LA’s Mayor Bass Exposes Failings As CNN Host Presses Her on Broken Promise to End Homelessness – RedState
The Los Angeles mayoral race isn’t shaping up exactly as Democrats envisioned in mid-December. 2025, when Karen Bass, the first black woman elected mayor of the City of Angels, announces that she is running for re-election.
In a social media post that Bass shared about the rally, she quietly admitted her administration’s failure:
From Northridge to Echo Park, this campaign aims to bring together every part of this city and region so we can solve homelessness, reduce crime, and make Los Angeles more affordable for everyone.#KarenBassForMayor pic.twitter.com/ryCo3I8k8j
– Karen Bass (@KarenBassLA) December 13, 2025
Note that the mention of “solv[ing] homelessness in post
She stated this goal in another CNN interview, this one with Jake Tapper in 2023:
🚨OMG. It’s BRUTAL for Karen Bass!
CNN: Your goal was to end street homelessness by 2026 in Los Angeles. It’s now 2026. We haven’t ended it and we’re not close to it. How are you ?
BASS: When I said that… I didn’t realize the bureaucratic barriers. I’m ready now.
CNN: But you… pic.twitter.com/FgTjr6Jpbp
– Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) May 20, 2026
As my sister platform Townhall colleague Amy Curtis shared earlier, Bass was unprepared for the pushback and could only throw out a lame excuse: (emphasis added)
“When you spoke to Jake Tapper in 2023, you said your goal was to end street homelessness in Los Angeles by 2026. It’s now 2026,” Elex Michaelson said.
“And we didn’t end it,” Bass said.
“We haven’t ended it, and we’re not close to ending it,” Michaelson said. “How was it so bad?”
“Well, basically, when I said that it was at the beginning of my mandate“, Bass replied. “I am very determined to achieve this goal. I didn’t anticipate some of the bureaucratic hurdles I would encounter but I’m ready to take them on now.
Bass then tries to shift the blame to other Los Angeles city and county politicians, who she says have accepted the persistence of street homelessness and instead focused on building affordable housing. She admits, however, that “we didn’t anticipate that the problem would metastasize.”
The host emphasizes her promise to end the problem “100 percent” before the start of her term, noting that homelessness has “only decreased by 17.6 percent” in nearly four years. He asks why people should trust him this time.
She continues to speak in the tone of a kindergarten teacher, assuring voters that she will. Trust him!
Phew.
As my colleague Stster Toldjah wrote earlier Wednesday, and we have written repeatedly in these pages, Democrats often show they have no intention of solving the very problems they helped cause with their failed far-left policies and neglect (or both).
LEARN MORE: Hilarious Backlash: California Democrat’s Speech for Governor Turns into an Argument Against Democrats
Today, as conservatives and Republicans, we cannot count on a struggling media outlet helping the left like CNN conduct interviews by pushing back on Democrats’ failures like Michaelson did here. Fortunately, Republican mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt bulldozed the lies of Bass and the other Democratic candidate, Nithya Raman, during their recent debate.
READ MORE: Los Angeles Mayoral Hopeful Blames Your Carne Asada — Not Homeless Fires — For Wildfire Risk
Bass and Raman left crackling as Spencer Pratt brings wild ‘reality’ star power to LA mayoral debate
Here’s an example of how Mayor Bass misunderstood the magnitude of the homeless problem Los Angeles faced starting in 2022:
In 2022, Karen Bass proved she couldn’t be more ignorant about the homeless epidemic in Los Angeles, when she claimed that 95% of people on the streets will end up in housing.
Over the next four years, Karen Bass spent a billion taxpayer dollars only to discover that figure was closer… pic.twitter.com/d7fcAHuMKO
– Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) May 20, 2026
In 2022, Karen Bass proved she couldn’t be more ignorant about the homeless epidemic in Los Angeles, when she claimed that 95% of people on the streets will end up in housing.
Over the next four years, Karen Bass spent a billion taxpayer dollars only to discover that figure was closer to 0.5 percent.
I’ll leave you with a brief excerpt from Wednesday’s Bass, in which Politico’s California bureau chief, Melanie Mason, asks him about a remark Pratt made referring to the homeless:
Karen Bass on Spencer Pratt calling homeless people zombies: “Sleep on the streets for a few weeks and tell me your mental health is the same as it was before you were homeless.”
More of his interview with our @melmason 👇 pic.twitter.com/WxPh3jD4Kp
– POLITICS (@politico) May 20, 2026
No, it’s not sleeping outside that makes them “zombies”, Karen. So no idea of the true nature of the problem. And as Pratt noted in this debate (link above), it was Bass who made himself – and his parents and neighbors – homeless:
Pratt: “First of all, Mayor Bass and I definitely don’t work together. I blame this person for burning down my house, my parents’ house, my town and my neighbors. I don’t work with Mayor Bass.”
Here’s another Bass-specific issue. Serving people isn’t like the old long distance phone service plan where you could “roll over” minutes you didn’t use to the next month. In this case, Karen Bass is trying to extend what she described as a firm promise to Angelenos into another term, if they would just oblige and give her another term – something Democrats seem to believe she is owed. That’s not how it works, Mayor Bass. That’s not how this whole thing works.
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