Several celebrities are speaking out against Los Angeles officials in the wake of the devastating fires in California.
Actress Sarah Michelle Gellar, who is married to Freddie Prinze, Jr., called out Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass in a social media post. “City of LA you want everyone to evacuate yet you have complete gridlock and not one traffic cop on the roads helping,” the 47-year-old star shared in her Instagram stories on Tuesday, tagging the official accounts for City of Los Angeles and Bass.
Bass has been criticized for her response to the emergency. The Democrat mayor was thousands of miles away in Ghana when the fires broke out. Bass was also called out for cutting funding to the fire department by almost $18 million despite the fire chief warning that the move put the area at risk.
“Shazam!” star Zachary Levi said Democrats should be held responsible for the amount of damage. “This is just incredible mismanagement, incredibly poor leadership, I would go so far as to say that it’s criminally negligent,” the actor told Fox News.
“Because, I mean, Gavin Newsom has been either the governor for five years or lieutenant governor prior to that for eight, nine years, some of the worst fires we’ve ever had in California under that watch. He clearly knows that the biggest problem that we suffer in California are these fires. And, by the way, the mudslides that follow,” Levi continued.
“And for them to do essentially not just nothing, but worse than nothing, when firefighter budgets are being cut, when they are specifically, intentionally not doing the work that could be done to avoid these problems or to be able to effectively serve them when they are happening…they must be held responsible. This is not good leadership,” he said.
Former “Dancing with the Stars” contestant Valentin Chmerkovskiy also blamed California’s elected officials. “5th largest economy on the planet. Firefighters didn’t have enough water pressure to do their jobs?! Are you joking me?! The taxes we pay for 3rd world infrastructure is unbelievable?! Come on,” he posted on Wednesday.
“We pay the highest taxes in California. Our fire hydrants were empty,” actress Sarah Foster posted on X. “Our vegetation was overgrown, brush not cleared. Our reservoirs were emptied by our governor because tribal leaders wanted to save fish. Our fire department budget was cut by our mayor. But thank god drug addicts are getting their drug kits. @MayorOfLA @GavinNewsom RESIGN. Your far left policies have ruined our state. And also our party.”
Fitness expert and media personality Jillian Michaels also called out elected state officials. “The mayor is apparently in Ghana,” she wrote. “The fire departments budget was apparently cut by 17 mil. And someone made the decision to not refill some of the reservoirs — now some fire hydrants are dry. Leadership in California is beyond negligent. This is completely unacceptable.”
“California governor @GavinNewsom issues a press release admitting they knew about the insane fire risk this past Sunday because he was propositioning(sic) fire engines,” Michaels continued in a follow up post.
“And yet, he just called in the national guard a few hours ago. Pacific Palisades ran out of water at 3am. I’m so so upset for the people of California. My family who stayed. My lifelong friends who live there. Our brave firefighters. This is not a partisan issue it’s pure incompetence and misprioritization.”
Actor James Woods, who lost his home in the fire, blamed Newsom in an X post, saying the fire was not the result of “climate change” but was rather because of “liberal idiots like Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass.”
“One doesn’t understand the first thing about fire management and the other can’t fill the water reservoirs,” the actor wrote.
