a suspect in handcuffs.
“It’s almost as if police officers have become firefighters. Sort of waiting to put out the fire — whereas before there was proactive policing…and there was a respect and a bit of fear for the cops, but that dynamic has certainly changed.”
From 2019 to 2023, the homicide rate in Minneapolis increased by 50%, while the statewide rate jumped 54%.
According to Minneapolis businessman Greg Urban, those rising crime rates — and the lack of a visible police presence — have had devastating consequences for local businesses.
“Big cities have crime, even the best ones. But you also have the perception of crime and the perception of safety, and when you walk out and see police there is a perception of safety,” Urban told me. “In a large entertainment district, which this once was here in Minneapolis, you need that perception…there’s not that sense of vibrancy that there once was.”
<iframe loading="lazy" title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JpeezjwK_OA?si=vnKHkbTwCcbZXwRO" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
Urban, who once owned the popular Greg’s Saloon in the heart of the city, was forced to close his business due to rising crime and oppressive lockdown policies enacted by Governor Walz during the COVID pandemic.
Speaking outside of the now vacant building where his business once operated, Urban recounted fines he was forced to pay for trying to keep his saloon open, and lamented the “COVID snitch line” Walz opened, which allowed Minnesotans to report neighbors and local businesses violating stay at home orders.
“Tim Walz set up a snitch line, to where if you saw a COVID violation you could call in, he would dispatch his COVID police that he had set up. … There’s instances where Tim Walz put people in jail for as much as 90 days for violating one of his orders. He wasn’t messing around with this, he wanted this state locked down so tight, he would use his jails to do that.”
“This part of the city used to be packed,” Urban said, as we walked past another empty building, this one with the words “Black Lives Matter” spray painted on weathered plywood covering broken windows.
Today, rather than customers waiting outside of Greg’s Saloon, the only Minnesotans to be seen on the block are a pair of homeless men, one on his hands and knees digging for cigarette butts in a crack in the sidewalk.
An hour later, I’m three miles south of downtown, standing in a homeless encampment that’s taken over a vacant lot in a middle class residential neighborhood.
Walking up the street, I see three disheveled men slumped against a neighbor’s fence, looking like they might collapse at any moment, as others around them openly pass around needles and lighters.
The night before, neighbors told me paramedics had been on the scene to treat an overdose victim — a now common occurrence in the neighborhood. Days after my visit, I learned a 33-year-old man was gunned down during a fight in the encampment.
I meet Arne — who asked that I not use his last name — the man who owns the once vacant, now full lot, and has been trying unsuccessfully to build a new home there.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0AFN1qGJvKY?si=BjvvZq0XaODKSb3q" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
Arne says he’s called the police repeatedly asking them to clear out the encampment, but has been told “there’s not much they can do.” Today, he’s come to the property armed with “No Trespassing” signs, hoping it will give law enforcement more power to remove the unwelcome residents.
According to Arne, since Governor Walz took office, police in the city have been rendered helpless in removing squatters and clearing out homeless encampments from private property like his.
As we speak, a half dozen masked individuals emerge from a car parked across the street. They make their way towards where we’re standing and form a line inches away from us, glaring at our crew.
“They’re trying to intimidate us, and that’s what they do,” Arne says. “You don’t get to just intimidate people like that. I talked to a lot of people and they were all too scared to come on camera. I’m not scared. I’m not going to be silenced … I’m speaking up for everyone else who is too scared to speak up.”
Next, I drive a few blocks down the street to the spot of George Floyd’s death — passing the burnt-out shell of what was once the Minneapolis 3rd Precinct Police Headquarters. Four years after the BLM riots that ravaged the city, the four-story building sits empty and boarded up, with bullet holes still visible in its exterior.
Arriving at George Floyd Square, I’m greeted by the charred remains of a gas station that once stood across the street from the convenience store where Floyd died.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/g-16tTpALMY?si=DgcP_JphYqodFcjf" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
“Power To The People” and “Black Power” inscriptions emblazon the walls of the numerous vacant buildings surrounding the memorial to Floyd, which spans half a block.
Thousands of candles, flowers, and other mementos have been arranged on the sidewalk by activists making the pilgrimage to Floyd Square. Every few minutes, a new group of mourners arrives — some with tears in their eyes — pausing for a moment of silence, snapping photos, and lighting candles.
My final stop takes me to ‘Little Mogadishu,’ a portion of East Minneapolis home to roughly 50,000 Somali immigrants – one of the largest concentrations of Somalis anywhere in the Western world.
Little Mogadishu has long been plagued with elevated crime rates and poverty, but in recent years, has become home to one of the largest fraud operations in American history.
During the COVID pandemic, a number of Somali immigrants in Minneapolis operated Feeding Our Future, a fraudulent nonprofit that received more than $250 million from the Minnesota Department of Education’s administration of Federal Child Nutrition Programs.
Rather than providing meals for children, however, the non-profit redirected millions in taxpayer funds to dozens of individuals throughout the city. That money was used to purchase cars and homes – and according to David Gaither, a longtime Minnesota businessman and state legislator, fund terrorism in Somalia.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tDTCJmTdXc8?si=B15rlLJNGU0sx_jN" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
“The largest single funder of Al-Shabab, the terrorist organization in Somalia, are the Minnesota taxpayers,” Gaither told me.
“The money that is taken in that fraud doesn’t stay here. Millions of dollars per month in cash are sent out the Minneapolis airport…It goes East, and it ends up in people’s hands that will do mischief and bad things to the United States.”
According to Gaither, Governor Walz was warned of fraud in the system, but failed to investigate the phony non-profit before hundreds of millions of dollars had been disbursed.
Now, Walz is being subpoenaed by the House Education and Workforce Committee for records related to the scheme.
As I prepare to leave Minneapolis, I talk with Scott, a lifelong Minnesotan with a message to Americans still curious about Walz.
“He gives the impression that he’s this moderate folksy leader. He is extreme in almost every respect. He fooled a lot of Minnesotans in the last two elections, we can’t let him fool the rest of the country.”

Democratic Vice Presidential Nominee Tim Walz Prepares To Depart For Philadelphia

Menu