Jason Collins, the NBA’s first active, openly gay player, has passed away from brain cancer. He was 47. Collins, who served as a global ambassador for the sport for the past decade, told ESPN in November that he had been diagnosed with Stage 4 glioblastoma. According to the outlet, he received experimental treatments in Singapore this past winter that weren’t yet authorized in the United States. Collins’ cancer returned recently, and he died peacefully at his Los Angeles home surrounded by his family. “We are heartbroken to share that Jason Collins, our beloved husband, son, brother and uncle, has died after a valiant fight with glioblastoma,” his family said in a statement released through the NBA. “Jason changed lives in unexpected ways and was an inspiration to all who knew him and to those who admired him from afar. We are grateful for the outpouring of love and prayers over the past eight months and for the exceptional medical care Jason received from his doctors and nurses. Our family will miss him dearly,” the statement continued. 13-year NBA veteran Jason Collins has died at 47 years old after a battle with Stage 4 glioblastoma. Collins was the first active, openly gay player in NBA history. RIP. — Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) May 12, 2026 ESPN shared further: Collins retired in 2014 after a 13-year career that included stops with the New Jersey Nets, Memphis, Minnesota, Atlanta, Boston, Washington and a return to the Nets after they moved to Brooklyn. He announced he was gay in a 2013 Sports Illustrated cover story, becoming the first publicly gay athlete to play in any of the four main North American sports leagues. “When I chose to come out, there was no scandal or anything,” Collins told ESPN in November. “This was like, I feel that I am good enough to play in the NBA and by the way, I’m gay. Just so everyone knows cards on the table, this is where I am. “Thankfully the Nets were the one team that gave me a tryout.” Collins played 22 games for the Nets during that 2013-14 season, alongside teammates Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Brook Lopez and Joe Johnson. The coach of that team was Jason Kidd, whom Collins had played with as teammates on the New Jersey Nets team that made the NBA Finals in 2002-03. “Jason Collins’ impact and influence extended far beyond basketball as he helped make the NBA, WNBA and larger sports community more inclusive and welcoming for future generations. He exemplified outstanding leadership and professionalism throughout his 13-year NBA career and in his dedicated work as an NBA Cares Ambassador. Jason will be remembered not only for breaking barriers, but also for the kindness and humanity that defined his life and touched so many others,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement. “On behalf of the NBA, I send my heartfelt condolences to Jason’s husband, Brunson, and his family, friends and colleagues across our leagues,” he added. “This one hurts. Jason Collins was a pioneer. He had courage like you’ve never seen. He was an incredible teammate. And having him in Brooklyn at the start of my coaching journey meant so much. Those who knew him were blessed to call him a friend. You are already missed my brother. Rest in power,” Jason Kidd said. This one hurts. Jason Collins was a pioneer. He had courage like you've never seen. He was an incredible teammate. And having him in Brooklyn at the start of my coaching journey meant so much. Those who knew him were blessed to call him a friend. You are already missed my… pic.twitter.com/gG2jWoGRIF — Jason Kidd (@RealJasonKidd) May 12, 2026 More from The New York Times: In the essay, Collins said he was spurred to speak publicly after his former Stanford University roommate, Joe Kennedy, a congressman from Massachusetts at the time, marched in a Pride parade in Boston. “I’m seldom jealous of others, but hearing what Joe had done filled me with envy,” Collins wrote. “I was proud of him for participating but angry that as a closeted gay man I couldn’t even cheer my straight friend on as a spectator.” Collins was a free agent when he wrote the essay, and there was an open question about whether it would end his career. Though the gay rights movement had made significant strides, gay marriage would not be made legal nationwide until 2015 and American men’s professional sports had not historically been welcoming to gay athletes. But Collins received considerable support from celebrities and sports figures. He took a phone call from President Barack Obama and was invited to attend the 2014 State of the Union address as a guest of Michelle Obama, the first lady. He was appointed to serve on the president’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition. The praise wasn’t universal. “All these beautiful women in the world and guys wanna mess with other guys SMH…” the Miami Dolphins wide receiver Mike Wallace wrote on Twitter, using shorthand for “shaking my head.” He later apologized. But the largely positive response from other N.B.A. figures showed how views about gay people had shifted. The Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant, who was fined by the N.B.A. in 2011 for directing an anti-gay slur at a referee, posted a message of support for Collins on social media: “Proud of @jasoncollins34. Don’t suffocate who u r because of the ignorance of others.”

