Journalist and founder of The Free Press, Bari Weiss, delivered a scathing critique of California’s leadership during a recent appearance on Fox News, highlighting what she described as a failure to prioritize fundamental governance tasks such as fire prevention and public safety.
Weiss’s comments come as wildfires continue to devastate the state, forcing widespread evacuations and destroying an area twice the size of Manhattan.
“Los Angeles is being governed and the state of California is being governed by people who have lost sight of the basics of governing,” Weiss said.
“They have lost sight of the idea that we pay you a tax so that you take care of basics for us, and nothing could be more basic than preventing the burning down of, as you just said in your introduction, an area twice the size of Manhattan.”
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Weiss described the scale of the destruction as almost inconceivable. “I woke up to text messages. Almost everyone we know has evacuated their home. We know people that have lost their homes,” she said.
Weiss pointed to growing public anger and distrust toward Governor Gavin Newsom, attributing it to a history of inadequate responses and poor prioritization.
“The reason that there’s so little trust, and the reason that you saw in that clip that mother confronting Governor Newsom with such rage, is because there’s so much that led up to this moment,” she explained.
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Using her own neighborhood as an example, Weiss detailed the failings of local law enforcement.
“In our neighborhood, you know, a middle-class neighborhood in LA, not particularly fancy, the police, if you called them for a robbery—and there were many, many robberies in our neighborhood—they would take an hour, sometimes two hours to show up. It had become almost like Brazil.”
She added, “It had become normal for middle-class people, upper-middle-class people, to pay for private security, despite the fact that they were paying enormously high taxes already.”
Weiss criticized the state’s allocation of resources, particularly the decision to cut $17 million from the fire department’s budget while increasing spending on homelessness initiatives.
“Was it the fact that, you know, the city cut the spending in the fire department by $17 million? Was it the fact that they were spending more on homelessness initiatives than on preventing fire? Was it D—I don’t know,” she said.
For Weiss, the root of the problem lies in a broader context of leadership incompetence and misplaced priorities.
“What I know is that the broader context in which this fire is happening is a context of total incompetency and leaders who are putting niche luxury issues, ideological issues, over and above the most fundamental things—keeping you and your family safe from crime, keeping you and your family safe from fires. That’s it,” she concluded.
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Free Press Founder Absolutely Torches CA and LA Government Leadership…
Journalist and founder of The Free Press, @bariweiss, delivered a scathing critique of California’s leadership during a recent appearance on Fox News, highlighting what she described as a failure to… pic.twitter.com/MxAPZJf2mW
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Weiss’s remarks underscore growing frustration among Californians as they contend with a devastating wildfire season compounded by perceived failures in governance.
The destruction and displacement caused by the fires have further exposed systemic issues in the state’s management, leaving many residents questioning the state’s priorities and its leaders’ ability to protect them.
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