The Chris Cuomo Project - What California Wildfires Reveal About Trump’s Leadership

Episode Date: January 16, 2025

Chris Cuomo examines the challenges Donald Trump faces in transforming from a divisive figure into a unifying leader, using California wildfires as a metaphor for the obstacles ahead. Cuomo critiques Trump’s tendency to blame rather than solve, exploring how this approach contrasts with the leadership required to deliver meaningful change on issues like climate response, fiscal policy, and national unity. Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday: https://linktr.ee/cuomoproject Join Chris Ad-Free On Substack: http://thechriscuomoproject.substack.com Support our sponsors: Oracle Right now, Oracle is offering to cut your current cloud bill in HALF if you move to OCI. For new US customers with minimum financial commitment. Offer ends March 31st. See if your company qualifies for this special offer at Oracle.com/CCP iRestore  Our listeners get $625 off their iRestore Elite when you use promo code chris at iRestorelaser.com. That’s $625 off your iRestore Elite at irestore laser dot com with promo code chris. Hair loss is frustrating. You don’t have to fight it alone thanks to iRestore. Select Quote Get the right life insurance for YOU, for LESS, at selectquote.com/chrisc   AG1 And AG1 is offering new subscribers a FREE $76 gift when you sign up. You’ll get a Welcome Kit, a bottle of D3K2 AND 5 free travel packs in your first box. So make sure to check out DrinkAG1.com/ccp to get this offer! Start your new year on a healthier note. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We just learned something. What got Donald John Trump to where he is, is not gonna get him to where he wants to be. And we can show it in a very, very isolated circumstance that is getting a ton of attention. I'm Chris Cuomo, welcome to The Chris Cuomo Project. And here's the catch. If you look at the LA fires as a metaphor, okay, you see a state of play in this country

that yes, is an extension of the game that I hate so much of political advantage and partisan avarice, but it's something bigger and there's a big message in it for Donald Trump. Whether you like him or you are afraid of bigger and there's a big message in it for Donald Trump. Whether you like him or you are afraid of him, there is a lesson to be learned. And here's what it is. What got Donald Trump here is not going to get him where he wants to be. Where does he want to be? Making America great again?

I don't think that's his sole concern. By the way, any more than it is for most politicians, not to be cynical, but at the end of the day, legacy is about how that man or woman is remembered as themselves, okay? Even if you were to look at Rushmore, and I get it, Trump wants to be on Mount Rushmore, I've heard that too, is that true? I mean, what president wouldn't wanna be on Mount Rushmore,

you know, if you think about it? You know, the only one who was probably humble enough in the modern era to say, no, I'm not good enough would have been like Jimmy Carter, may he rest in peace. But when you look at the men who are up there, why is each there other than Lincoln? You see what I'm saying? So it's not about a signature achievement, although I could give you an analysis of how you wind up there. You have to be huge during a war, you have to be fundamental in crisis domestically, or you have to be

part of building something that's way bigger than yourself. Okay? Now, how does Trump check one of those boxes? That's where you get the Greenland and the Panama Canal and Annex in Canada and all that other big talk, because he's thinking about big things, but he's also not in yet. But what got him here? Division.

Frightening people about the status quo, blaming Democrats for everything. Everything is bad and it's all their fault. And it worked, why? Because we are in a period of grievance. People are afraid, They are pissed off. They are frustrated. And the Democrats own the status quo. And frankly, they weren't in sync or in step with how a lot of people in America feel about fundamental realities, economic and cultural.

So that's how he got here. But he ain't getting on Rushmore that way. He's not going to be popular unless he can be a uniter. Now, how do we see it? You look at it through the lens of the fires. Okay? He went blame early. I've never seen it in a crisis like this, where in the midst of the crisis, when everything is hot, literally and figuratively, he's saying it's all Newsom's fault. Now not only can you say, well, that's bad leadership, whether it's true or not, it's bad leadership because you don't criticize in crisis, you help people get through it. But it also directed something else, that being right isn't enough when you're a leader. It's about getting people to a better place.