A career CIA operations officer sat before the Senate on Wednesday and accused Dr. Anthony Fauci, under oath, of intentionally influencing the intelligence community’s investigation into the origins of COVID-19. James E. Erdman III, a 20-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency, was the sole witness at the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing chaired by Senator Rand Paul. The hearing was titled “Whistleblower Testimony on the COVID Coverup” and took place in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on May 13, 2026. His testimony was direct: Erdman alleged that Fauci’s role in the COVID origins cover-up was not an accident. He called it intentional. BREAKING: "Dr. Fauci's role in the cover-up was intentional." CIA whistleblower James Erdman III lays out the "cover-up" of the COVID pandemic, claiming scientists and analysts were skewed from the start, all stemming from Dr. Anthony Fauci. "Public health policy would have… pic.twitter.com/1G6JJSXyi2 — Fox News (@FoxNews) May 13, 2026 According to Erdman’s sworn testimony, CIA scientific analysts repeatedly concluded that a laboratory leak was the most likely origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, but those conclusions were buried, softened, or withheld from Congress and the American public. The Senate Homeland Security Committee released Senator Paul’s opening statement framing the stakes of the hearing: Paul told the committee it would hear testimony that CIA scientific analysts had concluded a lab leak was the most likely origin of COVID-19 but that those findings were buried, softened, or withheld from Congress. He described a web of outside scientific advisers spanning NIH, CIA, ODNI, and the National Academies, arguing that a panel known as the Biological Sciences Experts Group was compromised because some of its members had ties to Wuhan-related gain-of-function research. Paul placed Fauci at the center of the government side of that circle, saying documents show Fauci was brought into national-security discussions and reviewed highly classified intelligence assessments on COVID origins, all while having approved the very funding tied to the research questions under investigation. The chairman argued that Congress and the American public were denied a full accounting of what the intelligence community actually found. Erdman did not hold back. According to the Washington Examiner, his testimony laid out how Fauci allegedly used his position to steer the intelligence community toward a natural-origin narrative: James Erdman, identified as a two-decade CIA veteran and career operations officer, told the Senate committee that Fauci was involved in shaping the intelligence community’s COVID origins report toward a natural-origin conclusion rather than the lab-leak finding its own analysts had reached. Erdman alleged that Fauci influenced the analytic process by leveraging his position to ensure the intelligence community consulted a curated list of subject-matter experts and public-health officials who were themselves conflicted on the question. Erdman went further, testifying that he believed American public-health policy would have been different if the public had been told a lab-origin virus was being used as the foundation for emergency-use mRNA products mandated by the former administration. The Washington Examiner also reported that CIA spokeswoman Liz Lyons responded to the hearing by accusing Paul’s committee of acting in bad faith, calling the proceeding “political theater,” while simultaneously acknowledging that the CIA has already assessed COVID-19 most likely originated from a lab leak. Fauci has previously denied accusations that he lied about NIH funding related to Wuhan Institute of Virology research and has argued that the work in question did not meet the threshold for gain-of-function research. Think about the CIA’s response for a moment. The agency attacked the hearing as political theater while admitting its own assessment now points to a lab leak. If the lab-leak conclusion was right all along, the obvious question is why it was suppressed for years and who was responsible for suppressing it. That is exactly what Erdman came to answer. Perhaps the most revealing detail of the day had nothing to do with testimony. Not a single Democrat on the committee showed up. @RandPaul's office to me: "No Democrats showed. They don’t care to dismantle the deep state." Not a single Democrats attended the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee where a CIA whistleblower testified on the COVID coverup. @DailyCaller pic.twitter.com/wfRoDBT5Ih — Nicole Silverio (@NicoleMSilverio) May 13, 2026 The Daily Caller confirmed the absence: Daily Caller reporter Nicole Silverio reported that Democrats did not attend the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing where CIA employee James E. Erdman III testified about Fauci’s alleged role in covering up COVID origins. The report framed the absence as a striking political moment because the hearing was not a routine messaging session; it centered on sworn testimony from an active CIA officer about whether intelligence findings on the pandemic’s origin were softened or suppressed before Congress and the public received them. Silverio also posted that Senator Paul’s office responded to the empty seats by saying Democrats did not show and did not care to dismantle the deep state. That is an attributed political charge, not a proven motive, but the optics were hard to miss. A witness was describing an alleged multi-agency failure around a pandemic that reshaped the country, and the minority side was not there to cross-examine him, challenge his claims, defend Fauci, or demand the declassified records that could settle the question publicly. For years, Democrats told the country that questions about a lab leak were conspiracy theories, misinformation, and even racist. Now that a CIA officer is saying under oath that the lab-leak conclusion was real and was intentionally buried, the same party that demanded “follow the science” will not even show up to hear the science. After the hearing, Senator Paul spoke about where the investigation goes from here, including whether the evidence could lead to criminal exposure for Fauci. COVID coverup back in the spotlight—@RandPaul joins @ScottJenningsKY after explosive testimony from a CIA whistleblower and shares how it could expose Anthony Fauci to possible criminal charges. pic.twitter.com/ozlxSYQtbS — Scott Jennings Show (@JenningsShow) May 13, 2026 Fauci has consistently denied wrongdoing, maintaining that NIH-funded research tied to the Wuhan Institute of Virology did not constitute gain-of-function work and that he did not mislead Congress. Those denials now sit beside sworn testimony from a career intelligence officer with two decades inside the CIA. The American people spent years being told to trust the experts. On Wednesday, a career intelligence officer put a very different account on the record under oath. The question now is whether Congress and the Justice Department will follow that record wherever it leads.

