WEBVTT - Justin Wolfers & Jacob Soboroff 0:00:00.640 --> 0:00:04.160 Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:07.120 where we discussed the top political headlines with some of 0:00:07.160 --> 0:00:10.520 today's best minds, and we have such a great show 0:00:10.600 --> 0:00:14.680 for you today. Think like an economist. Justin Wolfers joins 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:18.959 us to talk about the good, bad, and very bad 0:00:19.079 --> 0:00:23.520 economic vibes coming from the Trump White House. Then we'll 0:00:23.520 --> 0:00:28.760 talk to MS now's own Jacob Sober about his fabulous 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:33.559 new book Firestorm, the great Los Angeles Fires, and America's 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:37.360 new age of disaster. But first the news Somalie. 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:42.720 We thankfully taped our episode before the horrific shooting in 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:46.919 Minneapolis the other day. I can't think of how long 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:49.520 it's been since I've been that angry. As we're seeing 0:00:49.560 --> 0:00:52.879 here is Mega will never have any shame about what 0:00:52.920 --> 0:00:56.400 they will turn into a culture war and a message 0:00:56.400 --> 0:00:59.320 to their base that if you do horrible things, they 0:00:59.320 --> 0:00:59.880 will stand by. 0:01:00.480 --> 0:01:03.160 So I want to talk about a few things in 0:01:03.200 --> 0:01:07.960 this story. One is that the police, or ice or 0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:11.320 any law enforcement does not have the right to kill you, 0:01:11.560 --> 0:01:14.479 even if you do bad stuff. They do not have 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:17.000 the right. We still have due process in this country, 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:21.279 you have bodily autonomy. You cannot kill people even if 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:24.600 you don't like them, even if they are a quote 0:01:24.680 --> 0:01:28.760 unquote leftist, as the New York Post said yesterday. But 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:32.240 that said, I think the worst part of this story. 0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:37.640 And look, not all victims of police violence are beautiful, 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:44.080 red haired Christian women who have six year old children 0:01:44.160 --> 0:01:48.440 who they've just dropped off at school and a glove 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:53.960 compartment filled with stuffed animals. Most victims of police violence 0:01:54.280 --> 0:01:59.080 don't necessarily look like that. But Magilworld has stumbled into 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:03.240 a hornet's nest, and they are just keep they just 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:07.160 keep kicking at the hornets. Here is a woman who 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:10.720 is every woman in Minnesota, right. She looks like everyone 0:02:10.760 --> 0:02:14.000 in Minnesota. She acts like much of Minnesota. You know, 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:18.760 a lot of times Trump World will somehow imply that 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:23.680 a victim of police violence is a criminal or deserves 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:26.600 this because they were maybe a drug addict, or maybe 0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:29.120 you know, we're involved, or maybe held a weapon. This 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:32.120 is a woman who had just dropped off her six 0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:35.000 year old at school. So with that, there have been 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:37.160 videos that we have seen of her trying to make 0:02:37.160 --> 0:02:39.720 a three point turn while the ice agents jumped in 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:42.400 front of her and shot her three times point blank. 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:46.640 Now there is a new video which has audio. So 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:52.239 Renee Nicole Good says that's fine, dude, I'm not mad 0:02:52.280 --> 0:02:55.600 at you, and the ICE agent shoots her three times 0:02:55.600 --> 0:02:59.560 in the face and says, fucking bitch, we all rage. 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:01.160 Al hawk activities right there. 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:03.920 But also, you can't shoot people in the face you 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:07.080 can't like, even if you don't like them, even if 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:10.120 they make you upset, you can't shoot people in the face. 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:14.400 And then, by the way, after she's shot in the 0:03:14.480 --> 0:03:17.360 face three times, a thirty seven year old woman with 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:20.760 a six year old child, she is then denied medical care. 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:24.120 There is a doctor who comes and tries to treat her, 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:28.240 and ICE says no. So not only is this like murder, 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:33.359 but it's some kind of terrifying where they keep her hostage, 0:03:33.400 --> 0:03:37.280 and instead of acting the way normal government might, which 0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:39.920 is to say we have to investigate this, we can't 0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:44.880 comment until it's investigated, they without any investigations, say, you know, 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:48.000 this is not how any of this looks. She was 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:49.800 an activist, she was this, and. 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:53.200 Then moleftists movement right radical leftist movement. 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:56.520 And they malign her. And then they say the FBI 0:03:56.680 --> 0:03:58.520 is going to do the investigation and they won't let 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:01.760 Minnesota do the investigation. This is not a federal government 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:04.800 that any state wants involved in their state. And this 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:07.440 is where you're going to see a breakdown of federalism. 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:11.360 And I can't tell you how scary it is to 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:14.760 have a federal government that we pay taxes to and 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:18.880 they come in and do insanity to us. Right, Minnesota 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:22.800 was just minding their business and Ice and Border Patrol 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:26.760 came in, killed one woman, shot two other people yesterday 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:31.200 and now won't let the local authorities investigate because they 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:34.120 want what do they want? They want to have their 0:04:34.160 --> 0:04:37.599 own people do the kind of investigation you see in 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:40.960 a Banana Republic. I cannot express to you just the 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:44.360 level of corruption. And by the way, two other things. 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:47.280 The reason you know that Trump world knows this is 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:49.840 a loser and knows that this is going to fuck 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:51.320 them and by the way, good. 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:53.160 God, yeah they fucking got But. 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:55.240 The reason why they know this the problem is because 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:58.320 you don't see Donald Trump out there right dancing and 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:01.880 being jubilant. You see Jade Vance. And Donald Trump is 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:03.960 more than happy to let Jade Vance be the face 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:04.440 of failure. 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:06.760 It is true, he's going the full bided Kabbola and 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:09.760 just letting JD do all the unpopular fish. What I 0:05:09.800 --> 0:05:13.200 think though, is great. Hats off to Congressman Jared Moskowitz 0:05:13.279 --> 0:05:16.400 is he did a profound performance of the Congressional for yesterday, 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:18.560 bringing the attention to something we need to do, which 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:20.800 is it's time for Ice Barbie Christi Noman to go, 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:23.760 and many Democrats seem to be calling for this. Though 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:26.039 I wish someone in the leadership were a little more 0:05:26.080 --> 0:05:28.479 stern with it, but that's a different story for a 0:05:28.480 --> 0:05:29.080 different time. 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:32.599 She should be impeached. I think that she should go. 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:36.080 I think that Trump world, unless you hold these people accountable, 0:05:36.120 --> 0:05:39.440 they will not do anything. Two good things happening the 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:43.799 Democratic leadership has done that has been good War Powers Act. 0:05:44.080 --> 0:05:48.960 Five Republicans voted with Democrats in the Senate on this 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:52.000 War Powers Act, trying to prevent Donald Trump from doing 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:55.760 any more stuff in Venezuela. My strongest guess is that 0:05:55.800 --> 0:05:58.400 Donald Trump has completely lost interest in Venezuela and we 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:01.719 won't hear from it again. Probably not great for Venezuelans. 