Karen Bass Faces Serious Questions After Leaked Phone Call On Palisades Fire
According to NBC Los Angeles, Bass said “that she feels optimistic that the Trump administration will send more resources the city needs to recover from the 2025 Palisades Fire after meeting with him and his key advisors in the Oval Office.”
NBC Los Angeles reported that Bass “reiterated to the president that Los Angeles needs financial support from the federal government to rebuild the Palisades neighborhood not only to fix what's on the streets but also what's underneath, such as the effort to underground the electrical.”
It’s not like Trump has been sitting on his hands when it comes to Los Angeles. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) directed more than $2 billion in direct assistance through grants and Small Business Administration disaster loans to survivors of the fires. All told, the federal government provided $5.7 billion in support, which included debris removal, emergency relief, and recovery programs. And the state of California and Gov. Gavin Newsom have hit Congress up for another $40 billion. We’re talking Ukraine-sized handouts now.
The Palisades fire destroyed 23,448 acres of land and 6,837 structures. A total of 5,942 of those structures were single-family homes.
Palisades News reported that at last check in February, “More than 480 rebuilding projects were under construction out of roughly 5,600 affected properties, with permits issued for more than 800 addresses, according to city data.”
Real progress has been slow. Thanks to an impossible permitting process and a gauntlet of California red tape, in large swaths of the Palisades, nothing has been done. Still, that hasn’t stopped Bass, Newsom, and other Democrats from asking for billions in federal moneyThink about it. What do you expect will happen when you put a pot of billions of dollars in front of California Democrats like Bass and Newsom? Do you think that money will go towards rebuilding homes that were destroyed by their own policies and incompetence? We’ll just leave that here because audio from a leaked telephone call that features Bass ain’t gonna make you happy if you’re a victim of the Palisades fire.
In January 2026, one year after the fire, our own Victoria Taft did a comprehensive look back on what Bass was up to when the fires were actively spreading in her town.
She reminded us that Bass decided to take a trip to Ghana and not interrupt it as the fire was building. A SkyNews reporter named David Blevins confronted Bass at the airport after she returned from Africa. He tried to get her to say something… anything to her constituents and the victims of the fire. Bass pretended he wasn’t even there.
Now, we may have a slightly better sense of why she was so mum at that airport and for days. This is Bass herself saying to “read between the lines” on why she was so intentionally non-responsive.
In the leaked audio, Bass was reportedly talking to John Alle, a local resident and property manager in the Santa Monica and Westlake areas. Alle himself confirmed this here.
Reports are that Elle called Bass on Jan. 4, 2025, warning her about the risks tied to the weather, the wind, and dry conditions. In the call, Alle said he tried to convince Bass not to leave for Africa, but in the secretly recorded audio, she told Elle she had no intention of canceling her trip in spite of all his warnings.
To be sure, we have not been able to verify with 100% certainty the validity of this leaked audio, but it is worth noting that neither Bass nor her office has disputed the call’s authenticity and the content of the audio.
Now, let’s go back to that leaked call. What did Bass say that might be even more troubling?
Bass says, “The situation is very dangerous, and I would never do… I will take the criticism before I do a publicity stunt, and frankly a press conference at this point in time would just be publicity.”
Elle interrupts with, “I think my neighbors, property owners, and the residents – 41,000 people live within a square mile here. Two families share a one-bedroom apartment…”
Bass then says, “But they wanna hear that something is gonna be done.”
Elle replies, “They want to know it’s recognized.”
Bass then gets creepily cryptic, “Exactly, but if I have a choice between that and compromising something, I just have to go along with it. It’s not my area of expertise. I wanna make sure that you are safe. And hopefully you can read in between the lines. But I would just appreciate… and it’s hard for me to tell you this, but um, hold tight. You will understand soon.”
The two then indicate they now understand each other, and Bass then adds, “And when I am able to talk, I will be happy to go into great detail.”
Elle reminds Bass, “You’ve got me on the street, and you’re welcome to call me at any time, I’ll call you right back.”
On the matter of her plans to travel to Ghana in the midst of this crisis, Bass tells Elle, “Just in terms of my trip, just so you know I’m missing two work days. That’s it. And if President Biden extends an invitation, I took it.”
Bass went to Ghana as part of a Biden administration delegation to attend the inauguration of Ghana’s newly elected president, John Dramani Mahama.
Bass’s comments on that call raise more questions than they answer, but these are questions that have to be answered, not only by Bass but by federal investigators. If California is requesting billions to clean up a mess California’s elected leaders helped to create, the least they could do is answer some of the tough questions.
Someone needs to ask Bass:
- It’s standard practice at times of crisis for a leader to acknowledge the hardships or crises their people face. This is most often done through press statements and press conferences, which are not publicity stunts during emergencies. They are the most efficient means to convey information and to let your constituents know your administration is working on their behalf. You made the conscious decision not to do that, by your own admission. You know it wouldn’t have been a stunt. So, why did you neglect your constituents by purposefully not communicating with them yourself?
- In your phone call with Mr. Elle, you said, “If I have a choice between that and compromising something, I just have to go along with it.” What is that “something” you didn’t want to compromise? What was going on outside of the boundaries of emergency response that you did not want to compromise? (Now, on this question, I would expect Bass to default to an answer that points to her emergency response people, but if that were true, she wouldn’t need to be so cryptic and use vague terms like “compromising something.” She could just say, "I don't want to interfere with my emergency response people." But she did not say that. On this question, federal investigators need to dig. She seems to be hinting at something they need to find out.)
- Next question. Mayor Bass, you told Mr. Elle, “Hopefully you can read in between the lines.” What couldn’t you come right out and say? Why? You said he would understand soon, which suggests something outside of the weather was happening at that time, and it was having a direct impact on your management of the city’s emergency response. Please clarify. (Once again, Bass can deflect with the best of them, and so her answer to this question would likely obfuscate and deflect. Still, this is yet another question federal investigators need to get to the bottom of.Nothing Bass did before, during, or after the Palisades fire suggests that she lifted a finger for the victims of the fire. This leaked phone call suggests that she had other priorities that she is still not talking about. Before rivers of federal cash start flowing right into California Democrats’ hands, never to be seen again, the federal government needs to do some due diligence. Congress can't just organize a show hearing where RINOs hog airtime and don’t even allow for a real cross-examination of Bass and others. This does not smell good at all. It's time to get substantive answers.
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