According to a report by Fortune, nearly 50,000 residents in the Lake Tahoe area are unsure where their power will come from after next ski season. “The Sierra Nevada tourist hub—home to ski resorts, lakeside casinos, and roughly 25 to 28 million annual visitors—is facing an energy crisis with a familiar culprit: the data centers powering the AI boom,” the outlet reports. “Nearly 50,000 people in the Lake Tahoe area have been told that their utility will stop providing power to them, because it’s redirecting that power to data centers,” More Perfect Union wrote. “NV Energy, the Nevada utility that has supplied most of Lake Tahoe’s electricity for decades, says that next year it will stop servicing homes in the area, and instead direct that electricity to the growing demand from Nevada data centers. Northern Nevada is one of the fastest-growing data-center corridors in the country,” it continued. NV Energy reportedly told Liberty Utilities, a small California company that services the region, that it will stop providing power after May 2027. Nearly 50,000 people in the Lake Tahoe area have been told that their utility will stop providing power to them, because it's redirecting that power to data centers. NV Energy, the Nevada utility that has supplied most of Lake Tahoe’s electricity for decades, says that next year… — More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) May 13, 2026 Fortune explained further: Google, Apple, and Microsoft have either built or are planning facilities around the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center east of Reno. The Desert Research Institute, using data from NV Energy’s 2024 Integrated Resource Plan, found that the 12 data center projects located overwhelmingly in Northern Nevada could drive 5,900 megawatts of new demand by 2033. At a regional business event last fall, NV Energy’s director of business development called the moment “unprecedented,” saying the company was eager to serve the new industrial load but that it would not “impact our existing customer base.” But Liberty’s 49,000 California customers may already be bearing the cost. Liberty Utilities generates about 25% of its power from solar facilities it owns in Nevada. The other 75% comes from NV Energy, and that source will no longer be supplied to the region by this time next year. “It’s like we don’t exist,” Danielle Hughes told Fortune. Hughes is a North Lake Tahoe resident, CEO of the nonprofit Tahoe Spark, and a supervisor within the California Energy Commission’s Efficiency Division. NV Energy said it wouldn’t be able to continue its arrangement with Liberty Utilities because of its “own resource needs.” “Our absolute goal is twofold: We want to achieve our renewable requirements in the state, and we also want it to be as affordable as possible,” said Eric Schwarzrock, president of Liberty, according to CalMatters. Liberty will most likely have to replace the energy from sources outside of California. CalMatters explained: Liberty is not physically connected to California’s energy market, which serves the state’s other electric utilities. Instead, its transmission lines come from Nevada. Liberty’s deadline for replacement power is tied to a major transmission project – Greenlink Nevada – that NV Energy is finishing; when that is complete, NV Energy will stop providing Liberty power, but Liberty will gain the rights to use that transmission infrastructure to reach other sources of replacement energy. In a statement, NV Energy said it is “aware of Liberty Utilities’ advice letter to California regulators and is currently reviewing it.” Data centers have driven requests to triple the company’s peak capacity, NV Energy’s director of business development said at a regional business event in September, as first reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “These are unprecedented times,” he said during a panel discussion of the centers, adding, “we are excited to serve this load” but “we cannot impact our existing customer base.” Liberty’s letter to the California Public Utilities Commission about the change also sought approval to undertake a process for replacing the power and how it would rank proposals it receives, namely seeking the lowest-cost power. Once the commission approves its requests, commission spokesperson Terrie Prosper said, Liberty would choose its new energy supplier and seek approval from the regulator on the final contract.

Yesterday, I brought you a report on Spencer Pratt and his campaign to dethrone Karen Bass from LA Mayor. That full report is here in case you missed it: SPENCER PRATT: A Star Is Born, As Reality TV Star Draws Strong Trump Comparisons In LA Race In that report, I pointed out how many similarities there are between Donald Trump and his historic campaigns and Spencer Pratt. Today the similarities continue. One of the most interesting and different things about Donald Trump’s 2015 campaign and continuing to this day was the fact that he was “Teflon Don”. Attacks that would take anyone else down just seemed to bounce right off him, almost like there was some sort of divine hedge of protection around him. And not only would the attacks bounce off of him, but they would often boomerang back around to the person who launched them, taking the attacker down instead. It happened so frequently that we even gave it a name: The Trump Boomerang Effect. “Teflon Pratt” doesn’t quite roll of the tongue the same way as Teflon Don, but today we got another example of an attack on Pratt just bouncing off him like an annoying little gnat. TMZ put out a hit piece earlier this morning claiming that Pratt was staying in the Hotel Bel Air and not in his airstream trailer as is shown in his viral ad. I’m sure someone over there thought this would finally be the thing that took down Spencer Pratt, but guess what? It didn’t. Pratt swatted it away like an annoying little gnat, immediately flipping it into asking why he needs a hotel in the first place. ANSWER: because LA let his house burn down with no water in the reserves while Karen Bass was on a pandering trip in Africa for some unknown reason and now 2 1/2 years later he’s still not allowed to rebuild. Hey guys, why don’t they wanna talk about why I need a hotel in the first place? Karen Bass let my home burn down. Also 6,000 of my neighbors. NBD. https://t.co/mj1QMW1NZr — Spencer Pratt (@spencerpratt) May 13, 2026 Brilliant answer. And just like Trump, it’s not some PR firm handling his account. It’s him. Real. Authentic. Maybe not perfectly polished all the time and maybe not a perfectly pristine past, but real and authentic.  And that matters more than anything else. RELATED REPORT: SPENCER PRATT: A Star Is Born, As Reality TV Star Draws Strong Trump Comparisons In LA Race We typically focus on national politics around here, but I have to pause and cover Spencer Pratt for a moment. Because this guy is awesome! There will never be another Donald J. Trump, but Spencer Pratt is giving off strong DJT vibes as he goes head-to-head with Karen Bass in the LA Mayor race. The similarities are becoming hard to ignore… An extremely media-savvy political outsider who rose to fame on a hugely successful reality TV show comes out of nowhere with no political experience of any kind and quickly rises up the ranks, challenging the establishment…and winning! Pratt is still down in the polls to Mayor Bass as of press time for this article, but at this point it would actually surprise me most if he DOESN’T win this election. I never watched “The Hills” and from what I understand Pratt was kind of the bad boy of that show, the black hat of the show, and again the parallels are inescapable when compared to Donald J. Trump.  