Vice President JD Vance and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass continued the war of words on immigration enforcement Friday, as the vice president toured the region amid ongoing deportation raids that have sparked frequent and sometimes violent protests.
Bass disputed Vance’s claims that she and Gov. Gavin Newsom incited violent protests and encouraged illegal immigration.
“The vice president of the United States spent three or four hours in LA before holding a press conference and spewing lies and utter nonsense in an attempt to provoke division and conflict in our city,” Bass told reporters at City Hall.
“This is consistent with the provocation from Washington that began two weeks ago when our city was calm and millions of Angelenos were going about working and contributing to our city,” she said. “The provocation has resulted in lives disrupted, terror and fear spread throughout our city.”
The Trump administration has blasted Newsom and Bass for “sanctuary” immigration policies and accused them of hindering federal operations to enforce immigration laws and arrest people living in the country illegally.
Vance did not mince words during his media event Friday after a tour of the Federal Joint Operations Center in Los Angeles.
“You had people who were doing the simple job of enforcing the law, and they had rioters egged on by the governor and the mayor, making it harder to do their job,” Vance said during remarks at the federal facility, flanked by officials from the FBI, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the U.S. Marines and other federal agencies.
“That is disgraceful, and it is why the president has responded so forcefully to what happened in Los Angeles,” Vance said, adding that the atmosphere in LA County was like “open season on federal officers.”
Citing feedback he has received from law enforcement officers, “Every single single one of them said they feel like the local leadership — the mayor and the governor — are encouraging … far-left agitators. What is the justification for this? What is the reason for this? …
“You have it because of a lack of common sense,” Vance said. “These people need to be stopped, these people need to be told that if you threaten a law enforcement officer, you’re going to go to prison for it. … That’s the message that we’re sending.”
Directly responding to Vance, Bass said, “I just want you to know that our city is standing together. We are united. You might attempt to create division, but we are united. Standing with me today are families, business owners, community leaders, representatives, and nothing can divide us.”
Before addressing Vance’s allegations that she and Newsom encouraged violence against federal officers, Bass noted the clandestine nature of immigration raids in the region since June 6.
“(Vance) accused state leaders and myself as mayor of this city of encouraging violence, of sicking mobs on ICE officers — but let me just tell you, like yesterday, what happened at the Dodgers?” Bass said. “We’re not sure who these armed men are. They show up without uniforms. They show up completely masked. They refuse to give ID. They’re driving regular cars with tinted windows, and in some cases, out of state license plates. Who are these people?
“And frankly, the vests that they have on look like they ordered them from Amazon. Are they bounty hunters? Are they vigilantes? If they’re federal officials, why is it that they do not identify themselves?” Bass inquired.
“You can imagine the fear and the terror that that has created in our city, when you have cars driving around, people jumping out of those cars with guns and rifles and pulling people off the street,” the mayor added.
She defended the local response to the protests against federal enforcement operations.
“How dare you say that city officials encourage violence,” Bass countered. “We kept the peace. You know that the federal officials that were here protected a federal building. They were not involved in crowd control. Crowd control was handled, most aptly by the Los Angeles Police Department, the (LA County Sheriff’s Department) and local law enforcement. We were able to handle the violence and the vandalism that occurred.
“We put a curfew in place. We’ve lifted that curfew,” Bass continued. “Our streets have been peaceful, and even when there was vandalism at its height, you were talking about a couple of hundred people who were not necessarily associated with any of the peaceful protests.
Bass noted that the city limits total 500 square miles, and protest-related disruptions took place occurred in a roughly 2-square-mile area of downtown. She also noted 100 people were arrested in a city of 3.8 million.
Bass also criticized the vice president for wrongly naming U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, D-California.
“How dare you disrespect him and call him José, but I guess he just looked like anybody to you,” Bass said. “Well, he’s not just anybody to us. He is our senator.”
Padilla was forcibly removed earlier this month from a press conference featuring Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