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:04.760 And then the other thing that they did, which I 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:08.080 think is good, is that we had Leader Jeffries get 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:12.520 this Obamacare tax credit. This expansion for three more years, 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:17.200 and that has been seventeen Republicans voted for that. So look, 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:20.360 that now goes to the Senate, and there's a world 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:23.360 like just like with the Epstein files, which by the way, 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:26.839 this DJ has not released to release one percent of 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:30.400 the Epstein files. It is still pretty good to see 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:33.760 some of these Republicans breaking with Trump. Obviously not what 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:35.200 we need, but still good. 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:38.120 So, speaking of the Epstein files, Molly, I think this 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:42.719 maneuver by Congressman Rocanna and Tom Massey never would have 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:45.360 seen us seeing Thomas Massey doing good things a year ago. 0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:47.560 They're going to try to get a judge to oversee 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:50.440 the release of the Epstein files so that Pam Bondi 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:53.080 could stop obstructing and protecting the pedophile cabal. 0:06:53.440 --> 0:06:57.080 Yeah, they want a special Master. Rocanna has been really 0:06:57.400 --> 0:07:00.880 great on this and this is a really small We 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:04.000 know that there's a reporting that says only one percent 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:07.640 of the Epstein file stuff has been released. That is 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:15.520 absolutely insane. I am just super horrified by that. I think, 0:07:15.880 --> 0:07:19.680 as far as I can tell, that there is a 0:07:19.760 --> 0:07:23.240 real appetite for releasing of the Epstein files, and I 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:26.120 think that Donald Trump is doing everything he can to 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:32.000 obfuscate and try to not let people see them, not 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:35.400 have the DOJ release them, and so having a special 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:39.200 master would be really great. So I think that this 0:07:39.280 --> 0:07:41.480 is a really smart way to do it. Again, these 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:44.160 guys have had to just do everything they every which 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:47.280 way they can to get people to pay attention to this. 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:52.280 So, Maali, the continued competence of Mega Rain's true. Again, 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:54.200 they just are the most competent. 0:07:54.480 --> 0:07:56.400 Oh yeah, they're known for their competence. 0:07:56.760 --> 0:08:00.320 He only hires the best people. And the prosecutor has 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:04.840 been disqualified from investigating with James A. Judges ruled great stuff. 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:09.200 Yeah, here's where we are. Trump blocked a Trump appointed 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:13.280 federal prosecutor from overseeing a criminal investigation into New York 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:15.920 Attorney General. Do you know why he did that, Kelly? 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:22.480 Because US district judge ruled that Trump loyalist John Sarcone 0:08:22.520 --> 0:08:25.880 has been unlawfully serving as interim US attorney for the 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:28.480 Northern District of New York. There have been a couple 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:32.320 of Trump people where he's put them in as US 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:35.360 attorneys and they have been ruled to be illegal. So 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:39.600 this is yet another one. This federal prosecutor has oversted 0:08:39.640 --> 0:08:42.600 his legal one hundred and twenty day appointment, and we 0:08:42.679 --> 0:08:46.160 saw this. This was the thing we saw with everyone's 0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:51.360 favorite pageant queen in the Southern District of Virginia. You 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:54.439 know what they're doing is they're doing emergency power stuff 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:58.600 because they can't get congressional approval for stuff. And that 0:08:58.880 --> 0:09:01.760 is the secret to Trump is you can't get the courts. 0:09:01.960 --> 0:09:05.079 And that's why, like when we talk about fixing the system, 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:07.240 one of the things that we're going to really need 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:09.959 is we're going to need all of those emergency powers. 0:09:10.000 --> 0:09:12.920 I mean, there are emergency Powers Acts that have not 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:16.520 been repealed since nine to eleven. There are things that 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:20.480 are working not the way they're supposed to. They're working 0:09:20.520 --> 0:09:24.160 on these sort of emergency war power stuff and that 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:26.960 has to stop. We have to sort of reset back 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:30.280 to a system of like the most checks and balances 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:34.000 you've ever seen, where you have real democratic norms and 0:09:34.080 --> 0:09:36.320 you really don't have any of these sort of special 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:39.080 emergency powers. Because that's how we got That was sort 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:42.439 of the first step towards this presidency of a kind 0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:50.880 of unchecked power. We have exciting news over at our 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:54.959 YouTube channel. This second episode from our Project twenty twenty 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:58.720 nine series is out now. It's a reimagining where we 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:02.200 examined what went wrong with democrats approach to politics and 0:10:02.240 --> 0:10:05.000 how we can correct it and deliver changes to help 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:09.200 people's lives. The first episode dove into the very sexy 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:13.920 topic of campaign finance reform, and our second episode deals 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:19.079 with an even sexier topic, antitrust and regulation. We look 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:24.080 at how antitrust and regulation can protect American citizens and 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:29.280 make America thrive in an era of rampant corruption and 0:10:29.440 --> 0:10:33.760 predatory crony capitalism. We talk to the smartest names in 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:39.360 the field like Lena Khan, el Vero Bedoya, Elizabeth Wilkins, 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:43.520 and Doha Mechi. Republicans were prepared for when they got 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:46.840 the levers of power. We need democrats to be too. 0:10:47.120 --> 0:10:50.560 So please head over to YouTube and search Molli John 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:54.080 Fast Project twenty twenty nine or go to the Fast 0:10:54.160 --> 0:10:58.520 Politics YouTube channel and find it there and help us 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:02.720 spread the word. Justin Wolfers, as a host of The 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:05.000 Thing Like an Economists podcast and a professor at the 0:11:05.080 --> 0:11:08.839 University of Michigan, Welcome back, too Vast Politics. 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:12.400 Justin Wolfers, Well, I love Hall exaud If you always 0:11:12.400 --> 0:11:15.280 said about talking, ready can only she say, Thank goodness, 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:16.200 it's economic style. 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:16.720 Can totally. 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:18.239 I'm so excited. 0:11:18.520 --> 0:11:21.920 Things are going great every time we talk about the 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:25.959 numbers that come out of this admin. We finally got 0:11:26.000 --> 0:11:30.559 some labor numbers from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. 0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:33.320 Talk us through what these numbers mean. 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:35.880 Okay, can we do a second rehearsal. Will you sound 0:11:35.960 --> 0:11:36.480 liss bored? 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:40.440 Well, no, I'm not bored. I'm cynical about these numbers. 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:43.920 And I don't know how cynical to be about these numbers, 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:47.280 because remember, I mean, I know it was six months ago, 0:11:47.440 --> 0:11:52.240 but Trump did fire the head of this organization because 0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:55.719 he didn't like the set of numbers they released. So 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:57.959 I want you to sort of talk us through what 0:11:58.000 --> 0:12:01.439 they mean, if they're real, etc. Etc. It's not boredom, 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:02.400 it's cynicism. 