ABC News viewers shocked after hosts pays Trump a compliment while interviewing LA Mayor Karen Bass

Daily Mail​

21-07-2025

ABC's Martha Raddatz left viewers shocked as she appeared to pay Donald Trump a compliment during an interview with Los Angeles 's mayor, Karen Bass.
Raddatz had been speaking with Bass about the state of her city on Sunday's edition of This Week when she asked whether any good had come of Trump's policies at the border.
Illegal border crossings soared to record highs under President Joe Biden, averaging 2 million per year. Illegal crossings have since fallen to their lowest point in decades thanks to a hardline immigration approach from the president.
Raddatz, in turn, broached the subject by bringing up to Bass the amount of illegal immigration that was occurring under Biden.
'There were- there was hundreds of thousands of people crossing that border. When you look at that border today, is there anything good you think the administration has done in these six months at the border?' she said.
'I don't know. I don't think so,' a stubborn Bass replied after an hour of bashing ICE agents' recent raids and Trump's deployment of the National Guard.
'I think that the viewpoint has been punitive,' she said. [It's] been, "Let's make it as miserable as possible so that these people don't come."'
Users on X were quick to express their surprise, with one pointing out, 'The claim was so insane that [even] Martha Raddatz corrected her.'
'LA Mayor Karen Bass' Comment About Trump and the Border Was so Crazy Even Martha Raddatz Was WTF?!' another wrote.
Raddatz was then asked whether Bass was 'having a conversation with the Trump administration' about her continued qualms.
Bass - who has run LA since 2022 - said no but that she had 'put in a request.'
'I hope to. I will always be open to a conversation,' she emphasized, before adding 'I am just hoping that this reign of terror ends.
'I'm hoping that the military leaves, because they were never needed here to begin with,' she said. 'I'm hoping that we can get back to normal. I'm hoping that the next time I come to this restaurant, that it will be filled, because people won't be afraid to come here.'
More viewers expressed shock in the replies, including a Facebook user who wrote on ABC News' resharing of the now viral- clip to Facebook.
'WTF is "normal" for CA???' they said.
'That was probably the first time Bass set foot in that neighborhood and restaurant,' another sniped.
On a post on the network's Instagram, a viewer shamed Bass for chiding federal agents they claimed were 'being attacked at your prompting.'
Protests in the City of Angels have at times turned violent following the deployment of the National Guard.
Last week, in a major victory for immigrant rights groups and a sharp blow to the Trump's tactics that Bass and others have called a retaliation campaign designed to make an example of Democratic strongholds, US District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong halted what she ruled were unconstitutional raids occurring in LA.
The temporary order could eventually become permanent if the plaintiffs prevail at trial, but it for now bars federal agents from using race, language, or vocation as justification for immigration stops.
Such stops have upended lives, shuttered businesses, and thrown entire communities into chaos across Southern California, Bass and other critics have claimed - causing the friction with the federal government.
On Friday, Bass praised temporary stop to stop raids with a statement that claim citizens were still living in fear as 'masked men grab people off the street, chase working people through parking lots and march through children's summer camps'.
Governor Gavin Newsom - another outspoken critic of the federal government's activity in the city - said the ruling stops what he called the violation of people's rights and racial profiling.
In a statement, he said the Trump administration has been arbitrarily detaining people.
'Stephen Miller's immigration agenda is one of chaos, cruelty and fear,' he added, referring to the White House's deputy chief of staff.
Trump, meanwhile, ran on a campaign that promised deportations.
His administration maintains the raids are legal and part of the president's repeatedly promised enforcement of federal immigration laws.
Earlier in the month, Bass confronted ICE agents in LA's MacArthur Park, where ICE had arrived with a large number of vehicles and officers earlier in the day.
She was followed by a cameraman as she walked through the anti-ICE protesters, some of whom shouted insults.
she demanded to speak with the officer in charge of the ICE operations, and as she saw another agent calling their supervisor, she said: 'Can I talk to 'em?'
'They need to leave and they need to leave right now because this is unacceptable,' she further fumed.
Following Los Angeles, Trump is reportedly readying to deploy ICE tactical units to New York City, Seattle, Chicago, Philadelphia and northern Virginia.