A Democratic Socialists of America member vying to be Los Angeles’ Zohran Mamdani went off the rails on live radio — lashing out at a reporter while bungling basic questions about how she’d govern the nation’s second-largest city.
The tense clash erupted during a sit-down with KNX News when mayoral hopeful Rae Huang tangled with veteran City Hall reporter Craig Fiegener — growing increasingly frustrated as he pressed her on key issues such as taxes and policing, according to audio of the exchange obtained by The Post.
The fireworks started almost immediately, as Huang hyped the “Overpaid CEO Tax” — a proposed ballot measure to dramatically hike taxes on top-earning business executives — saying the money would be routed into housing.
“We will be benefiting off of these CEO taxes,” Huang said. “We need to make sure that this money, from our CEOs, our billionaires, goes into housing, which we desperately need here in Los Angeles.”
Fiegener pressed for specifics. “How are you going to do it?” he asked. “It’s not cheap — where is our money going right now?”
“Our money is going into band-aid solutions,” Huang replied.
Asked to name those solutions, Huang pointed at law enforcement.
“One of them is, for example, the police,” she said. “The LAPD just doubled their staff without the city allow — without the city approval.”
Fiegener corrected her, noting the Los Angeles Police Department has not doubled in size.
City leaders are currently debating whether to fund roughly 240 additional officers — and even that proposal remains uncertain.
But Huang didn’t retreat.
She accused the department of “going rogue” and claimed there was “no accountability” in local government — despite acknowledging moments earlier that authority at City Hall was divided among the mayor, City Council, controller and city attorney.
The exchange grew sharper when Fiegener turned to Huang’s qualifications to run the nation’s second-largest city.
“I’m a neighbor here in Los Angeles. I’m a mother here in Los Angeles. I’m a community organizer here in Los Angeles,” Huang said. “I’ve been here for over 10 years organizing with our community members. That should be a résumé enough.”
Fiegener laid out the scale of the job: A roughly $13 billion city budget and massive departments like the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which oversees billions in annual cash flow.
“That’s a lot to take on with half that leadership experience at such a large level,” he said. “How do you do it?”
“I’m gonna do it. I’m excited to get started,” Huang replied.
She then compared herself to New York City’s newly elected DSA-backed mayor Mamdani, while incorrectly suggesting he had no prior governing experience.
When Fiegener noted Mamdani had served as a state assemblyman, Huang accused the reporter of bias.
“This is exactly the kind of pushback that we get from media people like yourself,” she said, cutting him off.
“I’m just asking a question,” Fiegener resonded, saying voters deserved tough scrutiny of anyone seeking the office.
The interview ended awkwardly, with Huang stumbling over her own age — first saying she was 42 before correcting herself to 43 — as the segment wrapped without resolution.
Huang announced a few months ago her candidacy in the June Democratic primary against Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.