That's the bar for a leader. You can't just blame away once you're in power anymore. That can get you into power. Certainly that's the case with Trump. But the deliverables matter, and they're going gonna matter more than ever for Donald Trump. And when you look at the fires, and I see this specifically with all we're hearing now with Republican lawmakers saying that relief for aid

or funds to California should be conditioned on change. Now I see this as just bullshit politics of trying to fit your pet peeves into this money. And I'll tell you how. You can see these same politicians, these red state politicians, when it's about money for their state, you don't hear anything like that

from either Republicans or Democrats. You've never heard that before when there's hurricane money for Florida or for Oklahoma, for tornadoes or whatever it is, wherever it is, you don't hear Democrats saying, well, I think we should condition this money. Only Republicans play that game, this holier than thou,

this they need to learn a lesson. And I'm telling you, it's not playing well. And that's with a lot of people in California being pissed off about what happened there. There's absolutely blame to go around for mismanagement and how the risk that everybody knew about there was allowed to continue in a way that created such a horrible circumstance right now. And yes, two things can be true at the same time. And there is no getting away from the Santa Ana winds and the unprecedented level of turbocharging of these flames that we saw.

There was no infrastructure system that was gonna stop this from being bad. The question is a question of degree. And there's certainly blame to go around, but haven't you noticed that while it's getting gotcha points on social media, you're not getting a coalescing around Trump with blame that you would get on the campaign trail

because what the people in California want is help. They want things to be better. So blame is not enough. And Donald Trump, if you notice, has not had a single idea for how to make things better, for how to fund it in a way faster, how to get it built back better, how to fight the fires more effectively.

Now that would be hard, right? And I'm not holding onto that bar, but there's an instruction in it. When you look at how it's being criticized and how that criticism is being received, he's not expanding his base. And that's with people in California who vote left being so pissed off right now.

So what does that teach us? Well, the idea that, well, they're all gonna move to Florida after this, red state, red state revolt. Really? Is it better for them in Florida? Yeah, you're not gonna have wildfires. Yeah, but you're gonna have hurricanes and the insurance situation's even worse in Florida

than it is in California. What? Yeah, check it out. Check out the pricing. Check out people are getting squeezed in Florida. Does that mean Governor DeSantis sucks as bad as Newsom? No, it means that we have a situation that needs solutions and not just blame,

not just finger pointing. And that's why we're seeing the same problems in California spreading all over this country. We saw them in the Carolinas, we saw them in Florida, we've seen them in Tornado Alley, we've seen them in the Northeast to a different degree. Prices are going up, up, up. Carriers don't wanna do it anymore.

It doesn't matter how you're handling it. Why? Because we need real solutions. Blame isn't enough. And that is going to be a big challenge for Trump now that he's in power. You said you were going to fix. Can you fix? So forget about the style points of the blame being too early, but the idea that aid is going to be tied to conditions of change when you don't have any better ideas? It's a problem for him. It's a problem for him getting where he wants to be, which is to be seen as great. Only unitors are great. They're all seen as unitors.

Lincoln is obvious, right? He brought the country back together after the Civil War. Where is that with Trump? Where is him being a uniter? Divider got him here. It's not gonna get him where he wants to be. Support for the Chris Cuomo project comes from radioactive media, business owners, CMOs. You got a plan on growing in 2025, right? There's gonna be a lot of uncertainties this year, but not everything's uncertain, right?

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OCI. So for new U.S. customers with minimum financial commitment, this is a great deal, but this offer is going to end March 31st. See if your company qualifies for this special offer at oracle.com slash CCP oracle.com slash CCP for the Chris Cuomo project. Support for the Chris Cuomo project comes from I Restore. Holidays are over, sure sure, but it is never too late to give yourself what you really want. How about you treat yourself with the I Restore Elite and then you can get that hair regrowth solution

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If God forbid, there were another 9-11 and Trump took the posture that he took with these fires, what do you think that would have had as an effect on our country? What do you think he would do in 9-11? He'd blame the Democrats, right? Right? And that is not only poor leadership, it's a poor value proposition for him. Because you gotta be able to bring people together

in common cause if you wanna be a great man. If you wanna accomplish anything great, you can't do it by fracturing. There's no recipe for getting to a better place If you want to accomplish anything great, you can't do it by fracturing. There's no recipe for getting to a better place where you balkanize, where you break things apart and people apart into factions. You've got to unify. You've got to bring them together.

