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Los Angeles mayor says he turned down job with Biden to focus on pandemic
Garcetti, a Democrat who had been mentioned as a possible candidate for Secretary of Transportation in a Biden administration, said that with coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths spiraling in America's second-largest city he felt he needed to stay on as mayor.
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Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti (right) listens to the governor of California speak in front of the USNS Mercy hospital ship after it arrived into the Port of Los Angeles on March 27, 2020. The USNS Mercy, a giant US naval hospital ship, arrived in Los Angeles on March 27, where it will be used to ease the strain on the city's coronavirus-swamped emergency rooms.
(AFP/Carolyn Cole)
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os Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said on Thursday that he turned down an offer to work in the administration of President-elect Joe Biden so he can focus on the city as it grapples with record breaking coronavirus infections.
Garcetti, a Democrat who had been mentioned as a possible candidate for Secretary of Transportation in a Biden administration, said that with coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths spiraling in America's second-largest city he felt he needed to stay on as mayor.
"There were things on the table for me but I said to (the Biden administration) very clearly ... I need to be here now," Garcetti told reporters during a live-streamed news conference from his home. "I want to be here and I need to be here."
He declined to say if Biden had offered him a specific position in the Cabinet.
The mayor, who is quarantining at home after his daughter tested positive, said that Wednesday saw the highest number of cases and deaths yet in Los Angeles.
"We expect to have more dead bodies than we have spaces for them," the mayor said. "That frightens me and it should frighten you."
Garcetti has imposed on Los Angeles some of the strictest clampdowns in the United States and has drawn criticism from business owners who said his ban on even outdoor dining threatened to put them out of business.
The mayor said that despite those tough restrictions Los Angeles County had more than 5,000 people hospitalized and was seeing one COVID-19-related death every 15 minutes.
He criticized members of the US Congress for failing to reach a deal on a stimulus package that would provide relief to Americans who had been thrown out of work or lost their businesses during the pandemic.
"The leaders in Washington are abandoning the firefighters protecting us, the police officers," he said.
