Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass shrugged off questions about her pledge to end street homelessness in the city — blaming “bureaucratic barriers” for her failure to follow through on promises she made when first elected.

During an interview with CNN, Elex Michaelson asked why voters should trust Bass after she said in 2023 that her goal was to eliminate street homelessness by the end of her first term.

“I didn’t anticipate some of the bureaucratic barriers that I would experience, but I am prepared to take those on now,” Bass responded. “When I said that, it was at the beginning of my term. I am very committed to achieving that goal.”

Michaelson, who had been referring to interview she gave to CNN’s Jake Tapper’s State of the Union in 2023, continued to press Bass on her pledge.

“You promised that it would go away 100%, and it’s only gone down about 17.6%. “Why should people trust you that you’re gonna be able to get to the 100%?” Michaelson said.

“Because, let me just tell you, for the first time we’ve had a decrease at all,” Bass said.

Critics ripped the mayor for her response to the grilling.

“Was foolish to say you would end it — that should have been obvious. Now, you say you can handle it and end it? You had your chance — time to move on!” one wrote on X.

“She didn’t anticipate the bureaucracy simply means she failed,” another added.

“Her entire campaign seems to be ‘I’ve learned from my mistakes, give me another chance,'” a third chimes in.

While Bass is currently leading in the polls — with the most recent results showing 30% support among likely voters — she faces strong competition and heavy criticism from former reality star Spencer Pratt, who vowed to seek accountability for what he called the inadequate response of “corrupt” city officials.

Pratt entered the race after his own home burned down in the Palisades Fire, another issue Bass has faced scathing criticism over.

Bass’s first major move as mayor was to ”a state on emergency” over homelessness in Los Angeles, where she claimed 14,000 homeless had been taken off the streets and into temporary housing.

She also pledged to clean up the four square miles of squalor that is Downtown Los Angeles’s infamous Skid Row, which had 4,400 residents at the time, using a $60 million grant awarded to the LA County Department of Health Services.

Nearby hotels and motels were supposed to be used for interim housing under this program, LA County officials said.

There are still about 3,800 living in Skid Row, one of the densest concentrations of people in America.

Los Angeles has about 43,699 homeless people in the city alone, with the total topping 72,000 countywide, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.

“My goal would be, really, to end street homelessness,” she said in the 2023 interview.

“There’ll still be people in shelters and interim housing, but to at least not have people dying on our streets.”

“We’re doing everything we can to build long-term housing in Los Angeles, but it still takes months,” she said.

“We don’t wanna leave people on the streets while we’re building.”