Thread by @thestustustudio

🧵 What a rough night for Nithya Raman.

Hasan Piker put the LA mayoral candidate and DSA member through a full-on struggle session over her record, repeatedly pressing her to explain where she had fallen short of the movement line.

And honestly, even as a conservative, I felt bad for her. This was brutal.

One flashpoint was a DSA criticism over Raman’s role in a city resolution tied to the UTLA BDS fight. But the exchange was bigger than that. This was not a good-faith interview. It was an ideological audit.

Raman mostly tried to answer politically. She came to DSA through housing and homelessness, said this was not her area of expertise, said she had learned more, and promised she was “committed to learning more.”

Stick around for more, because by the end of this even Hasan’s chat wanted his head.

This is where Piker's “interview” really became a purity test.

“Do you believe Israel has a right to exist in its current form as an ethnostate that’s currently being investigated for genocide at the International Court of Justice?”

Raman answered, “Yes, I do believe that Israel has a right to exist,” but added that she wants countries to operate “without apartheid” and “with equality in their borders.”

Hasan immediately followed up: “Do you believe that Israel is an apartheid state then?”

Raman said, “I think that it is, yeah.”

Then Hasan brought up her 2024 censure from DSA-LA over accepting the Democrats for Israel LA endorsement, asking whether, “knowing what we know now and seeing the videos of Gaza in ruins,” she would still seek it out.

Raman said, “I wouldn’t seek it out now,” pointed to her ceasefire resolution, and then tried to bring the conversation back to what a mayor actually does: keeping Angelenos safe, protecting protest rights, and pushing back against both antisemitism and Islamophobia.

Hasan brought up Raman’s 2020 call to “defund the police” and her old platform calling for LAPD to become a “much smaller specialized force.”

Then he contrasted that with her 2026 mayoral line to NBC LA: “we need to maintain the size of our police force.”

“Was it, you know, wokeness rising up everywhere in 2020 that led you to say that?”

Raman’s answer was basically that governing happened. After five years in office, she said the city has to “respond to calls for help from the public,” and if 911 calls are not answered quickly, “we lose the faith of Angelenos.”

Then came the real admission, “We don’t have an alternative crisis response system built out citywide.”

Raman still wants unarmed crisis response, but admits the current system is “patchwork,” poorly integrated with 911, and can leave people on hold for “50 minutes.”

This might be my favorite moment because it has the energy of a mom explaining reality to a little boy.

Hasan brings up his own clash with LAPD, saying officers shot rubber bullets at him during the ICE protest.

Then he presses Raman for voting in favor of a $5 million loan to pay police overtime.

“Is this just the cost of doing business? Is this just politics?”

Raman’s answer was simply bureaucratic reality.

“When people work overtime, the city has to pay them.”

She explains that the officers had already worked the overtime, and if the city refused to pay, they would sue. Then taxpayers would end up paying the overtime plus the cost of the lawsuit.

Again, perfect snapshot of the whole interview. Hasan is demanding ideological accountability. Raman is explaining how municipal government works.

Hasan presses Raman on supporting LA’s mansion tax, then later moving to create a 15-year exemption for new multifamily housing.

He asks whether tenant organizers are wrong, or whether she is “giving developers what they want under the YIMBY label.”

Raman’s answer is basically that she was trying to save the mansion tax from a broader repeal effort.

But then she makes the larger point that public housing, social housing, and affordable housing are only producing “a few hundred units” a year in LA.

Then the line that probably drives the activist left insane.

“I will never back away from the statement that we need more market rate housing as well because the city simply cannot fund all of the housing that is needed.”

Again, this is why the interview is so revealing. Hasan is asking whether she betrayed the tenant-organizer line. Raman is explaining that a city cannot slogan its way out of a housing shortage.

Hasan presses Raman on Casey Wasserman, his Epstein/Ghislaine Maxwell controversy, and his meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu.

Raman had called for Wasserman to resign, but also said she would work with him if the LA28 board kept him in place. Hasan asks whether that is “capitulation.”

Raman says the board controls its own leadership, and the mayor still has to deliver for Los Angeles.

“You don’t always get to pick your partners, you don’t always get to pick who you’re working with.”

Hasan wants politics to operate like a permanent purity test. Raman is explaining that leadership means dealing with reality, flawed institutions, and people you may not like.

Hasan presses Raman on the Olympics again, noting that she voted against the host city agreement over taxpayer overrun liability, but later joined the council in waiving planning, zoning, and environmental review for Olympics construction.

Then he asks what she would do to make sure homeless people are not swept ahead of the Games.

Raman’s answer is not “abolish sweeps” rhetoric. It is capacity.

She says LA has “a third of the shelter beds” it needs, while New York has “100% of the shelter beds” it needs.

Raman is explaining the operational problem once again.

Hasan ends with a rapid-fire purity test. Medicare for All. Universal childcare. Abolish ICE. Raise taxes on billionaires. End encampment sweeps in LA.

On sweeps, she does not give the activist answer. She says it “depends on your definition,” then adds, “We’d have to be able to do cleanups.”

Then Hasan keeps going: $30 citywide minimum wage, LAPD trips to Israel, “free Palestine.”

Raman survived the struggle session, but the whole thing exposed the tension perfectly. The activist left wants ideological compliance. But governing a city requires reality, even when the person saying it is a DSA member.

And after all that, Raman still had to end by making the actual pitch: vote for me, because I’m the only viable alternative to the broken status quo or a MAGA Republican.

And after nearly 50 minutes of hardball questions, Hasan endorsed her anyway. He told his chat he wanted to give Raman a “tough but fair shake” and insisted he was not there to “disparage her.”

“She’s obviously a million times better than Karen Bass and certainly better than Spencer Pratt.”

Even Hasan’s own chat thought the interview had gone too far. He had to scold them.

“You guys treat it like it’s fucking blood sports, and it’s not good.”

If I were Raman, I would have made my pitch, thanked him for the time, and walked out. No candidate should sit through a 50-minute ideological hazing just to get an endorsement.