{"id":90500,"date":"2026-04-23T02:08:25","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T02:08:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/2026\/04\/23\/bass-barger-meet-with-trump-to-push-for-la-fire-funding\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T02:09:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T02:09:34","slug":"bass-barger-meet-with-trump-to-push-for-la-fire-funding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/2026\/04\/23\/bass-barger-meet-with-trump-to-push-for-la-fire-funding\/","title":{"rendered":"Bass, Barger meet with Trump to push for LA fire funding"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Washington \u2014 <\/span>Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger met privately with President Trump and administration officials on Wednesday to press for federal support and as-yet-unpaid wildfire recovery funding as the region continues to rebuild from the 2025 fires.<\/p>\n

“This afternoon we met with President Trump and administration officials to advocate for the families who have lost everything,” Bass and Barger said in a statement. \u201cWe had very positive discussions about FEMA and other reconstruction funds, as well as the President’s support for our continued involvement in pressuring insurance companies to pay what they owe \u2014 and the big banks should step up to ease the financial pressure on LA families.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barger said the two leaders had a “high-level discussion” with the president in the Oval Office, sharing stories about what fire survivors are experiencing day-to-day. He said “we’ve left the details up to the president”, but did not specify whether Trump made any funding or policy promises during the meeting. <\/p>\n

“First and foremost, today’s meeting was to thank the President for his early support of including federal resources to accelerate debris removal, but also for his recent tweets about insurance companies, which have already proven helpful,” he said in a statement to the Times. <\/p>\n

Bass was similarly quiet about the discussions, telling reporters that “we will follow the details,” but indicated that progress was being made on federal support.<\/p>\n

“I think what’s important is that we certainly got the president’s support, you know, for what’s needed, and then we had the appropriate people in the room to follow through. And that was Russ Vought, who is the head of the Office of Management and Budget,” Bass told KNX on Wednesday<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The meeting comes after a yearlong standoff between California leaders and the Trump administration over wildfire recovery funding, disaster response and whether the federal government should play a role in allowing local reconstruction.<\/p>\n

California leaders, led by Gov. Gavin Newsom, have accused the Trump administration of withholding billions of dollars in critical wildfire aid, leading to a lawsuit over stalled recovery funds. Officials have accused political bias in delaying billions of dollars from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. <\/p>\n

Newsom visited Washington in December. When he visited Capitol Hill, he met with five lawmakers, three of whom serve on the Senate and House Appropriations committees, to renew their demand for $33.9 billion in federal aid for fire relief in Los Angeles County.<\/p>\n

But the governor said he was denied a meeting with FEMA and would not say whether he had tried to meet with Trump to discuss the issue.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Bass appears to have found a way to reach the president on a topic that has been paramount to his community.<\/p>\n

The meaningful meeting comes after Trump insulted the mayor at a news conference earlier this year, where he called her “incompetent” for handling wildfire efforts last year. He alleged that under Bass’s leadership, the city’s delays in issuing local building permits would take years when it should have taken “two or three days”.<\/p>\n

California officials, including Newsom, have urged the Trump administration to send a formal request to Congress for the $33.9 billion in recovery aid needed to rebuild homes, schools, utilities and other critical infrastructure that were destroyed or damaged by fires that swept through neighborhoods more than 15 months ago.<\/p>\n

What ultimately results from Bass and Barger’s meeting with the President remains to be seen.<\/p>\n

Billions of recovery aid have not yet materialized, but the meeting could potentially give new impetus to those discussions.<\/p>\n

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the meeting.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Trump criticized insurance provider State Farm on Truth Social over its handling of the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles County. He accused the insurance company of abandoning its policyholders when tragedy strikes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was brought to my attention that insurance companies, in particular, State Farm, have been absolutely horrible to people who have been paying them large premiums for years, only to see that when tragedy struck, these horrible companies were not there to help!\u201d Trump wrote.<\/a> <\/p>\n

But the rebuke did not come suddenly. It stems from a controversial trip by Trump administration officials to Los Angeles in February. <\/p>\n

Trump tapped Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin in an effort to strip California state and local governments of the authority to allow them to rebuild homes destroyed in the Eaton and Palisades fires.<\/p>\n

Within weeks, Zeldin was in Los Angeles, bashing Newsom and Los Angeles officials at a roundtable with fire victims and journalists, saying that residents were suffering from “bureaucracy, red tape, delay and incompetence” and that leadership was “depriving them … of the ability to rebuild their lives.”<\/p>\n

During the trip, officials heard direct complaints from local leaders and fire victims about insurers being slow, restrictive and inadequate in paying claims. <\/p>\n

Following these meetings, Trump directed Zeldin to investigate the insurers’ responses. State Farm, facing nearly $7 billion in fire-related claims, is also under formal investigation by California’s insurance commissioner over its handling of the crisis.<\/p>\n

Despite tensions with the administration, Bass and Barger seemed confident that progress was being made on the insurance and funding issues. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur job is to fight for our communities,\u201d their joint statement concluded. \u201cWhen it comes to this recovery, our federal partners are essential, and we are grateful for the President’s support.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Washington \u2014 Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger met privately with President Trump and administration officials on Wednesday to press for federal support and as-yet-unpaid wildfire recovery funding as the region continues to rebuild from the 2025 fires. “This afternoon we met with President Trump and administration officials to advocate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":90508,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[24621,7129,231,462,2418,2057,548],"class_list":{"0":"post-90500","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bible-verse","8":"tag-barger","9":"tag-bass","10":"tag-fire","11":"tag-funding","12":"tag-meet","13":"tag-push","14":"tag-trump"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90500"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90509,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90500\/revisions\/90509"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}