Speaker 1: Right now, the story ravaging through our nation, these wildfires.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you what I've been thinking.
Speaker 1: And we're gonna have on a reporter that's on site,
Speaker 1: an expert in this kind of stuff. I mean, the
Speaker 1: guy is chief news corresponding these big times, and I'm
Speaker 1: looking forward to talking to.
Speaker 2: Him, and I'll introduce him to you in just a
Speaker 2: few minutes.
Speaker 1: He's out there in California as we speak, and in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, and it's a mess.
Speaker 2: It's a mess.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to get into specifics in terms of
Speaker 1: the amount of damage, because we keep hearing something new
Speaker 1: every single day. Ten thousand structures destroyed, and then we
Speaker 1: heard it was fifteen potentially twenty. We heard fifty billion
Speaker 1: in damage, then it eclips to sixty billion.
Speaker 2: Now people are.
Speaker 1: Speculating over seventy five billion people have been displaced from
Speaker 1: their homes. Obviously, you're wondering what's going to happen with
Speaker 1: them because of of insurance companies dropping, dropping their coverage,
Speaker 1: particularly their fire coverage. You're hearing that the reason that
Speaker 1: happened was because California didn't do the greatest of jobs
Speaker 1: and sweeping up the forest floors as dry as it's
Speaker 1: been over the last eight months, been very very limited
Speaker 1: in the amount of rain and what have you.
Speaker 2: And the water that was coming.
Speaker 1: Down or the water that they had available to them
Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily utilized effectively and efficiently enough. The water coming
Speaker 1: out of fire hydrants wasn't enough power.
Speaker 2: You heard all of this stuff. One a minute, it
Speaker 2: is not enough water.
Speaker 1: Another minute, that's not enough power coming out or pressure
Speaker 1: rather coming from the fire hydrants. So you could you
Speaker 1: get rid of these fires. All of this stuff is
Speaker 1: going is going on right now. And here's the conclusion
Speaker 1: that I've come to. I'm not going to say this
Speaker 1: definitively because we all know there's a weather tax in California.
Speaker 2: The weather is beautiful in southern California.
Speaker 1: That's why they've been able to charge with they've been
Speaker 1: able to charge That's why they've had the nation's highest
Speaker 1: individual income tax rate, and high sales tax burdens, sales
Speaker 1: tax burdens, and.
Speaker 2: Stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Income tax, sales tax, the list goes on and on.
Speaker 1: You just look at a whole bunch of stuff. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's one thing I'm reading here. The state also has
Speaker 1: high income and sales tax as well. As income tax
Speaker 1: applying to or retirement income except for Social Security. In
Speaker 1: other words, the state of California are professionals are getting
Speaker 1: your money.
Speaker 2: The professionals will get your money. I would know.
Speaker 1: I've been getting taxed from them for years. And I
Speaker 1: got to tell you something right now. Because of my
Speaker 1: travels back and forth for ESPN, I can tell you
Speaker 1: this right now. There's a legitimate discussion that has to
Speaker 1: take place as how beneficial it is to live in
Speaker 1: the state of California.
Speaker 2: Seriously, when you consider their tax rates.
Speaker 1: Property taxes don't seem to be that extreme in some
Speaker 1: people's eyes, but the income tax, the sales tax.
Speaker 2: And nor the expense that comes with living in the.
Speaker 1: State when you just as I read to you last week,
Speaker 1: learned that California had collected approximately two hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: to one billion dollars in tax revenue.
Speaker 2: There better not be a money problem. They better not be.
Speaker 1: You just hear some of these things that's going on
Speaker 1: right now, and you really really find yourself wondering what
Speaker 1: the hell is going on in the.
Speaker 2: State of California. You really find yourself.
Speaker 1: Wondering about that, and how beneficial is it to be
Speaker 1: there outside of the warm weather.
Speaker 2: It's a sanctuary city.
Speaker 1: You know, they're not trying to capitulate the federal laws,
Speaker 1: especially with Donald Trump coming in into office. Gas prices,
Speaker 1: food prices, of course, the living, all of these things
Speaker 1: very very relevant. And then you got a governor and
Speaker 1: you wait for answers from him. We're tired of here,
Speaker 1: and you're on the phone with the president. You're on
Speaker 1: the farm with the president. Nah, we don't want to
Speaker 1: hear that. Gavin News has got something explaining to do.
