LA mayor Karen Bass who received a lot of flak for her delay in returning from Ghana during the fire tragedy was at a cocktail party around the same time when her city went up in flames. New photos from the event reveal that Bass was at the US ambassador’s home in Accra for a celebratory gathering on the occasion of the inauguration of Ghanian president Jogn Dramanu Mahama. Bass was part of the delegation sent by the White House. She appeared in photos taken at around 8pm which was when the Palisades fire began and evacuation orders were about to be given.
“Looking back, would you have taken that trip overseas?” Bass was asked by CBS News. “You know, I am gonna focus today on what what we….” Bass said and then said ‘no’ to the question.
For the Ghana trip, Bass faced major scrutiny as there were warnings about an impending windstorm at that time. A spokesperson for the mayor, however, defended that she was not unavailable and for the majority of the time in Ghana, she was in a different room on calls from LA.
Karen Bass said in 2022 she would not travel out of the country
Ahead of the mayoral election in 2022, Karen Bass earlier said she would not travel out of the country if she was elected. “Not only would I of course live here [in Los Angeles], but I also would not travel internationally — the only places I would go would be DC, Sacramento, San Francisco and New York, in relation to LA,” Karen Bass said as she was a known globe-trotter as a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee at the time.
While the LA tragedy revealed the Ghana trip, she actually broke her promise at least five times. Before Ghana, she went to Mexico for the inauguration of President Claudia Sheinbaum and three times to France for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
