Update: Desperate Karen Bass Goes for Broke As Image Rehabilitation Tour Falls Apart

As RedState reported Wednesday, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D) has been speaking out this week in interviews with local media outlets in an attempt to rehabilitate her image in the aftermath of the devastating California wildfires that engulfed parts of her city nearly the entire month of January.

In one she did with Fox LA, which we wrote about, Bass admitted that her ill-timed trip to Ghana on behalf of then-President Joe Biden (D), which she left for on Jan. 4th, had been a "mistake." But she claimed she did not receive any advance warning about the potential for a wildfire to break out.

Bizarrely, she even seemingly called for an internal investigation into why she allegedly wasn't informed ahead of time, saying, "We need to look at everything about the preparation and all of that for the fires because, I think when we evaluate that, we will find that although there were warnings - that I frankly wasn’t aware of, I think our preparation wasn't what it typically is."

In that same interview, she indicated that the LA Fire Chief, Kristin Crowley, had talked to her about windstorm warnings but she stopped short of saying Crowley didn't warn her about wildfires.

But in a statement released Thursday to the Los Angeles Times, a spokesman for Bass placed the blame for the alleged lack of a warning about possible fires directly on Crowley:

“Before other major weather emergencies, the mayor — or at minimum, the mayor’s chief of staff — has received a direct call from the fire chief, flagging the severity of the situation. This time, that call never came,” Bass spokesperson Zach Seidl said in a statement.
Crowley did not reach out to the mayor’s chief deputy until Tuesday morning, Jan. 7, after the Palisades was already burning, Seidl said.
[...]
In the days after the fire erupted, tensions between Bass and Crowley emerged into public view, with Crowley saying on television that the city of Los Angeles — and by implication, Bass — had failed her and her department by not providing more funding and resources.

Fox News national correspondent Bill Melugin, who has close ties to Los Angeles having lived there and worked at Fox LA for many years, wasn't buying it:

But the NWS put out warnings about “extreme fire conditions” on 1/2, upgrading it the next day on 1/3 to “major risk - take action”, all of which was covered extensively in LA media, and Bass still left for Africa on 1/4.
Then, on 1/6, the day before the fire broke out, Mayor Bass herself posted the following on X:
“There is an expected destructive and potentially life-threatening windstorm starting Tuesday morning through Wednesday afternoon. Red Flag No Parking Restrictions will go into effect in certain areas tomorrow morning. Stay safe LA!”

LA Mayor Karen Bass continues deflecting, now telling the @latimes that LAFD’s chief failed to warn her about the fire risk before she left for Ghana.

But the NWS put out warnings about “extreme fire conditions” on 1/2, upgrading it the next day on 1/3 to “major risk - take…
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) February 21, 2025

In my opinion, two questions need to be asked here:

1) Assuming for grins and giggles that Bass wasn't told about the possibility of wildfires by Crowley, how did she miss the news reports? Further, why didn't someone on her own staff alert her to the warnings that had been put out there? Most elected officials designate at least one person in their office to monitor newspaper headlines, broadcast/online news stories, and social media for anything they may need to potentially address.

2) Why does Bass call the trip a "mistake"? If she truly did not know about the wildfire warnings in advance, then it wasn't a "mistake" for her to take the trip. Maybe retrospectively she views it that way but she should clarify nevertheless.

With the mayoral election coming in 2026, Bass is going to do everything she can to run away from her record. But unfortunately for Bass, her record won't run away from her.