Both portrayed as the black hats, both bulls in a China shop, but truth be told both with hearts of gold?  That’s my read. This ad is absolutely going viral right now, everyone is talking about it: They not like us pic.twitter.com/78hducHDUE — Spencer Pratt (@spencerpratt) April 29, 2026 So good!! See what I mean? This guy and his team have all the energy and aura. Not a politician. Not an insider. A guy who is pissed off Los Angeles let his house burn down and then still won’t let him rebuild 2 years later, to say nothing of all the people who were BURNED ALIVE in those fires! Enough is enough! Another killer ad here: Who said Karen Bass has no accomplishments to run on Vote Spencer Pratt. pic.twitter.com/vEEkpoOeR0 — Charles Curran (@charliebcurran) May 12, 2026 And one more here: Whoever Spencer Pratt has putting together his commercials, every Republican running for office in the midterms needs to hire them today! Here's another banger! pic.twitter.com/5iEkl7yKI1 — Vince Langman (@LangmanVince) May 8, 2026 He’s also great in debates, just calling it out and shooting from the hip like a normal guy: This is the moment he may have just locked up the win. pic.twitter.com/BTLP0gPuCL — TaraBull (@TaraBull) May 8, 2026 He also just recorded a fantastic new interview with David Friedberg over on the ALL IN podcast. Let me show you a few clips and I think you’ll see what I mean: BOOM! LA mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt just dropped a nuclear bomb on City Hall. He says he’s already spoken to the Department of Justice and city officials are “ABOUT TO GO DOWN” for massive NGO fraud. Insiders at City Hall told him they’re frantically shredding documents… pic.twitter.com/edSFDbshlT — Gunther Eagleman (@GuntherEagleman) May 11, 2026 This might have been my favorite clip: NEW: Spencer Pratt says he will be implementing a three-week 'grace period' in Los Angeles before he unleashes on criminals. Pratt says he will also be bringing in the CDC to combat the "medieval diseases" his city has. "My plan is: First three weeks, signs up across the city.… pic.twitter.com/eKqMMQRtQv — Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) May 10, 2026 Remind you of anyone? And as always, it’s almost like all of this was scripted from the beginning. Check out this clip from the 2012 Comedy Central Roast of Donald Trump where Trump and Pratt are combined together in one joke: From the 2012 roast of Donald J Trump. Spencer Pratt was meant to be. pic.twitter.com/sJamt0biec — Negen Eleven (@Negen_11) May 12, 2026 Flash-forward 14 years and these two guys may single-handedly save Los Angeles and the United States. Seriously, what are the odds? Look, I don’t know if this guy has what it takes to be President some day, but I do think he has exactly what it takes to be the best Mayor Los Angeles has ever seen.  Historic turnaround. If you want to watch the full interview from the ALL IN pod, it’s right here and really good: FULL TRANSCRIPT: Spencer Pratt: Spencer Pratt, welcome to the All-In podcast. Thank you for having me. You had an unbelievable debate performance the other night. I have so many friends that were texting and people obviously were tweeting about it. Let’s start with that. How are you feeling after the debate? I just wish it had been like 2 hours or 3 hours because the list of their failures that we didn’t even get to touch on, it’s unbelievable. So, it was the most fun I’ve had in years because what people don’t realize is they’re pathological liars. So when somebody gets to be on the stage with only facts and the truth, that’s why there’s this incredible response to because everybody that always watches these lying politicians, they know they’re lying and nobody gets to yell, “They’re lying.” But it was very hard to be respectful because all the lovely Democrat moms that love me, that want to keep supporting me, they asked me to please stay calm, cool, and collected. So the whole time I was doing my best behavior to not interrupt the lying, which if I hadn’t been tasked with that mission, I would have been like, “Liar, liar.” Interviewer: A lot of people said they weren’t expecting such a great performance. Like you were so well prepped, so well versed on a lot of the facts on the actions you were going to take. How did you get ready for the debate? Did you do work to get after this? Spencer Pratt: Well, thankfully people argue with me all day long in every single media hit that I’ve done for months because they don’t want me to get into the machine. So, every interview I do, unlike these politicians, it’s opposition. It’s arguing, arguing, arguing. When these, you know, Mayor Bass or Councilwoman Raman talk to the media, they can just lie and then the media people go, “Oh, thank you. Thank you, Mayor Bass. Thank you, Councilman.” If I say anything, I got to have who was there, what they were wearing, what they had for breakfast. I have to have my information so fact-based and be bulletproof to beat this machine that it’s I debate. All I do is debate people all day long. Interviewer: You’re held to a higher standard. Spencer Pratt: Exactly. Challenged all day and all I live in is facts and the truth. And so I called my lawyer who’s representing me in the case against the city and the state and LADWP, one of the most famous lawyers in the world. I said, “Peter, how do you stay so calm when you’re arguing with these liars?” And he said, “Spencer, I always have the truth.” I was like, “Oo.” I was like, “Okay, I got that.” Interviewer: Good strategy. Can we for people that don’t know your story and I want to just give you a couple minutes to tell it. Let’s go back to the fires. Where were you and where was your family, your wife, your kids? Where were you guys when these fires kicked off and how did you end up evacuating? And what was that evening like? Spencer Pratt: Well, let’s even rewind before the fires. It just shows you that our emergency situation is not the level it needs to be because I didn’t even know that there was this crazy wind weather event. My son had had pneumonia. So, I was up every night checking his temperature and I’m on my phone a lot. I’m a phone person and I didn’t even know that this was extra dangerous, dry weather. So, that just shows you if you rewind, we weren’t even informed at the level you clearly we should have been. So, the morning of January 7th, I was doing my normal routine, making my espresso, about to dance to Taylor Swift, “Look What You Made Me Do” on Snapchat, which I’ve done since the Reputation album dropped. And all a sudden, I see our nanny running down the street. She comes in with our 2-year-old at the time. She’s like, “The workers up the street said there’s a fire on the hill.” Again, this is not crazy. Like, Mayor Bass is like, “We never knew,” but we’re well aware fires happen. There had just been the Getty fire that everyone