Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Paul Corbino, Division president of iHeartMedia in
Los Angeles, California, with our pre election segment called Meet
the Candidates Today, I'm here with Alex Bleakan, a Republican
running for Congress in the thirtieth Congressional district. Welcome, thank you. Hey,
before we get started, this is today's interview is going
(00:25):
to be about our listeners getting to know you a
little bit more about you. Let's start off with a quick, fun,
rapid fire Q and A. And you got to just
answer as quickly as you can. This is just to
get the brain and mouth working. Let's do this. Okay,
beach your ski vacation beach Michael Jordan or Tom Brady,
(00:46):
Tom Brady, Beatles, are Stones, Stones, Star Wars or Godfather,
Star Wars, Sean Connery or Daniel Craig.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Sean Connery.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Celebrity people say you remind them of Oscar the Grouch,
Oscar the Grouch that your kids telling me that, No, it's.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Just anybody, anybody who encounters me before I've had my
morning coffee.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Okay, So tell me what area does your district cover?
Speaker 2 (01:12):
So I am running for California's thirtieth district, which is
currently occupied by Adam Schiff, and it covers cities Glendale, Burbank, Sunland, Tahunga,
Hollywood West, Hollywood, Hancock Park, Echo Park.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Silver Lake. So tell me a little bit about some
of your past accomplishments and why you're right for this position.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
So I am Alex Bulekian, MD. I'm born and raised
in Glendale. I'm a physician in the community, and I
am running because we need better public safety. I save
lives for a living in the intensive care unit. So
I personify public safety. And I am running because people
like George Gascone, who have been soft on crime, who
is supported by my opponent, Laura Friedman, I think that
(01:54):
people like him should not be in the positions that
they are, and so I support people like Nathan Hawkman.
I am running as well because we need people who
are going to espouse public safety, who are going to
bring back some semblance of law and order.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Well, what are some of the other issues that beyond
law in order that you think are of most importance
right now?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
So, outside of crime, there's definitely homelessness. We have a
progressively worsening homeless problem in California. My opponent, she's a politician.
They've wasted twenty six billion dollars of our money so far. I,
as a physician, am uniquely qualified to say that this
is not simply a housing issue. It is a mental
health and drug addiction issue. And until we treat the
mental health and drug addiction, simply putting a roof over
(02:34):
their heads isn't going to fix the problem.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Could do you have any ideas and have to treat them?
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Absolutely? Yes, I actually have a three pronged plan. So
Number one is reopen the federal institutions, the federal mental
hospitals that we close down in the early eighties, because
there are people who are paralyzed with mental illness. They
see things, they're yelling at the sky. Those people need
to be hospitalized. They need to be given their medications.
They need to get better and then be discharged to
a local facility near their family support. Number two, drug
(03:01):
addiction is huge. We need to seal the border. They
just seized five thousand pounds of crystal meth that they
were trying to smuggle in disguised as watermelons. Those are
getting on our streets, the homeless people, they're using those drugs.
They cannot expect to remain sober if drugs are coming in.
So between stronger border policy by funding the police, funding
(03:24):
customs and border patrol, in addition to opening up federal
institutions where those very severely mentally ill people can actually
get the help that they deserve. That is how I,
as a physician, a uniquely qualified to solve this problem.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Let me ask you, if elected, how would you measure success?
Speaker 2 (03:38):
We would measure success. We have homeless counts that we
do every year, so that's one way that you would
do it. I'm a numbers guy, so I agree with you.
We need meaningful, measurable successes. So you can count the
number of homeless people that decrease, that don't go back
out on the street. In twenty twenty two, there were
three high school students every day dying unintentionally of fentanyl
(03:59):
overdoses from fentanyl laced counterfeit pills. So we can follow
those as well, these accidental overdoses, and those need to
go down. So these are measurable, meaningful outcomes that I
would follow.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Thank you, Alex. Again, we're here with Alex Perlakian, a
Republican running for Congress in the thirtieth Congressional District. This
is Paul Corvino, Division president of iHeartMedia in Los Angeles,
saying thank you for listening.