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Published Jan. 8, 2025 Updated Jan. 8, 2025, 7:23 p.m. ET
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass became stone-faced when confronted by a reporter as she returned to America to find her city burning Wednesday.
“Do you owe citizens and apology for being absent while their homes were burning, and do you regret cutting the Fire Department budget by millions of dollars madame mayor?” Sky News reporter David Blevins asked as Bass waited to deplane.
“Have you absolutely nothing to say to the citizens today?” he added.
6 Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass refused to answer when asked if she owed residents of her city an apology for being absent during the city’s wildfires. Sky News 6 Bass was also asked if she regrets cutting the Fire Department’s budget. Sky News
Bass — standing a few feet away on the plane’s ramp as she awaited clearance to leave — stared blankly as Belvins questioned her, refusing to provide an answer or even acknowledge his presence.
As she walked up the ramp into the airport, she continued to ignore the reporter as he followed and asked for comment.
“No apology for them? Do you think you should have been visiting Ghana while this was unfolding back home?” he said.
“Madam mayor, let me ask you just again, have you anything to say to the citizens today as you return?”
Stay up to date with the NYP’s coverage of the terrifying LA-area fires
6 Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom getting a briefing about the Palisades fire. ALLISON DINNER/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock 6 A firefighter extinguished a fire in Pacific Palisades on Jan. 7, 2025. Jon Putman/Zuma / SplashNews.com 6 The Palisades Fire seen in Malibu on Jan. 7, 2025. Amy Katz/Zuma / SplashNews.com Bass then walked out of the terminal and left the reporter behind without answering.
More than 30,000 acres are burning across three separate fires around the city, as the Santa Ana winds fan the flames ahead of desperate firefighters struggling to keep up.
Thousands of buildings have been lost, and after just two days the fires have already been named the most destructive in LA’s history.
And that came up shy of the $20 million she wanted slashed.
For many, her absence as the fires burned spoke volumes.
“Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is on a taxpayer-funded trip to Africa as part of a Biden administration presidential delegation WHILE HER CITY IS BURNING TO THE GROUND,” America First Works president Ashley Hayek wrote on X.
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