CBS News fact-checked two key moments in Wednesday night’s Los Angeles mayoral debate that backed up Republican Spencer Pratt’s claim that incumbent Democrat Mayor Karen Bass is indeed a liar.
Here is a partially edited transcript from the debate that’s relevant to the first CBS News fact check about the mayor’s epic mishandling of the 2025 Palisades Fire that destroyed nearly 7,000 structures and killed 12 people:
SPENCER PRATT: A lot of people talk about climate change and hurricane-force winds. The winds in the Pacific Palisades never reached higher than 40 mph. For those first six hours, they didn’t go above 27 miles per hour.
The whole point of this exchange is that Bass is running around blaming the fire on Climate Change.
KAREN BASS: He talked about the winds — that is just completely inaccurate. If that were accurate, then the planes would have been able to fly. And so if the winds reached close to 100 miles an hour and the planes were unable to fly.
PRATT: Yes, she mentioned me. So this is — she’s an incredible liar. Everyone on their phones, Google it. 40 weather stations in the Pacific Palisades. It never went above 40 miles per hour. She is referencing the Altadena fire.
BIASED LEFTIST MODERATOR: I have to interrupt you. No name-calling, please.
PRATT: Yeah, but no name calling? She just lied though… No more lying. We need the truth.
Here’s the CBS News fact check:
Weather modeling reviewed for my reporting shows winds in the Palisades during those first several hours of the fire were, in fact under 40 miles per hour. Planes could and did fly. Stronger winds intensified later in the evening. And that distinction matters because the earliest hours of a wildfire are often the most critical for containment.
This is unquestionably accurate. The fire was first reported at 10:30 a.m. California time. Helicopters were dropping water within 15 minutes. Airplanes arrived within an hour.
Later in the debate, Bass attempted to claim that her being in Africa during the fire “didn’t matter.” In other words, she wants us to believe she managed the fire from Ghana exactly as she would have if she were in Los Angeles.
CBS says that is equally untrue, and this fact check is brutal because CBS says that Bass 1) left the country knowing the risk of fire was dangerously high, 2) was unavailable during those early crucial hours, 3) the fire chief didn’t know where she was, and 4) her staff’s attempt to rig social media to make it look like she was in town only further confused communications.
My reporting found Mayor Bass knew about dangerous weather before leaving for Ghana. Communications to emergency managers described her as only being ‘out-of-state.’ And while she was overseas, her office continued posting on social media images and videos that appeared to place her in Los Angeles [and] the lack of clarity [regarding her whereabouts] created confusion during the opening hours of the fire. Fire Chief Kristin Crowley did not initially know the mayor was even in Ghana. And… after Bass was briefed by the chief on the growing fire, she still attended a cocktail reception in Ghana and did not respond for more than an hour to messages from Los Angeles officials asking for help during that critical stretch of the fire’s expansion.
Here’s the full report:
Here’s the thing, though, and I sure hope I’m wrong…
Los Angeles is lost, so none of this matters. Karen Bass running off to be a communist while knowing the imminent risk of a deadly fire?
Doesn’t matter, she’s a Democrat.
Karen Bass exhibiting not just breathtaking incompetence but a total disregard for human life during the crisis (re: the cocktail party)?
Doesn’t matter, she’s a Democrat.
Karen Bass refusing to issue permits to rebuild the Pacific Palisades?
Doesn’t matter, she’s a Democrat. Karen Bass lying about all of this? Doesn’t matter, she’s a Democrat.
Spencer Pratt is as good a candidate as it gets; Karen Bass is as awful a mayor as it gets?
Doesn’t matter, she’s a Democrat.
Hope I’m wrong.