LA's Garcetti mocked for response to maskless picture

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Newsom, Garcetti caught maskless at 49ers-Rams game despite stadium rules

‘Fox & Friends’ discusses Democratic leaders Gavin Newsom and Eric Garcetti being caught without their masks at the conference championship game.

Bill Clinton didn't inhale and Eric Garcetti held his breath.

The Los Angeles mayor was widely mocked on social media for what some users saw as a stunning response to a question stemming from a photograph that showed him posing maskless with NBA legend Magic Johnson and San Francisco Mayor London Breed. 

The three were inside a luxury box at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood Sunday to watch the NFC Championship game. Johnson posted the photo on Twitter along with another picture with Gov. Gavin Newsom -- also seen without a mask. 

Deadline reported that Garcetti was asked about the picture during a press conference for the upcoming Super Bowl in the city.

"I’ll take personal responsibility," he said, before telling reporters that "if it makes you and everyone else happy — or even the photographs with people where literally I’m holding my breath for two seconds — I won’t even do that."

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti speaks during a news conference at the 90th Winter Meeting of U.S. Conference of Mayors on Jan. 19, 2022, in Washington. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

California implemented a universal indoor mask mandate in December that was extended to run through Feb. 15. SoFi Stadium, located in Inglewood, also has a mask policy requiring all fans to mask up unless they are eating or drinking. 

Garcetti’s office did not immediately respond to an after-hours email from Fox News.

A Twitter user posted, "Eric Garcetti hopes you’re dumb enough to believe that he held his breath every single time he took his mask off at the Rams game."

Clinton was Arkansas governor in 1992 when he was asked if he ever used illegal drugs while studying at Oxford. The future president said he never broke the law.

"But when I was in England I experimented with marijuana a time or two, and I didn’t like it. I didn’t inhale it, and never tried it again," he said.

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Johnny Carson, the comedian, later joked, "That’s the trouble with the Democrats. Even when they do something wrong, they don’t do it right," Time reported. 

Fox News' Emma Colton contributed to this report