ran out of their houses for. I grew up in LA. I’ve been through the fires. They’ve been going on for 30 years. I mean, three weeks before all my friends fought a fire in Malibu episode. I was even planning on starting my own fire brigade like my friends had and I was talking to Heidi like we need to get a hose, we need to get a truck. And so I was well aware of fires no matter what anybody says. This isn’t a shock. We also know about Santa Ana winds. So I run up the hill where we hike every day for the last nine years. And I see the smoke, you know, coming from like the Highlands area, which is where Lachman, which we now know the fire was really from seven days earlier and it had been smoldering for a week. And I see the smoke. I FaceTime my wife. I was like, “Yeah, maybe pack go down to my parents house just to be safe.” Because my parents live in the Palisades. I grew up in the Palisades. It’s the opposite side of where we are. We’re at the top of the hill next to the state park there by the bluffs, next to the ocean. You would think that’d be safe. So she loads up just diapers, kids clothes, and goes to my mom’s house. I stay up there, you know, FaceTiming every local, what’s going on very confident. Because I assume I’ve been paying—I don’t have any money because all my money goes to taxes. So I assume all these tax money is firefighters are coming. Interviewer: Got to be going somewhere. Spencer Pratt: It’s going somewhere. You know, I was very naive. And I also live next door—again in the debate when Mayor Bass was like he’s lying or that’s not true—there was only one reservoir that was empty. Ma’am, Mayor Bass, I live next to the one you don’t know existed, the Palisades reservoir. 5 million gallons next door to my house that the fire department would do almost, not weekly, but bi-weekly drills. They would connect up there. They would make me move cars if they needed to to bring the hoses. I was always saying to my wife, “Well, this is annoying, but gosh, we’re set. They have a thing where the helicopter could dip in there.” Not the San Andreas reservoir that she was referencing that she lied about and said was for drinking water which obviously if you Google LA Times will show you when it was made it was for wildfire protection that’s why it has cisterns, that’s why it has helicopter dip sites because it’s for wildfire. So I was very confident. I have a video of myself filming—can’t wait till the helicopters get here—not realizing that they drained that. Janice Quinion of the LA DWP drained that reservoir in June of 2024. I must have been out at Erewhon when they were emptying it or whatever. So I was very confident in 2025 in Pacific Palisades that pays probably almost what, a quarter of the taxes for the whole city. I would guess at this point they are not letting the entire town burn to the ground. So I didn’t pack anything. I didn’t, you know, prepare for our house to burn down. I call the fire department directly because I have their number. I say, “Hey, we just see one truck up here cuz you know if the fire comes around, there’s just this one place of dead brush and if you put water on it, you know, it won’t come and hit all these houses.” And they said, “We have no assets available.” I’m like, “Whoa, that was scary.” So then my dad comes up, you know, and we got the hose and he’s hosing a hillside and finally I’m like, “Dad, let’s get out of here. You know, firefighters are probably coming.” Interviewer: And your wife and kids are gone at this point. Spencer Pratt: They’re at my dad’s house, which ends up now the fires come from Temescal Canyon and it’s crossed over. So, my older sister calls like, “What are your kids doing there? They better get out of there.” I’m like, “What is happening?” So, now I’m, you know, what? This is insane. It’s like a bad movie. And I never heard any sirens. People, like real locals, will tell you if you talk to me, there were no sirens. Interviewer: Yeah. I’ve heard this from a lot of friends in the past. Spencer Pratt: So that was the—if I had heard sirens I would have like started packing things, maybe stayed, but you don’t feel scared if you don’t hear sirens. There’s no sheriffs or LAPD or any emergency vehicles coming up on the street, you know, “Everybody get out of the,” you know, like in a movie. There was no movie stuff and you know so you always think everything’s like a movie but nothing was like a movie. So then I stay till the fire comes down the hill at 5:00 or 6:00 at night. Again, when she was talking about this wind, Mayor Bass, I’m standing at the top of the Palisades. I connect to the state park. There were no scary winds. It did not go past 40 miles per hour and it’s now been, you know, even CBS did a great debunk post yesterday, CBS News, with a journalist that was up there that I was correct and I wasn’t lying in the debate and there were planes flying. Interviewer: Yeah. It moved. It was windy, but it wasn’t… Spencer Pratt: So, I talked to the chief Bobby Garcia at the US Forest Service about what he thought went sideways the day of, you know, we don’t know because the after-action report has been edited multiple times by Mayor Bass, which she denies, but the LA Times stands by their reporting. And he said the initial fire wasn’t made skinny. You’re supposed to attack the fire on both sides. And that did not happen because, ready for this? You know what Mayor Bass brought up? Like, “Oh, there were no planes, no mayor.” Bass, you never called in fixed-air wing support. She never did. You know why? She was in Africa. She was in Africa. And you know who was supposed to do it? Her deputy mayor, but he was on house arrest. So LA city never even called in fixed-air wing support to drop water. Thankfully, LA County Cal Fire showed up and the US Forest Service. But that’s how out of the loop Mayor Bass was on this. Interviewer: So when did you find out your house was gone? Spencer Pratt: I watched it burn on my—first on my security cameras. I watched my son’s bed burn in the shape of a heart, which is the most spiritual crazy like shape of a heart coming through the bottom of his bed. And then I watched each room until you’re watching on the cameras on my phone in gridlock traffic on like where the 405—like where the 10 goes to the 405 that one ramp. I’m just stuck in traffic watching it. But thank God as I’m watching it, I can’t reach my dad who I’m thinking is dying trying to save his house on the bluffs. And I’m calling 911. I’ve been trying to get these audio calls to just post the level and they say they don’t have them. But I’m calling 911 to find out if my dad is okay, if he tripped, if—So even though I’m watching my house burn down, I can’t reach my dad. So that’s taking away the material connection. I’m like, my dad cared more to me than my house burning. So I get on 911. They’re like, “What’s the address?” Like, “Oh, no emergency personnel can go there.” My dad lives on the bluffs. There’s like— Interviewer: So you’re like losing your mind at that point. Spencer Pratt: There’s 12 ways to get to my parents’ house. So this idea that there’s no emergency personnel and I’m telling them my dad could be burning up. So these 12 people that did burn alive, I know firsthand if one of their family members or relatives or neighbors was