0:12:02.840 --> 0:12:05.680 Okay, great, So the numbers were good enough that he 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:08.439 didn't fire anyone this morning. Right, So let me go 0:12:08.559 --> 0:12:10.520 back a step and bring your whole audience in. 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:11.040 Right. 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:12.800 We're always trying to get a pulse of what's going 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:15.320 on in the economy. You might think that measuring the 0:12:15.360 --> 0:12:19.120 economy is very straightforward. It turns out, for an economy 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:22.880 this big and this complicated. It's very very complicated, indeed, because. 0:12:22.600 --> 0:12:24.640 You have different element of the economy. 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:27.280 Yeah, how do you even know who's doing business? How 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:29.120 do you know how many people are out there? How 0:12:29.120 --> 0:12:31.400 do you know? You might be able to say what 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:33.560 share of people have a job, but how many people 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:36.320 are there in the US even there are so many 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:40.800 unknowns and this makes this a surprisingly difficult technical task. 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:44.199 So the most reliable indicator is what we call the 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:47.640 jobs report. That's why you and I, Molly tend to 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:51.200 talk on average after the first Friday of every month, 0:12:51.280 --> 0:12:53.520 which is when these latest numbers come out. Measures the 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:56.240 unemployment right, which is one of the best indicators for 0:12:56.280 --> 0:12:58.240 how the economy is doing for you and I, But 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:01.920 the one the markets really watches employment growth. They watch 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:04.959 that because it's got very good statistical properties. There's more 0:13:05.000 --> 0:13:10.600 signal than noise normally in a normal hero then end 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:13.160 the lesson there and move to talking about the world. 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:15.280 But we're not in the normal moment, or in a 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:19.479 moment where as you say, Molly, the president fires statisticians 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:21.920 who give him facts he doesn't like, has tried to 0:13:21.960 --> 0:13:26.000 put in place Charlattan's and clowns and undermined the very 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:28.920 notion of truth. So how much should you believe these numbers? 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:32.959 And the answer is so far these are as honest 0:13:33.400 --> 0:13:36.760 as can be, so I believe them. Now, let me 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:39.320 be clear about what I do and don't believe. What 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:41.400 I believe is that these are a serious estimate of 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:46.320 what's going on, using serious, high quality statistical methods. Now, 0:13:46.640 --> 0:13:49.520 remember it's always difficult, so that doesn't mean they're exactly right. 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:53.880 Second thing is right. Now things are even more complicated 0:13:53.920 --> 0:13:56.800 because we just had a government shutdown where some numbers 0:13:56.800 --> 0:14:00.520 weren't collected, and even more, the Bureau of Labour's satistics 0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:01.400 is under resource. 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:02.479 But what I don't. 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:05.480 Believe is that we had the longest government shut down ever, 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:08.120 so there's not a precedent for it. 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:10.640 Right, For the first time since nineteen thirty nine, we 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:13.199 literally skipped a month of measuring employment and unemployment in 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:15.480 the United States, which we've never done before. 0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:17.400 I know, Molly, like me. 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:20.800 It kept you awake, thrashing in the middle of the night, 0:14:21.320 --> 0:14:22.320 yea cold space. 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:24.320 What did it to the viewers? 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:27.040 I should that the audience. I should know Molly would 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:29.880 call me and just say, hold me, what is going on? 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:34.400 So all of this makes things more complicated. Plus, the 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:37.920 economy is even more complicated because what we have is 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:41.440 an enormous immigration shock going on, and so it makes 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:44.119 it even more difficult to know literally how many Americans 0:14:44.120 --> 0:14:46.320 there are. What hasn't happened is these numbers went to 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:47.800 the White House, and the White House said no, no, 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:50.120 The Department of Lies and Propaganda would like you to 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:52.760 believe the following instant. So these are true numbers. Now 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:54.840 here's the other way I know they're true. They don't 0:14:54.840 --> 0:14:59.280 serve the administration's purpose. What happened this month as we 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:03.320 learned that job growth last month was fifty thousand, which 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:05.680 is very very low. That's so low that you could 0:15:05.720 --> 0:15:08.600 say you'd call it nearly zero. We had almost no 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:10.960 job growth. And then the other thing that happens is 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:13.320 every month we learn more about what happened earlier in 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:17.400 our history. Sometimes mentioned businesses don't send in their reports 0:15:17.400 --> 0:15:19.440 of how many people are on payroll on time, and 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:21.520 they send them in a little bit later. As a result, 0:15:21.600 --> 0:15:24.360 we revised the numbers to make them more accurate. And 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:27.160 one of the really big things that happened was that 0:15:27.240 --> 0:15:29.680 we learned in the fact that October is one of the 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:34.200 worst recent months we've had that jobs fell enormously in 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:38.840 October and they rose by lesson we previously thought November. Again, 0:15:38.880 --> 0:15:40.560 for the audience, I don't want you to take month 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:42.160 to month up and downs very seriously. 0:15:42.200 --> 0:15:43.080 Often, what we'll do is. 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:45.680 We'll average over what's happening over the past three months, 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:49.720 and when you do that, here's the payoff long later. Finally, 0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:52.000 the poff when you look at the last three months, 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:53.080 we're losing. 0:15:52.840 --> 0:15:55.840 Jobs and it's proof that they're not juicing the numbers. 0:15:56.040 --> 0:15:58.880 The point you're saying is that they if they were 0:15:58.960 --> 0:16:01.120 juicing the numbers, they have made them great. 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:04.800 If they were liars, if there were high quality liars, 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:07.200 these wouldn't be the liars they'd tell. There's a little 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:09.880 bit of leave unsaid right there, but no, these are 0:16:09.920 --> 0:16:13.200 absolutely serious estimates. What these estimates tell us, though, is 0:16:13.200 --> 0:16:15.680 that we're in a job's recession, by which I mean 0:16:15.720 --> 0:16:18.760 it's not clear. A recession typically means output is declining. 0:16:19.520 --> 0:16:22.880 It may be we're going to find out, but the 0:16:22.960 --> 0:16:26.240 number of jobs is declining, the number of workers people 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:29.000 in work is declining. It's been declining for the past 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:33.840 three months. It's also the case that for wildly oninteresting 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:37.560 technical reasons, these numbers may be overstated. FED Chair Powell 0:16:37.640 --> 0:16:39.920 said of this last press conference, he thinks they're overstated 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:42.560 by sixty thousand per month. Based on these numbers, ever 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:46.360 since Liberation Day, remember the beginning of Trump's trade war 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:49.560 that happened in April, We've created almost no jobs. It 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:53.840 may be that we subsequently learned we've actually been shrinking 0:16:53.840 --> 0:16:55.480 the number of jobs we have in the economy since 0:16:55.520 --> 0:16:56.280 Liberation Day. 0:16:56.440 --> 0:16:59.520 So it could literally be zero right now. 0:16:59.560 --> 0:17:01.040 It's awful close to zero. 