Bill Maher Torches Los Angeles Officials Over Handling Of Wildfires

Comedian and political commentator Bill Maher ripped into Los Angeles and California authorities Friday regarding their handling of the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires.

“When asked why so many of the hydrants in the [Pacific] Palisades ran out of water, [Democratic] Governor [Gavin] Newsom said, ‘The local folks are trying to figure it out.’ Yeah, you gotta do that before the fire,” Maher said on his “Real Time with Bill Maher” show.

Newsom made that comment in a Jan. 8 interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, prompting criticism from many on social media. A nonpartisan coalition, Saving California, started a petition to recall Newsom following his remark, accusing the governor of pursuing “poor policies” and taxpayer-funded “failed pet projects” while social ills mounted.

“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.’ Yeah, that’s not that long a time. Maybe look in the history books to see how our ancestors handled it back in 2011,” Maher deadpanned, prompting applause from his studio audience.

Bass traveled to Ghana on Jan. 11 for the country’s Jan. 14 inauguration of President John Mahama while warnings about the impending firestorm grew. Critics accused her of once again breaking her 2021 mayoral campaign promise not to travel internationally if elected mayor.

Although Bass reportedly spoke with key Los Angeles agencies while in Ghana, she returned to a city battling flames fanned by hurricane-force Santa Ana winds that, at times, impeded aerial firefighting efforts. A video of her silence in the face of journalistic grilling over the apparently ill-timed travel subsequently went viral. A petition for her recall has garnered over 158,000 signatures at the time of publication. (RELATED: Fmr LA County Sheriff Says Bass And Newsom Should Resign For ‘Gross Negligence’ After 25 Deaths In LA Wildfires)

‘Do you owe citizens an apology for being absent whilst their homes were burning? Do you regret cutting the fire department’s budget?
@skydavidblevins questions the mayor of LA, Karen Bass, as she faces backlash regarding the California wildfires.https://t.co/Nkz8onjC7V pic.twitter.com/WwRwp6Imqz

— Sky News (@SkyNews) January 8, 2025

Twenty-seven people have died since four fires ignited around Jan. 7 across Los Angeles and Ventura counties; just over half of the Palisades fire is under control, according to official updates.

Democratic strategist Lisa Durden leapt to Bass’s defense on NewsNation’s “Dan Abrams Live,” saying the criticism of Bass’s travel by “right-wing MAGA Monsters” was “disingenuous and disgusting.” Neither traveling to Ghana nor remaining in California would have prevented the fires, Durden said on the show.

“I know for a fact that if she had been a white male that had traveled to Ghana during this time and then this happened, they’d be like, ‘Oh my God, he was amazing’ — they would’ve cheered him, ‘He was amazing, he got back to the States quickly and he called on the phone, he was on top of things,” Durden claimed.

Host Dan Abrams then suggested Durden was making excuses using the race card.

“America is so partisan now that, even when there’s a disaster of any kind, so many people choose to defend their own team — even over death,” Maher told his audience.

Maher also reported that thieves had stolen some 300 fire hydrants in other parts of Los Angeles. The thieves stole them faster than the hydrants could be replaced between 2023 and May 2024, and the crime was worsening, ABC 7 Los Angeles reported. In addition, the 117-million-gallon Santa Ynez Reservoir had been inoperative since February 2023 to allow for repair work, according to the Los Angeles Times. Newsom reportedly ordered an investigation into the closure.

Maher, who is an Angeleno, criticized an Axios report in which officials and experts believed the city failed to limit and extinguish the fires because the city’s fire hydrants and water system were not designed to fight fires of such a scale.

“I’m sure it’s very complicated, 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,” Maher deadpanned again, to applause.