And if there was another 9-11 and he was like, this is what the Democrats did, they did this, what do you think would happen if that had happened after 9-11 and Bush had done that? Yeah, he was in power, but if he hadn't come together and they even had a vote on going to the war, and yeah, it wound have been based on bullshit proof about yellow cake and a rock that nobody ever found and weapons of mass destruction that we never found and all that shit show aside, we were unified.

That's the only way that you get to a better position. And Trump has to look at that. He has to look at how what he's doing in this moment with the fires isn't getting them where he wants to be. And the idea that all these people are going to go to Florida now, they're going to vote red, not if you don't offer them anything better. No way, no way they flip unless there's solutions. He's gotta be in the solutions business. And here's the challenge for him.

The campaign was everything's terrible and it's their fault. I'm gonna get gas prices, I'm gonna get food prices, right? I'm gonna get cost of living. I'm gonna get Ukraine settled before I'm even to get food prices, right? I'm going to get cost of living. I'm going to get Ukraine settled before I'm even in office. None of that is going to come true now. How do we know? Well, the wars certainly aren't going to end before Trump takes office or beyond anytime soon.

Oh, it was just a campaign promise. Okay. Well, what about the expectations of people who voted for him when it comes to prices? Did you notice how right after he won, he started saying that lowering prices isn't easy? You know what's gonna happen? And you just saw this with JD Vance

laying the groundwork for this. JD Vance is now saying, boy, Biden gave us some shitty economy, boy. Boy, he gave us a shitty economy. Why? Because the trend is now going to be Donald Trump's friend. Everything that they've been denying, immigration to inflation is terrible. Inflation is terrible. The price of this is terrible. The price of that is terrible. True, but the rates of negative movement in prices has been reducing over time. The rate of inflation, how much things are going up,

has been lowering and lowering. They are now gonna own the trend and say that Biden gave us everything terrible, but now look, it's going the right way, even though it's been going the right way. That's what he's going to own instead of being able to come up with great ideas to lower food and gas prices. You are not going to pump your way to lower gas pump prices with your domestic supply.

It's a world market. Okay? The price structure isn't just American specific. It's tied into a world market. Okay? The price structure isn't just American specific. It's tied into a world market. It's just not that easy. He's going to start explaining that to you while he's been ignoring it the rest of this time. And it's not going to be enough in terms of getting him where he wants to be. Only culture wars are satisfied with attacks, right? I'm going to try to protect trans kids and maybe they come up with something about when you can have surgery, when you can't, something like that. But most of that stuff is just talk. Culture is mostly talk, right? Whether it was gay marriage back in the day or anything gay, period.

Now it's trans as the new boogeyman. A lot of that is about stopping things, about being against things. It's not about making things better through creative solutions that require consensus. So what Donald Trump wants is to be seen as a great president. You cannot be seen as a great president if you are not seen as a uniter. And the way to unite people is in common cause through plans and strategies that lead to a better place,

also known as solutions. So this is the last gasp of what got Donald Trump where he is, which is just blaming the other side for everything that happens. That's what he's doing in the LA fires. Bad Newsom, bad Newsom. Why? He doesn't like Newsom. And look, when you're in crisis, you don't look great. OK? Remember him at the beginning of the pandemic. China's great. China's working with us. You know, thanks to China.

Kind of ignoring the origination story that wound up becoming everything. Where did it come from? Remember in the beginning, they're being great. China's helping us. China's helping us. And then what? Then this became a pandemic. And it wasn't just a bad cold.

It wasn't over in a few weeks. It wasn't gonna just be a few cases. It wasn't just about don't test and it will go away. Right? Trump was looking like shit at that point. Then he started calling it the China virus and he got into blame mode. And his term ended before he could really get stuck with not having made anything better.

The irony of ironies is that what was Trump's signature achievement during the pandemic? What his voters hate the most, the vaccine. See, that shows you this disconnect between what got him where he is and what it would take to get him where he wants to be. His signature achievement was what his people now say is poison. Now look, some of them can rationalize it as saying, well, he didn't know. That was the deep state. They duped Trump. God forbid he be held responsible for anything he says or does.

