No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Trump exploits LA wildfires with barrage of lies

Episode Date: January 12, 2025

Trump & Republicans exploit the California wildfires with a firehose of disinformation. Brian interviews the California fire marshal, Chief Daniel Berlant, about the state of the fires right now, what went wrong, and what we can fix moving forward. And FOX LA’s Elex Michaelson joins to discuss his nonstop coverage of the wildfires and his response to the disinformation plaguing our media. https://www.gofundme.com/c/act/wildfire-relief/californiahttps://www.redcross.org/donate/donation.html/?donamt=0https://www.calfund.org/funds/wildfire-recovery-fund/Shop merch: https://briantylercohen.com/shopYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/briantylercohenTwitter: https://twitter.com/briantylercohenFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/briantylercohenInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/briantylercohenPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/briantylercohenNewsletter: https://www.briantylercohen.com/sign-upWritten by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going to talk about how Trump and Republicans exploit the California wildfires to open up a fire hose of disinformation. And I've got two interviews. I sit down with the California Fire Marshal, Chief Daniel Berlant, to discuss the state of the fires right now, what went wrong and what we can fix moving forward. And I interview Fox LA's Alex Michelson to discuss his nonstop coverage of the fires and his response to the disinformation plaguing our media. I'm Brian Taylor-Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. So you all know this starting on Tuesday, fires broke out across Los Angeles. Trump and Republicans have used this opportunity since the literal first day of the fires

to spread lies that California officials have had to use their time that should have been spent focusing on relief efforts to instead correct the record from these grown-ass adults who should know better and yet are so committed to the bit of being partisan hacks that this is where they're expanding their energy. For instance, Elon Musk took to Twitter to amplify a claim that looting had been decriminalized, all because he wanted to make Gavin Newsom look bad. Now, that's not true. Looting has not been decriminalized, and Newsom had to take time out of his day when he clearly had more important things to be doing and write, stop encouraging looting by lying and telling people is decriminalized. It's not.

Like, this is what the governor of a state that is currently on fire had to do in response to the richest man in the world, the, the, the, the, shadow president who decided that that was the news he had to amplify to people. Basically, a green light to looters, all to score some cheap political point. Jesse Waters and other media figures on the right are claiming that the reason that the fires are raging in the first place is because Los Angeles's fire chief is a lesbian. Apparently, it wasn't the 100 mile per hour hurricane force winds. It wasn't the fact that we haven't had rain in the better part of a year or that L.A. was basically a tinderbox for these fires.

it was the fact that the fire chief sleeps with women that sparked this fire. Trump, meanwhile, has claimed that FEMA has no money left because Biden wasted it all on the green new scam. Now, none of that is true. FEMA has money, thanks, by the way, to Democrats passing funding in December and Biden signing it into law. Biden's also specifically committed to covering 100% of the fire management and debris removal costs for the next 180 days.

And on top of all of that, the Green New Deal is non-existent. so I'm not sure how an environmental framework that isn't even in place would prevent any federal funds from being issued. Trump also said that Newsom didn't sign some water restoration declaration that would allow water to flow from Northern California to Southern California, all in deference to a fish called smelt. I feel like this is Madlibs right now. That's obviously not true.

I know this is probably going to surprise a lot of people, but there's no spigot that allows water to flow from NorCal to SoCal. This isn't Mad Max. Newsom isn't the keeper of the water. And the only thing, honestly, more pathetic than this disinformation is how aggressively lazy these takes have become. And look, you'll hear my conversation with the state fire marshal shortly, and he's going to speak to these questions in greater detail. But just more broadly, what's so striking to me is that these people on the right have just dedicated these days, these last few days, not just to not helping. Like already for purported leaders, that's bad enough. That's disqualifying enough. But to actively making things worse by spreading lies and forcing these

officials in charge to respond to those lies when they could be doing literally anything more important with their time. And obviously, this hits close to home for me, literally hits close to home for me. I've lived in L.A. for 15 years. The Hollywood Hills fire was just down the street from my house. I packed a bag with just a few things. I left my studio, my gear. You just kind of disassociate yourself from all of the stuff, right? I got on the roof with a hose and I sprayed my house down as much as I could, just trying to offer some effort to salvage what I could. And I waited for that fire that was in the Hollywood Hills to pass from the hills to the flats. That's where all the houses are. And if it did, then what happened in the Pacific Palisades, and I'm sure you've all

