Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass accused U.S. Vice President JD Vance of encouraging division and conflict in the city, which has been a target of immigration raids for the last 15 days.

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“Today the Vice President of the United States spent 3 or 4 hours in L.A. before holding a press conference and spewing lies and utter nonsense,” Bass said.

Vance made a surprise visit to L.A. on Friday and held a press conference where he criticized her and California Governor Gavin Newsom for their handling of the protests against Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, among other issues.

“What happened here was a tragedy. 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. That is disgraceful”, the Vice President claimed.

Bass responded that, “unfortunately,” the U.S. vice president did not take the time to get to know Los Angeles and understand that it is a city of immigrants from all countries and continents.

“But he did need to justify the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars that were wasted in the performance of a stunt and an experiment in the city, and using men and women of our armed services whose mission it is to protect our country,” she added, referring to the deployment of troops to guard federal buildings.

The Republican blames elected officials for the protests against the immigration raids, in which American citizens have been detained.

Karen Bass argued that it was local authorities who contained the vandalism that occurred in a small area of the city. Los Angeles is a city of 800 square kilometers, and any public order disturbance took place in approximately 5 square kilometers, she emphasized.

The head of the Los Angeles City Council ended her message to the Vice President stressing that the city “is standing together. We are united, and nothing you can do will divide us.”

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