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:04.360 But it could literally be negative fifty thousand. 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:09.000 More than that, it negatives fifty thousand per month over 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:10.199 the last seven months. 0:17:10.800 --> 0:17:13.360 So and this is just and you don't have and 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:18.040 these measures don't measure every aspect of employment, right because 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:21.800 certain employment comes in later. That's why there's revisions. 0:17:22.080 --> 0:17:25.880 What Powell said, FED Chair, who has the best economic 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:29.280 staff in the world, is he said, their estimate is 0:17:29.320 --> 0:17:33.240 that these numbers overestimate monthly job growth by sixty thousand 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:36.680 for quote technical reasons. Now, let me explain what technical 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:40.200 reasons are so you understand why this isn't so simple. Really, 0:17:40.200 --> 0:17:42.440 what the way we measure employment is we send out 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:44.280 forms to all the firms that are out there and 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:46.960 ask them how many workers they have. Now, if I 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:49.439 sent out a form to one in every hundred firms 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:51.480 that are out there, then all I do is I 0:17:51.520 --> 0:17:53.560 take the total number of workers and I multiply by 0:17:53.560 --> 0:17:55.160 one hundred, and that would tell me how many jobs 0:17:55.160 --> 0:17:57.040 they were. The problem is, we don't know if we're 0:17:57.040 --> 0:17:58.679 sending them out to one and one hundred or one 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:00.879 on one hundred and one, because we don't know how 0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:03.919 many firms there are. The reason for that is every 0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:07.439 day businesses are dying and every day new businesses are 0:18:07.440 --> 0:18:10.800 being born, and the government doesn't necessarily see them until 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:13.080 the next tax season. So we literally don't know how 0:18:13.119 --> 0:18:17.719 many businesses there are. And so if there are fewer 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:20.680 small businesses being born, or if there are more old 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:23.919 businesses dying than we'd previously thought, and there's good reasons 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:27.120 to think that's the case based on other statistics than 0:18:27.160 --> 0:18:30.679 our existing methods, which are honest, are honest, but inaccurate. 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:36.960 So it looked no one expects that the current pessimistic 0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:40.280 numbers that show no job growth. Let me get rid 0:18:40.280 --> 0:18:43.280 of the negatives, double negatives. The current numbers show no 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:47.920 job growth, effectively no job growth since Liberation Day. Everyone 0:18:48.000 --> 0:18:52.560 expects that to be an overstatement, too rosy, too optimistic. Wow, 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:55.879 If anything, reality is worse. 0:18:56.640 --> 0:18:59.400 So I want we're going to go to the next 0:18:59.440 --> 0:19:03.879 question here, which is the Dow, which is not the economy, 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:05.280 the markets, public markets. 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:07.359 I just want to stick on jobs for a moment 0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:09.919 because I think that I really do want people to 0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:12.200 understand the job market is in a very dire strait. 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:13.879 So the first thing I want to say is, this 0:19:13.960 --> 0:19:18.440 is the end of December data, and so we have 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:18.959 the full year. 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:21.200 What happened in twenty twenty five. Twenty twenty five is one. 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:24.320 Of the worst years outside of a recession, we've ever had. 0:19:25.560 --> 0:19:28.879 Second fact I like, just because I think it's fun, 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:35.879 is since Liberation Day, Canada has produced more jobs than 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:40.000 the United States. Canada, who arguably will meant to be 0:19:40.040 --> 0:19:43.520 one of the biggest losers out of trade War, Canada, 0:19:43.560 --> 0:19:45.639 which is one tenth the size of the United States, 0:19:45.760 --> 0:19:49.240 is producing almost twice as many jobs. So really, what's 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:53.280 going on is the United States economy has stopped? Why problem? 0:19:54.000 --> 0:19:55.120 Why look around? 0:19:55.440 --> 0:19:57.760 No, I know why the American economy has stopped, But 0:19:57.800 --> 0:20:01.040 I want to know why Canada. So what Cana has 0:20:01.080 --> 0:20:03.280 picked up all the slack. 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:06.000 No, it's not that American jobs have gone across the 0:20:06.000 --> 0:20:08.919 boarder necessarily. It's just that the American economy has stopped 0:20:08.960 --> 0:20:10.040 and other economies have not. 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:14.040 So they're picking up this slack. So if you could buy, 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:17.600 if you could import export with the US, and now 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:19.879 you can't because it's too expensive, you just go to 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:21.040 Canada where it's cheaper. 0:20:23.160 --> 0:20:24.680 I'm not going to buy at that. 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:27.159 I just want to say, there are two economies that 0:20:27.280 --> 0:20:29.600 happen to me, next to each other. One of them 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:33.040 has stopped growing and the other has not. That right 0:20:33.359 --> 0:20:36.280 tells you something has gone wrong in the United States 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:39.480 that has not happened elsewhere through North America. 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:40.560 That's the one. 0:20:41.960 --> 0:20:44.880 You think of. Anything that's happened in the United States 0:20:44.920 --> 0:20:46.600 but not in other countries. 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:49.560 No, certainly not, and certainly not a trade war that's 0:20:49.600 --> 0:20:53.399 good and easy to win. Even though the real number 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:55.560 of tariffs we know from the New York Times supporting 0:20:56.359 --> 0:20:59.080 is the tariff numbers are actually about half what the 0:20:59.119 --> 0:21:03.879 administration is they are, it's still enough to kill the economy. 0:21:04.240 --> 0:21:07.280 Let's go back and explain that two ways. I want 0:21:07.320 --> 0:21:09.040 to be clear about what the New York Times is saying, 0:21:09.080 --> 0:21:10.439 and I want to be clear about what's going on 0:21:10.480 --> 0:21:12.520 with the economy. I'm sorry for being a boring professor. 0:21:12.520 --> 0:21:14.560 Every time you see something interesting, I'm like, let's slow 0:21:14.600 --> 0:21:16.640 down and explain right now, it's. 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:18.280 Good, okay. 0:21:18.400 --> 0:21:23.119 So a question I've gotten frequently is if tariff's are 0:21:23.119 --> 0:21:26.919 so bad, why hasn't it destroyed the American economy. But 0:21:27.080 --> 0:21:30.440 one of the things is we actually haven't had tariffs 0:21:30.880 --> 0:21:31.480 very much. 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:32.200 Right. 0:21:32.280 --> 0:21:35.600 Remember Trump was elected in January, everyone said, where's your 0:21:35.800 --> 0:21:37.399 tariff regim and he finally got around to. 0:21:37.400 --> 0:21:38.080 It in April. 0:21:38.240 --> 0:21:40.800 He announced it in April and Liberation Day, and then 0:21:40.960 --> 0:21:44.320 seven days later said, oh, just kidding, I didn't realize 0:21:44.320 --> 0:21:46.439 that would freak global markets out. I'm now going to 0:21:46.440 --> 0:21:49.400 take ninety days off. He then took ninety days off. 0:21:49.440 --> 0:21:53.359 That takes you from April through to April, May, June, July, 0:21:53.720 --> 0:21:55.679 and then he got to July and then realized he 0:21:55.720 --> 0:21:57.840 hadn't made ninety deals in ninety days. In fact, he'd 0:21:57.840 --> 0:22:00.480 made none, and said, well, we're going to put the 0:22:00.480 --> 0:22:03.360 tariffs back on. But he realized in that ninety days 0:22:03.359 --> 0:22:05.800 he'd forgotten to think about what they should be. So 0:22:05.840 --> 0:22:09.120 he gave himself another twenty four day extension, then announced 0:22:09.160 --> 0:22:11.560 a set of tariffs actually were remarkably similar to what 0:22:11.600 --> 0:22:15.840 they'd been way back in April. And then his tariff 0:22:15.840 --> 0:22:17.639 nerds said, well, we can't get that entered in the 0:22:17.640 --> 0:22:20.159 computers quick enough. That'll take another seven days. And so 0:22:20.240 --> 0:22:22.240 once we start to faff around, it takes to like 0:22:22.320 --> 0:22:25.919 August or September until we get tariffs, by which point 0:22:26.000 --> 0:22:32.240 he also starts offering exceptions. So went back, renegotiated with Canada, 0:22:32.280 --> 0:22:36.000 and basically most trade with Canada became tariff free. He 0:22:36.080 --> 0:22:38.640 backed down on a range of things. Remember the term taco. 0:22:38.960 --> 0:22:41.399 And it turns out, if you're willing to bring just 0:22:41.440 --> 0:22:44.520 the right bauble to the White House, you can whisper 0:22:44.560 --> 0:22:47.040 and say, hey, we'd like a special exemption or exception 0:22:47.200 --> 0:22:49.520 here there or somewhere else. And so it turns out 0:22:49.560 --> 0:22:52.440 there's the tariff regime as announced, and there's the tariff 0:22:52.440 --> 0:22:55.359 regime has actually implemented. So first of all, the announcements 0:22:55.359 --> 0:22:58.200 were months ahead of the implementation. The second thing is 0:22:58.240 --> 0:23:01.120 the announcements were big and public, and the walkbacks were 0:23:01.280 --> 0:23:03.240 fairly private, and so it turns out the amount of 0:23:03.320 --> 0:23:05.760 tariff revenue we've taken in is much less than you 0:23:05.760 --> 0:23:08.560 would have expected given the bold pronouncements, which is to say, 0:23:08.600 --> 0:23:11.679 there are now so many exceptions, loopholes riddled through the 0:23:11.720 --> 0:23:14.520 whole darn thing that and I think there's as good news. 0:23:14.880 --> 0:23:17.359 Trump has actually implemented fewer tariffs than you said he would. 