Speaker 1: Karen Bass I don't even know if I want to
Speaker 1: hear from her. I think she's gonna get recalled. I
Speaker 1: think she's been such a disaster with this whole ordeal.
Speaker 1: I think she's gonna get recalled. But that will be
Speaker 1: a subject that we can get into a little bit later.
Speaker 1: Right now, there's more pressing things to find out about,
Speaker 1: to discover, and who better to talk to about that
Speaker 1: than my next guest. We welcome to the show now
Speaker 1: the chief national correspondent for ABC News, mister Matt Gutman himself.
Speaker 2: How are you, Matt? How's everything?
Speaker 3: It's been a bit a bit tough, Steve.
Speaker 4: It's been a rough go for I think so many
Speaker 4: people in California right now.
Speaker 3: How are you doing.
Speaker 2: I'm doing all right. Thank you for being on the show.
Speaker 1: Now just paying a picture for us because we've read
Speaker 1: the reports, we've seen the news. But you're out there
Speaker 1: and correct me if I'm wrong. Do you not live
Speaker 1: out there, sir?
Speaker 4: I live in Encino, which is just over the mountain
Speaker 4: over there, an area that's actually under mandatory evacuations as
Speaker 4: well also evacuation warning. So yeah, like a lot of
Speaker 4: us are living this, experiencing it and working through it.
Speaker 4: So you know, we talk about the scale, stephen A,
Speaker 4: and you mentioned that people are reading about it the news.
Speaker 4: But every time I come back to the palis age
Speaker 4: or to the Auta Dina fire, I noticed something new,
Speaker 4: And just now with my cameraman Juan, we came upon
Speaker 4: this destroyed place that I'd seen many times.
Speaker 3: But the destruction is so vast.
Speaker 4: Here that everything is disorienting, so you sort of don't
Speaker 4: know where you are anymore. This is the village school,
Speaker 4: this is where both of my cousins went to school,
Speaker 4: and this is what's left of the now would have
Speaker 4: them just show you the inside, just completely wrecked and
Speaker 4: just on the other side of it is the Ralph.
Speaker 3: Supermarket, the major supermarket in town.
Speaker 4: The other major supermarket called Gelson's, also burned down. And
Speaker 4: I think that's what's so unique about this fire is
Speaker 4: it's not just homes, but it's schools, the library, high school,
Speaker 4: elementary schools, supermarkets, the rec center. Everything has gone. And
Speaker 4: it's hard to wrap your head around. My aunt's house
Speaker 4: burned down Tuesday night, So you know, it's like it's
Speaker 4: affects so.
Speaker 3: Many people in the community.
Speaker 4: Mercifully not many people are killed here in the fire.
Speaker 4: Eight people so far, eight fatalities, and fourteen others or
Speaker 4: sixteen others in Alfadena at the Eaton fire.
Speaker 3: So deadly, but could have been even more devastating.
Speaker 1: Right now, how many structures have been destroyed, how many
Speaker 1: homes that a speculating have been destroyed.
Speaker 4: So they're still counting, and we've seen search and rescue
Speaker 4: teams still going house to house in many of these
Speaker 4: neighborhoods trying to assess fully of the damage and trying
Speaker 4: to see if there are remains.
Speaker 3: Of people in the debris. But right now.
Speaker 4: Here in the Palisades, it's around fifty six hundred probably
Speaker 4: a little more, and around seven thousand in Altadena, so
Speaker 4: you know they're talking around. You know, almost twelve thousand
Speaker 4: homes and structures destroyed total from those fires last week.
Speaker 4: And you know, we've got another Santa Ana wind event
Speaker 4: bearing down tonight with seventy miles four hour wind gusts,
Speaker 4: So everybody's on tenter hooks again and people are traumatized.
Speaker 4: Here stephen A streaked out, my wife, who I love.
Speaker 4: But you know, it was a really scary thing Friday night.
Speaker 4: The winds changed and it was going towards our neighborhood,
Speaker 4: and people having seen what happened here, were really really scared,
Speaker 4: really scary.
Speaker 1: And of the fatalities that have that have been recorded
Speaker 1: that have you know, you've highlighted some of the numbers
Speaker 1: is the belief that folks were trapped and they couldn't
Speaker 1: get out, or that they refused to leave and they
Speaker 1: thought that somehow, some way it would bypass. What do
Speaker 1: we know about that in that.
