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Mayor Karen Bass Embarrasses Herself Further in Latest Presser on LA Fires

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  January 10, 2025 6:30 AM

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has been besieged on all fronts. She doesn’t have many friends now, partially because wildfires ravaged the county, and she was AWOL when they began. Ms. Bass was in Ghana when the fires broke out, attending the inauguration of that country’s next president. 

She got back home yesterday, confronted by a press corps who asked if she owed residents an apology for being absent during this crisis and whether it was a good idea to cut nearly $20 million from the Los Angeles Fire Department despite memos written showing that such an action could be detrimental toward responding to natural disasters. Bass opted not to answer.  

She has stumbled through multiple press conferences. On Wednesday, she had this trip-up (via NY Post): 

Embattled Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has been ripped as the most “incompetent politician in America” after she managed to botch a fire emergency information website address by pointlessly telling locals to just visit “URL” — even while admitting the deadly firestorm is “the big one.” 

Bass made the blunder as she stumbled her way through a press conference Wednesday soon after returning to the US, having already faced scorching criticism for traveling to Ghana as the wildfires ravaged her city and for slashing the fire department’s budget. 

“If you need help, emergency information, resources, and shelter is available. All of this can be found at URL,” the flailing mayor said as she read from a script. 

[…] 

Her gaffe came as footage was going viral on social media of a stone-faced Bass refusing to answer questions when she finally returned to the US on Wednesday to find her city up in flames.

Yesterday, she tried to deliver her talking points, only to be shot down by the press. 

“My number one focus, and I think the focus of all of us here, with one voice, is that we have to protect lives, we have to save lives, and we have to save homes,” said Bass. 

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“But that did not happen,” interjected the reporter. 

“Let me finish,” said Bass. 

And it hasn’t. Whole communities have been obliterated, with over 1,000 buildings destroyed, nearly 30,000 acres charred, and a fire department that had no water to combat the flames. They also didn’t have the personnel. It was a top-down failure, and that rests with the political leadership of the state—all of which are Democrats. 

They didn’t prepare. Emergency services training veered into extraneous and irrelevant areas, and this is what you get: The costliest wildfire in American history.