Trumpy L.A. mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt has been made to squirm live on air over his conspiracy theory beliefs.
The former The Hills villain, 42, already a long shot for November, will not have improved his chances of victory after being grilled by CNN’s Jake Tapper on Thursday over his claims that 9/11 was an inside job.
Tapper’s researchers on The Lead found a clip from 2009, where Pratt appeared on right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’s Infowars, saying that, from Jones’s research, he then thought 9/11 was “100 percent” an inside job.
Tapper then asked him if he still thought that, which sent Pratt off on a bizarre ramble about the failings of people in power.
“The reality is people in charge fail us as taxpayers, and when you’re listening to that audio, that’s a 21, 22-year-old person.
“I’m now 42 and have experienced city negligence, state negligence, and I’ve learned a lot about it. It’s actually worse than a conspiracy. It’s that we have people in charge that make mistakes that get people killed.”
Tapper later pointed out that he would have actually been 26 at the time the Infowars segment was recorded.
“So unfortunately, you know, I was young and naive to understanding how there are people that will fail citizens across the board. I would have to go back and look at all that.
“I haven’t watched any of those things in 20 years or whatever, but I bet now with my fresh eyes of surviving the city’s negligence that burned 12 people in my neighborhood alive, 7,000 structures, and seeing how fast the internet said that was a conspiracy and how I had to be like, no, this is how it happened, this, this and this—now with new, fresh eyes, I’m sure I would look at that a lot different.”
Tapper then quizzed him on whether he now accepted that 9/11 was an act of terror, to which Pratt responded, “Again, what I’m saying is I believe a lot of people failed to allow the al Qaeda terrorists to get in. So I think the negligence in government allowed, not on purpose, but just failures.”
Pratt and his reality star wife, Heidi Montag, lost their home in the Pacific Palisades fire in 2025, which he then referenced in tangential ramblings that flitted between more alleged government negligence, hummingbirds, and the MAGA trope about not being a career politician.
“They didn’t burn my house down on purpose; they just failed. And again, everything I’ve done in the past, I was learning. I’m not perfect. I didn’t run to be mayor because I was some perfect pass. I ran because there was no other fighter to stop corruption now. I was happy just living my life, feeding hummingbirds with my two kids, taking them to school.
“I didn’t have this life to become one of these career politicians, where I didn’t make mistakes, I wasn’t human, I didn’t say dumb or stupid things for 20 years in a very public light. So, you know, regret, of course, I have 20 years of regret.
“I’ve talked about how many regrets, but that doesn’t connect to my mission now. Once you lose everything, once your parents lose everything, once your neighbors everything, you become a new person.”
In May, CNN’s data guru Harry Enten acknowledged that Pratt was a long shot, but not by as much as first thought.
“It’s up like a rocket,” Enten said on Tuesday about Pratt’s odds. “Look, chances are he still won’t be the next mayor of Los Angeles, but there’s a pretty decent chance of it. It’s now up over a quarter of a 27 percent chance. So those who dismiss Pratt’s chances, well, you’ve got another thing coming because he’s got a realistic shot of winning this thing.”
Pratt is running on a ticket based on ending homelessness, but thinks that many people choose to live on the streets.
Speaking to ABC7 he said, “There is places for all of these people to sleep in L.A.… No matter what anybody tells you, we have housing and shelter for everyone living on the street.
“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.”
Pratt has come to the attention of President Donald Trump, who has called him “a big MAGA person” and said he heard that he’s “doing well.”
He also claims to have the backing of two of Hollywood’s biggest stars, telling Us Weekly that Leonardo DiCaprio and Jamie Foxx begged him to clean up the city, saying, “Please, Mr. Mayor, we want these streets safe again.”