But it doesn't matter what his base thinks anymore. His base can't get him where he wants to be. He wants to be remembered as a great president. I don't agree that he comes into this as a lame duck because he can't get reelected. I don't agree with that. I think that there's a lot of woodelected. I don't agree with that. I think that there's a lot of wood to chop.

There's a lot of opportunity. There are a lot of places for him to make his mark. Will he? Not if he's doing it the way that he's done it up to this point. It can't happen. He can't achieve anything great with what he has right now. But he's got the House and the Senate, not by much.

I mean, there's a huge gross exaggeration in the mandate, the commanding victory. Really, when you don't even have 50% of the vote? How is that a commanding victory? Is it impressive that he even won the popular vote? Yeah, Republicans usually don't. So yeah, that's impressive, but commanding victory. Is it impressive that he even won the popular vote? Yeah, Republicans usually don't. So yeah, that's impressive, but commanding? But a huge mandate?

Yeah, but he won the House and the Senate. Well, he's got the House by a handful of votes. He's got the Senate by a couple of votes. So he's gotta be tight. No, no, no, you're exaggerating. You're exaggerating down. You're minimizing his advantage. Really? What happened with the debt ceiling? He went to his people and

said raise the debt ceiling. Why? Because he wants to cut taxes. He wants to make permanent his tax cuts. What does he need to do that? One of two things. He's got to cut spending a tremendous amount which he does not want to do. Donald Trump is not a fiscal conservative. That's another albatross for the right is that their guy is not one of them

when it comes to fiscal policy. I'm gonna create the external revenue service, the ERS, and we're going to do it through tariffs. Tariffs have never been more than a single digit of our overall revenue in the common era. It's a big reason that they created the federal income tax in 19, whatever it was, in the teens. Tariffs, you're not going to raise tariffs. Tariffs can be effective in the teens. Tariffs, you're not gonna raise tariffs.

Tariffs can be effective in some ways. They shouldn't be discounted out of hand. That's why Democrats and Republicans have used them. But they're not a cure-all. And yeah, they do add to inflationary pressure. Everybody knows that. So it's not. Everybody knows that. So it's not as simple as that.

Look, he's reaching for big moves because he wants to be seen as great. And I am not pissing on that ambition. What I'm doing is warning about the tactics. And if the goal is to become known as a great person, what got him here will not get him there. Not as a person, a great president. Why? Because you can't divide your way to greatness.

Tell me what president ever has. I'm waiting. Well, Regensine is a great president and he was a, well, no, I remember very well. My father distinguished himself on the national level by writing a famous speech for the 1984 Democratic Convention called The Tale of Two Cities,

where he was criticizing President Reagan's political ideology, his perspective, his philosophy, as a function of us and them, and that he was only looking at how the haves do in this country and not the have-nots. That was his argument. But Reagan wasn't a hardcore divider. His policies may have had that net effect in certain ways, but certainly by disposition,

he was trying to make people feel better about the country very often. You can't really see that in Trump, not to this point. He may say, make America great again, but for him, it's a reductive statement that the country's shit, and that the only way to get back to greatness is through him.

And to this point, that has only meant scaring the shit out of everybody about how bad the other side is. That won't get him to greatness, and you can't find me a single example of a president who did get there that way. No, can't see it. So what does he have to do? Well, that's the challenge. But there is wisdom in knowing that you can't keep doing what you're doing, not what he's doing during these LA fires. No way. Can you just blame the Democrats and get to a better place? It's not going to happen. And you have to be careful with your own. He does not have the margins. They refuse to raise the debt ceiling for him.

the debt ceiling for him. This group of three dozen, just less Republicans who are returning to the home of fiscal conservativism, they are a problem for Trump. They're gonna be a problem in this division. You ever hear that in MMA analysis? So and so is gonna be a problem in the welterweight division. So they're gonna be a problem for him. Why?

Because he's not a conservative. When he did his tax cuts in 2016, do you remember what he did on the spending side? He spent like crazy before the pandemic, before the pandemic. Don't give him this simple excuse of saying it was the pandemic, because you don't give it to Biden, by the way.

