Los Angeles mayor says ‘hell yeah’ she regrets Ghana trip during wildfires

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass continued to express regret for her controversial Ghana trip ahead of the devastating fires earlier this year in a recent interview with Vice News.

“I was asked, ‘Do I regret going?’ Hell yeah. I mean, let me just do a comparison. If you are out of town and your kid or a member of your family gets sick or hurt, it doesn’t matter where you were or why you were there. You feel horrible,” Bass said in an interview with Vice News earlier this month. 

“I’m really not trying to give excuses, but there was no way in the world I knew that the city was in danger when I left,” she later added. “Absolutely no way. And if you think about it through, if you take a step back, and because I did ask the chief when I came back, you know, like ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ and basically the response was ‘Because we have Santa Anas all the time and nobody expected hurricane-force winds.'”

The mayor faced intense scrutiny for the presidential delegation’s visit to Africa even though there were warnings of the fire ahead of time. The Los Angeles Times reported that her team was aware of the fire risk before her trip. 

She ended up returning the day after the fires began ripping through Los Angeles neighborhoods, like the Pacific Palisades, where thousands of buildings were destroyed.

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“Well, I mean to be with honest with you. Well, I didn’t get briefed. That’s true. But I think that, again, people did not anticipate the historic wind. And it wasn’t just LA. It was the county too.”

“What typically happens is that if there’s going to be a big weather event, there are these briefings that happen and, uh, it’s either initiated by the fire department or the emergency department,” she said. “I was used to the fire chief calling me and telling me, you know, this is getting ready to happen. Come over. I need to brief you and all, you know, everything goes into motion. That didn’t happen in the county, meaning LA and LA County.”

On her flight back, she said she was on the phone almost the entire 12-hour flight back to the U.S. from Ghana.

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“Well, they’re telling me what’s happening in the fire. We were preparing the emergency declaration. They were talking to the mayor, the council president who serves as acting mayor while I’m gone. I don’t remember if I talked to him or not then, but because there were just a lot of phone calls. Sometimes a lot of people. I think I even did a news interview, but all of that was while I was on the way home,” she said, noting that she had phone access on the plane because it was a military plane, and she did not realize that the Sky News, who she went viral for not answering his questions, was even on the flight.

Bass ousted Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley from her position in February, and Crowley unsuccessfully appealed her removal.

“Our firefighters support Chief Crowley because she stood up for the men and women of our department,” United Firefighters of Los Angeles City posted to X at the time.  

In the interview, Bass claimed there were “lies told” about the budget and fire engines.

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“Yes, there were broken fire engines. We find out later that those fire engines were there broken because they’re used for spare parts. But there were 40 fire engines that were idle because they didn’t have the staff that [Crowley] sent home. And the budget cut and I don’t I don’t know the reasons for it, and then the budget cut that never happened,” she added.

“Yes,” Crowley notably responded in an interview at the time of the fires when asked if city leadership “failed” her when it came to resources.

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“What we did when we did the budget was we put money aside for fire because we were in labor negotiations. If the budget was signed before then, but when the labor negotiations were done, we put it back in the budget. Which is a common thing. We’re doing that right now,” Bass said.

When asked about the after-action report for the fire, Bass said she would ‘look and see, but they should be about finished now.”

Fox News Digital reached out to Bass’ office and Crowley. Fox News Digital also reached out to the Los Angeles Fire Department, but they did not immediately comment.