Following last week’s mayoral debate in Los Angeles, right-wing media have praised candidate Spencer Pratt, a Republican, as a “star” and a “political colonoscopy for California politics.” Some even compared Pratt to Trump as a reality TV personality-turned-politician. Pratt is running against Democrat incumbent Karen Bass and LA city council member Nithya Raman.
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The right-wing media machine lines up behind reality TV’s Spencer Pratt for Los Angeles mayor
Written by Jack Winstanley & Gideon Taaffe
Published
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Former reality TV personality Spencer Pratt is campaigning to become Los Angeles’ next mayor
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- Former reality TV personality Spencer Pratt, a Republican, is running for mayor of Los Angeles against Karen Bass and Nithya Raman, both Democrats. Pratt made headlines after blaming Mayor Karen Bass for the loss of his house in the Palisades fires. [Los Angeles Times, 5/6/26]
- According to the Los Angeles Times, Pratt “mostly succeeded” in the LA mayoral debate. The Times claimed, “As a TV personality-turned-influencer, Pratt knows that storytelling is far more effective than drowning the audience in statistics, as Bass and Raman did.” [Los Angeles Times, 5/6/26]
- Pratt was previously known as the “resident villain” on MTV’s The Hills. Pratt has commented on his past on TV, saying, “People know when I was a reality villain, I was doing it to get paid. It was strategic. I was working with producers.” [CBS News, 5/8/26]
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Right-wing media have heaped praise on Pratt, framing him as a “star” and “exactly what Los Angeles needs”
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- Fox News host Sean Hannity praised Pratt, saying, “Los Angeles, wake up. Spencer Pratt would be a breath of fresh air.” [Fox News, Hannity, 5/7/26]
- Fox News host Jesse Watters claimed, “You get this charismatic common sense populist with the reality TV background, and he comes in and he just shoots from the hip.” He added, “And you can kind of see his blood boiling because he's face-to-face with these politicians who burned his house down and destroyed his city.” [Fox News, The Five, 5/7/26]
- Watters commented, “We've seen this before. Reality star-turned-politician, common sense, charisma, no script, just saying it straight, running against the establishment.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 5/7/26]
- Fox News host Laura Ingraham claimed, “Spencer Pratt, the Republican, appealed to” regular Americans “with his own common sense responses.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 5/7/26]
- Fox News host Will Cain praised Pratt’s performance in the LA mayoral debate, saying, “All night Pratt was direct, blunt. Perhaps other Republicans should take a note of his firebrand energy as we head into the midterms.” He added, “There are a lot of Republicans who try to be blunt. This is actually just very authentic. And I've met the man, but this is authentic to who he is, Spencer Pratt.” [Fox News, The Will Cain Show, 5/7/26]
- Fox & Friends co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy praised Pratt’s debate performance, saying, “He really knocked this out of the park.” Campos-Duffy, whose husband is a reality TV personality-turned-Trump official, added, “I'm very partial to politicians coming out of reality television. I think it's worked out pretty well.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 5/7/26; CNN, 5/9/26]
- Fox News host Kayleigh McEnany told congressional Republicans to “wake up” and “become Spencer Pratt.” Co-host Emily Compagno said, “Many residents are grateful they finally have an advocate in Spencer Pratt.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 5/7/26]
- SiriusXM host Megyn Kelly reacted to the LA mayoral debate, saying Pratt was a “star.” Kelly added, “I am totally behind Spencer Pratt here after listening to him last night.” [SiriusXM, The Megyn Kelly Show, 5/7/26]
- Outkick founder Clay Travis praised Pratt, saying, “The villain from The Hills is the only person sane enough to be able to run this city.” He continued, “I think he's comfortable being the villain that Los Angeles needs because he's saying in particular what most men in Los Angeles and a lot of moms think, which is the city is broken.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 5/7/26]