Speaker 3: Regard, It's a really good question.
Speaker 4: So we don't know exactly, but many of the deceased
Speaker 4: were elderly or people with disabilities who couldn't get out.
Speaker 4: The real piece of luck, if there is such a
Speaker 4: thing in this unbelievable tragedy is that it happened, especially
Speaker 4: here in the Palisades at you know, started at ten thirty,
Speaker 4: but fires really cooking.
Speaker 3: Bute and middle of the day. Some people were at work,
Speaker 3: other people were awake.
Speaker 4: A firefighter told me this morning that had it happened
Speaker 4: at two am, like so many other fires, there would
Speaker 4: have been more fatalities. Just you know, it's hard to
Speaker 4: get people awake, they don't hear it, their hearing aids.
Speaker 3: Are out, and it would have been much worse.
Speaker 4: So, you know, we don't know what caused the fatalities,
Speaker 4: but typically and most of the victims are people who
Speaker 4: are elderly or disabled and just physically couldn't make it
Speaker 4: to the exit, couldn't make it to a car to
Speaker 4: be able to get to safety.
Speaker 1: In terms of the actual fires that took place, has
Speaker 1: there been a definitive reason that has been established as
Speaker 1: to what happened in that regard and the forest floors
Speaker 1: not being cleaned, et cetera, et cetera. Has there been
Speaker 1: a the that's another reason that has been provided.
Speaker 4: No, and it could be a while, but I mean,
Speaker 4: I think that's the central question that everybody here is
Speaker 4: asking and if you go on YouTube or TikTok or
Speaker 4: any of the social media or Instagram, you see like
Speaker 4: all these videos reporting to show somebody setting a fire,
Speaker 4: some arsonists on this hill doing that.
Speaker 3: Nobody knows right now.
Speaker 4: Arson is part of the investigation, right it's a factor
Speaker 4: that they're examining.
Speaker 3: On the other fire, the Eton fire.
Speaker 4: Which was more catastrophic in terms of damaged homes and
Speaker 4: destroyed homes and fatalities, that's mostly being investigated is probably
Speaker 4: something having to do with the transmission towers. And there
Speaker 4: are now three videos that we have, and there's a
Speaker 4: fourth that we haven't fully confirmed, that shows a fire
Speaker 4: breaking out at the base of an electrical transmission tower
Speaker 4: just across the canyon from where these homes were in
Speaker 4: Alta Dina, and multiple people have it at almost the.
Speaker 3: Exact same time.
Speaker 4: Now, the electrical company, Edison International has that we haven't
Speaker 4: seen any anomalies at that time.
Speaker 3: Everything was operating as it should.
Speaker 4: They're not denying that it was them, they're just saying
Speaker 4: there's nothing but by their transmission towers as a cause.
Speaker 4: So that's what is being investigated there. But there are
Speaker 4: a number of reasons and it could be you know
Speaker 4: that the brush wasn't cleared, and it could be a
Speaker 4: million things, but the bottom line is, you know, climate
Speaker 4: change has made it possible for such a massive windstorm
Speaker 4: to hit this part of town, which is I mean,
Speaker 4: you've been here so many times, right, Like the Palisades
Speaker 4: is nice, it's lush, it's much cooler than the rest
Speaker 4: of La It's got that dampening marine layer in the summer,
Speaker 4: So this place it feels different.
Speaker 3: It's just less human and more moist.
Speaker 4: And you don't think of it happening here, but we've
Speaker 4: had eight months without any significant rain.
Speaker 3: That has dried everything up. And I wish I could
Speaker 3: show you stuff, but it's it's been watered or burned here.
Speaker 3: But it was so dry here.
Speaker 4: So you have a combination of those ferocious wind everything
Speaker 4: being so dry, the most densely packed county in the
Speaker 4: Cut with ten million people, and that is a recipe
Speaker 4: for an absolute colossal disaster, which is what happened.
Speaker 3: Matt.
Speaker 1: What about all of these these reports about that there
Speaker 1: wasn't enough water in the fire hydrants?
Speaker 2: What about that that may be the case.