seen the photos of that by now, the complete and total destruction, that would have happened to Hollywood. And luckily, that didn't happen. And I'm grateful to the ends of the earth for the firefighters who were able to contain it in time. But I know way too many people who have woken up on Wednesday and Thursday and Friday morning with nothing, literally nothing, just a heap of rubble and ash. And my heart is in a million pieces for those people. There is so much loss here, so much devastation. And the last thing that these people need, or the country needs, for that matter, is a bunch of political hacks who are just circling like vultures, just popping in to make things more difficult for everybody, all so that they can punch down on a state that is

currently on fire. It is subhuman behavior. And sadly, in just a few days, those are the people who are going to be in charge of this country. But honestly, that is a reflection, not of California or of Los Angeles, but of them. If they want to expose themselves as these morally bankrupt scumbags, that's their prerogative. And they're putting it on full display for the rest of the country to see. In the meantime, it has been some small silver lining to see the outpouring of support for and from this community. For those who are listening right now, if you'd like to donate, go fund me. has aggregated a bunch of verified fundraisers for individual families that are looking for

support. I'll link that in the show notes of this episode. I'll also link the California Community Foundation's Wildlife Recovery Fund and the American Red Cross, all in the show notes of this episode. Please give something to help the folks out here. And to anybody who's in L.A. right now, please stay safe. Wear masks outside to protect you from the air quality. It's terrible. I walked outside and I see ash raining down from the sky and know that we're all pulling for you right now. Next up are my interviews with Chief Daniel Berlant and Fox L.A.'s Alex Michelson.

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up to 40% off for a limited time when you go to shopbeam.com slash BTC and use code BTC at checkout. That's shop, B-E-A-M-com slash BTC, and use code BTC for up to 40% off. Now we've got the California Fire Marshal, Daniel Berlant. Chief Berlant, thank you so much for taking the time. Yeah, absolutely. So we've got a lot to cover here. But first off, what was the cause of the fires that are right now raging through California? And is there any indication that in any of them, in any of these major fires, that arson was a factor?

Yeah, right now we are still actively investigating how each of these fires has started. We have not determined a cause on any of the major fires burning in the Los Angeles area. But our investigators are working to not only determine exactly where the fire started, but how the fire started. But what really is important to note here is that it's because of the weather conditions, the extreme winds, hurricane-like winds, that really allowed that simple ignition from whatever caused it, that was simple spark to quickly grow into massive wildfires doing significant destruction. It's the weather conditions, obviously unusual and historic for conditions like this in January. but it is our drought conditions and the weather that really has led to such explosive fire growth. Okay, well, I guess that raises the obvious question here. What can be done to mitigate this in the future?

And I know that we're going to hear that solutions are too expensive, but more expensive than dealing with the fallout from these fires? I mean, reporting just today suggests that these fires could cost a record $150 billion, and they're still raging, meaning that that number is inevitably going to go up. So I refuse to accept that we just kind of have to be. sitting ducks here for the next ones. We have continued to increase our firefighting capabilities, adding more equipment, more firefighters, new technologies, more aircraft, more equipment, but really responding our way out of these fires is not going to happen. We have to do more

in the resiliency space. And the governor and the legislature has done significant investments, billions of dollars in the last couple of years, in fire preparedness around communities, and overall forest health. That has to be our focus. You know, it is not as simple as being able to change the changing climate that we've experienced, the drought conditions, the extreme weather events. We have to become resilient to these type of activities. And so you're right, we can't just sit back and do nothing.

We have to be prepared. Now, the team that I lead, we work very hard on not only preventing fires, but also preparing communities. That means hardening homes, building new homes to a high. higher standard that can withstand the embers of wildfires, creating defensible space, planning overall communities to allow for evacuation. These are the things that we have to focus on in community hardening, but also at the same time, making sure that our forests are healthy.

Now, in this situation, most of these fires started in urban settings and have burnt into wildland areas or created what we call conflagration, where it's just burning home to home to home, but many of our fires in California are burning in our forested lands or our wildland areas that are overgrown, are unhealthy, are extremely dry. And so ensuring that our ecosystems at a landscape level are also addressed. And so it really is not a one solution. We have to do all these things. Focus on the response and fire suppression resources, preparing our communities, hardening them, becoming more resilient, but also addressing our overall forest health. Well, to that point then, is, for example, would it be, would one simple solution moving forward if we're going to modernize our grid or modernize our infrastructure, could, for example, when we have inevitable high winds from the Santa Ana wins, is it smart moving forward to build transformers and put power lines underground? Is that something that we should be doing moving forward?