calling 911, they were told no emergency personnel can go help them. So, thank God my dad obviously lived and he got out and I was like, “Dad, could you get out?” He’s like, “Yeah, it was—I drove, all you could drive anywhere.” So, they didn’t even— Interviewer: Brutal. So, in the aftermath, this hits you, must have hollowed you, wrecked you. How was the next couple of weeks kind of trying to put everything back together? And at what point were you like, “Man, I’m gonna try and figure this out?” Like, was it an immediate call to action for you or was there a period of time there where you were trying to put everything together? Spencer Pratt: So my wife and I when we were very successful in 2009, we spent millions of dollars on her pop music album with all the most famous music producers and writers in the world, but it was a—it—we didn’t have the money to promote it. It just nobody ever heard it, but we did that. The 15-year anniversary of that album happened to be January 10th. The house burned down January 7th. So when I have zero money now because everything I ever put into was in this house for my sons. All everything I own was in this house. I’m like, “Oh my god, we have no money. We’re done.” I’m getting emails because January 10th is this anniversary date, 15 years of her album. So I go on TikTok Live and I say, “Anybody please, you know, I have no money right now. Our house just burned down. Please stream my wife’s album, buy it,” and thank God for Planet Earth getting behind me. I think maybe 12 countries, put it number one. Everyone streamed it. It was the first time an album from 15 years went to number one on Billboard charts. So, that was taking me out of the dark trauma cuz I’m focusing on right away pivoting into like we’re going to rebuild. And I was naive to think streaming music you could get a house back, you know? Thank god I did make like $150,000, but if this was 2006, we would have made millions of dollars. So, it took my mind off it. Obviously, my wife is trying to get our kids into new schools. She’s not even connecting to this—”This is so positive, honey. Everyone’s supporting you.” So, when that wears down and I realize, oh my god, this is not enough money to build anything. We were stuck with California Fair Plan because we were dropped by Farmers after paying for eight years and we have no money to rebuild. And I start questioning like, “Why did our house burn down? It shouldn’t have burned down.” And I call up my friend who I just was at a groomsman in his wedding and his dad had just fought Edison in the in the campfire maybe. I’m pretty sure it was campfire at Paradise and he beat Edison. So I call him and I was like, “Can you represent me? I want to sue the city. I want to sue the state. I want to sue LA.” Interviewer: So you’re a fighter. You go after it. Spencer Pratt: I’m just done. Case case. Fast forward a little bit. 5,000 homes burnt. 7,000. 7,000 structures. Yeah. 7,000 homes. Whatever it is. Why are you the guy that comes out of the fire and says, “I’m going to fight and I’m going to do something about it and I’m going to change it”? Well, thankfully I had this experience of already being like a hated media personality. When you put yourself out there, especially when you’re fighting machines like Gavin Newsom and his social team and they’re calling you a conspiracy theorist and the LA Times is calling you a conspiracy theorist because they’re saying this is climate change. There’s nothing that could happen. Well, guess what? The day of the debate, the judges overruled the appeal by the state and the city of LA. Guess why? Because of the negligence that caused the Palisades fire. It’s moving forward. Discovery’s open. So this idea that I was this conspiracy theory climate change wind guy that a normal person would have—oh my god, I’m being attacked by the governor of California on social media. Most people back down. You burn my house down. You burn my parents out. Interviewer: You’ve been through it. You’ve been in the public. You’ve been a fighter in public. You’ve got this character that allows you to kind of stand up. You have this capacity and you have a bit of a platform going into it. Spencer Pratt: Yeah. And once I got the truth, all the LAFD whistleblowers were coming to me telling me that they were told to leave the smoldering Lachman fire on January 1st. They told me that Mayor Bass was fighting the battalion chief who’s editing the—they’re editing the after-action report. Obstruction of justice. They’re telling me that the chief fought her for that 17 million and warned her that Angelenos would not be safe. So I’m getting all this information so I don’t feel like just this fringe social media voice. Man, I’m not crazy. So, you fast forward, the campaign’s up and running now. You have—well, let’s rewind. So, when I see that no one’s running against her, I reach out to Rick Caruso. I call him. I say, “Are you going to run after Mayor Bass cuz she’s going to guaranteed win June 2nd, 51%?” Totally. And I cannot accept this as a human being at this point. And I call him and he says, “Go after Bass.” Implying he’s not going after Bass. And so, game on. Interviewer: No one else stepping up. He told you to do it. Spencer Pratt: Yes. But I was already doing it. But if he was going to do it, obviously I wasn’t going to go against. Interviewer: Totally. How’s the campaign going after this debate this week? And I want to talk about the campaign ads because the ads have almost elevated you to what I am hearing from a lot of people is almost like a historic campaign. The ads are cutting through in a way that people have never seen before. Are those your ads or are they being produced by a third party and put out there? Because I’ve heard from some folks, there’s a guy Charlie Curran that might be involved or other folks that might be separate from your campaign that are putting these out there. They’re breaking through the mold that everyone’s like, “This isn’t a political campaign. This is almost emotional. It’s a movement. People want to like get behind you and they don’t even live in LA.” Spencer Pratt: So, the ad that blew up crazy is when I showed Bass’s house, Nithya Raman’s million-dollar mansion, multi-million dollar, and then my Airstream. That one broke every ad record in history. That is, if it has my name on it, it’s legally mine. Anything like these incredible grassroots ads, but I don’t put my name on it, it’s legally not mine. Interviewer: So, there are people out there doing these ads, not in your campaign, correct? That are creating this movement. Spencer Pratt: Correct. Because people feel the common sense. They feel the emotion. Interviewer: Totally. It’s connecting. Spencer Pratt: I keep trying to tell everyone that, you know, they try to put me in a box. I didn’t run to be a political party. I didn’t run to be a politician. I ran because I experienced what city leadership failure at the ultimate level is. That’s why I stepped up. That’s what cuts through. So the media and everyone wants to jump on and be like, “Oh, Spencer is our guy.” No. I’m the citizen. I’m the angry taxpayer. You can be a Democrat and love me. You can be a Republican and love me. The only people that don’t love me are communists and socialists and I don’t want them to