Speaker 4: Right, So the santae Nez Reservoir, which is about a
Speaker 4: mile in that direction, maybe even less was supposed to
Speaker 4: supply water, but it was closed down for repairs for
Speaker 4: whatever reason. And what firefighters told me is that they
Speaker 4: were hooking up to the hydrants and the pressure wasn't
Speaker 4: enough to fill the tanks in their engines in the
Speaker 4: ladder trucks right, so they couldn't get enough water fast enough.
Speaker 3: The pressure wasn't right, so it couldn't blast fast enough.
Speaker 4: But one of the problems was that there were so
Speaker 4: many trucks and so many different parts of this town
Speaker 4: all at the same time trying to access that water
Speaker 4: that they don't think any amount of water in the.
Speaker 3: Reservoir would have been able to have been enough.
Speaker 4: A b See this house right there, the house to
Speaker 4: it burned, the house across the street, the supermarket, everything
Speaker 4: here is gone.
Speaker 3: And so all of the three quarter inch sprinkler hoses.
Speaker 4: And all these neighborhoods busted, right, and so they're leaking
Speaker 4: all over the place.
Speaker 3: So when we came in here early Wednesday morning, when.
Speaker 4: The fire was at its most ferocious, I'll go back here,
Speaker 4: there was water everywhere on the ground and sleep and
Speaker 4: am like, what, Okay, there's water everywhere. What's the problem,
Speaker 4: and it was just leaking in my aunt's house. It's
Speaker 4: like a swamp. So firefighters put water on it. The
Speaker 4: thing burned down. The ash and the soot and the
Speaker 4: clay and the dishes and the dishwasher and the dryer
Speaker 4: and everything just sort of got to be this muddy stuff.
Speaker 4: And you walk in there and it's like six inches
Speaker 4: of swamp because the sprinkler hoses broke. In addition to
Speaker 4: the water from the hoses created this massy soup. And
Speaker 4: that's what you see in so many different places here.
Speaker 4: And the fire chief at Station sixty nine, which is
Speaker 4: right here in the heart of town, you know, like
Speaker 4: it's the kind of place where kids do their birthday parties,
Speaker 4: like they're so part of the community. My cousins did
Speaker 4: their birthday party there, took my grandmother there. They put
Speaker 4: their firejacket on my grandmother at age ninety six, like
Speaker 4: they're the nicest, best people. They fought like hell, man,
Speaker 4: they fought like hell. They were up for I think
Speaker 4: like seventy two hours. And they said that given the winds,
Speaker 4: given the fire one hundred okay kwan chill nut, so
Speaker 4: the fire was higher than that electricity pull right one
Speaker 4: hundred feet high and can't deliver down like sideways on
Speaker 4: these guys.
Speaker 3: He's like, I've never seen anything like it. There was
Speaker 3: nothing that anybody could have done.
Speaker 4: They were spraying hoses at something that was fifteen feet away,
Speaker 4: like that wall, and the wind was blowing it back
Speaker 4: at them. Just stuff that boggles the mind. So he's saying,
Speaker 4: and he's got like he could have an ax to grind,
Speaker 4: he could blame the city or the mayor for not
Speaker 4: having adequate resources. But he said, I don't think any
Speaker 4: amount of resources, any amount of water, would have made
Speaker 4: enough of a difference.
Speaker 2: Matt.
Speaker 1: I know you've interviewed Governor Gavin Newsom in the past.
Speaker 1: I know you know him. Have you spoken to him
Speaker 1: since all of this is transpired.
Speaker 3: Haven't yet spoken to him.
Speaker 4: We're planning on it either today or tomorrow.
Speaker 3: I've spoken to his people. It's complicated, complicated to today.
Speaker 1: I can imagine. So I'm wondering, you being out there,
Speaker 1: you being out there, what is the noise like? I mean,
Speaker 1: I've gone off about what we've seen and what we've heard.
Speaker 1: Obviously he's taking a lot of heat. Mayor Karen Bass
Speaker 1: and Los Angeles, she's taking a lot of heat. If
Speaker 1: you've had time to digest the climate that is out
Speaker 1: there as it pertains to the politicians and the level
Speaker 1: of culpability.
Speaker 2: The people feel they have. What would you describe that
Speaker 2: as being at this moment inside?
Speaker 3: I think people are pretty upset.
Speaker 4: I think people are upset, and I think maybe they
Speaker 4: have reason to.
Speaker 3: Be, but we don't know yet.
Speaker 4: What I can't tell you is, you know that Arson
Speaker 4: is being investigated that it's very possible that there were
Speaker 4: very bad people who started this fire, knowing exactly where
Speaker 4: to plant this first seed of a fire, knowing that
Speaker 4: given the winds, they would come right into town. Because
Speaker 4: where that fire started, you could not have planned it.
Speaker 4: If it were just an accident, it would be crazy.
Speaker 4: I'm not saying it is not an accident. We seriously
Speaker 4: don't know, but it just happened to be in a
Speaker 4: place that pushed that fire right through the heart of
Speaker 4: this town and Altadena.
Speaker 3: There was no suspicion of that.
Speaker 4: There's a suspicion that something may have gone wrong with
Speaker 4: the transmission wires. Again, it's not confirmed in any way,
Speaker 4: but you know, were they prepared, could they have called
Speaker 4: out more mutual aid? Could they have had, you know,
Speaker 4: all the equipment and all the people that they have now,
Speaker 4: which is an unbelievable amount. And Steven Ay, I don't
Speaker 4: know if you guys were watching this weekend, and maybe
Speaker 4: you can roll this over, but we were watching the
Speaker 4: air attack from my house rights of helicopters.
Speaker 3: It was like Vietnam.
Speaker 4: It was like apocalypse now watching this thing, you know,
Speaker 4: with the chopters going over your head, you know, like listening.
Speaker 3: To Wagner dun da da d d da da dah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was so intent with with chinook chinooks and
Speaker 4: firefighting helicopters and the DC whatever's the DC tens flying over.
Speaker 4: They assaulted that fire on the ridge above.
Speaker 3: Our neighborhood in a way that I don't think I've
Speaker 3: ever seen.
Speaker 4: If they had had that kind of air assault, if
Speaker 4: they could have flown in those winds, maybe it would
Speaker 4: have made a difference. Or maybe if they had all
Speaker 4: these thousands and thousands of auxiliary firefighters, maybe it would
Speaker 4: have made a difference. But again, when you talk to
Speaker 4: the people here in the ground, they say, man, I
Speaker 4: don't know that nature. It was so powerful, so indomitable.
Speaker 4: Maybe there's nothing we could have done. Maybe there was
Speaker 4: nothing that anybody could have done.
Speaker 2: Being in, you know, a chief national correspondent.
Speaker 1: I know that you've got a whole bunch of sources,
Speaker 1: connections or whatever, But this doesn't involve that do We've
Speaker 1: heard a number of sixty billion, seventy billion, and in
Speaker 1: terms of the amount of damage that has been incurred,
Speaker 1: I'm not asking you to speculate, just ask you to
Speaker 1: tell me what you've heard about approximately what that number
Speaker 1: would be, particularly at this moment in time, not even
Speaker 1: taking into account more, you know, further damage that will
Speaker 1: be investigated.
Speaker 2: Obviously.
Speaker 4: You know, these are I think the median household. They
Speaker 4: say it's two million, but it can to be much more.
Speaker 4: Of the median house price in Pacific Palasage an Altadena.
Speaker 3: It's over a million.
Speaker 4: There are you know, twenty five and forty million dollar
Speaker 4: homes that have been destroyed.
Speaker 3: Here.
Speaker 4: It's the infrastructure, the water system, roads have been impacted
Speaker 4: so much in both of these places. And the big
Speaker 4: question is how is insurance going to cover this?
Speaker 3: What's going to happen there?
Speaker 4: Yeah, some people like my aunt have been living in
Speaker 4: their homes for over forty years, and I have a
Speaker 4: feeling that she's under insured and a lot of people
Speaker 4: aren't going to be able to afford to move back here.
Speaker 4: So it's going to be in the many tens of billions,
Speaker 4: that's for sure. The question is what happens to these communities.
Speaker 4: Can people move back to Alta Dina and these places
Speaker 4: that they have had homesteads for generations and these who
Speaker 4: have been able to find a refuge there against Jim
Speaker 4: Crow laws to build houses and create equity, Can they
Speaker 4: go back now?
Speaker 3: Are they going to be insured enough? And then what
Speaker 3: happens to the rest of the of the city.
Speaker 4: Insurance company's going to want to invest in California and
Speaker 4: ensure people here.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's a scary prospect.
Speaker 4: This is a huge liability and a massive question for
Speaker 4: Governor Newsom, who knows I'm going to probably ask him
Speaker 4: this question. All of these people, the tens of millions
Speaker 4: of people that Newsom and others want to stay here,
Speaker 4: how are they going to be protected?
Speaker 1: I'm wondering about that myself, just reading doing some research.
Speaker 1: It talked about insurance companies abandoning folks in California with
Speaker 1: regard to the wild Fis even before it took place.
Speaker 1: You know, you know, more than ten thousand structures in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles County being distr you had stuff like this
Speaker 1: going on rise and costs and cancelations have left many
Speaker 1: of the five victims without adequate means. And that's exactly
Speaker 1: what you're talking about here. And I don't know what's
Speaker 1: going to happen moving forward. So with that being said,
Speaker 1: very last question to you, how is the Los Angeles
Speaker 1: community pulling together?
Speaker 2: And all of this? He has to me based off.
Speaker 3: Of what you've seen, you know, So I love this question.
Speaker 4: I love this question because you know, people are like, oh.
Speaker 5: La, it's so la, and it is right, Like people
Speaker 5: can be vain and they can be fickle here, But
Speaker 5: are you guys seeing what's happening at the Santa Anita
Speaker 5: Raceway on the other side of down in Pasadena? Near there,
Speaker 5: there is a like a literal mountain of stuff of aid,
Speaker 5: of clothes, of diapers, beds, of bedding, anything you could
Speaker 5: generators tense like anything you can imagine is there.
Speaker 4: People have come out from all over. There are places
Speaker 4: where pets are being helped. Like the amount of outpouring
Speaker 4: has surprised me and blown me away in the most
Speaker 4: positive way.
Speaker 3: And I'm so happy to see it elated.
Speaker 4: And had we been not locked down in my neighborhood
Speaker 4: this weekend, I would have taken the kids, but we
Speaker 4: couldn't get out of our neighbor because there was National
Speaker 4: Guard posted down the street. But that's another issue. But yeah,
Speaker 4: Like there has been a massive outpouring in a way
Speaker 4: that I don't think anybody imagined in this messy, complicated,
Speaker 4: traffic ridden city full of natural disasters, but also great
Speaker 4: beauty right like where we are is.
Speaker 3: A beautiful place.
Speaker 4: Well, Altadena is beautiful, and the people are coming together
Speaker 4: in a way that is truly impressive.
Speaker 3: So I've been so heartened to see that. I know
Speaker 3: my colleagues are.
Speaker 4: We're out there at the Santa I need a Raceway
Speaker 4: and all the other places where they have been congregating
Speaker 4: and putting all of this aid together for the people
Speaker 4: who were homeless right now, who've been burned out of
Speaker 4: their homes. So what the insurance companies may not be
Speaker 4: able to provide them right now now, I think the
Speaker 4: people of la the residents here are trying to do,
Speaker 4: you know, with just incredible pace and generosity.
Speaker 1: Well, let me say this to you, outside of this
Speaker 1: interview being must see because you've done such an exceptional job.
Speaker 1: It'll be even better when we see you in front
Speaker 1: of California Governor Gavin Newsom, because he's got a lot
Speaker 1: of questions. He's got it, like got He's got to
Speaker 1: have some answers to a lot of these questions, and
Speaker 1: that's going to be must CTV whenever he sits down
Speaker 1: with you, hopefully very very soon. Matt Gutman, chief national
Speaker 1: correspondent for ABC News, thank you so much for your time, man.
Speaker 2: I really appreciate it. Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 3: Stevan.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's out standing information provided by Matt Gutman. I
Speaker 1: just feel so sorry for those folks out there, and
Speaker 1: just just to reiterate, authorities say at least twenty four
Speaker 1: people died and more than a dozen others remain unaccounted
Speaker 1: for US. Multiple wildfires burned across forty five square miles
Speaker 1: of densely populated Los Angeles County. The total damage and
Speaker 1: economic loss from the wildfires is now being estimate. Remember
Speaker 1: I said fifty sixty seventy five whatever, I didn't know.
Speaker 2: Whatever.
Speaker 1: Now they's saying this between two hundred and fifty to
Speaker 1: two hundred and seventy five billion, according to ACI Weather. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: thousands of firefighters from across the country are battling the flames,
Speaker 1: including other firemen from Mexico and Canada.
Speaker 2: They've joined the fray.
Speaker 1: Roughly one hundred and five thousand people remain under mandatory
Speaker 1: evacuation orders. And as for the response to the disaster,
Speaker 1: California Governor Gavin Newsom, who I brought up a couple
Speaker 1: of times to Matt, responded, because you knew that President
Speaker 1: Trump was gonna have something to say, and I told
Speaker 1: you Saturday how he was critical of Gavin Newsom, saying
Speaker 1: basically this was his fault. Here's what Trump had to
Speaker 1: say and wake up of the fires last week. Quote
Speaker 1: Governor Gavin new Scum refused to sign a water restoration
Speaker 1: declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of
Speaker 1: gallons of water from excess rain and snow melt from
Speaker 1: the north to flow daily into many parts of California,
Speaker 1: including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually
Speaker 1: apocalyptic way. He wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish
Speaker 1: caught they smelt by giving.
Speaker 2: It less water.
Speaker 1: It didn't work, but didn't care about the people of California.
Speaker 1: Now the ultimate price is being paid. I will demand
Speaker 1: that this incompetent governor allow beautiful, clean fresh water to
Speaker 1: flow into California.
Speaker 2: He is the blame for this.
Speaker 1: On top of it all, no water for fire hydrants,
Speaker 1: not firefighting planes.
Speaker 2: A true disaster. End quote naturally.
Speaker 1: Governor Newsom responded by saying this and writing a letter
Speaker 1: to Trump.
Speaker 2: He invited them to a state to tour the destruction.
Speaker 1: Newsom wrote, quote, I invite you to come to California
Speaker 1: again to meet with the Americans affective by these fires,
Speaker 1: see the devastation firsthand, and join me in others in
Speaker 1: thanking the heroic firefighters and first responders who put their
Speaker 1: lives on the line. Okay, here's the deal. First things first,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump called them new scum. Clearly he does not
Speaker 1: like this man. He sat up there and called them
Speaker 1: an incompetent governor, all in the same graph, all in
Speaker 1: the same tweet. He caught them new scum, and he
Speaker 1: says he's an incompetent governor.
Speaker 2: So clearly he doesn't like the man. Let's call it
Speaker 2: what it is.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's more than we can say for him and Obama,
Speaker 1: which I'll get into a little bit later. But then
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about this story that I read when you
Speaker 1: had former Trump administration officials, this is what they've said.
Speaker 1: They've indicated that Trump initially refused to release federal disaster
Speaker 1: aid for the wildfires in California in twenty eighteen, withheld
Speaker 1: wildfire assistance for Washington State in twenty twenty, as severely
Speaker 1: restricted emergency relief to Puerto Rico in a wake of
Speaker 1: the devastating Hurricane Maria in twenty seventeen because he felt
Speaker 1: those places were not sufficiently supportive of him. I sincerely
Speaker 1: hope that's not true. I sincerely hope that Trump would not.
Speaker 3: Do that.
Speaker 1: Now, if you're Donald Trump and you want to turn
Speaker 1: California red, or at least from blue to purple or
Speaker 1: something something closer to red, I don't think it would
Speaker 1: be wise for him to engage in such petulant and
Speaker 1: irresponsible behavior.
Speaker 2: So I guess the thing that we he can say
Speaker 2: is we shall see, we shall see. But he did withhold.
Speaker 1: According to his the people that worked in his administration,
Speaker 1: he was hesitant in providing relief for the state of
Speaker 1: California twenty eighteen in Washington State in twenty twenty in
Speaker 1: Puerto Rican as well, because he felt they weren't supportive
Speaker 1: enough for him, and if he did something like that,
Speaker 1: that would be scummy. To use his word, new scum,
Speaker 1: that would be bad. That would be bad. I just
Speaker 1: want to say that. Okay, there's no way around that.
Speaker 1: By the way, thanks again to Matt Gutman for coming
Speaker 1: on the show to talk to us about what's transpiring
Speaker 1: with these wildfires. If you'd like to help the thousands
Speaker 1: of victims southern California, please visit Redcross dot org once again,
Speaker 1: that's Redcross dot org to donate today.