Hardening our grid, whether it be undergrounding or with materials that are less likely to cause a spark, but also vegetation management around our utility infrastructures are all critical components. Now, you know, the state and particularly our major utilities have done a lot in this space. In fact, we have an entire new department that regulates making sure that our utilities are planning for hardening their systems, undergrounding their systems, and holding them accountable to doing that. Now, while we don't know yet exactly the cause of these fires, we know that we have done a lot to make sure that we are reducing the sparks caused by utility infrastructure and holding our utilities accountable to making sure that the vegetation around their facilities, around their lines, cleared so it reduces the likelihood that if something goes wrong remember these are hurricane like winds 80 to a hundred mile on our winds of course are going to knock down uh power lines and other infrastructure that if that happens and one that happens that they don't actually have any vegetation around them uh to spark a fire obviously undergrounding uh does that by the the course of nature

of having it underneath the ground it's not susceptible to the weather conditions but that's very costly And so there is a big mixture of things that the state has done to focus on making sure our utilities are more resilient towards the climate, but also to overall reduce their ignition of wildfires like we have seen since really the 2017 and a number of years between then and now. I mean, to your point about it being costly, yes, again, it's costly, but like not more costly than the devastation that we're seeing right now. I mean, I know, again, that the refrain that we're going to hear, especially from folks whose job it is to allocate funds, is that how are we going to afford it? But my pushback to that is how can we afford not to do it? I mean, what's the cost of not doing this stuff? We are recording this right now on Friday, January 10th. As of now, what's the degree of containment for these fires, especially the Palisades and the Eaton fires, which are the largest?

Yeah, despite strong wind conditions continuing red flag warning. today. Our firefighters are making progress. The Palisades Fire, which is in the Pacific Palisades, Topanga Canyon area, has burned just over 20,000 acres. It now is 8% contained. That is up. There was no containment as of last night. Over in the Pasadena area, north of Los Angeles, Pasadena, Altadena, the Eton Fire has burned just under 14,000 acres. And crews have done a really good job of slowing the spread of that fire, though containment right now is only at 3%. But let me in here with a really good news. Yesterday, we had a new fire breakout called the Kenneth fire in the West Hills area of Los Angeles and Ventura County's quickly burned 1,000 acres, a strong initial

attack on the ground and in the air. We've been able to hold that fire a check. And today, it is 35% contained. The forward spread of that fire as well has started. Now, over the next couple days, We'll continue to see those containment numbers go up, but we are expecting the winds to continue to be very strong into the weekend. And we actually could see a Santa Ana wind event early next week. And so we'll be preparing to ensure that we not only can hold the containment lines that we've been working so hard to build, but also be ready to respond to new fires that break out, again, with these weather conditions and the extreme fire risk.

So I know folks are watching and perplexed at how for days the containment could just be a few percentage points, 8%, 3%, can you shed some light onto that, how, you know, I believe that these first sparked, I think the first fire was the Palisades fire that sparked either late morning on Tuesday. And so can you give some insight into how, you know, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, four days now this thing has been raging, that we can be at 8%. You know, on Tuesday when the Palisades fire broke out, fanned by those, again, hurricane-level winds, it quickly was able to spread as firefighters were responding in. Their main focus was life safety, just evacuating residents. And so that often can be the case in these fast moving fires

in urban areas is we have to focus on rescues, getting people just out of the area and then begin our attack. The other challenge that hampers us when we have 80 to 90 mile in our winds is our aircraft is not only unaffective, but it's not safe. And so that's a tool then they can't fight the fire. So our firefighters on the ground are helping evacuations. The aircraft were not able to fly. And so that really hampers our efforts towards containment. Once, though, we're able to get people evacuated.

It really allows firefighters to focus on going direct on a fire, starting to build containment lines. Fortunately, yesterday, the wind started to die down. And that's when we really hit it hard, all these fires, hit them hard from the air with our aircraft, our air tankers, our helicopters, the National Guard, we are throwing everything at it. And that is what is allowing us to start to see those containment numbers go up. But it is not unusual in situations like this, in urban fires like this, that in the first 24, 48 hours, that we're not simply focused on

saving people's lives. So I live about a mile from the sunset fire that was in the Hollywood Hills and obviously it was beyond grateful to see how quickly that one was contained, and that one since has been contained to 100%. Why the difference between the containment between that fire, the sunset fire, versus a fire like the palisades? You know, there are so many complexities to where's the fire start? Where are the available resources? Now, we pre-positioned fire resources.