love me. Interviewer: You know, there was a saying from John Adams 1776 where he said, “Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private virtue,” implying that citizenship involves sacrificing your personal interest for the greater public good. And Thomas Jefferson also spoke at length about taking a turn providing civic duty. Everyone has a civic responsibility to support society at large, but if you’re going to go into government, if you’re going to go into politics, you do a tour of duty. It’s not a career. It was never meant to be a career. And it’s almost like the local, the state, and the national level, there’s an entire industry of people that have built a career in politics. And then you come along—I would think Donald Trump’s come along. He’s almost like another one of these enigmas that came out that people—it resonated with people that you’re actually standing up and saying, “I’m the guy who’s on the other side of the problem with all of this and this is why this needs to change.” It seems to be creating a movement. Spencer Pratt: Yeah. I feel like I connect more with Cincinnatus. This guy that was a farmer and—I actually have Cincinnatus written down right now. I was going to mention—I’m like, oh, it’s too esoteric. Oh no. That’s who I connect to because I’m like this guy went and fought this battle. They wanted to give him all the power and he’s like, “No, I want to go back to my family.” And I keep initially when I ran I would say I want to do my four years and then go back. I realize I need to do the eight years. Lock this in. Get LA the number one city in the world. Then I can go back to my family. So I’m prepared to do the eight. That’s my tour of duty. And when people say, “Oh, this is your house, this Airstream.” I go, “No, that’s my forward operating base because this is a battle against good and evil.” They let seven people die in the street every day with our billions of tax dollars and they say they need no new beds. It’s a drug problem. 90% of these people are drug addicts. We need to get these people mandatory treatment. Then we can get them beds and also they don’t have to have a bed in—on the west side or next to people’s houses or in San Pedro and right next to schools. They can have beds in facilities that we built out. My friend Matt Hess has an incredible facility in Bentonville he built for veterans. I’ve been talking with him where he has veterans come here. They have all these services. It’s beautiful. I’m like, how do we build this incredible compound, beautiful possibilities? I guess in Italy, some billionaire did this for addicts. That’s my vision where we have all this. Interviewer: Take care of people the right way. Spencer Pratt: Exactly. All the services that you’ll ever need in a beautiful setting, not in a cement brick building that looks like a prison. An addict when they’re getting off drugs, they don’t want to be in a 250-foot little cell, no service. We put them out in nature. We’re spending $25 billion plus. We have enough money where it’s actually cheaper to build the most incredible facility out in nature that bring these services that provide for these addicts. And you separate people. Everybody doesn’t go in one building like they do right now. If you’re a veteran, you go over here. Single mothers with their kids, families over here. Somebody who’s just a hardened criminal drug addict, you go over here on this side of the hill. And we need to build this out. And we have the money. But guess who doesn’t make money if I do that? The NGOs that are stealing all of our tax money to increase harm, giving these people pipes, giving them needles, giving them the Narcan, letting them OD 14 times a night. Interviewer: Let me just hit on the NGO point. What is the corruption there? Help people understand because a lot of people think this is like a MAGA talking point. I hear this thrown about all the time. People use MAGA as a term to dismiss when someone says something that is factually jarring to you. I’ve noticed this on—someone comes along and they point out something and it’s like, “Oh, that’s a MAGA talking point,” as a way of just dismissing it instead of actually listening to what the person is saying. Can you explain what goes on with these NGOs? Like how do NGOs create a system that the more we spend—and in the last 10 years City of Los Angeles I think has increased homeless spending by 10x and the homeless population has doubled and clearly it’s gotten a lot worse. Why is that relationship there and what’s the role that the NGOs actually play in this? And I promise not to call you a MAGA guy for telling me. Spencer Pratt: Well, first off, when you said homelessness 2x, homelessness 200x. The count for homelessness—when Mayor Bass in the debate was like, “It’s down 17% from”—like, these are the most cooked numbers. Even the Rand Corporation says what they’re saying is a 30% increase. But they just drive around and they go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. They’re not going in under these encampments and bridges and bushes and unzipping these tents and going into the sewer. So we don’t even know the count. But let me tell you my first experience with NGOs after the Palisades fire. $100 million raised. Every single person I talked to messaging me: “No one’s getting this money, no one’s seeing a dollar.” I go to Washington. I ask senators to investigate this. We open up the case. Now all a sudden FireAid puts out a legal letter to defend themselves. In their own legal letter from the law firm, they say “several” of these NGOs gave directly to fire victims. The list for the 100 million is 200 plus. Google “several”—it’s under 10. So even in their defense they’re telling you—and again, I don’t believe one of those 10 gave directly. The people that they said did, like “we gave gift cards.” Who’d you give gift cards to? I don’t—you don’t think one fire victim, they’re messaging me all day long, said “Hey I got a $500 gift card.” So that’s when I learned firsthand that these NGOs will take and right in your face a hundred million and just steal it. So, back to it being a MAGA thing. The person who really exposed the details to me is this incredible Democrat mom, Samantha from the Integrity Project. She made her own little charity nonprofit cuz she’s now tapped out of her own money in her neighborhood in Westwood. Her and her husband, they’re both lawyers. And this homeless housing went up on their block. It was senior citizens. They kicked the senior citizens out and it’s Weingart. Their audit is late. Let’s just put it that way. They’re making hundreds of millions of dollars. This is the best part. So, the building goes on the market for $11 million. 6 days later, the city with our tax money gives Weingart $29 million, $28 million to buy this same building that was $11 million. There’s nobody to this day, years later, being housed in this. Weingart has developers paying $750 a square foot. When I’ve talked to developers and contractors, this should be $250 a square foot. So, they make this money with these developer kickbacks. They have all these shell companies that, “Oh, this is our developer has nothing to do.” Ready for one of my favorite parts with that $30 million? Who do you think owns that building in Westwood?

