Karen Bass Faces Calls to Resign as She Slams Olympic Board Leader

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has once again inserted herself into a high-profile scandal, this time calling for Casey Wasserman, the chairman of the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Organizing Committee, to step down over speculative ties to Jeffrey Epstein’s associate Ghislaine Maxwell.

In a recent CNN interview, Bass criticized the Olympic board’s decision to support Wasserman despite allegations of racy emails exchanged with Maxwell years ago. She plainly stated, “I cannot fire him, but I have an opinion. And my opinion is that he should step down. That’s not the opinion of the board.”

LA Mayor Karen Bass disagrees with @LA28 board and tells CNN its chairman Casey Wasserman, who is selling his talent agency in light of his relationship with Maxwell & Epstein, should resign.

Bass: The behavior of Maxwell, what they were involved in, is abhorrent and it's an… pic.twitter.com/sDigoPw61N

— Hear in LA (@hearinladotcom) February 17, 2026

While Bass is clearly taking a stand on this issue to feign leadership and act as though she has a spine, many Angelenos are crying “Too little too late!” Some have even demanded that Bass herself resign for her own litany of failures, including, most notably, her disastrous handling of last year’s devastating wildfires.

The backlash has been swift and pointed. Residents, already frustrated with the city’s ongoing crises, see Bass’s remarks as a blatant deflection from her own accountability issues. The New York Post captured the sentiment perfectly, reporting that “Los Angeles residents roasted Mayor Karen Bass” for focusing on Wasserman’s past while ignoring her present shortcomings. This uproar isn’t just about optics; it’s rooted in a deeper distrust of Bass’s judgment, especially as the city gears up for an international spotlight with the Olympics.

Casey Wasserman is a Hollywood mogul and grandson of legendary agent Lew Wasserman. He has been a key figure in securing the Olympic Games for Los Angeles, and the fact that his board is backing him despite the Epstein allegations proves that he has inherent value to the project. Bass’s intervention, however, reeks of political opportunism, particularly given her prior weeks-long silence on the matter before suddenly weighing in.

What truly fuels the anger is Bass’s hypocrisy when viewed against her own record. Last year’s Palisades Fire was one of the deadliest and most destructive wildfires in California’s history, and it exposed the mayor’s leadership as not just inadequate but actively harmful. The blaze claimed 12 lives, destroyed thousands of homes, and scorched nearly 40,000 acres of oceanfront property; however, Bass was conspicuously absent during the fire’s critical early hours. While the flames raged, she was attending the inauguration of the president of Ghana, an invite that still has many scratching their heads. She rushed back on a military plane, but the damage to her credibility was done.

What should be the final nail in Bass’s political coffin is post-fire cover-up. An after-action report by the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) was intended to detail mistakes and recommend improvements so as to make sure this kind of devastation never happens again. However, sources revealed that Bass directed changes to “water down” sections of the report that could expose the city to legal liability—particularly around failures in pre-deployment and resource staffing. Of course, Bass has vehemently denied involvement, insisting her actions were aimed at ensuring accuracy. But the smoking gun is a confidential LAFD memo, which outlined explicit plans to shield Bass from “reputational harm” tied to the report’s release. This memo, reported on by the Los Angeles Times, detailed strategies for risk assessment and crisis communications to protect the mayor, the city, and the LAFD. Such maneuvers suggest not a commitment to transparency but a calculated effort to rewrite history.

As the 2028 Olympics approach, Los Angeles needs steady, ethical leadership—not a mayor who lectures others on accountability while dodging her own. Bass’s remarks on Wasserman might play well in certain progressive circles, but they ring hollow to everyday Angelenos still reeling from her fire fiasco. If she truly believes in stepping down for the greater good, perhaps she should lead by example. The city’s future, and its Olympic legacy, demand no less.