We increased our staffing going in to this week's fire danger. We brought fire equipment and firefighters from Northern California down to Southern California. But you never know when a fire is going to break out, where that spark is going to be. And so that can hamper the response. Luckily, with the sunset fire, by the time it broke out really on day two, the night of day two of this fire siege, the aircraft was able to fly. So we were able to use our newly invested money into night flying helicopters to really make an aggressive attack on that fire that night. And that's what really held that one at bay, where the other.

ones were able to obviously burn at an explosive rate. So there's weather factors, there's the complexity of homes in the immediate area. Those are always the things that come into play of how quickly we can get at scene of a fire. You'd mentioned being able to use these new aircrafts. You'd mention firefighters coming down from Northern California. What's the scope of the assistance that we're getting down here in Southern California? From where are firefighters coming, is it across, you know, the, is it just contained within the state? Is it, is it other states that are sending firefighters in? Are we seeing firefighters from other countries coming in? You know, we are fortunate here in California to have the most robust firefighting mutual aid system

arguably in the world. We also here in California own and operate at Cal Fire, the largest wildland aerial fleet in the world. And so many of the firefighters are local. They're the first one's at the scene, the city of Los Angeles Fire Department, LA County Fire Department, Ventura County Fire Department, our Cal Fire Resources in Southern California. But every fire department in every corner of the state was requested to send assistance. Today, Friday, we have more than 8,000 firefighters, law enforcement officers, emergency support services at scene of these fires. But we've been bringing in resources from many of our western states. Oregon has sent hundreds of firefighters down to us.

Colorado, Washington, Idaho, New Mexico, Nevada, the list goes on, a lot of firefighting resources from other states. It's really, you know, it is so unfortunate what is happening right now. But the fact that we're in January experiencing these conditions, the rest of the nation is not in the typical fire season. And so fortunately, we were really able to get a lot of resources from our neighboring states who are not experiencing the same conditions as Southern California. We're also, though, talking to our international partners, British Columbia, for one.

We've been doing a lot of work with them over the last several years, and the British Columbia Wildlife Services is sending managers, incident managers over to help support us as well. And so really, arguably, this is an international response to aid us, though in California, again, with our local, state, federal, tribal firefighting force, we've got a lot of firefighters on the front lines right now. Okay, so let's pivot to a different section here because there have been a lot of rumors and misinformation floating around. So I'm hoping you can address some of this. Right off the bat, Donald Trump suggested onto Truth Social that Gavin Newsom should have opened some sort of spigot

from Northern California to Southern California to allow water to flow. Can you speak on the legitimacy of that claim? You know, I don't want to get into the politics of the president or the future president, but it is so important to note that every community has a different water system. In Pacific Palisades, their water system is really based on storage tanks and reservoirs. And with the extreme amount of homes that caught on fire in the early hours, every hydrant was running and water was being used faster than water could be replenished. But there is no spiket from Northern California to Pacific Palisades that could have kept up with this firefight. Lots of people saying, well, why aren't you using water right out of the ocean?

And again, it's just not that simple. But firefighters, we use other tactics. It's not just water that help us battle these fires. We're using mechanical equipment like bulldozers, chainsaws, and other efforts. But the governor leaned in and he had us push forward well over 100 water tender trucks that brought in water to that area. So not only did the water supply able to work as the best as it could to keep up with the need, but we also brought water in from other areas. Our helicopters, once we could fly aircraft, could pick up water from neighboring reservoirs

or even swimming pools and drop water on it. But again, let's come back to the magnitude of these fires. Again, it's not just one home on fire. It's not just two homes. It's thousands of homes on fire at the same time. is no water supply that's going to be able to keep up with that. And that is again where we go into rescue mode first, structure defense, second. What about the notion that prior to the fires even erupting that there was no water in the reserves? You know, I can't speak for the water

department in Los Angeles. What I can tell you, though, is our firefighters on the ground that night had water. Again, when every fire hydrant is flowing, the pressure is going to go down. It's such a taxing piece. Obviously, that's going to be a discussion for us afterwards. Back to, you know, what can we do to ensure that some of these older neighborhoods that maybe don't have the same municipal water supply and flow that adequate water is available. In many communities, we've granted out money to help with water tanks and other auxiliary water supplies. In fact, we have requirements in our building code for homes and more wildland areas to ensure they have water supply on site, whether it be a pond or in a water tank. And so I think