The numbers are staggering, and the crackdown is finally matching the scale of the problem. Vice President JD Vance’s Anti-Fraud Task Force, working with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has withheld $1.4 billion in federal funding from home health and hospice providers suspected of defrauding Medicare. On top of that, CMS announced a sweeping six-month nationwide moratorium on new Medicare enrollments for hospice and home health agencies to stop the bleeding while investigators clean house. The freeze took effect Tuesday. It is designed to shut down a fraud pipeline that has been draining billions from a program meant to serve America’s seniors and most vulnerable patients. Vice President JD Vance’s anti-fraud task force has blocked $1.4 billion in federal funds from home health and hospice providers. pic.twitter.com/nna3et9gqU — Breaking911 (@Breaking911) May 13, 2026 The announcement came directly from CMS, which laid out just how deep the rot goes in these two provider categories. CMS described the action in a press release: CMS announced a nationwide six-month, data-driven Medicare enrollment moratorium for hospice and home health agencies, coordinated with Vice President JD Vance’s Anti-Fraud Task Force. The agency identified hospice and home health as high-risk categories where fraudulent actors have exploited Medicare patients and taxpayers on a massive scale. The moratoria apply to initial Medicare enrollment applications and certain changes in majority ownership, because ownership changes can be used to obscure control by bad actors. Existing enrolled hospice and home health providers will continue serving Medicare beneficiaries without interruption during the moratorium. CMS said it will use the freeze period to intensify targeted investigations, deploy advanced data analytics, and accelerate the removal of suspected fraudulent providers from the program. The agency also noted that its recent enforcement work with the Vance task force has already suspended payments to 773 hospices and 23 home health agencies suspected of fraud in Los Angeles alone, representing roughly $70 million in suspended funds so far. That last detail is critical. A single metro area, Los Angeles, accounted for nearly 800 suspected fraudulent providers. And CMS made the moratorium nationwide specifically to prevent bad actors from hopping across state lines to dodge state-level enforcement pauses and set up shop somewhere else. CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz did not mince words, saying bad actors have been exploiting vulnerable Medicare patients and stealing taxpayer money. The Trump administration said it is expanding its sweeping fraud-busting initiative in federal health programs with a nationwide six-month freeze on any new Medicare enrollments by hospice and home health agencies. https://t.co/Ir3fUcgQNk — The Boston Globe (@BostonGlobe) May 13, 2026 The scope of the fraud is eye-opening. Fox News Digital reported on the broader enforcement wave and the telling silence from providers whose payments have been cut off: Fox News Digital reported that Vice President Vance’s anti-fraud task force has now withheld $1.4 billion in federal funding from home health and hospice providers across the country following a wave of suspensions tied to suspected fraud in California, Minnesota, and other states. Perhaps the most revealing detail in the report: approximately 90% of the suspended providers never even contacted CMS after their payments were cut off. Trump administration officials interpreted that silence as a powerful signal that many of the suspended providers were not legitimate operations serving real patients, especially when real providers would normally fight immediately to restore reimbursements needed for patient care and payroll. Fox also reported that the current nationwide push followed an earlier Los Angeles-focused enforcement action involving 447 hospices and 23 home health agencies, with alleged theft in that wave alone estimated at more than $600 million. The report tied the enforcement work to a larger pattern of ghost-provider abuse in the hospice space, including warnings from California hospice leaders about supposed providers with no real office activity. A Vance spokesperson told Fox that the task force is stopping taxpayer dollars before they fall into fraudsters’ hands and delivering savings under President Trump’s war on fraud. Read that again: 90% of suspended providers simply vanished. They did not call. They did not contest the suspension. They did not ask when payments would resume. That is not the behavior of legitimate businesses that depend on Medicare reimbursements to care for patients. That is the behavior of shell operations that got caught and walked away. Vice President JD Vance’s anti-fraud task force withheld $1.4 billion in federal funding from home health and hospice providers across the U.S. as part of an ongoing crackdown on suspected fraud, according to reports. https://t.co/mr761mXwfH — KATU News (@KATUNews) May 13, 2026 To be clear about what this moratorium does and does not do: no current Medicare patient loses access to their hospice or home health provider. Every legitimately enrolled agency continues serving beneficiaries. The freeze applies only to new enrollment applications and certain ownership transfers that fraudsters use to disguise who is really running the operation. What it does do is slam the door on new scam outfits trying to get on the Medicare gravy train for the next six months while CMS uses advanced data analytics and targeted investigations to root out the ones already inside the system. This is what draining the swamp looks like when the swamp is filled with phony hospice companies billing Medicare for patients who are not dying and home health agencies billing for care that never happens. President Donald Trump promised a war on waste, fraud, and abuse. Vice President Vance’s task force is delivering real results, $1.4 billion in withheld funds and counting, with a nationwide enforcement architecture that makes it harder for scammers to run and hide. Seniors deserve a Medicare program that works for them, not for criminals. This is a very good start.