Bill Maher Slams LA Mayor As ‘The Nero Of American Politics’ Over Wildfires Response

Bill Maher has joined a burgeoning chorus of pundits in railing against Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass over an ill-timed trip to Ghana she took as her city became engulfed in ongoing wildfires.

The wildfires have devastated Southern California since last Tuesday: More than 40,000 acres have burned, with some 80,000 residents still under mandatory evacuation orders, at least 27 people dead and over 12,000 structures destroyed, per CalFire.

Bass reportedly left for Ghana on Jan. 4 to attend the inauguration of the new president on Jan. 7, and the Palisades Fire broke out later that day.

“I’m sure it’s very complicated,” Maher said on his show, “Real Time,” Friday. “That’s why I pay 13% of my income in this state every year to people who I assumed were working on things like this.”

He continued, “When asked why so many of the hydrants in the Palisades ran out of water, Governor Newsom said, ‘The local folks are trying to figure that out.’ Yeah you gotta do that before the fire.”

Maher noted that “one of the three reservoirs for the Palisades was offline at the one time of year when it was most needed,” referring to the Santa Ynez Reservoir, which has been closed since February due to repairs, officials told the Los Angeles Times last week.

“LA’s mayor, Karen Bass, the Nero of American politics, was fiddling in Ghana while the city burned and later placed the blame on ‘eight months of negligible rain, and winds that have not been seen in LA in at least 14 years,’” said Maher. “Yeah, that’s not that long a time.”

He then countered her claim last week that there “were no reductions” in the fire department budget that would have impacted the response by quoting LAFD Chief Kristin Crowley, who told Fox 11 that it “was cut” and “did impact our ability to provide service.”

(Per reporting from The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and others, there was in fact a lower budget approved for the fire department last year because additional funding for firefighter salaries was temporarily held up amid union negotiations. But the reductions in overtime and other resources still “severely limited” the department’s capacity, Crowley reportedly warned.)

Maher segued into a rant about the department’s diversity efforts and suggested Crowley could’ve been hired because the city wanted “a lesbian in that job,” echoing similar comments from numerous conservative figures.

Orange County Fire Captain Lauren Andrade disputed those charges earlier this week in an interview with Politico, and said there is “nobody more qualified for that position” than Crowley, who has been firefighting for more than 20 years and “has worked her way up.”

But Maher ultimately appeared most frustrated with the partisanship that emerged during this crisis and the bureaucracy that keeps power lines — sparks from which often cause wildfires — precariously exposed, instead of buried underground.

“I’ve heard people say, ‘Do you want to pay more taxes to fund this?’” Maher continued. “No, I want you to use the exorbitant taxes you already collect to prioritize it.”