0:23:17.480 --> 0:23:20.280 That's the reporting from the New York Times. So we 0:23:20.320 --> 0:23:22.960 do have tariffs, but they're not quite as bad as Trump. 0:23:22.800 --> 0:23:25.240 And they're at a lower rate than he says they are. 0:23:25.640 --> 0:23:29.560 Right now, let's come back, Well, if there's not huge tariffs, 0:23:29.600 --> 0:23:31.520 what's going on with the economy? So, first of all, one, 0:23:31.800 --> 0:23:34.000 these are still big. These are still the biggest tariffs 0:23:34.000 --> 0:23:36.760 we've had in about eighty ninety hundred years. Second of all, 0:23:37.280 --> 0:23:39.760 tariffs aren't the only thing. Tariff's might be the only 0:23:39.800 --> 0:23:41.520 thing people like to talk to me about, but they're 0:23:41.520 --> 0:23:44.359 not the whole economy. So what else is going on 0:23:44.400 --> 0:23:47.159 in the economy? I think the first thing is a 0:23:47.240 --> 0:23:51.160 huge crash in confidence. You look at consumer confidence, it's 0:23:51.200 --> 0:23:53.440 never been this low. You look at the share of 0:23:53.520 --> 0:23:57.240 Americans who judge the quality of American macroeconomic policies being poor. 0:23:57.320 --> 0:24:00.479 It's literally never been this high right away, that's going 0:24:00.560 --> 0:24:03.159 to cause problems. The second thing is you've got this 0:24:03.240 --> 0:24:07.639 tremendous rise in uncertainty. Right The uncertainty is partly tariffs. 0:24:07.640 --> 0:24:09.920 Will we get into trade war with China next weekend 0:24:10.680 --> 0:24:13.440 probably depends on what's happening with Epstein more than anything else. 0:24:13.840 --> 0:24:16.760 The uncertainty of those far greater than that, right. Remember 0:24:16.800 --> 0:24:19.000 the CEO of Intel walked into the White House and 0:24:19.040 --> 0:24:21.879 walked out having accidentally left behind ten percent of his 0:24:21.960 --> 0:24:26.160 company that somehow got nationalized. The White House is taking 0:24:26.160 --> 0:24:29.199 big positions in private sector companies. The White House is 0:24:29.240 --> 0:24:32.200 calling CEOs and telling them what to do. The White 0:24:32.240 --> 0:24:35.680 House is picking up foreign leaders and just bringing them home. 0:24:35.880 --> 0:24:39.280 The White House is deciding their wives and their wives, 0:24:39.320 --> 0:24:42.720 and the White House is deciding if and which states 0:24:42.840 --> 0:24:45.800 American states that wants to invade next. All of this 0:24:46.160 --> 0:24:49.200 it's tremendous cause of uncertainty. We're two weeks away from 0:24:49.280 --> 0:24:52.120 a healthcare overhaul. Of course, we've been two weeks away 0:24:52.160 --> 0:24:55.160 from a new healthcare plan now for ten years. All 0:24:55.200 --> 0:24:59.080 of this means if you were my staff and you 0:24:59.080 --> 0:25:02.000 came to me with a big vestment project. He said, 0:25:02.680 --> 0:25:05.399 justin we should invest millions in this new factory. I 0:25:05.400 --> 0:25:08.919 would say to you, hey, Molly, how much does it 0:25:08.960 --> 0:25:10.800 cost to wait a few months and see if some 0:25:10.840 --> 0:25:14.960 of these regulations actually pan out in ways that would 0:25:15.000 --> 0:25:17.800 undermine my investment. I've always got the possibility of delaying, 0:25:18.480 --> 0:25:21.240 and that's become an absolutely compelling choice now for a 0:25:21.280 --> 0:25:23.760 lot of companies. And that's part of what's going on 0:25:23.800 --> 0:25:24.800 with the economy too. 0:25:25.040 --> 0:25:31.440 All important and relevant things. So let's talk through what 0:25:31.880 --> 0:25:34.680 we are going to see now. The markets are doing 0:25:34.680 --> 0:25:38.159 really well, and there's a set there's an understanding that 0:25:38.240 --> 0:25:41.040 it's like a ke shaped economy that there are it's 0:25:41.080 --> 0:25:46.359 a recovery where we're seeing tech giants make money. Maybe 0:25:46.359 --> 0:25:48.720 it's an AI I mean, is this a bubble or 0:25:48.800 --> 0:25:51.280 is this a part of a healthy economy? Explain to 0:25:51.320 --> 0:25:52.560 us what is happening. 0:25:52.760 --> 0:25:55.400 Okay, I'm going to start again once a lot of there, 0:25:55.440 --> 0:25:58.040 so we'll go slowly. Let me start with the claim 0:25:58.240 --> 0:26:01.359 that the stock market is doing well well. It's perhaps 0:26:01.440 --> 0:26:04.840 the White House's most frequent economic claim. They're like every 0:26:04.880 --> 0:26:07.960 economist out there says, our policies suck, but look what's 0:26:07.960 --> 0:26:09.800 happening to the stock market. Now, the thing is, the 0:26:09.840 --> 0:26:13.680 stock market reflects two things. That reflects the underlying innovation 0:26:13.840 --> 0:26:18.880 impulses from the private sector and then possible changes caused 0:26:18.920 --> 0:26:21.000 by the public sector. One way of figuring out what 0:26:21.560 --> 0:26:23.520 they is going on with the private sector is to 0:26:23.520 --> 0:26:27.200 look in other countries, because things like AI are genuinely global, right, 0:26:27.280 --> 0:26:30.239 things like a shift in global demand genuinely global. And 0:26:30.320 --> 0:26:32.040 so once you do that, it turns out that the 0:26:32.119 --> 0:26:35.600 US stock market performance has actually been genuinely weak. Almost 0:26:35.600 --> 0:26:39.359 any other industrialized country you visit has had stronger stock 0:26:39.400 --> 0:26:43.840 market growth since Inauguration Day than the United States. We're 0:26:43.840 --> 0:26:47.639 at the very very bottom. So that says there is 0:26:47.760 --> 0:26:52.840 something that's driving global markets up. Whatever it is, the 0:26:53.040 --> 0:26:58.520 US is doing worse relative to every other country. So normally, 0:26:58.520 --> 0:27:00.840 if I were to look for, you know, what could 0:27:00.840 --> 0:27:04.480 an administration claim credit for, I'd say, compare the US 0:27:04.520 --> 0:27:06.119 to the rest of the world. Well, the US is 0:27:06.160 --> 0:27:08.879 doing worse than the rest of the world. That says 0:27:08.960 --> 0:27:12.760 markets have become relatively less optimistic about the US economy 0:27:12.840 --> 0:27:15.680 relative to every other economy since the administration came to power. 0:27:16.680 --> 0:27:21.320 So the claim that the stock market is says markets 0:27:21.359 --> 0:27:23.879 believe that what the administration is doing is good. I 0:27:23.920 --> 0:27:26.960 think is upside down and wrong. It shows the infatuation. 0:27:27.320 --> 0:27:29.920 It shows that American business reporters know how to look 0:27:29.960 --> 0:27:31.720 up the Dow Jones, but don't know how to look 0:27:31.800 --> 0:27:34.080 up what's happening in the rest of the world. I 0:27:34.160 --> 0:27:36.040 know it's weird to say that Americans can be a 0:27:36.080 --> 0:27:37.200 little inward looking, but. 0:27:37.640 --> 0:27:38.840 Certainly for a moment. 0:27:38.960 --> 0:27:43.760 Yeah, so, actually, I think stocks are not voting for 0:27:43.760 --> 0:27:47.880 the president. Second, what the hell is going on? Well, 0:27:48.200 --> 0:27:51.400 we are in the middle of this extraordinary AI transformation, 0:27:51.640 --> 0:27:54.520 whatever you think of it. AI is an extraordinary technology. 0:27:54.680 --> 0:27:58.199 There's two parts to the AI story. One part is 0:27:59.000 --> 0:28:01.479 the long run, which is many of the jobs that 0:28:01.560 --> 0:28:03.320 many of us do, it many of the boring parts 0:28:03.359 --> 0:28:05.879 of our jobs computers are going to be able to do. 0:28:06.000 --> 0:28:09.159 I choose to speak about that in optimistic terms, which is, 0:28:09.200 --> 0:28:11.119 if it takes away the boring parts of yours and 0:28:11.200 --> 0:28:13.480 my job, my you and I get to spend more 0:28:13.520 --> 0:28:16.639 time doing fun things. And that's been what past technological 0:28:16.680 --> 0:28:17.679 revolutions have done. 0:28:17.760 --> 0:28:19.960 So the structure of our labor. 0:28:19.640 --> 0:28:22.520 Market, of our economy, of our lives, what our children 0:28:22.560 --> 0:28:24.320 are going to grow up and do is going to. 0:28:24.240 --> 0:28:25.280 Be fundamentally different. 0:28:25.280 --> 0:28:29.520 But that's a statement about future decades. In order to 0:28:29.640 --> 0:28:32.120 create that AI companies are going to have to build 0:28:32.160 --> 0:28:34.440 out these huge data centers, which are literally just big 0:28:34.520 --> 0:28:36.560 rooms full of computers. And so what they're doing is 0:28:36.600 --> 0:28:39.200 they're at a race for the future, and so they're 0:28:39.200 --> 0:28:44.880 spending trillions of dollars gajillions, eleventy kajillion dollars on these 0:28:44.960 --> 0:28:47.560 data centers. And it turns out that that's a huge 0:28:47.600 --> 0:28:50.480 part of what's actually growing in the US economy right now. 0:28:50.600 --> 0:28:52.400 So then you can think about the US as been 0:28:52.480 --> 0:28:56.160 two economic stories. There's what's going on with your AI buildout, 0:28:56.440 --> 0:28:59.320 which is going to be short term, and there's what's 0:28:59.360 --> 0:29:01.080 going on with the rest of the economy. Well, the 0:29:01.120 --> 0:29:03.600 AI build out has been very strong. That has kept 0:29:03.640 --> 0:29:08.080 stocks up around the world. It's kept the American economy growing. 0:29:08.200 --> 0:29:10.480 The rest of the economy, though it has been very weak, 0:29:10.600 --> 0:29:13.080 in particular the parts of the economy Trump claims to 0:29:13.080 --> 0:29:15.640 care about, and that his policy agenda is meant to 0:29:15.760 --> 0:29:19.280 benefit manufacturing, the goods producing sector, which is helped by 0:29:19.720 --> 0:29:21.600 which if anyone is helped by tariffs, it would be 0:29:21.640 --> 0:29:25.000 goods because tariffs are on goods, they're actually doing incredibly poorly. 