Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and President Donald Trump have finally broken their silence.
Months after a tensepublic clashover rebuilding the Pacific Palisades following the devastating 2025 wildfires, the progressive mayor and the Republican president spoke directly by phone, a conversation Bass revealed in an interview Friday with KNX Los Angeles City Hall reporterCraig Fiegenerthat was obtained by The Post.
Bass said she called the White House early in the week and Trump returned her call on Thursday.
The call marks the first known conversation between the two since the early days of the wildfire crisis, when the pair clashed publicly over how quickly Los Angeles should rebuild.
Back in January 2025, as Southern California was still reeling from the devastating Palisades Fire, Trump traveled to the region and pressed officials to move quickly on rebuilding. During a wildfire briefing, his exchange with Bassturned tense, exposing the sharp political fault lines already shaping the recovery effort.
The friction resurfaced about a year later when Trumpissued an executive orderaimed at accelerating wildfire rebuilding in Los Angeles.
Bass blasted the move at the time, dismissing it as a“political stunt”and insisting the city already had the rebuilding process under control.
But even as the politics heated up, Bass acknowledged in the interview that the federal government played a major role in jump-starting the recovery. She credited what she described as a historic deployment of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers crews with clearing debris in the Palisades at record speed.
“That historic deployment is why we were able to clear the debris in record time,” Bass said.
The rapid cleanup helped push Los Angeles into the rebuilding phase months earlier than many other disaster zones.
Source: California Post – Breaking California News, Photos & Videos