But he spent and created more of a deficit than just about any president in modern history. If not more than any president. Biden may get in there because of the pandemic. But before the pandemic, Trump spent his ass off after cutting taxes saying they'd pay for themselves and they did not. Look at the CBO.

Deep state. Oh please. You can't just believe in institutions when they agree with you. You can't just like the outcomes of situations when it goes your way. And now that he's in power, he cannot do that. What got him here will not get him where he wants to be. Support for the Chris Cuomo project comes from AG1. Look, new year, new me, right?

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I'm in my 50s, okay? And AG1 has been a difference maker for me. So this new year, try AG1 for yourself. It's the perfect time to start a new healthy habit. That's why I've been partnering with AG1 for so long and I'd love to do more. A-G-1 is offering new subscribers a free $76 gift when you sign up. You'll get a welcome kit, a bottle of D3K2, and five free travel packs in your first box. So make sure to check out drinkag1.com slash CCP for the Chris Cuomo Project and you can

get this offer. That's drinkag1.com slash CCP and you can start your new year on a healthier note. Support for the Chris Cuomo Project comes from AG1. Look, new year, new me, right? We're all going through it. I don't believe in resolutions. I believe the rents do every day and you've got to do the right things every day. You need a routine and you have to stick with what works.

And for me, AG1 is how I start my day. You need a routine and you have to stick with what works. And for me, AG1 is how I start my day. One and done. Put it in warm water, stir, stir, stir, gobble, gobble, gobble, and that's it. I've got the nutritional basis that I need to start the day right. And here's how I know. I don't just have fluorescent pee when I take AG1. I get my blood work done on a regular basis. And I'm telling you, the absorption of B and D are up. I've been doing this a long time. I'm in my 50s, okay? And AG1 has been a difference maker for me. So this new year, try AG1 for yourself.

It's the perfect time to start a new healthy habit. That's why I've been partnering with AG1 for so long and I'd love to do more. AG1 is offering new subscribers a free $76 gift when you sign up. You'll get a welcome kit, a bottle of D3K2, and five free travel packs in your first box. So make sure to check out drinkag1.com.com.ccp for the Chris Cuomo project and you can get this offer. That's drinkag1.com slash CCP, and you can start your new year on a healthier note. And this is why that you have to look at everything that he's doing and planning to do through this lens.

How can he be remembered as a great man? He's gotta do big things, big things. So once you start looking at it through that lens, you start to see real questions. Like his cabinet. Why is his cabinet designed the way it is? Because he doesn't want anybody to stop him from his own initiatives. Well, no president wants that. Yeah, but there's usually a balancing of ideologies and certainly with Democrats checking boxes of diversity

that Trump just seems to believe is unnecessary, if not inconvenient, right? He wants people around him who all see things exactly the way he does and see his ambitions and his interests as primary. No, that's not fair. Everybody's doing it for the country. I don't know. his ambitions and his interests as primary. No, that's not fair. Everybody's doing it for the country. I don't know.

I think they're doing it for Trump in the belief that what Trump wants is best for the country. And I think that's a distinction with a difference. And I do think it matters that there's not a single black member of his administration. I do think that there is something to type

and not that people should be where they are just because of type, but that type matters. That it's not that, oh, there's black politics and there's white politics, but there is a distinction between having black people in positions of power and their perspective and white people in positions of power and their perspective and white people in positions of power.

And it's not that a white person can't understand what matters to black people and why, nor vice versa. But why wouldn't you want the cabinet to look like the country? Why wouldn't you want the Supreme Court to look like the country? Why wouldn't you want everything to look like what it is?

