Karen Bass won't debate Spencer Pratt – but Whoopi Goldberg will.
The man who lost his home in the Palisades fires is eight points back and closing.
What Goldberg said on live television Wednesday is exactly the answer he needed.
Karen Bass and the Palisades Fire She Wasn't There to Fight
The Palisades and Eaton fires hit Los Angeles on January 7, 2025 – the worst wildfire disaster in California history.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass had flown to Ghana on January 4 – one day after the National Weather Service issued a fire weather watch for the city.
By the time Bass landed back in Los Angeles on January 8, one thousand structures were already burned and more than seventy thousand people were under evacuation orders.
She later admitted the trip was a mistake.
"Obviously, I hated the fact that I was out of the city when the city needed me the most," Bass said.
She also cut the LAFD budget by $17.6 million before the fires. Fire Chief Kristin Crowley told reporters four days into the crisis that those cuts hampered the emergency response.
Spencer Pratt watched his own Palisades home burn while Bass was at a U.S. Ambassador's reception in Accra.
He filed to run for mayor.
The latest Fox 11/Emerson poll has Bass at 30%, Pratt at 22% and closing fast – with undecided voters collapsing from 51% in March to 16% three weeks before the June 2 primary.
Bass's response to the momentum was to pull out of a scheduled League of Women Voters debate on May 10 – the debate she had confirmed first, the one other candidates rearranged their schedules to accommodate.
Three days later, The View aired its defense of her.
Joy Behar Defended Karen Bass on The View and Made It Worse
Joy Behar went on The View and read off Bass's résumé like a campaign staffer.
"Karen Bass has a JFK Profile in Courage Award," Behar announced. "Spencer Pratt was Snapchatter of the year."
The studio audience laughed.
The people in Altadena whose neighborhoods are still rubble didn't.
That award was given to Bass in 2023 for her work as a congresswoman – before the budget cuts, before the chief went public about the response failures, before Bass presided over the worst urban wildfire disaster in California history.
A Profile in Courage award doesn't put out fires.
Sunny Hostin insisted Pratt doesn't have "a law degree from Harvard Law School."
No. He has a burned lot where his house used to be and a reason to actually fix it.
Whoopi Goldberg said she was "freaked out" by Pratt's campaign videos and told him on air exactly what she thought of his candidacy.
"Before you're passing judgment, you need to be able to tell people what you have to offer, Spencer," Goldberg said.
"If you're going to be like the guy who's already in charge, thank you, no," she added – apparently forgetting that the person already in charge of Los Angeles just dodged a debate, admitted her Ghana trip was a mistake, and is asking voters for four more years.
Democrats Said the Same Thing About Trump in 2015
Barbara Bush called Donald Trump a "comedian or a showman" in 2015.
Reagan heard the same thing before California made him governor. Schwarzenegger heard it before California made him governor twice.
The establishment's mockery of celebrity outsiders has never stopped one of them – and the track record should alarm every host on that panel.
When voters watch their city burn while their mayor is at a diplomatic reception overseas, they stop caring about résumés. When they watch her dodge a debate three weeks before the election, they stop caring about committee experience.
Alyssa Farah Griffin – the one conservative on the panel – came closest to understanding what is actually happening in Los Angeles.
"Getting elected is the easy part of the job," Griffin said. "Governing three million people in Los Angeles – and fixing what is a broken system – is what's hard."
Bass has the credentials, the endorsements, and the institutional support of the most powerful political machine in Los Angeles.
She just couldn't do the hard part.
The View audience laughed at Spencer Pratt.
LA voters go to the polls on June 2.
Sources:
- Zain Khan, "Whoopi Goldberg and The View panel suffer daytime meltdown over Spencer Pratt," New York Post, May 14, 2026.
- "Bass holds lead in LA mayoral race as Pratt climbs to 2nd, new poll shows," Fox 11 Los Angeles, May 14, 2026.
- "Karen Bass Ducks Out Of Mayoral Forum After Failing To Escape Blame For Mangling LA Wildfire Response," Daily Caller, May 10, 2026.
- "Timeline shows what we know about L.A. Mayor Karen Bass' trip to Ghana as fire crisis developed," CBS News, January 15, 2025.
- "Mayor Karen Bass admits Ghana trip before wildfires was a mistake," ABC7 Los Angeles, February 19, 2025.