those are going to all be things that after the emergency, we continue to work through. But to have politics come into play to question why water wasn't flowing from north to south, that wasn't going to make a difference in these extreme weather conditions. Speaker Mike Johnson had come out and issue to claim on Twitter that the forests weren't managed effectively. Can you speak on that claim? You know, man, we have done so much here in California in getting our force into a healthy state. We have really, the governor of legislature put in billions of dollars into wildfire resiliency projects, fuel training, fuels management work in and around communities and in the forest land areas. In fact, we set a goal to be able to treat a million

acres each year by 2025. And we were able to do that several years ago. We have continued to increase our pace and scale, whether it be prescribed fire or mechanical treatment. So we are taking care of our forest. It's really important to note, though, that almost 50% of California is federally owned land, whether it be national forests or national park land or other lands managed by the federal government. But our federal partners here in California, they too have been doing their part. They really have helped us with that goal of treating really for them about half a million acres, excuse me, 500,000 acres of land in their jurisdiction. So federal state here in California, we are doing a lot, but our climate is changing faster than we're

able to mechanically go in. Now, we will continue to increase the usage of prescribed fire, cultural burning and other types of vegetation management. But really, the numbers show, and it's all available on our website. We provide access to the public to see exactly where these fuel reduction projects are going. The numbers show that California is really leading the effort towards fuels reduction. Cheap for Lynn, I know that people will hear you say that, and then look at the devastation that's being wrought onto California right now in the palisades, look at 20,000 acres being burned there, look at 15,000 acres or more being burned around the Altadena, Pasadena area, and say, well, those two things are in conflict with each other

that, you know, to claim that we are, that we're leading in terms of being able to do these prescribed fires as mitigation efforts. And yet at the same time, we're seeing entire communities being burned to the ground and just thousands and thousands and thousands of acres and the palisades being burned to the ground. So how do you reconcile those, things. It's important to note that these two fires really started within the city limits. These are not wildland fires. They're not forest fires that burned into these communities. They started within the cities and then have moved out. And so while the fuel reduction work we have focused on is important and does make a difference. In fact, we have a whole fuels reduction effectiveness toolkit on our

website where you can see in the last year where were these fuel reduction projects and how did they impact and aid us in our firefight. But the fires we're talking about here, the Palisades and the Eaton fire, these two fires, again, were urban conflagrations. The work we need to do here now is really work to focus moving forward on how do we harden existing communities. What steps can we take to make sure that if one home catches on fire, even with these extreme winds, it doesn't spread one to the next because that is what we saw. No amount of fuel reduction, no amount of forest thinning and management would have made a difference in an urban conflagration. What we have to work here is stopping the pathways. Stopping if one home catches on fire from it being able to

spread from the home to the fence down to the next home through the fence to the fence to the next home, these pathways, these fences, they're like wicks that carry the fire home to home to home. It is not fueled management that is the solution. It's home harding, it's community hardening. And that's what we need to keep doing more of. Now, I know that there's been a lot of reporting about how since 2019, insurers in the state have dropped policies on 100,000 Californians. Now, I know this isn't your purview as the state fire marshal, but do you have any reaction to these moves by insurers who are leaving Californians

vulnerable at a time like this? You know, yeah, I can't speak to the complexities of the insurance industry. But what I can tell you is we've been working very closely with the insurance commissioner himself with many of the insurance associations to work towards finding the solution. You know, the insurance commissioner's recent regulations require that if homeowners are doing all the right things, if they're hardening their home, if they're clearing dead and dying vegetation, and so taking mitigation steps in their home, but also within their community, that should give them credit. They have bought down their risk. But this is a major challenge.

When you have these major conflagrations, huge amounts of loss, that obviously is going to play an economic loss to their industry. But working with them to make sure that we're doing mitigations that matter, that buy down risk. Homeowners that do that stuff should get credit. And that has efforts that the insurance commissioners safer from wildfires insurance framework. That again, with mitigations that we are aligned with our insurance partners on, defensible space, home hardening, neighborhood level hardening, zero to five foot, ember resistance zone, which is that first zone. These things, we have an agreement that that does buy down the risk, and insurance companies

under the new requirements are insuring people. Again, I can't get into the details because I don't regulate insurance, but we're working hard to make sure that the mitigations, we as firefighters know, matter that insurance companies are taking those into consideration in their pricing and their availability. And finally, let's finish off with this. And I appreciate all the time you've given at such a busy time as we're in right now. But we've got a national audience watching here. What's your message to folks out there who may want to offer some help? You know, there are so many people right now that are without a home. They've lost everything.