0:29:25.320 --> 0:29:28.280 Much of the rest of the economy is looking pretty weak. 0:29:29.200 --> 0:29:30.520 Is that responsive, Molly. 0:29:31.040 --> 0:29:34.280 Yes, justin Wolfer's will come back? 0:29:36.000 --> 0:29:36.800 Yes, when of you won. 0:29:40.080 --> 0:29:44.040 Jacob sober Off is a correspondent for NBC News and 0:29:44.480 --> 0:29:48.400 ms NOW and the author of Firestorm, The Great Los 0:29:48.440 --> 0:29:55.720 Angeles Fires, and America's New Age of Disaster. Welcome Too Fast, Pology. 0:29:55.720 --> 0:29:58.200 It's Jacob sober Molly, thanks for having me back. 0:29:58.400 --> 0:30:01.000 I'm so excited. So let's talk about this book. You 0:30:01.080 --> 0:30:04.640 were on the ground covering those fires the minute they started. 0:30:04.960 --> 0:30:10.400 You grew up in one of the most affected areas, 0:30:10.560 --> 0:30:13.000 the Palastaates. Yeah, yeah, so let's talk about it. 0:30:13.160 --> 0:30:15.200 I'll cover a lot of things in my time at 0:30:15.440 --> 0:30:19.360 MS NOW and before that MSNBC and NBC News, but nothing, 0:30:19.440 --> 0:30:22.080 I think, in all of my years here has ever 0:30:22.120 --> 0:30:24.880 made me sort of stop and think I cannot understand 0:30:25.360 --> 0:30:28.560 or comprehend what I'm witnessing in real time, as watching 0:30:28.600 --> 0:30:31.720 my own childhood neighborhood carbonized in front of my face, 0:30:31.800 --> 0:30:34.760 before my eyes, and in a way, I felt like, 0:30:35.280 --> 0:30:36.960 you know, almost it was a time machine. I was 0:30:36.960 --> 0:30:39.040 going back in time, and I could see my childhood 0:30:39.320 --> 0:30:43.120 literally disappear as I was reporting on Primetime MSNBC on 0:30:43.160 --> 0:30:47.760 the night of January seventh, twenty twenty five. And really, 0:30:47.800 --> 0:30:50.280 I think now that I've spent so much time diving 0:30:50.280 --> 0:30:53.000 deep on this is to look into the future. It 0:30:53.040 --> 0:30:55.720 was the fire of the future, and firestorm means a 0:30:55.720 --> 0:30:58.960 lot of things. It means the actual literal event that 0:30:59.000 --> 0:31:01.440 I experienced, but it's all so the politics around the 0:31:01.440 --> 0:31:04.520 moment and how that contributed to what I went through, 0:31:04.560 --> 0:31:05.680 and so there's so. 0:31:05.680 --> 0:31:06.280 Much it read. 0:31:06.320 --> 0:31:08.640 The book was really like a real time, minute by 0:31:08.680 --> 0:31:11.120 minute TikTok of what it felt like to be inside 0:31:11.120 --> 0:31:13.840 the middle of the costliest wildfire event in American history. 0:31:13.920 --> 0:31:16.200 But it's also an exploration of sort of the factors 0:31:16.240 --> 0:31:17.920 that made it happen and why it's definitely going to 0:31:17.920 --> 0:31:18.440 happen again. 0:31:18.600 --> 0:31:21.000 When you say the fire of the future, what does 0:31:21.000 --> 0:31:24.360 that mean? Because I think of that part of California 0:31:24.600 --> 0:31:28.480 because of the winds, it's a different situation, So explain 0:31:28.560 --> 0:31:29.000 what you mean. 0:31:29.160 --> 0:31:30.880 I think that the Fire of the Future is a 0:31:30.880 --> 0:31:32.680 lot of things, and I didn't really understand what it 0:31:32.720 --> 0:31:35.480 was until I went to Washington actually in the fire 0:31:35.520 --> 0:31:37.640 happened in January, and I went to Washington for the 0:31:38.000 --> 0:31:41.800 correspondence dinner and we did this town hall on Ms. 0:31:41.800 --> 0:31:45.400 Stephanie Rule, and I with fired federal workers. That same weekend, 0:31:45.640 --> 0:31:48.560 I sat down with a career emergency management official that 0:31:48.600 --> 0:31:51.000 I had met when I was covering the family separation crisis. 0:31:51.120 --> 0:31:53.280 And he went from AJHS and tried to help the 0:31:53.360 --> 0:31:56.280 children during that to leaving that job because of his 0:31:56.320 --> 0:31:59.800 opposition to the policy, and went to every mass casualty 0:32:00.200 --> 0:32:03.040 fire event over the last five years. And this guy, 0:32:03.160 --> 0:32:05.240 Captain Jonathan White, said to me, he's the one who 0:32:05.280 --> 0:32:08.480 said what you experienced was not some aberration. This is 0:32:08.520 --> 0:32:10.160 the fire of the future and it's here now. And 0:32:10.200 --> 0:32:12.320 the reason why is and he said, give me your notebook. 0:32:12.360 --> 0:32:14.960 I was taking notes sort of a Mexican restaurant in Washington, 0:32:15.000 --> 0:32:16.840 and he said he drew an X on the page 0:32:17.120 --> 0:32:20.240 and he said, it is the confluence of four things. 0:32:20.400 --> 0:32:24.360 One obviously climate change. Two our infrastructures falling apart. Three 0:32:24.520 --> 0:32:28.240 changes in the way we live with electric car batteries exploding. 0:32:28.480 --> 0:32:31.000 You know, these toxic substances of the past now coming out. 0:32:31.120 --> 0:32:34.520 But for misinformation and disinformation, the amount of misinfo and 0:32:34.560 --> 0:32:38.479 dis info that permeated literally as toxic as the fire 0:32:38.560 --> 0:32:41.840 and the things that we're all breathing in ourself was, 0:32:42.200 --> 0:32:44.760 if not unprecedented, I think a sign of what's to come, 0:32:44.840 --> 0:32:47.200 particularly during this administration, which is why the book is 0:32:47.240 --> 0:32:50.560 called Firestorm, the Great Los Angeles Fires in America's New 0:32:50.560 --> 0:32:53.320 Age of disaster. Donald Trump was a president elect, but 0:32:53.360 --> 0:32:58.400 it didn't stop him from interjecting, injecting himself into the 0:32:58.800 --> 0:33:01.880 not only the recovery process, and lying about what was 0:33:01.920 --> 0:33:04.920 going on, and picking fights with Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass, 0:33:05.160 --> 0:33:07.440 but really in real time as the fire was unfolding. 0:33:07.680 --> 0:33:10.200 I don't think it is an overstatement to say it 0:33:10.320 --> 0:33:14.320 changed the way that people experience the fire itself. No politician, 0:33:14.400 --> 0:33:17.080 Democrat or Republican has absolved for and there'll be lots 0:33:17.080 --> 0:33:18.760 of investigative reporting how did this happen? 0:33:18.800 --> 0:33:19.640 Why did it happen? 0:33:19.840 --> 0:33:22.120 But the thing that makes it new and different is 0:33:22.160 --> 0:33:26.120 the amount of politics that surrounds events like this today 0:33:26.480 --> 0:33:29.480 and how harmful it is to the people that experienced them. 0:33:29.760 --> 0:33:33.520 So I want to talk about that more because that 0:33:33.920 --> 0:33:39.400 is really interesting. So the disinformation, misinformation is certainly one 0:33:39.760 --> 0:33:44.640 element of this and the politicization of something that is 0:33:45.160 --> 0:33:47.960 right should not be politicized one way or the other. 0:33:48.320 --> 0:33:51.360 But the thing about this fire and why it was 0:33:51.400 --> 0:33:55.760 so much worse than any other fire we've had, maybe ever, right, 0:33:55.880 --> 0:33:56.760 was because it moves so. 0:33:56.800 --> 0:34:00.720 Quickly Hurricane force wins. Yeah, I mean hurricanes. 0:34:00.920 --> 0:34:03.800 I've covered up the natural disasters, have covered humanitarian crises 0:34:03.840 --> 0:34:05.560 all over the world. But what this was and why 0:34:05.600 --> 0:34:07.959 it was different was that you had hurricane force winds 0:34:08.000 --> 0:34:09.960 coming over and it was predicted by the way. I mean, 0:34:10.000 --> 0:34:11.920 this is a story as much as it is about 0:34:11.920 --> 0:34:14.719 the fire and about the politicians you know, who are 0:34:14.719 --> 0:34:16.680 involved in the fire, as it is about the workers, 0:34:16.719 --> 0:34:19.719 the government workers who were involved, the first responders who 0:34:19.719 --> 0:34:21.360 were involved, the people that try to stop us, and 0:34:21.400 --> 0:34:24.880 the National Weather Service. Two guys in particular, doctor Riel 0:34:24.960 --> 0:34:27.840 Cohen and Dave Gomberg from the National Weather Services office 0:34:27.840 --> 0:34:30.799 in Oxnard, just west of LA predicted that these were 0:34:30.840 --> 0:34:34.000 we're called mountain wave winds. If there was a spark 0:34:34.080 --> 0:34:36.480 coming over the Santa Monica Mountains or the San Gabriels, 0:34:36.560 --> 0:34:40.360 would result in catastrophic fire like we have never seen before. 0:34:40.440 --> 0:34:43.360 And guess what, that's exactly what happened, and all it 0:34:43.400 --> 0:34:45.680 took literally in the Palisades was you know, there are 0:34:45.680 --> 0:34:48.000 two different approximate causes. I guess you could say of 0:34:48.000 --> 0:34:50.400 the fire the Palisades was a holdover fire from an 0:34:50.480 --> 0:34:53.000 arson fire seven days earlier and an Alta Dana. The 0:34:53.000 --> 0:34:57.560 Eaton fire was faulty electrical equipment. The prevailing theory. 0:34:57.560 --> 0:34:59.440 Is falty electrical equipment. 0:34:59.480 --> 0:35:01.840 Where when you look at the San Gabriels, yeah, and 0:35:01.920 --> 0:35:05.560 Eaton Canyon, there are these huge lattice steel towers that 0:35:05.800 --> 0:35:08.600 run electrical equipment up and over the San Gabriels, and 0:35:08.840 --> 0:35:12.600 one of them was inactive and through a process of electrification, 0:35:12.880 --> 0:35:15.799 yet one spark, and once that spark happens, it led 0:35:15.840 --> 0:35:18.920 to literally not only thirty one deaths between the Palisades 0:35:18.920 --> 0:35:22.600 and Altadina, but literally thousands of homes destroyed. I always 0:35:22.640 --> 0:35:25.319 think that these events become x ray vision, and for 0:35:25.360 --> 0:35:27.279 me they were, especially in the aftermath of reporting this 0:35:27.280 --> 0:35:29.600 book x ray vision about the things that are underneath 0:35:29.640 --> 0:35:32.920 the surface of our society. And in the homeless capital 0:35:32.960 --> 0:35:35.680 of America, more unhoused people sleeping on the street than 0:35:35.719 --> 0:35:38.880 anywhere else. Instantly, tens of thousands of more people were 0:35:38.920 --> 0:35:41.719 homeless forced from their homes, and we're only a year in, 0:35:42.000 --> 0:35:43.880 but so many of them have not returned, and so 0:35:43.920 --> 0:35:46.000 there's just so much, so much to talk about, so 0:35:46.080 --> 0:35:48.000 much I learned at the end of the day, it's 0:35:48.000 --> 0:35:50.760 a story about people as much as it is about politics. 