LA Unlikely To Get 2024 Olympics, Embrace OJ Or Trump, Mayor Predicts

LOS ANGELES (CNS) - The Olympics coming to Los Angeles in 2024 is doubtful, the city will continue to defy President Donald Trump on immigration, and O.J. Simpson would not likely be welcomed back by Angelenos, Mayor Eric Garcetti told BuzzFeed Wednesday.

The mayor sat down with BuzzFeed Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith for a wide- ranging interview at an event in Rancho Palos Verdes, and delivered yet another sign that Los Angeles has all but conceded the 2024 Games to Paris.

The two cities are officially competing for the 2024 Games, although the International Olympic Committee recently announced a plan to award both the 2024 and 2028 Summer Games in September, and Paris is widely considered the favorite to go first.

Garcetti told Smith that 2024 "is not probably most likely to happen."

The mayor was also asked about O.J. Simpson, who was recently granted parole after serving nine years in a Nevada prison for armed robbery. Garcetti's father, Gil Garcetti, is a former Los Angeles County district attorney and famously oversaw the prosecution of Simpson in 1994 and 1995 for the killing of is ex-wife, Nicole Simpson, and Ron Goldman.

Simpson was acquitted of the homicides, which occurred in Brentwood where the former football star also lived.

Is he welcome in Los Angeles?" Garcetti told BuzzFeed. I don't think most Angelenos would welcome him. I don't think a lot of communities would welcome him."

Simpson told a Nevada parole board last week that he would like to return to Florida. Simpson had lived in the state from the late 1990s until his imprisonment.

Garcetti was also asked about Trump's repeated threats to cut off federal funding to so-called "sanctuary cities" that don't fully cooperate with the federal government on immigration enforcement.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions this week said cities must notify the Department of Homeland Security at least 48 hours before releasing immigrant detainees when asked to do so and to grant federal officials access to jails or risk losing millions in funding.

As he has repeatedly done in the past, Garcetti said the city will not change its policies.

"We will not change what we are doing and our values are not for sale," Garcetti told online news website. "This decision was more of the kind of ideological rhetoric that actually makes us less safe.

City News Service; Photo courtesy of the mayor's office.