And so while we are today focused on firefighting and protecting structure defense so that more homes are not destroyed by these fires. There are so many nonprofit groups that are right now providing shelter, providing food, providing the basics. That's where the focus nationally. We need to come together as a nation. And as I have to note that in fires in the past that have done destruction, we have received that aid. But our hearts right now are really to focus on those that right now are in need, supporting nonprofit groups like the American Red Cross, for one. that is where people can help. Awesome. Well, again, thank you for all your time here.

I know that there were a lot of questions that kind of required some answers here as rumors start to fly, but I know that how busy it is at this moment right here, so I appreciate you taking all this time. Chief Berlant, thank you so much. Thanks. No lies brought to you by Uplift Desk. So I'm assuming a lot of you have similar work habits as me, meaning you sit for hours and hours in front of a computer at a desk.

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watching the wildfires ravaging California right now, I'm sure that a voice that that you're about to hear is one that you've heard numerous times throughout the last few days here. Alex, you've been doing 14-hour days on-air, non-stop coverage. So, you know, just on behalf of me and the rest of this state, thank you for the public service that you're doing because really the coverage that you've been bringing about this wildfire is unmatched. So thank you for that. I do want to start with jumping right in here. I know that Fox LA did report on the prospect of an arsonist being arrested for the most recent fire, that's the West Hills fire. I think they're calling it the Kenneth fire. Can you speak on that? Yeah, so there was an

incident where citizens in that neighborhood saw a guy with a blowtorch who was kind of talking crazy and talking about setting fires. They did a citizen's arrest of that guy. And then the police came in, brought him in for questioning. They suspect that that fire, was caused by arson, and they thought, hey, this could be the arsonist. This guy literally walk around with a blow torch in his hand. And apparently, they say after several different investigators from several different agencies, talked to this guy, that they did not have enough evidence or probable cause to believe that he was the arsonist for this particular fire. But they did find parole violations and other things that were felonies for this guy.

so he's still behind bars. It's not like they just released him and he's out on the street. But still, that is concerning because you think about it, the first couple days of these fires, we had these extraordinary, almost unprecedented winds

that were driving them. But since it hasn't been all that windy. And so how is these fires starting? And Carson makes a lot of sense that they just would be popping up one after another. It seems like every time we get a break or every time we're catching our breath, frankly, every time we would do one of these press conferences

we would go to with these officials, arson, I don't want to say arson, I don't know that for sure, but a fire would just pop up. And then it's like a whack-a-mole. And every time we feel like, okay, we're out of the woods, here comes another fire. Alex, has there been any precedent in history for the scope and devastation that we're seeing

with this fire right here, as far as you can remember in California? Yes. This is not the biggest fire that we've had in California. That's the campfire. People will remember when it went through Paradise, that community, which was completely leveled. 85 people were killed in that because they just couldn't get out.

Paradise, not a lot of ways in and not a lot of ways out. That fire was biggest. Right now, this fire is the fifth biggest in state history. Many of those big fires have come in the last decade. as we've seen some of the effects of climate change and brush management and everything else. I mean, everybody's going to blame it on one thing and go to their political camps. It's a combo of a lot of things that have caused all of this. And we've seen the winds getting worse, too.

But in terms of L.A., the city of Los Angeles, this is by far the biggest fire this city has ever dealt with. And, of course, the challenge of our region here is there's just so many people. So when you talk about fires out in rugged rural terrain somewhere, a lot of times that's not necessarily impacting people. When you think about some of the areas we're talking about here, Pacific Palisades, Brentwood, Altadena, Pasadena, we saw fire in the Hollywood Hills, we saw West Hills, Calabasas. These are all very, very crowded areas. And some people are saying it's only rich people. That's not true. There's a lot of people impacted by this of all different ages, races,

political persuasions, income levels, and that's what makes this so challenging. You know, with a lot of things, it's like how close is it to people? When you have an earthquake, for example, and it's out in the ocean, you know, you may not feel it that bad, but if there's one like right under L.A., even if it's not that big an earthquake because so many people feel it, sometimes it's seen as more dramatic. So you mentioned blame. You've spoken to everybody. You know, I've been watching your coverage. Like I said, it's been just streaming on an endless loop here. You have spoken to Democrats. You've

spoken to Republicans. I believe that you'll be speaking to Governor Newsom. You've also spoken with Rick Cruz. I talked to him yesterday. We did it. Exclusive interview with him. You've spoken with Rick Caruso. Does there seem to be some underlying theme as to what went wrong and what should have, what could have or should have prevented this, if anything, because I also know that there are some factors that obviously there's nothing you can do to mitigate them. You can't do anything to mitigate 80 to 100 mile per hour Santa Ana wins. You can't do anything to mitigate the fact that we haven't had rain in the better part

of a year. The theme seems to be this. It's the other guy's fault. That's the theme. It wasn't me. That seems to be the trend that we're seeing right now. We had a situation where the mayor of Los Angeles had budget cuts to the fire department. The mayor of Los Angeles said those budget cuts didn't impact the readiness for this.