0:35:50.840 --> 0:35:53.960 And while this is a tough story, it's also a 0:35:53.960 --> 0:35:57.560 hopeful one because I met so many people with whom 0:35:57.600 --> 0:35:59.800 I shared, you know, the experience of I lost my 0:35:59.800 --> 0:36:02.279 own childhood home in this fire. My brother lost the 0:36:02.280 --> 0:36:04.600 house that he was living in, friends of mine on 0:36:04.680 --> 0:36:06.720 both sides of town. My son had his ninth birthday 0:36:06.719 --> 0:36:09.400 party in Altadena at a pizza place called Sidepi that 0:36:09.440 --> 0:36:12.080 burned down in the fire. And so there's so much 0:36:12.080 --> 0:36:15.319 that we share too. And that's why as depressing of 0:36:15.360 --> 0:36:17.239 a year as it was, as hard as it was 0:36:17.239 --> 0:36:19.479 for me to cover this and to spend the better 0:36:19.520 --> 0:36:21.879 part of the last year researching how something like this could happen, 0:36:22.000 --> 0:36:25.000 I left feeling really hopeful because of the people that 0:36:25.040 --> 0:36:27.000 I got to meet and learn about, whether it was 0:36:27.080 --> 0:36:29.400 JPL engineers two hundred of them lost their homes in 0:36:29.440 --> 0:36:32.319 the fire living in Alta Dina to Caltech, or the 0:36:32.320 --> 0:36:34.920 firefighters that did everything they could just to stop the 0:36:34.960 --> 0:36:36.239 fire from each and every home. 0:36:36.360 --> 0:36:37.960 That's why I love this job. That's why I love 0:36:38.000 --> 0:36:38.759 getting to do what I do. 0:36:39.120 --> 0:36:44.040 I want you to talk about what it's like now, 0:36:44.160 --> 0:36:49.239 because it is environmental catastrophe. I would love you to 0:36:49.239 --> 0:36:53.640 talk us through, like the stages of the post fire, 0:36:54.080 --> 0:36:57.160 what the area is like now, what it looks like 0:36:57.239 --> 0:36:58.080 it could become. 0:36:58.719 --> 0:36:59.600 There's so much. 0:36:59.400 --> 0:37:01.960 Work to do, and what I had hoped was that 0:37:02.520 --> 0:37:04.960 what it would be was sort of a unifying moment. 0:37:05.200 --> 0:37:07.000 And I can talk about all the details of the recovery, 0:37:07.040 --> 0:37:09.600 but the reason I hoped it would be unifying as obvious. 0:37:09.800 --> 0:37:11.759 And there was one story in particular that's in the 0:37:11.760 --> 0:37:14.560 book that to me exemplifies how we sort of took 0:37:14.560 --> 0:37:16.840 a wrong turn. I was standing in the Palisades on 0:37:16.880 --> 0:37:20.040 the second morning of the fire. It was January eighth, 0:37:20.080 --> 0:37:21.440 and I was about to go up on a special 0:37:21.440 --> 0:37:23.560 report with Lester Holton. I looked down at my phone 0:37:23.880 --> 0:37:27.880 and it said Katie Waldman was calling me. Katie Waldman 0:37:28.280 --> 0:37:30.120 is now Katie Miller, which was in my phone as 0:37:30.200 --> 0:37:32.920 Katie Waldman because I knew her during family separation as 0:37:32.920 --> 0:37:35.720 the junior most Press deputy at the Department of Homeland Security. 0:37:35.800 --> 0:37:38.760 She married Stephen Miller during that policy. This is Stephen 0:37:38.800 --> 0:37:40.759 Miller's wife. And while I told her I had to 0:37:40.760 --> 0:37:41.960 call her back because I was about to go up 0:37:42.000 --> 0:37:44.520 on this special report, she texted me, just like so 0:37:44.560 --> 0:37:46.360 many other people did when I was in the Palisades, 0:37:46.360 --> 0:37:48.600 can you go check this address. You're the only person 0:37:48.680 --> 0:37:51.200 I know who is there. And I said, what could 0:37:51.239 --> 0:37:54.919 this possibly be about? It was Stephen Miller's parents' house. 0:37:55.239 --> 0:37:57.600 She asked me to go by and check and see 0:37:57.640 --> 0:37:59.160 if it was still standing. And just like I did 0:37:59.200 --> 0:38:01.920 for the kids that i'd oaken carpool or my brother, 0:38:02.200 --> 0:38:04.000 more other people that called, I did. I went by 0:38:04.160 --> 0:38:05.800 and it had burned down. And I had hoped that 0:38:05.800 --> 0:38:08.040 it was going be this moment of like Olive Branch, 0:38:08.280 --> 0:38:10.959 that we would find common cost. And to your point 0:38:10.960 --> 0:38:13.279 about the recovery in the aftermath, not only was she 0:38:13.360 --> 0:38:16.680 working for Elon Musk, who was spreading misinformation about why 0:38:16.719 --> 0:38:20.120 the water sources had run dry during the fire and 0:38:20.280 --> 0:38:23.840 amplifying Donald Trump's conspiracy theories about the fire during the fire, 0:38:24.080 --> 0:38:27.560 but this is an administration that has decimated so many 0:38:27.600 --> 0:38:29.840 of the key agencies that are going to be critical 0:38:29.880 --> 0:38:33.320 in the recovery. National Weather Service meteorologists have been fired. 0:38:33.560 --> 0:38:37.520 Scientists and NASA's Earth Science program that study wildfires are 0:38:37.560 --> 0:38:41.520 on the chopping block. At NIOSH National Institute for Occupational 0:38:41.560 --> 0:38:43.360 Safety and Health. I had stood there on the corner 0:38:43.360 --> 0:38:46.040 in Morgantown, West Virginia, talking to some of these employees 0:38:46.080 --> 0:38:47.799 that look out for the health and well being of 0:38:47.800 --> 0:38:50.520 firefighters and firefighters safety at a time when there were 0:38:50.520 --> 0:38:52.359 a risk of cancer more than ever before. I had 0:38:52.360 --> 0:38:55.480 firefighters during this fire say because of the environmental catastrophe. 0:38:55.520 --> 0:38:57.880 I thought during the fire and certainly after that, I'm 0:38:57.920 --> 0:39:00.799 probably going to get cancer from battling this. And that 0:39:00.920 --> 0:39:05.000 office was decimated by this administration during the DOGE cuts, 0:39:05.200 --> 0:39:06.279 and the list goes on and on. 0:39:06.440 --> 0:39:07.520 That's just a partial list. 0:39:07.640 --> 0:39:09.920 And so when you talk about the recovery, Yeah, there 0:39:09.920 --> 0:39:12.680 are toxic substances all over as part of these fires, 0:39:12.680 --> 0:39:14.600 and there will be more when a fire like this 0:39:14.680 --> 0:39:16.799 happens again. The question is how do we deal with them? 0:39:16.880 --> 0:39:18.279 You know, the answers we have to reckon with the 0:39:18.280 --> 0:39:19.880 fact that politics is getting in the way of us 0:39:19.920 --> 0:39:20.480 actually doing that. 0:39:21.480 --> 0:39:23.880 Are people rebuilding or now slowly? 0:39:23.920 --> 0:39:25.120 I went to McNally Avenue. 0:39:25.200 --> 0:39:28.400 McNally Avenue is the street that I interviewed Gavenusam on 0:39:28.640 --> 0:39:30.800 for me the Pressed the Saturday after the fire started. 0:39:30.840 --> 0:39:32.960 He and I spent I think twenty minutes there talking 0:39:32.960 --> 0:39:35.480 about what he would do, and you know, he by 0:39:35.520 --> 0:39:37.680 the way, you know, nobody's absolved in terms of the 0:39:37.680 --> 0:39:39.840 politics of this, about what they've been able to do 0:39:39.920 --> 0:39:41.680 and what they've been able to accomplish. He promised a 0:39:41.760 --> 0:39:44.000 Marshall Plan two point zero in the wake of the fire, 0:39:44.040 --> 0:39:46.239 and there's still a really, really long way to go. 0:39:46.440 --> 0:39:49.719 But on McNally Avenue where I met Kate Henigan, who's 0:39:49.760 --> 0:39:52.279 a senior JPL engineer who lost her home and her 0:39:52.280 --> 0:39:55.360 story is detailed in the fire or Herbin Lloyda Wilson, 0:39:55.560 --> 0:39:58.960 a married couple who met at UPS and are incredible too, 0:39:59.080 --> 0:40:01.840 incredible working class pe people, like so many people in Altadena, 0:40:02.120 --> 0:40:04.480 that block was it looked like it was firebombd you know, 0:40:04.760 --> 0:40:07.360 And I was just there, I think last week, checking 0:40:07.400 --> 0:40:09.160 up on the block again. I'm going to see them 0:40:09.200 --> 0:40:11.840 actually tomorrow, and there's one home or two homes that 0:40:11.880 --> 0:40:15.160 are starting to be rebuilt. It's a long way from 0:40:15.280 --> 0:40:17.600 coming back from this, and that's the case also on 0:40:17.640 --> 0:40:19.480 the other side of the town in the Palisades, because 0:40:19.719 --> 0:40:23.680 in addition to becoming victims of this horrible, horrible tragedy, 0:40:23.719 --> 0:40:25.839 we live in a city that is unaffordable. 0:40:25.920 --> 0:40:28.560 But is it safe to rebuild there? I mean, what's 0:40:28.600 --> 0:40:30.840 the toxicity in the groundwater? 0:40:31.000 --> 0:40:33.000 And then, yeah, it's such a good question. 0:40:33.040 --> 0:40:34.520 The La Times has been doing and I was with 0:40:34.560 --> 0:40:37.000 Tony Briscoe actually last night LA Times reporter who has 0:40:37.000 --> 0:40:40.879 done some extraordinary reporting on why the federal government didn't 0:40:40.920 --> 0:40:44.439 do soil testing for certain toxic substances the Army Corps 0:40:44.480 --> 0:40:46.920 of Engineers. The answer is when the La Times tested 0:40:46.920 --> 0:40:48.720 the soil, I think, he said, because the federal government 0:40:48.800 --> 0:40:51.319 wasn't twenty percent of the homes, if I have this right, 0:40:51.640 --> 0:40:54.480 had the toxic substances above the level of what would 0:40:54.520 --> 0:40:56.960 be safe to rebuild. And so the onus is on 0:40:57.080 --> 0:40:59.440 so many home owners and people to decide whether or 0:40:59.480 --> 0:41:02.120 not they even want to come back now knowing that 0:41:02.400 --> 0:41:05.319 this stuff, whether it's lead or asbestos, which is in 0:41:05.360 --> 0:41:08.680 the lungs of the firefighters who battled it, but also 0:41:09.160 --> 0:41:11.839 in the ground. According to this reporting of so many 0:41:11.880 --> 0:41:13.600 the people who want to come back to their homes. 0:41:13.760 --> 0:41:15.200 I mean, what would you do. I don't know what. 0:41:15.239 --> 0:41:18.240 I would not come back. Yeah, wouldn't you not come back? 0:41:18.640 --> 0:41:19.560 No? I don't think so. 0:41:19.719 --> 0:41:22.239 What's the question my own brother is facing in the Palisades. 0:41:22.280 --> 0:41:24.439 Their daughter was born in the weeks after the fire. 0:41:24.520 --> 0:41:26.759 They're not going back to their house anytime soon. And 0:41:27.080 --> 0:41:29.640 it's a part of the story that this firestorm, this 0:41:29.760 --> 0:41:32.000 hurricane of fire. I have never seen anything like it, 0:41:32.040 --> 0:41:33.520 by the way, and I describe it in detail in 0:41:33.560 --> 0:41:37.560 the book embers flying horizontally, buildings burning horizontally, as as 0:41:37.600 --> 0:41:40.240 the fire flies past her face with data mount arrowinds. 