- Fox News host Tomi Lahren said Pratt is “exactly what Los Angeles needs.” She added, “Whether it's protecting your citizens from wildfires or protecting them from homeless drug-addicted zombies, you need somebody like Spencer Pratt.” [Fox News, Hannity, 5/7/26]
- On Jesse Watters Primetime, radio host and former NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch praised Pratt, saying, “I love the way Spencer Pratt is running his campaign.” She continued: “The ads are phenomenal. He's completely unafraid. And whenever anybody tries to go up against him, especially, and measure their career 20 years ago to his in reality television, it ends up backfiring on them pretty horribly.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 5/4/26]
- On America’s Newsroom, frequent Fox News guest and podcaster Rich Zeoli claimed, “Spencer Pratt is reaching people and connecting with them.” Zeoli: “Karen Bass is very, very worried because Spencer Pratt is reaching people and connecting with them. Moms, too. … He did this great thing at a playground the other day and he says to these moms, Women and children first.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 5/5/26]
- Podcast host Dan Bongino praised Pratt for being “the greatest political colonoscopy for California politics we’ve seen in a long time.” Bongino also celebrated Pratt’s debate performance against Bass and Raman: “Watching this guy with no political background at all, just like when Trump came in, shred these two idiots on the stage who've been in politics basically most of their adult life is just glorious.” [Rumble, The Dan Bongino Show, 5/7/26]
- Bongino also compared Pratt's campaign to Trump's first presidential campaign, saying, “It reminds me of Trump 2016.” He explained, “The renegade tactics. It just does. It’s just like, move fast and break stuff.” [Rumble, The Dan Bongino Show, 5/6/26]
- The Free Press claimed that the tactics he used to gain notoriety as a reality TV villain help him with “telling the truth” on “a larger scale than ever before” in a piece titled “Everything is reality TV.” The Free Press celebrated Pratt’s reality TV bona fides, writing, “But if you looked more closely, you realized something much deeper: Pratt wasn’t the villain at all. And his true purpose wasn’t really to antagonize his castmates; it was much grander and more instructive. He was bucking the rules of the show itself. Spencer Pratt got something right about contemporary American culture about 20 years before the rest of us did: that it was all fake, rigged, and incredibly dumb.” [The Free Press, 4/30/26]
- On his Substack, Manhattan Institute senior fellow Chris Rufo suggested that Pratt has “charisma, a compelling story, and credibility,” when compared to his opponents. Rufo also stated that Pratt’s “idealism and righteous anger must compete with the ugly, raw political calculus of people like Bass and Rahman, who — at least this is the sense I get — actually don’t care about what happened in the Palisades.” [Substack, 5/8/26, 5/9/26]
- Podcaster Vince Coglianese said Pratt is “on another level,” called his campaign “downright heroic,” a “breath of fresh air,” and declared, “I'm not in LA, but he’s got my vote.” He also called Pratt a “freaking hero,” adding, “The reason he’s a hero is because he’s had to live with the consequences of the left’s actions.” [Rumble, Vince, 5/7/26]
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Some right-leaning podcasts and streamers have also celebrated Pratt’s campaign
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- Right-wing streamer Asmongold posted a video titled “Spencer Pratt is a f*cking legend.” In the video Asmongold said, “See, the country used to be made up of a mosaic of these guys that improved the country. Then they made things run the right way.” [YouTube, Asmongold TV, 5/9/26, 5/9/26]
- Podcaster Joe Rogan interviewed Pratt in April, telling him, “I really, really hope you win. It'll be fun. It'll be fun to watch you shake it up.” Rogan added, “Boy, if you could really change Los Angeles and turn it around, I mean, that would be absolutely fantastic. It would be a great story. It would be really amazing. And it would give hope to a lot of other cities that are experiencing similar situations where I think a lot of other people would follow your path.” [YouTube, The Joe Rogan Experience, 4/15/26]
- Hosts of the All-In Podcast praised Pratt’s campaign ads with entrepreneur Brad Gerstner saying Pratt winning is a “nonconsensus view that I'm becoming increasingly optimistic about.” [YouTube, All-In Podcast, 5/8/26]