And then Kristen Crowley, the fire chief for the Los Angeles Fire Department, did an exclusive interview with my colleague, Gigi Graciette on Fox 11, where she said, yes, it did. and came out and slammed the mayor publicly. And it was, went super viral. And then she went on a bunch of other outlets to make the same point. And then she's called back to the mayor's office. They have this private meeting. The Daily Mail reports that Kristen Crowley got fired. We couldn't confirm that because I actually, you know, do real reporting and talk to the

mayor's office and talk to the fire department. They both said that she was there, that she's remaining, Kristen Crowley and Mayor Bass appearing together on Saturday morning with Mayor Bass saying, we will now express our disagreements in private. So clearly they're not on the same page and there's some disagreement there. Governor Newsom put out a letter saying to the DWP, why did all this water pressure issues happen where there was no water for some of the firefighters in Pacific Palisades? So he's going after them and also reminding people that's their fault, not my fault.

in putting that letter calling for an investigation. So that's another thing. He's obviously frustrated with Trump, who is blaming it all on Newsom or New Scum, as he says, and said it's all his fault saying a few things that are just factually inaccurate. This fire has nothing to do with the Delta smelt or efforts to protect them. That's another argument and certainly something that we could get into someday, but it has nothing to do with what's happening in Pacific palisades. So everybody's finger pointing and there isn't a lot of working together, at least publicly. I mean, publicly, they all work out of the same emergency operation center and they do press conferences together and all the rest of that. But there hasn't been a whole lot of

public accountability that we've seen so far. I'm curious what you make of Trump's using this opportunity, exploiting this opportunity to attack his political rival, Gavin Newsom. I mean, look, you know, your lifelong L.A. guy, I know that you have that for you to report on this, not just by virtue of the fact that it's a fire, but also by virtue of the fact that it's your home must be devastating. And so what's kind of your reaction to seeing the opportunism leveled by Trump that I believe in the barrage of posts that he's put up on true social, not a single one has offered even a scant modicum of well wishes for any of the people impacted in L.A. Yeah, well, I'm not an opinion host, so I got to be careful here. And I can't do what you do,

but I will say this on a general phrase. People are really hurting. And it is disgusting and gross that any leader would take this opportunity as a moment to score political points. And any of those people, Democrat or Republican, I invite them to come to Pacific Palestine. AIDS, come to Altadena and walk those streets like I did yesterday, look around, and then say the same thing in good conscience. I invite them to come to the evacuation center where there's hundreds and maybe thousands of people scattered all over the place who are desperate, who lost everything in their life, and go look them in the eye and then try to make a political point. We need help. This is not a time for political point.

This is a time for people to come together and find a way within their own humanity to help people that need help. The reason we have a government is for situations like this to help lift people up so there is a sense of safety net, so there is a way for people to go. And if the government doesn't get its act together, it's disastrous not only for the people impacted, It's disastrous for the economy of this country, of this county, of this state. It's disastrous for everybody. And Donald Trump has made his career as a real estate guy and as a builder. He's really good as putting his name on a lot of things.

And I welcome him as a Californian to show off how great he is at building. Come in here. Show everybody how it's done. If the Democrats can't do it right, you do it better. I don't care who does it, but somebody's got to do it because these people need help. You've actually garnered a lot of attention unwittingly, inadvertently, because the clips of these helicopters that are dropping water that are doing water drops onto the fire are just like are kind of the only vestige of hope that so many people have while watching this stuff. And they're doing a really

incredible job. Have you seen some of the ways that these clips have taken off that your voices in the background of, but that really showcase the talent of these, of these different helicopter and airplane pilots. Yeah, it's been kind of wild because, you know, because we have gone commercial free and I'm going there 14 hours at a time, it's kind of hard for me to keep track of everything that's happening. I'm getting home at like two or three in the morning, and then I look at all these memes that people are sending me. I've been called the, the Mike Bream of water drops and sort of a by play of, I don't know if NBA fans out there, but Mike Bring does the NBA finals.

And whenever there's a big three, he says bang. And then for every once in a while, they've done a few bang, bang, which is a double bang, which means that it's like an unbelievably historic shot. And so some people have referred to the double bangs of water drops, which I think is fun. We had this ridiculous moment with this crazy person on the street talking to Gina Silva and blaming this on gay,

people, which that went viral. And then, you know, this interview we did with Rick Caruso right at the beginning of this went super viral. Elon Musk was tweeting about it. Trump was talking about it. Biden ended up responding to Trump. So a lot of this stuff that's come from our, you know, little local show has kind of driven what's been happening national, which has been kind of a crazy thing to experience. But it's a reminder, really, about the importance and the power of local news and local television. A lot of people have moved on from us in the media echo system, but in these sorts of moments of crisis, having journalists on the field, in the field, who know their communities, who are committed to it, really matter. And with respect, because they're doing their job and

they're really good at it. But a lot of times, you know, national reporters, as inherent to what they do, parachute in to a community that they may not be that familiar with. They're there for a day or two and stuff is going crazy and then they leave. That's what the job is. No fault to them. But for the local reporters and local anchors, this is our community. These are our friends. For some people, these are their homes.

And we're not going anywhere. We're going to be here when all those national cameras leave and committed to the long term to the stories of rebuilding these stories that we're going to have of insurance problems and the red tape that's coming when people try to rebuild. and all the back and forth that's coming, figuring out how to do this bigger and better, what went wrong. Those are the stories that we're going to be doing.

And so for people that appreciate the work we're doing, the best way that you can support it going forward is not just watch for the one crazy crisis day, but be committed to supporting the work long term. Sometimes that's watching it on TV, sometimes it's sharing out links, sometimes it's sending a nice note. But any way to support people that you're appreciating,

of, I think, will help make this work long term because the best way to make stuff like this be a priority, especially for bosses in corporate America, is for them to see that there's an audience for it. To that point, I've had a lot of people reach out to me and ask about ways that they can help. Do you have any specific or more targeted ways that people who are watching listening right now can help, both for people and for animals? The Pasadena Humane Society is doing really great work in that community, helping a lot of people and animals from Pasadena and Altadena. They've been working with different animal organizations around the state, trying to get

places for them. I think they do a tremendous work. We as a company are supporting the American Red Cross, and that's been the organization that I've been helping. I think they do do a really good job. I think what I would recommend for most people, and everybody wants to give stuff, if you've got stuff you want to donate in Santa Anita, Santa Anita Park. They've got this massive center set up every day from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. out by the raceway there.

I mean, just massive parking lots of stuff that people are donating. And if you have goods, a lot of times people really need diapers is something that people really need. Or they're asking for, like, trash containers because there's so much trash there or clothes. That's a good place to bring that. But the best thing that you really can do, really the most helpful, is to donate money. What's great about an organization like the American Red Cross is they have so much experience doing this that they're able to buy things in a targeted way. They know what they need. Sometimes when people try to donate a bunch of, with respect, crap that may be as old stuff, there's no place to put it.

Then it just piles up and it literally gets in the way. So working with an organization like American Red Cross that knows what they're doing that buys exactly what they need, not too much of what they need. and they can really take your money and use it well. And that would be my biggest recommendation. And I got to get going soon. Okay, yeah, I know that you're jumping back on the air right now. So I just want to say thank you for the time that you've given us today and to you and Marla for your continued coverage.

For anybody who's watching and listening right now, check out foxla.com. This way you can watch with this nonstop coverage. Alex, thank you again for all the work you're doing and for taking some time today. Thank you. And I would also recommend people. We have an app called,

Fox Local, where you can watch it in real time anywhere for free, and especially people that live here. It's good to maybe download that in advance in case they lose power. We've had so many power outages. Then people can't watch on TV. That's a way if you've got your phone, wherever you are, we can keep getting that information out and we can get you up to date on what's happening in your community. Stay safe.

Thanks, Brian. That's it for this episode. Please, again, check the show notes if you'd like to donate, and I'll talk to you all next week. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen. Produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, and interviews edited for YouTube by Nicholas Nicotera. If you want to support the show, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app and leave a five-star rating in a review. And as always, you can find me at Brian Tyler Cohen on all of my other channels, or you can go to Brian Tyler Cohen.com to learn more.