Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass hit back at her former political rival Rick Caruso after he called her out in the wake of suspected arsonist Jonathan Rinderknecht’s arrest.
Bass addressed Caruso’s scathing statement during her appearance at Bloomberg’s Screentime conference Wednesday, where she blasted the businessman as “sad and bitter.”
“Well, the way he characterized me sounded like Trump,” she told the crowd Wednesday evening. “But I just was saddened by it, honestly, because that response was beneath him.”
Caruso — who lost the mayoral race to Bass in 2022 — slammed the response to the Los Angeles wildfires earlier on Wednesday, calling it a “failure of government on an epic level,” especially in regards to the mayor.
He wrote in a statement posted to X, “Her and the city’s incompetence, mismanagement, and failure to plan, prepare, and predeploy directly led to people dying, thousands of lives being upended, and put on full display the consequences of ineffective and incapable leadership.”
Bass clearly didn’t appreciate the response, as she accused Caruso of “exploiting tragedy” and “exploiting grief.”
She continued, “This is when the city needs to stand together. Why would you do that? So he’s better than that and I was just disappointed and sad.”
Per Bass, she had recently spoken with Caruso, too, as the twosome had a meeting a few weeks back about issues tied to the “mansion tax.”
The back-and-forth between Bass and Caruso surfaced amid the news that Rinderknecht, a 29-year-old Uber driver, was arrested and charged with starting the Pacific Palisades fire that killed 12 people and burned more than 23,000 acres back in January.