0:41:40.480 --> 0:41:43.239 I mean, as as a student of Joan Didion, as 0:41:43.360 --> 0:41:48.000 all female journalists consider themselves to base more successfully than others. 0:41:48.160 --> 0:41:52.080 This is what she writes, you know, she writes about 0:41:52.120 --> 0:41:54.640 this all the time. And I do wonder how much 0:41:54.680 --> 0:41:57.759 of this, Like, obviously, environmentally we're in a lot of 0:41:57.800 --> 0:42:01.480 trouble and the climate has changed in numerous ways. But 0:42:01.520 --> 0:42:03.480 I just wonder how much of this more for my 0:42:03.520 --> 0:42:06.879 own edification, Like what is California here? And what is 0:42:07.200 --> 0:42:10.000 because the wind stuff? I don't know the say it 0:42:10.080 --> 0:42:12.279 to Anna, I don't know that that I mean, it 0:42:12.320 --> 0:42:15.920 may we may see changes in the jet stream that 0:42:16.000 --> 0:42:18.279 will create that, but we don't have that. 0:42:18.440 --> 0:42:19.759 Yeah, I think you're right. 0:42:19.800 --> 0:42:23.280 Nobody's written more beautifully about the Santa Annas than Johan Diddyon. 0:42:23.320 --> 0:42:23.600 Another. 0:42:23.920 --> 0:42:25.640 I mean, I read so many books about fire as 0:42:25.640 --> 0:42:27.960 I was sort of researching how this possibly could happen. 0:42:28.080 --> 0:42:31.360 Mike Davis wrote The Ecology of Fear, and he famously 0:42:31.960 --> 0:42:35.359 made the case for letting Malibu burn in the wake 0:42:35.440 --> 0:42:36.320 of those fires. 0:42:36.680 --> 0:42:39.080 And the thing that makes me think. 0:42:38.920 --> 0:42:42.200 About, in addition to really how this has been a 0:42:42.200 --> 0:42:45.960 grieving process for so many, especially me in particular, but 0:42:46.080 --> 0:42:48.000 tens of thousands, if not millions of people who live 0:42:48.040 --> 0:42:50.799 here and experience their city falling apart, and then, by 0:42:50.800 --> 0:42:52.680 the way, followed by the ice rates that happened here. 0:42:52.800 --> 0:42:54.080 And there's intersections with all of that. 0:42:54.120 --> 0:42:57.080 The day laborers who were working to rebuild are being 0:42:57.160 --> 0:42:59.720 targeted by the same administration as they tried to rebuild 0:42:59.719 --> 0:43:02.759 from the fires. An undocumented worker was killed as he 0:43:02.800 --> 0:43:05.600 was chased from home depot across the two ten Freeway 0:43:05.640 --> 0:43:08.520 that was engulfed under an umbrella of smoke from the 0:43:08.520 --> 0:43:09.920 flames in January. 0:43:10.200 --> 0:43:11.799 Yeah, climate change is a big part of this. 0:43:11.960 --> 0:43:14.960 But when I say when I talk about a proximate causes, 0:43:15.200 --> 0:43:16.160 it's not the only one. 0:43:16.280 --> 0:43:18.360 And if there's anything that I have taken away from. 0:43:18.239 --> 0:43:21.000 This is that the story that is told in my 0:43:21.080 --> 0:43:23.879 book in Firestorm is a story that in some issuer 0:43:23.880 --> 0:43:26.959 has already happened. Look at Lahina people literally jumping into 0:43:26.960 --> 0:43:30.120 the ocean two years prior to run away from another 0:43:30.560 --> 0:43:35.680 urban conflagration fueled by winds just like this, and Maui exactly, 0:43:35.800 --> 0:43:39.480 and the campfire in Paradise in northern California. At the 0:43:39.480 --> 0:43:41.800 beginning of Newsom told me a story. I spent a 0:43:41.840 --> 0:43:43.719 lot of time with Newsomb for this book. He told 0:43:43.719 --> 0:43:46.640 me a story of how when he was governor elect 0:43:46.640 --> 0:43:49.000 and Jerry Brown was governor, Trump came out to Paradise. 0:43:49.040 --> 0:43:52.440 What did he call it, pleasure or didn't golf Paradise? 0:43:52.480 --> 0:43:53.840 I don't remember when he called it. 0:43:54.080 --> 0:43:55.640 And that was the first time he had seen something 0:43:55.719 --> 0:43:57.920 like this, But since then he has gone to fires 0:43:58.320 --> 0:44:02.920 with similar inputs. I'm at change related inputs all over California. 0:44:03.120 --> 0:44:06.319 The difference between the LA fires and those were this 0:44:06.560 --> 0:44:10.600 was a urban conflagration, This was a city in multiple 0:44:10.640 --> 0:44:14.120 locations because of the winds that you describe ember cast 0:44:14.239 --> 0:44:17.279 that went for miles and miles things for catching on fire, 0:44:17.320 --> 0:44:20.040 miles away from the front lines of the blaze, and 0:44:20.200 --> 0:44:22.760 that in terms of climate, in terms of the mountain 0:44:22.800 --> 0:44:25.160 wave winds that were predicted by the National Weather Service 0:44:25.200 --> 0:44:27.640 workers colleagues of the guys that had been fired by 0:44:27.680 --> 0:44:30.840 this administration since then, that was the thing to me 0:44:30.960 --> 0:44:33.440 on the ground, and as you'll read about, that was 0:44:33.440 --> 0:44:36.840 the most the most unbelievable thing to experience physically, you know, 0:44:36.880 --> 0:44:39.319 I could. I remember one night it was almost Stephanie Rule. 0:44:39.480 --> 0:44:40.759 It was the first night of the fire. I could 0:44:40.800 --> 0:44:41.520 barely stand. 0:44:41.320 --> 0:44:43.080 Up straight right because it was so winding. 0:44:43.320 --> 0:44:44.640 It wouldn't even feel like wind. 0:44:44.680 --> 0:44:47.040 It felt like you were being picked up and thrown 0:44:47.080 --> 0:44:51.279 around every direction you could imagine within seconds. And that's 0:44:51.280 --> 0:44:53.160 why when people want to point a finger at what 0:44:53.280 --> 0:44:55.799 happened here, I'm not so sure that there will ever 0:44:55.880 --> 0:44:58.680 be one person to blame. There'll be plenty of investigative 0:44:58.719 --> 0:45:01.719 reporting about like could there been more fire trucks preposition, 0:45:01.840 --> 0:45:04.120 should Karen mass have been back from Ghana in time? 0:45:04.400 --> 0:45:05.920 Could Kevin Usom have done anything differently? 0:45:05.960 --> 0:45:08.759 Should the reservoir have been full in the Palisades, you know, 0:45:09.000 --> 0:45:11.080 you name it, and then investigative reporting will go on 0:45:11.120 --> 0:45:13.239 for years and years and years. But the reality is, 0:45:13.440 --> 0:45:16.760 once those these guys predicted it, once the fire sparked, 0:45:17.280 --> 0:45:19.359 there was nothing you could do to stop it. And 0:45:19.960 --> 0:45:22.600 that's what I hope I captured well in the book, 0:45:22.880 --> 0:45:26.000 which is that this was once the train went off 0:45:26.040 --> 0:45:28.560 the tracks, there was no turning back. And that's where 0:45:28.560 --> 0:45:30.319 the politics of the moment really took this to a 0:45:30.320 --> 0:45:31.239 place that didn't need to go. 0:45:31.600 --> 0:45:34.200 Yeah, Jacob sober Off, I hope you'll come. 0:45:34.120 --> 0:45:38.040 Back anytime, Molly for you anything anytime. Thanks for caring 0:45:38.040 --> 0:45:38.600 about La. 0:45:38.920 --> 0:45:41.360 Oh yeah, we love La. 0:45:41.440 --> 0:45:42.440 Thanks for having me on. 0:45:44.440 --> 0:45:49.120 No moment, Jesse Canna Malli. 0:45:49.239 --> 0:45:52.359 There is some blockbuster reporting from four h four media 0:45:52.400 --> 0:45:54.960 who continues to kill it. And this is some of 0:45:55.000 --> 0:45:57.479 the most disturbing report egg I've seen it a while, 0:45:57.520 --> 0:46:00.959 which is that ICE now has a tool that uses 0:46:01.000 --> 0:46:05.200 surveillance technology to track phones without a warrant and follow 0:46:05.320 --> 0:46:08.680 their owner's home or to their employer. Yeah. 0:46:08.719 --> 0:46:14.000 So this is a great example of how we don't 0:46:14.040 --> 0:46:17.200 really know what's happening here, but ICE has billions of 0:46:17.280 --> 0:46:20.680 dollars like billions and billions and billions of dollars. These 0:46:20.719 --> 0:46:25.600 are these two surveillance systems called Tangle and Weblock. And 0:46:25.880 --> 0:46:29.240 there are surveillance systems. They were purchased by ICE. ICE, remember, 0:46:29.280 --> 0:46:33.120 has a gazillion dollars. Weblock can track phones without a 0:46:33.200 --> 0:46:37.480 warrant and follow their owners home or to their employers. Okay, 0:46:37.719 --> 0:46:41.319 so first of all, we really have ICE operating in 0:46:41.520 --> 0:46:45.320 like an extra legal you know, they're operating like Donald Trump. 0:46:45.400 --> 0:46:48.120 They just don't think the law applies to them. So 0:46:48.360 --> 0:46:51.279 and here's this will have sort of you will have 0:46:51.400 --> 0:46:55.080 your city, neighborhood or block will be monitored by ICE. 0:46:55.160 --> 0:46:57.640 They can track the movement of the devices and their 0:46:57.640 --> 0:47:00.480 owners over time, follows them from places of work to 0:47:00.560 --> 0:47:04.080 other locations. According to the material that describes how the 0:47:04.120 --> 0:47:08.520 system works from four four Media, it's really scary. It 0:47:08.719 --> 0:47:11.800 is stalking. It should not be illegal. It's a huge 0:47:11.920 --> 0:47:16.239 violation of our civil liberties. You know, maybe it's for deportation, 0:47:16.520 --> 0:47:19.839 maybe it's for intimidation, maybe it's for any number of things. 0:47:19.840 --> 0:47:24.759 I mean, for example, Renee Good was not a danger. 0:47:25.040 --> 0:47:27.160 Even if she had been a danger, she should not 0:47:27.239 --> 0:47:29.640 have been murdered. But she wasn't a danger, and she 0:47:29.920 --> 0:47:33.200 wasn't here illegally, and she wasn't the worst of the worst. 0:47:33.320 --> 0:47:35.480 In fact, she was an American citizen who had just 0:47:35.560 --> 0:47:37.440 dropped out for a six year old at school. So 0:47:37.560 --> 0:47:41.040 we know these people. They are not focused on the worst, 0:47:41.080 --> 0:47:45.040 the worst. They're just focused on hurting people and doing 0:47:45.120 --> 0:47:50.680 Trumpism and blaming people for getting her. And so here 0:47:50.719 --> 0:47:55.480 we are, ladies and gentlemen, mass deportation now right, it 0:47:55.560 --> 0:47:58.319 wasn't a vibe. It was what they were thinking. And 0:47:58.400 --> 0:48:01.960 by the way, none of that was about deportation. Right. 0:48:01.960 --> 0:48:04.719 It was about violence, it was about hurting people, It 0:48:04.800 --> 0:48:10.200 was about crackdown retribution. Yeah, that's it for this episode 0:48:10.280 --> 0:48:16.360 of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and 0:48:16.640 --> 0:48:20.640 Saturday to hear the best minds and politics make sense 0:48:20.680 --> 0:48:25.040 of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast, please 0:48:25.040 --> 0:48:28.120 send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. 0:48:28.560 --> 0:48:29.680 Thanks for listening.