Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass took to a KBLA Talk 1580 Town Hall and Ballot Forum on Saturday to defend the decision that will define her political legacy: flying to Ghana for a presidential inauguration while the 2025 wildfires reduced Pacific Palisades and most of Altadena to ash.
Her defense, delivered with a straight face, was essentially that her presence wouldn’t have changed anything anyway. “Even if I was here, there really wouldn’t have been anything that was done different,” Bass said. She also acknowledged, perhaps accidentally, that being physically present in your own city during a historic disaster is actually the job: “I’m not a firefighter, obviously, but it’s the role of mayor to be here.”
“Hell Yeah” She Regrets It, But Here Comes the Spin
To her credit, Bass admitted back in July 2025 that the Ghana trip was a mistake. “I was asked, ‘Do I regret going?’ Hell yeah,” she told Vice News at the time. She compared it to being out of town when a family member gets sick, saying “it doesn’t matter where you were or why you were there. You feel horrible.” Points for honesty, zero points for actually staying home despite multiple weather reports warning of fire conditions and dangerously high winds before she boarded the plane.
Now, facing continued public anger, she is back to the “it wouldn’t have mattered” argument, wrapped in a little pop psychology. “When people go through grief, one of the stages of grief, and I know grief very well, is anger,” Bass said. Diagnosing your constituents with a grief stage is a bold strategy when your city just burned down.
The After-Action Report That Got a Makeover
The trip itself might have faded into political embarrassment if not for what allegedly came next. The Los Angeles Times reported that Bass ordered the LAFD’s after-action report softened before publication. According to the reporting, language saying the decision not to fully staff up ahead of the extreme wind forecast “did not align” with department policy was deleted. A section titled “failures” was quietly renamed “primary challenges.” An item noting that crews violated national guidelines on avoiding firefighter deaths and injuries was scratched entirely. As many as seven drafts of the report were created, and someone in the margins even suggested swapping the cover photo from a “negative” image of flaming palm trees to a “positive” shot of firefighters hard at work. Nothing says accountability like a rebrand.
Two sources with knowledge of Bass’s office told the Times that she directed then-interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva to remove or soften findings before public release, specifically over concerns that the report could expose the city to legal liability. Karen Bass wildfire report allegations One source said Bass “didn’t tell the truth when she said she had nothing to do with changing the report,” adding that even a confidant close to Bass thought altering the report “was a bad idea.” Both sources said they will testify under oath if the matter is litigated. Bass’s office denied she ever demanded changes.
What Happens Next
With two sources willing to go under oath and a paper trail of seven report drafts, this story is not going away quietly. Bass continues to deny ordering any edits, but the families who lost homes in Pacific Palisades and Altadena are not likely to find comfort in a renamed “primary challenges” section.
In the meantime, Los Angeles has a mayor who is very sorry she left, very sure it wouldn’t have mattered, and very insistent she had nothing to do with cleaning up the paperwork afterward. If only the city’s neighborhoods had been spared with that same level of effort.
Watch the Karen Bass video:
