Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ EXCLUSIVE： Los Angeles ABANDONED residents with disastrous wildfire response

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. One of our favorite guests on Rebel News is Joel Pollack, the senior editor at

00:00:04.700 large of Breitbart.com. Well, he's used to reporting on the news, but recently he's been

00:00:09.340 in the news. His house was in the middle of Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles when the firestorm broke

00:00:16.540 through. And he actually put one of the key questions to President Trump about the recovery

00:00:22.420 of the Pacific Palisades. We had a one-day visit with Joel in Los Angeles. I scooted out there and

00:00:29.760 got right back to Toronto as soon as I could. Fascinating and terrifying story. You'll see

00:00:35.540 that ahead. And that's why I want you to get the video version of this podcast. You know, really,

00:00:40.760 it's a visual story to see the devastation, to see how close Joel's house came. It's a story of

00:00:47.700 pictures, not just words. So please go to rebelnewsplus.com. Click subscribe. It's eight bucks a

00:00:53.720 month, which might not sound like a lot to you, but boy, it sure adds up for us. So please consider

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00:01:47.900 rocklink with a C. Info at rocklink.com. All right, here's today's podcast.

00:02:07.200 Tonight, what's the truth about the fires in Los Angeles, in Jasper, Alberta, and in Maui?

00:02:13.180 It's February 7th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.

00:02:16.460 We're fighting for freedom!

00:02:19.420 Shame on you, you censorious bug!

00:02:31.320 Rebel News is across the country. As you know, Drea Humphrey is out there in Vancouver,

00:02:36.460 and we have folks all the way out to Montreal, our dear friend Alexa Lavoie. By the way, did

00:02:41.000 you see her ask a good question to the Premier of Quebec the other day?

00:02:44.280 Just a little ago, how come you don't agree with Premier Smith's idea to build a new oil

00:02:48.860 and gas pipeline to diversify our export markets so we are not only trading with America, given

00:02:57.460 Trump's terrorist threat? So she said that it would make Canada stronger. Do you believe

00:03:02.980 that too?

00:03:03.740 I just answered this question. It's the same thing. We talk about Energy S or GNL. I think

00:03:10.300 that we need to have social acceptability, and if Daniel Smith or whoever table projects

00:03:20.360 will look at them, but we need to have social acceptability.

00:03:23.760 I like the fact that Alexa is out there speaking English and Francais. Of course, we also have

00:03:28.600 Avi Amini and a small crew with him in Melbourne. My point is we really focus on Canada. We do

00:03:35.400 international things. As you know, we went to the World Economic Forum in Davos for a week,

00:03:40.400 went down to the U.S. inauguration to talk to Danielle Smith, but we try and stay focused on

00:03:47.100 the big stuff in Canada. That said, I believe that there are things that happen outside this country

00:03:52.880 that reflect on Canada, that give us a hint of what's to come. That's why I sometimes visit the

00:03:58.840 United Kingdom, because I believe the censorship and the mass immigration and the Islamification of the 1.00

00:04:03.700 public square is relevant to us, but I'm very conscious when I take days away. So I did something

00:04:10.080 last week. I zipped out to see the fire in Los Angeles on the weekend, and then from Los Angeles,

00:04:20.700 I took the flight to Maui to see how the fire recovery is doing there, and then I came back,

00:04:27.760 and we did that whole thing on the weekend, so I was able not to miss my Canadian duties.

00:04:35.520 Maybe I should have taken some more time out there, but I was able to cover the ground well.

00:04:40.340 The reason I went there is because I think those three wildfires I described earlier,

00:04:46.980 Los Angeles, Jasper, Alberta, and Maui, what do they have in common? Quite a bit, I would say.

00:04:52.960 In every instance, it was government failing to prepare by giving in to environmentalism when it

00:05:00.560 comes to not clearing the deadwood in the forest, when it comes to emptying reservoirs and dams of

00:05:05.740 water, terrible emergency response, and most incredibly, the long-term delays to rebuild

00:05:13.980 bureaucracy and permits. I want to show you what we saw in Los Angeles. We had a sort of tour guide

00:05:22.180 there, our friend Joel Pollack, who lived right in Pacific Palisades, the neighborhood in LA that

00:05:27.920 was torched. Joel's house itself was thankfully not consumed by the flames, but most of the block he

00:05:34.860 was on was. We talked to him about the fire itself, and then a neighborhood in Pacific Palisades that

00:05:41.820 wasn't touched by fire because it had a different political leader. In the days ahead, I'll take you to

00:05:48.520 Maui, our super quick trip there. 18 months since that fire burned out. You will be shocked

00:05:55.400 at what is happening there a full year and a half later. Anyways, I wanted to explain what I was doing,

00:06:02.900 and I wanted to tell you that we did it in such a way as to not take away from our work in Canada,

00:06:08.320 because obviously that's most important. But would you agree with me that learning about how to prevent

00:06:14.140 wildfires, destroying property, and learning how to rebuild from wildfires is something we could use

00:06:20.020 in Canada too, including in places like Jasper. We really kept our spending low, about $1,000. I mainly

00:06:26.500 used my frequent flyer points for this trip, but if you can help cover our out-of-pocket expenses,

00:06:30.880 I'd be so grateful. Please do that at TheTruthAboutTheFires.com.

00:06:43.120 Ezra Levant here. I'm in Pacific Palisades, which was scorched by wildfire short days ago. This is a

00:06:49.720 basketball torched in the backyard of my friend Joel Pollack, who happens to be a resident here. He's

00:06:56.500 also the senior editor-at-large at Breitbart.com. Joel, you've been taking us through the streets,

00:07:02.920 utter devastation. It really feels like a massive bomb went out. Tell me about the day the fire swept

00:07:10.300 through your neighborhood. The fire began on the morning of January 7th. We had been warned of extreme

00:07:18.120 wind, so I had spent the early part of that morning taking down anything that might blow away. I took down

00:07:23.460 my flagpole. I took down my son's baseball net. We've been through some high winds here before.

00:07:29.580 In fact, if you see the ficus trees over here to my left, one of the reasons I don't cut them down,

00:07:34.080 even though they interfere with the view, is that they are a natural windbreak, and they keep the

00:07:37.620 wind off the house. We don't have a very windy climate generally, but there are a few months in

00:07:42.680 the winter where you can get these winds called Santa Ana winds that come down from the mountain,

00:07:46.320 and when they move through the canyons, they become very strong. So we were preparing,

00:07:50.940 and I took my third child to her preschool. I went to the gym, then I went to Starbucks to

00:07:57.200 check email, do some work, and I received a text message from my nanny who was walking our fourth

00:08:04.120 child, our baby, and she said that she saw smoke and smelled it, and I started checking social media

00:08:09.380 to see what was going on, and the fire was reported to be near the Highlands, which is a neighborhood

00:08:15.140 on top of the Pacific Palisades, not too far from here. I wrote back to my wife and the nanny and

00:08:21.780 said, we have to pack our bags. They are going to evacuate us. I knew from past experience with

00:08:27.600 reporting on fires and reporting on water that this was a close fire, and I didn't expect that the fire

00:08:32.180 would actually reach this area, but I thought it was possible that we would be in the evacuation

00:08:36.280 zone. So we packed up in 15 minutes, and we left, and we managed to avoid the traffic jam that was

00:08:42.460 building up on Sunset Boulevard. We took a couple of shortcuts that I know about, and we got onto the

00:08:46.440 Pacific Coast Highway, and we evacuated to Santa Monica, where we remain today. But that traffic jam

00:08:51.760 became a major problem about half an hour later when residents were stuck in the traffic, and the smoke

00:08:58.600 began coming closer and closer and closer, and people abandoned their cars and fled on foot. Blocked the

00:09:03.500 roads, the fire department had to bring a bulldozer to move the cars out of the way. Anyway, the wind

00:09:09.080 was extreme, not just an ordinary Santa Ana. It was amplified by the jet stream, and it blew flaming

00:09:15.120 embers through this neighborhood and began to blow them everywhere. And as you've seen, probably 80% of

00:09:20.820 this neighborhood has been destroyed. And when we left, we thought, well, if the house goes up, there's

00:09:26.320 nothing we can do about it. We have fire insurance. We are lucky. Our insurance company didn't drop us, but

00:09:31.420 many of my neighbors had lost their fire insurance literally in the days before the fire, because

00:09:35.860 California has a socialist policy of capping insurance rates, because the California government in its

00:09:43.300 benevolent and omniscient wisdom has decided that the price of fire insurance was too high. And therefore, the

00:09:51.100 insurance companies started going out of business. They left the state where they dropped their customers. We had our

00:09:56.620 policy, but other people either had no insurance or were forced onto the state plan, which is a much

00:10:02.380 poorer plan. So we still had our fire insurance. And I just made the peace with the fact that we were

00:10:07.940 perhaps going to lose our house. I monitored the progress of the fire overnight. And it seemed to me

00:10:14.180 that our house was perhaps just outside the perimeter of the fire. It turns out that was simply coincidence.

00:10:19.320 The fire maps online couldn't actually keep up with the spread of the blaze. And nevertheless,

00:10:25.820 I checked with a colleague of mine in another news outlet, whether they were letting journalists back

00:10:31.220 into the fire zone. This is about 24 hours later, Wednesday morning. I was able to use my press pass

00:10:36.120 to come in. I couldn't drive up here because there were downed power lines, but I walked up from where I

00:10:40.960 parked a couple blocks away and I found my house still standing, but surrounded by smoke. And this is what I

00:10:45.620 found. I found the fence burned portions of the retaining wall outside the fence on fire. I looked

00:10:52.060 around the other side of my house. That fence was on fire. My neighbor's fence was on fire. My neighbor's

00:10:56.080 trees were on fire. And I started looking for water. There was not enough water pressure in the fire

00:11:00.720 hydrants, even for the firefighters. I turned the tap on my garden hose in back, which was closest to the

00:11:07.300 flames. Nothing. I went inside my house. I still had my key and I found the vases of flowers that I had given my

00:11:13.620 wife over two successive Fridays every Shabbat in our house. I give my wife some flowers. That was the

00:11:19.300 water I started with. And then I noticed there was a river of water really flowing in the gutter from

00:11:24.000 homes that had been destroyed uphill. So I was able to take the vases and go back and forth, bringing

00:11:29.740 water to where the flames were. And then I remembered my son had a bucket of baseballs in the backyard. I

00:11:34.080 dumped the baseballs out. I took the bucket. Two guys pulled up in a truck. I didn't know them from

00:11:38.400 before. They said, do you need help? I said, yes. They came. We found two more buckets and we had an

00:11:42.640 assembly line going. And we put out the fires on these fences, the neighbor's fences, neighbor's

00:11:47.940 property. And the other thing is, you asked about my garden hose when we were driving over here.

00:11:52.760 I found my garden hose extended over the yard from where it had been kept in the front yard,

00:11:58.300 which meant to me that some neighbor or perhaps a firefighter, but somebody, some anonymous person

00:12:04.600 had actually taken the hose and had fought the fire before I got here when there was still water.

00:12:08.700 That's the kind of community Pacific Palisades really is. It's a community of neighbors helping

00:12:12.500 each other. And that's the only reason this house survived. That and probably the ficus trees,

00:12:17.460 maybe some topography. We also had a natural fire break here. There's been a lot of debate

00:12:21.580 about brush clearance. There wasn't enough brush clearance. Certainly where the fire started,

00:12:24.720 there was a lot of brush. But the neighboring property here is owned by the Los Angeles Department

00:12:29.520 of Water and Power. And I had actually asked them in the past to cut the grass on their property

00:12:34.960 because it is a fire hazard. And they did so. They actually came and they cut the grass and they

00:12:38.200 maintained it after I intervened. And so we actually have about 50 meters of clear space

00:12:44.500 between us and the next structure. So that probably also helped. But in general, lack of water,

00:12:50.620 lack of brush clearance, no police to guide the traffic, no preparation. There was no water in

00:12:55.640 the reservoir at the top of the hill. 117 million gallons, almost completely empty, no water available.

00:13:00.540 This was an act of God or act of nature. It was a natural disaster. You can't do anything about the

00:13:07.300 strength of the wind. We believe it was started by human beings, probably accidentally, but perhaps

00:13:12.140 arson. We don't know. There are some things you can't do anything about. We did not, collectively, I mean,

00:13:18.440 we as a city, as a community, we did not do the things that we could have done. And our city government

00:13:24.180 is to blame and our state government, but especially the city. You know, we met one of your neighbors whose

00:13:28.600 house survived. He said he has an insurance policy where the insurance company has their own private

00:13:35.100 fire trucks that come because I guess the insurance company does not rely on, they obviously don't

00:13:42.620 think they can rely on the city fire trucks. So there were instances of private companies putting out

00:13:49.260 fires when the city firefighters couldn't. That's such an unusual, but also such a telling story, isn't it?

00:13:56.360 When you drive around Pacific Palisades, there are neighborhoods that were protected by private

00:14:01.540 firefighters and private security companies with water tanks, even if they weren't professional

00:14:05.320 firefighters. Generally speaking, although some of the damage is random, sometimes you'll find

00:14:10.640 two homes that survived and in between them there's a home that didn't. Generally speaking, if you had

00:14:17.080 access to firefighters and water, you survived the fire, generally. And you'll see more of that if you go to

00:14:23.640 the village and see Rick Caruso's mall, Palisades Village Mall, which survived because he had private

00:14:28.100 firefighters and private water tankers. But yes, some of the insurance companies do offer private

00:14:32.900 firefighting services, especially when you have wealthy properties that would cause massive losses if

00:14:38.900 they burned down. The private firefighters are made available by the insurance companies.

00:14:44.020 They just don't want to risk relying on the city. I mean, it's crazy. The water reservoir was empty.

00:14:48.560 The mayor, I mean, even before the fires hit, she had decided she was going to go on a sort of a junket

00:14:55.780 to Ghana, a country in Africa. Even when it was clear to everyone that the fires were coming,

00:15:00.660 she wouldn't call off that trip. I know she was scrummed in a jetway on an airport. Here's a quick

00:15:05.400 look at that. Just painful. She wouldn't say a word. Take a look.

00:15:08.440 Do you owe citizens an apology for being absent while their homes were burning?

00:15:11.860 Do you regret cutting the fire department budget by millions of dollars, Madam Mayor?

00:15:19.160 Have you nothing to say today?

00:15:22.820 Have you absolutely nothing to say to the citizens today?

00:15:25.840 I don't want to make this too partisan, but how can you not say there were decision makers who either

00:15:42.200 didn't make a decision at all or made terrible decisions?

00:15:45.860 I'm not very happy with her performance. Mostly, I think people just weren't very well prepared for

00:15:52.180 the fire, even though it was anticipated that there would be problems.

00:15:56.900 There's those that will be held accountable for whatever's happening. Again, there's perhaps

00:16:05.040 some controversy as far as how it was started.

00:16:10.140 It's a natural disaster. I think that she did everything that she could. I think that the public

00:16:15.300 services have been tremendous. Karen Bass shouldn't have been out of town. They had a lot of warning.

00:16:20.340 They haven't filled up the reservoir. The city gave them over $17 million to help the fire department.

00:16:28.540 They used it for something else. She's not a bad person, but her response sucked. 0.99

00:16:33.120 She was out of town. When this was going on, I don't think it was great. 0.99

00:16:37.100 The public officials were more concerned with DEI and getting people and equity in place in the higher

00:16:44.700 branches, but they didn't know how to conduct sweating a city. Their priorities were in the wrong place.

00:16:51.780 There's thousands of people who work for L.A. Water and Power. There was no water. There was no power.

00:16:58.240 How much of the devastation here could have been stopped with better decision-making by city and state leaders?

00:17:05.860 Some amount. We don't know what amount exactly. Certainly, at the origin of the fire on the mountain,

00:17:13.500 it is possible that they could have stopped the blaze if they had firefighters pre-deployed.

00:17:19.660 They were not pre-deployed because the city did not want to pay overtime.

00:17:22.340 They cut the budget to the fire department. The mayor proposed even deeper budget cuts.

00:17:26.420 They didn't want to pay overtime. So for the lack of a million dollars for overtime, we have $300 billion of damage.

00:17:31.820 They could have put the fire out fairly quickly. Once it got going, it was very difficult.

00:17:37.080 As one firefighter told me, you don't fight that kind of fire from the ground. You fight it from the air.

00:17:40.660 We couldn't get the assets in the air. We have these wonderful Canadian super scoopers.

00:17:45.120 We couldn't put those up because the wind was just too strong.

00:17:48.140 But there's no excuse for running out of water before the fire.

00:17:51.280 And you were saying it got to a point where firemen stopped coming because there was just no water in the hydrant.

00:17:56.820 So what was the point?

00:17:57.900 Well, they would come and they would do what they could.

00:18:00.700 But once an attic, for example, would catch a light, they would just leave that property and try to establish another perimeter and another perimeter.

00:18:08.700 They did manage to save some property, but...

00:18:11.380 With no water, it's pretty tough.

00:18:12.820 Very, very hard without water.

00:18:14.000 I mean, you were scooping it out of the gutters with a bucket and a vase. That's crazy.

00:18:17.880 Yeah. We had to become our own volunteer fire department.

00:18:21.740 Maybe you're not paying enough taxes here.

00:18:23.800 Oh, boy.

00:18:24.460 You know, now I saw a clip the other day.

00:18:28.140 It was very interesting because Donald Trump is a man of action.

00:18:31.340 He's a man of words, but he's also a doer.

00:18:32.980 He's a builder.

00:18:33.620 He gets his hands dirty.

00:18:35.460 It was a very interesting panel.

00:18:36.680 They were sitting around the panel and the mayor was being asked by citizens,

00:18:40.660 when can we get back on the property?

00:18:42.640 And she was humming and hawing.

00:18:44.160 Trump said immediately, how about tonight?

00:18:46.320 Here's a quick look at that clip.

00:18:47.300 But we are going to move as fast as we can, but we want you to be safe.

00:18:52.620 We want you to be back in your homes immediately.

00:18:55.700 But the people are willing to clean out their own debris.

00:18:58.400 It doesn't cost a lot.

00:18:59.000 Yes, and they can.

00:18:59.900 You should let them do it because by the time you hire contractors, it's going to be two years.

00:19:05.120 If a family...

00:19:06.560 The people are willing to get a dumpster and do it themselves and clean it out.

00:19:12.100 And they can do that.

00:19:12.720 There's not that much left. It's all incinerated.

00:19:14.940 That's right.

00:19:15.340 And, you know, it's just going to take a long time if you...

00:19:18.400 You can do some of it, but a lot of these people...

00:19:20.660 I know that guy right there that's talking.

00:19:22.880 I know my people.

00:19:24.280 You'll be on that thing tonight, throwing the stuff away and your site will be...

00:19:27.920 It'll look perfect within 24 hours.

00:19:29.980 And that's what he wants to do.

00:19:31.220 So on the one hand, you've got the mayor who didn't give a damn about the fire,

00:19:34.420 who is fine with...

00:19:35.840 I think they were talking about 18 months to have the government remove debris.

00:19:40.260 And then you've got Donald Trump who's demanding it to happen.

00:19:43.800 I think he was saying tonight.

00:19:44.860 Trump has made a bit of an impact, but each community is doing the best that they can.

00:19:50.920 I think he probably pushed them to act faster than they otherwise would have acted.

00:19:55.320 Eventually they would have let people back on, but the city just moves very slowly unless somebody's lighting a fire under them.

00:20:02.580 No pun intended.

00:20:04.020 I think that had absolutely nothing to do with it.

00:20:06.160 I think that the EPA and all the public safety departments are doing what they need to do to keep people safe.

00:20:13.120 If it's a disaster, then it's going to take a long time to clean it up. 1.00

00:20:16.840 I think he's a jerk. 1.00

00:20:17.900 I think he made the situation much worse. 1.00

00:20:20.340 Those places are contaminated.

00:20:21.680 There are a lot of toxins in these places.

00:20:23.580 Yeah, I think he kind of made...

00:20:25.080 Embarrass them a little bit when they're saying it'll take another week.

00:20:27.540 And he's saying, well, why does it need to take another week?

00:20:29.580 Why can't you let people go back tomorrow?

00:20:30.900 So they started letting people go back the next day and it, you know, it's worked out okay, I think.

00:20:35.520 I think he makes an impact.

00:20:37.760 Yeah, I think that helped to do it.

00:20:39.620 Who's going to be the boss of this?

00:20:41.320 Is it going to be the mayor, the president, or someone else?

00:20:44.260 Because I can't think of two more different people than the DEI woke mayor of L.A.

00:20:50.140 and the get-her-done president, Donald Trump.

00:20:53.640 Well, I think it's going to have to be Trump because we can't rebuild L.A. without federal funding.

00:20:59.480 So the federal government holds the purse strings.

00:21:02.360 And what I suggested at that meeting, I proposed that Trump name a special master,

00:21:06.700 as they had after the September 11th terror attack, to handle the victim's compensation fund.

00:21:11.500 I would like to ask you to follow the 9-11 commission precedent and appoint a special master

00:21:17.660 to watch the money, to make sure that every federal dollar that gets spent here

00:21:23.220 is spent on fire relief and rebuilding and not on everything else.

00:21:29.480 Good idea.

00:21:33.840 That individual in that case was a guy named Kenneth Feinberg,

00:21:36.920 and he made sure the money went to the people who needed it, who were supposed to get it.

00:21:41.580 We here in California have lost confidence in our local government and our state government.

00:21:45.800 We do not trust Gavin Newsom, our governor, or Karen Bass, our mayor, to spend the money appropriately.

00:21:51.360 If you had to put your trust in somebody, you had to pick either or, Trump or Mayor Bass,

00:21:55.760 who would you pick to handle the situation better and why?

00:21:59.620 Well, I think that, I think I would choose the mayor.

00:22:03.120 I mean, I see that there's been some bad publicity. 0.99

00:22:09.800 Mayor Bass, Trump is completely incompetent, and everything that comes out of his mouth is nonsense. 0.97

00:22:15.660 I don't think Trump would be particularly good at handling it at the detail level, 0.98

00:22:19.900 but I think Caruso would be very good at handling it at the detail level.

00:22:23.820 He just gets things done.

00:22:25.220 He may be outspoken, and he may not speak kindly of people sometimes, but you know what?

00:22:31.880 That's his personality.

00:22:33.520 But when it comes to getting things done, he knows how to get it done.

00:22:38.480 Oh, my God, Bass a thousand times.

00:22:41.100 To handle the situation?

00:22:42.340 Oh, God, yes.

00:22:43.080 Yeah, he doesn't care what happens to people.

00:22:44.680 She does.

00:22:45.440 She doesn't do it very well, but she cares.

00:22:47.620 If I had to pick one of them, it would be Mayor Bass, because she's here.

00:22:50.820 She's local.

00:22:51.460 This is her job.

00:22:52.540 He's stronger.

00:22:53.400 It seems like in that town hall meeting in the Palisades,

00:22:56.640 Karen Bass was just very quiet and almost afraid of Trump.

00:23:00.600 If you give $300 billion to California, they will spend it on homeless shelters.

00:23:05.060 Drug injection sites?

00:23:06.580 Yes, they'll spend it on transgender surgeries, whatever,

00:23:09.200 but they're not going to spend it on rebuilding the Pacific Palisades.

00:23:11.480 So we want a special master to control every dollar

00:23:15.500 that comes from the federal taxpayer to California,

00:23:19.220 because as you implied, we pay high taxes in California and get very poor services.

00:23:24.360 The federal taxpayer is not going to stand for that treatment.

00:23:26.760 We are stuck with it.

00:23:28.480 It's the government we elected, for better or worse, in California.

00:23:31.200 But federal taxpayers are not going to want to play that game.

00:23:33.860 And so they're going to want to know that the money they're spending is being spent responsibly.

00:23:37.180 Voters are fed up here with Karen Bass. 1.00

00:23:38.640 Maybe Gavin Newsom is still getting away with it.

00:23:40.500 But this neighborhood did not vote for her.

00:23:43.060 And now they're getting the results of her poor governance. 0.99

00:23:45.960 And I do think this neighborhood is going to fight to be rebuilt.

00:23:48.700 And there's even talk among some people of moving out of L.A. and incorporating as their own city.

00:23:54.580 I think that's complicated, probably unlikely, but people are talking about it.

00:23:58.680 This neighborhood wants to make sure that we rebuild as soon as possible.

00:24:02.560 And what was interesting to my neighbors, I think most of whom didn't vote for Trump, was to see that Trump was on their side.

00:24:08.120 And I don't know if it's going to be...

00:24:09.060 Did they feel that?

00:24:09.940 Like, do they overcome their Trump derangement syndrome and say...

00:24:12.980 Absolutely.

00:24:13.520 Absolutely.

00:24:14.040 You can talk to people here who say, I never voted for him, but he's the reason I'm here today.

00:24:19.580 No one else is willing to cut through the BS.

00:24:22.100 Right.

00:24:22.420 And he's also a builder who understands real estate.

00:24:24.600 So he understands intimately the problems that my neighbors are going through.

00:24:29.960 You will be able to go back soon.

00:24:32.720 Mr. President.

00:24:33.640 We think within a week...

00:24:36.740 That's a long time, a week.

00:24:39.440 I'll be honest.

00:24:40.140 To me, everyone's standing in front of their house.

00:24:42.640 They want to go to work and they're not allowed to do it.

00:24:44.580 And the most important thing is for people to be safe.

00:24:48.460 They're safe.

00:24:49.420 They're safe.

00:24:49.940 You know what?

00:24:50.240 They're not safe.

00:24:50.820 They're not safe now.

00:24:51.980 And they want to go in.

00:24:52.960 The people are all over the place.

00:24:54.960 They're standing.

00:24:55.740 And they say, Warren, you're going in.

00:24:57.120 We're trying to get a permit.

00:24:58.280 And the permit's going to take them.

00:25:00.460 Everybody said 18 months.

00:25:02.020 You said 18 months.

00:25:03.600 You said 18 months.

00:25:06.020 And that was last night.

00:25:09.680 So he understands as a real estate guy.

00:25:11.440 And I think people in this neighborhood may still have their doubts about Donald Trump,

00:25:16.280 but they understand that he's on the side of rebuilding.

00:25:18.740 I really appreciate my congressman advocating for money.

00:25:21.880 We need the money from the federal government.

00:25:23.920 But I also understand Americans who are tired of spending money on California and disasters happen.

00:25:30.940 And the California government passes $50 million to oppose your policy.

00:25:35.600 So they have $50 million for that, but not for moving people into rental homes or helping people relocate or rebuild.

00:25:42.320 But before he gives that federal money you're talking about, I think he's going to make some demands in return.

00:25:47.040 Has he made demands?

00:25:48.620 And is the city or the state willing to do it?

00:25:51.000 Or are they going to say, are they going to be purists and say, we will not accept Trump's money because it comes with strings attached?

00:25:56.460 He didn't make demands here when he was here, but he did make demands when he was in other parts of California when he landed.

00:26:03.420 He said that he wants California to get rid of their current voting system and install voter identification systems to verify the votes.

00:26:12.600 And Trump has said, as a condition of receiving federal money, you're going to upgrade your voting system.

00:26:18.060 What I would also demand is that we change our water policies, our forestry policies, our emergency management services.

00:26:22.420 And Trump was talking about this before, and they all mocked him.

00:26:24.420 He talked about raking the forest.

00:26:25.880 Remember that?

00:26:26.700 I was with the president of Finland, and he said, we have a much different, we're a forest nation.

00:26:32.140 He called it a forest nation.

00:26:33.980 And they spent a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things, and they don't have any problem.

00:26:40.340 And when it is, it's a very small problem.

00:26:42.300 I mean, raking the forest sounds goofy. 1.00

00:26:43.880 Ha ha, that stupid Trump. 1.00

00:26:45.640 Yeah, he knew a little bit of something. 1.00

00:26:48.160 When you're dealing with areas near where human beings live, you have to do what the Native Americans actually did, 0.99

00:26:54.420 which is to have controlled burns and brush removal so that you can live in harmony with nature.

00:27:00.600 You can't just let it be because there will be extra fuel.

00:27:05.300 There will be parasites like bark beetles that kill trees and so forth.

00:27:08.340 And you've got to maintain it.

00:27:11.060 This idea of a pristine environment is nice to have, and we have national parks for that reason.

00:27:16.060 But we also have national forests, and those used to be open to forestry, to logging companies.

00:27:22.900 And they would cut natural fire breaks on logging roads, and they would remove the brush.

00:27:27.520 And California and the West Coast in general has abandoned that.

00:27:31.000 And they've also started to destroy dams, to undo dams.

00:27:38.060 Undoing dams because of indigenous rights and because of the salmon runs that used to run on these wild rivers.

00:27:44.020 There are workarounds for all these things, but they've decided to destroy the dams.

00:27:47.340 The hydroelectric capacity destroyed.

00:27:49.940 The water reservoirs destroyed.

00:27:52.620 Now, they started in the Klamath Basin, which is in northern California.

00:27:55.820 They have plenty of rain.

00:27:56.760 Not a problem for them.

00:27:57.720 If we tried to do that here, we would all just die of thirst.

00:28:00.060 So, it's not really feasible.

00:28:03.140 California needs to get serious about water policy.

00:28:05.240 Let's go see Rick Caruso's mall that survived because he was thinking like a Republican, not a Democrat.

00:28:10.460 Let's go take a look.

00:28:30.060 Let's go see Rick Caruso's mallet.

00:28:31.060 Let's go see Rick Caruso's mallet.

00:28:32.060 Joel, we're about five minutes drive away from your house, Sunset Boulevard, very famous street.

00:28:39.520 And back there, it doesn't look like anything's been touched by flame, whereas behind us, absolutely scorched, nothing standing but the concrete and brick.

00:28:49.880 You say that this is the Great Divide.

00:28:51.980 Tell us about where we're standing.

00:28:53.500 So, this is the heart of the commercial district of Pacific Palisades.

00:28:57.480 We call it the village.

00:28:58.940 And almost every commercial structure here burnt down.

00:29:03.900 The building that you were pointing to earlier is the business block.

00:29:07.320 It's the oldest building in town, built in 1924.

00:29:09.920 It's now a ruin.

00:29:10.780 Behind it, there are other streets that have little mom-and-pop shops, popular restaurants, all completely destroyed.

00:29:18.840 And yet, across Sunset Boulevard, there is this mall called the Palisades Village Mall, and it is almost entirely intact.

00:29:27.740 In fact, if you walk through that mall, they've now put security booms in front of it to discourage potential looters.

00:29:32.760 But if you walk through that mall, you would find it absolutely pristine, the shop's still full of goods in the windows, ready to open for business.

00:29:41.280 I can see there's a Lululemon, there's Saint Laurent, there's restaurants.

00:29:45.040 You wouldn't know there was a wildfire.

00:29:47.000 The owner of the mall is billionaire property developer Rick Caruso, and we were talking about him earlier.

00:29:52.280 He ran for mayor in 2022, and he lost to incumbent, now incumbent, Democrat Karen Bass.

00:29:59.240 She was a member of Congress before she ran for mayor.

00:30:01.240 He lost to Karen Bass, but what Karen Bass was supposed to protect burnt down, and what Rick Caruso protected is still there.

00:30:08.360 And he protected it using private firefighters, including several large mobile tankers with water in them.

00:30:16.300 Those tankers were here for days afterwards.

00:30:18.480 There were dozens of them.

00:30:20.200 You've seen tanker trucks on the highway, usually filled with gasoline.

00:30:25.240 These were filled with water.

00:30:26.300 And they had professional firefighting crews who were working all night on Tuesday, January 7th into Wednesday, January 8th to make sure that nothing burned at the mall.

00:30:36.340 So that was when things were in the very early stage, if I understand the dates right.

00:30:40.320 At the height of the blaze.

00:30:43.100 I spoke to people in this neighborhood.

00:30:45.100 There are some residential homes here.

00:30:46.880 I spoke to people who evacuated late.

00:30:48.460 They tried to save their homes.

00:30:49.460 They decided they couldn't.

00:30:50.540 They left right before midnight.

00:30:51.560 They said, where you and I are standing right now felt like an oven.

00:30:54.580 It was too hot to stand.

00:30:55.700 The moment they got out of their cars, they got right back in the cars.

00:30:58.200 It was like walking in an oven.

00:31:00.320 And yet, Rick Caruso had private firefighters who were willing to endure those conditions with their equipment and so forth to keep the blaze away from his mall.

00:31:10.400 He also built it with newer fire-resistant materials.

00:31:13.240 That's part of the story as well.

00:31:14.220 But essentially, Rick Caruso protected what he had because he had enough manpower and enough water.

00:31:21.680 And both of those things are because he had enough foresight and a sense of responsibility.

00:31:25.720 Yes, and money.

00:31:26.560 So there's the argument that it's not fair.

00:31:30.120 The rich guy got to protect his property because he had more money and he could hire more firefighters.

00:31:34.080 Well, nothing's richer than the state of California.

00:31:35.620 Exactly.

00:31:36.800 And the other side of the argument is if he had the ability to protect his property with enough water and enough firefighters, then the rest of L.A. could have done the same.

00:31:47.800 We could have saved all of this.

00:31:49.840 People who say it's just too big a natural disaster, the wind was too strong, the fire was too intense, it didn't stop them from saving the village mall.

00:31:56.600 So the answer really is that the public services failed and the leadership failed.

00:32:06.100 We see here the stark difference between private services and public services.

00:32:12.040 Now, there's no excuse for public services to be this bad.

00:32:14.900 They don't have to be this bad.

00:32:16.400 But they're bad with poor leadership that prioritizes the wrong things and spends money where it shouldn't.

00:32:22.460 You know, I'm an outsider.

00:32:24.340 I love California.

00:32:25.080 I think the whole world loves California, or at least the idea of California.

00:32:29.760 But when it comes to crime, California is out of control, but the wealthy have private security.

00:32:34.900 When it comes to education, California is out of control, but the wealthy have private schools.

00:32:39.980 In so many ways, California is a failed state where ordinary people live.

00:32:47.280 I mean, I'm not going to compare it to a third world country, but it's a disaster. 1.00

00:32:50.260 And there are pockets of wealthy people who can survive despite the government, not thanks to it.

00:32:56.720 Governor, I live here, governor.

00:32:58.840 That was my daughter's school, governor.

00:33:01.020 Please tell me what you're going to do.

00:33:02.380 I'm not going to hurt on my promise.

00:33:03.500 I'm literally talking to the president right now to specifically answer the question of what we can do for you and your daughter.

00:33:10.660 Can I hear it?

00:33:11.600 Can I hear your call?

00:33:12.740 Because I don't believe it.

00:33:14.080 I travel a lot, and I've spent a lot of time in South Africa, and I have friends who are content to live in South Africa, despite the collapse of public services, the lack of electricity, and so forth, because they have their own services, their own security, their own boreholes, their own generators.

00:33:29.840 That is what life in California is becoming, that the wealthy who still pay taxes and have money left over can create their own private services.

00:33:40.420 It shouldn't be that way.

00:33:41.680 Do you think this is a wake-up call for L.A., or will they keep voting for Mayor Bass?

00:33:45.980 It's definitely a wake-up call.

00:33:47.760 Mayor Bass, I think, will be voted out if she doesn't resign. 0.92

00:33:50.400 I don't know statewide if we're going to see that effect.

00:33:54.620 What I do think Californians are going to try to generate, if they had the ability to invent a political candidate, it would be a Democrat who agrees with them on social issues, but who knows how to run things.

00:34:07.360 Rick Caruso used to be a Republican.

00:34:09.020 He switched to Democrat.

00:34:10.740 We recently elected a new district attorney, public prosecutor, to replace the old George Soros-backed DA who let the criminals run free.

00:34:17.920 That gentleman, Nathan Hockman, is doing a very good job arresting and prosecuting looters.

00:34:23.600 He also used to be a Republican, switched to Democrat.

00:34:26.220 So what's going to happen is Californians are going to try to work this out within the Democratic Party, but they're going to reject the woke Democrats like Karen Bass, who are in Ghana instead of Los Angeles when a disaster happens.

00:34:36.680 So I do think there's hope.

00:34:38.160 And this area in particular did not vote for Karen Bass.

00:34:40.460 It voted for Rick Caruso.

00:34:42.180 Also, I don't think anybody voted for this.

00:34:44.420 I think if people understood the full potential.

00:34:46.880 But I did, actually.

00:34:48.760 I mean, there are people who understand fire safety.

00:34:51.820 I have stopped kids on the hiking trails from smoking pot on the trail.

00:34:54.940 And I've literally said to kids, if you smoke that at home, I don't have a problem with it.

00:34:58.600 If you smoke it here, this whole town is going to go up.

00:35:00.900 I have literally said that to people well before the fire.

00:35:03.360 So they need to start listening to people who understand how to run things and what the risks are.

00:35:08.120 And final point on this, in California, we like to dream.

00:35:12.180 We plan for utopia.

00:35:13.720 We plan for things to go well.

00:35:14.800 But that's not the task of government.

00:35:16.600 Government is there for you when everything is going wrong.

00:35:18.760 Government is there to protect you.

00:35:20.200 We have to start thinking about worst-case scenarios and plan for those.

00:35:23.160 Instead of raising all this money to pay for health care for everyone and fixing the entire world's climate by cap-and-trade systems and making gas cars obsolete. 0.65

00:35:32.820 All that utopian stuff doesn't work.

00:35:34.760 And the irony is they're all forcing us to make purchases of electric vehicles now.

00:35:39.260 You know, the gas-powered cars are going to be unlawful after 2035.

00:35:42.540 What's the biggest source of hazardous waste in this fire?

00:35:45.020 It's electric vehicles.

00:35:45.860 Because when the batteries burn, they create all kinds of hazardous gases and other things.

00:35:49.800 So we have to stop living for utopia and start living for people.

00:35:53.580 Joel, great to see you.

00:35:55.420 And I'm glad your house was spared, although there was some fire damage.

00:35:58.540 Thank goodness that you were there with the bucket and the vase putting it out.

00:36:01.860 And I hope this part of the world returns to prosperity and safety soon.

00:36:06.520 And I think politics is a big part of it.

00:36:08.920 Keep up the fight.

00:36:09.620 Thanks, guys.

00:36:09.960 Thanks for being here.

00:36:11.040 There you have it.

00:36:11.580 Joel Pollack, senior editor-at-large at Breitbart.com, who lived in the heart of the fire.

00:36:15.960 Well, that's our show recorded on the weekend in L.A. with our friend Joel Pollack, the senior editor-at-large at Breitbart.com.

00:36:26.860 I'm very glad his house was spared.

00:36:28.700 It's heartbreaking that so many others were not.

00:36:30.800 By the way, he can't live there because the water is not potable.

00:36:34.880 There's a lot of obvious problems there.

00:36:37.580 And that's one of the political questions is how fast will they be able to rebuild and get back to life?

00:36:44.120 That's our show for today.

00:36:45.040 Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters in Canada, to you at home, good night, and keep fighting for freedom.

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Rebel News Podcast - February 08, 2025

EZRA LEVANT ｜ EXCLUSIVE： Los Angeles ABANDONED residents with disastrous wildfire response

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