Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass previously told The New York Times in 2021 that she had no plans to travel abroad when elected mayor, the newspaper reported Sunday.
Bass said in 2021 that if she wins the election, “not only would I of course live here, but I also wouldn’t travel abroad — the only places I would go would be DC, Sacramento, San Francisco and New York, versus LA ,” Times reported.
The mayor traveled to Ghana as the fires raged through Los Angeles last week, and upon her return, Bass ignored the questions from reporters about her absence.
Bass previously served in Congress, specifically on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and spent several years working on US relations with Africa, the Times reports.
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Los Angeles mayoral candidate Rep. Karen Bass gathers with various prominent supporters at Angel’s Point in Elysian Park on May 27, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. ((Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images))
The Times reported, “That promise has been spectacularly broken.”
Bass has traveled abroad four times since becoming mayor, the Times reported, once to Mexico and three times to Paris for the Olympics.
“Do you owe the citizens an apology for being away while their homes burned? And do you regret cutting the fire department’s budget by millions of dollars, Madam Mayor?” Sky News reporter David Blevins asked as Bass waited to land on Wednesday after her trip to Ghana.
“Don’t you have anything to say to the citizens today?” he added.
Bass refused to acknowledge the reporter, continuing to ignore questions as she stared at the ground.
“No excuse for them? Do you think you should have visited Ghana while this was going on at home?” he said.
“The mayor is focused on two things right now – keeping Angelenos safe and protecting property. She has secured the federal, state and local resources we need to continue fighting these fires and is moving forward with the recovery plan outlined above,” he said. Bass spokesman Zach Seidl said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
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LA Mayor Karen Bass and City Chief Administrative Officer Matt Szabo unveil the 2024-25 fiscal year budget. in the town hall. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images) (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
He was also called Bas for a 2021 social media post calling out Sen. Ted Cruz for being away from his state while Texas dealt with a winter storm.
Bass told reporters during a news conference Wednesday that she had been communicating with people during her flight back to LA.
“I was on the phone, on the plane, almost every hour of the flight,” she said. “So even though I wasn’t physically here, I was in contact with a lot of individuals who were standing here the whole time. When my flight landed, I immediately went to the fire zone and saw what happened at Pacific Palisades.”
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Sarah Rumpf-Whitten of Fox News contributed to this report.
