President Trump tangled with Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass Friday after touring wildfire damage in America’s second-largest city — demanding she use her “emergency powers” and allow residents to return to their homes to rebuild.Trump, 78, championed resident complaints about not being allowed to access their properties to clear debris and begin reconstruction while blaming local policies for causing the catastrophe estimated to cost $250 billion.“I just think you have to allow the people to go on their site and start the process tonight,” Trump told the Democratic mayor, who was seated next to him during a roundtable discussion that included most of the area’s congressional delegation.“And we will,” Bass claimed, despite contradicting herself minutes later by offering a one-week timeframe for residents to be allowed to visit the charred remains of their homes.Bass protested that “we want people to be safe” — as residents shouted protests from across the room.“I watched hundreds of people standing in front of their lots, and they’re not allowed to go in,” the president retorted.“It’s all burned.
It’s gone, it’s done.Nothing’s going to happen… The people are all over the place.
They’re standing and they say… ‘We’re trying to get a permit’, and the permit is going to take them, everybody said, 18 months,” Trump said.“We can’t even see our homes right now!” a local woman shouted.“You have emergency powers, just like I do, and I’m exercising my emergency powers.
You have to exercise them also,” Trump scolded Bass.“I did exercise them,” she insisted.“If individuals want to clear out their property, they can.”When another resident shouted, Bass said, “You will be able to go back soon.
We think within a week.”“A week is actually a long time, the way I look at it,” Trump reprimanded the mayor, insisting “they are safe.”The newly inaugurated president, who took office Monday, said that he...