Do you think you can't find black people who are as qualified as white people? Now, you can find black people who aren't as qualified and put them in anyway, well, that would be wrong. I don't think diversity without meritocracy is a virtue, but I think you can achieve both. Why didn't he find it? He found, couldn't find a single black man or woman

that could do any of those jobs as well as the people who he put in there. And let's be honest, it's not like an all star cabinet he's put in there. And I'm giving him credit. Maybe I should give him credit for Cash Patel because he's Asian. But certainly him saying all the stuff about how racist

and I'm the least racist and Tim Scott and where are my black people? Well, where are them black jobs now? As I heard that comedian saying on social media. No black jobs in the cabinet for Trump. How does it get him where he wants to be, which is to be seen as great? You look at the cabinet through that lens. You look at what he's talking about while coming into power through that lens. Ah, now Greenland and the Panama

Canal and Annex in Canada starts to make sense. Not that he can get them done, not that they have anything to do with his election, with his campaign, but they have everything to do with his ambition of being considered one of the greatest. Wow, if you combined Canada and Mexico in all of North America and made it all America, wow, that would be huge. That would be historic. He'd be one of the greatest.

That's why he's talking about it. And you can say, well, that's stupid, or I like it, or I don't, but I'm still telling you that it satisfies my premise. What got him here will not get him where he wants to be. What is he gonna do about it? That's why he said, I'm gonna end those wars before I even take office.

Why? Because I'm a great man. Now, the other side is gonna say, well, he didn't do it, he's a liar. Won't move the needle. Why? People don't care if Trump says things and doesn't mean them, or that they don't happen.

They don't care if he swings and misses. They still believe he's swinging at the pitches that they want him to swing at. And you either get that or you're going to lose. That's a proposition for the Democrats. You either get that he isn't measured the way you are. Why? Because you are the establishment, you are the insiders, and they hate You are the insiders and they hate that. That's the message that the country sent. We want disruption. He is a disrupter, but he's already been a president, but he's never been an insider.

That's not how he's seen by them. Could I make an argument otherwise? Yeah, of course. How is a Nepo baby who was bailed out of situations no one else woulded out of situations no one else would get out of without a rich family, who screwed his debtors, who's never really run a business well at all except his own personal name brand,

who has always been an insider, always benefited from privilege, checks every box of privilege. How is he not an insider? Yeah, you can make that case, but it's not how he's seen. He doesn't sound like insiders, he doesn't have the sophistication of them.

He sounds like an angry guy in a bar. And there are a lot of angry guys out there right now looking for somebody who feels the way they do. And you may disagree with their assessment, but that's how Trump has been assessed. So you have to start having a hyper focus on the same thing that he should. What does he do?

See, that is a very interesting endpoint for us today. In this episode, in a weird way, Donald Trump and his biggest opponents are in the exact same place, and they need to focus on the exact same thing, which is what does Trump actually get done? Because that's all he cares about is being seen as having been one of the greatest presidents. Remember, remember, his signature initiative when he was first elected was called DJT 100. He wanted a hundred percent popularity because he thought that would mean that he was a great president. Everybody loved him. Now he knows they're not all gonna love him, but he's got to have more people loving

him than that which got him here, if he wants to be considered great. And his critics have to focus not on what he says, not on how he says it, but on what he does and fails to do. That is the sweet spot for them. Everything else will be dismissed as noise and will only expose their own weaknesses and be missed opportunities. I know that can be frustrating. I get it.

I get it. I get that there's a big part of the Democrats who want to be like what we saw with Tim Kaine in the Hegseth confirmation hearing where he made his sex life a metaphor for who he is as a leader. And that ain't gonna work for people who wanna measure Trump.

But if the Democrats wanna be in that holier than now position, they have a big fall coming, because that is not where America is. America is not where America is. America is not in the business right now of character counts. They're in about just win, baby. Just get it done for me. Whatever it takes.

I don't expect virtue from you people. I just want deliverables. And what got Trump where he is will not get him where he wants to be. He has to deliver in big ways. And that's why he's making big talk. And we'll see if he can actually make anything happen. And that will be the big dynamic that we're all watching going forward. 8P, 11P, every weekday night. You gotta be a critical thinker right now.

You gotta wear your independence. That's what the free agent gear is all about. That's why I sell it so that we can put the money together and give it to people. So you wanna wear your independence, check out the free agent gear. You want this podcast without ads, go to Substack and subscribe there.

And yeah, I'm doing my personal fitness and wellness change on Substack. If you wanna know what I'm doing and why I'm doing my personal fitness and wellness change on Substack. If you want to know what I'm doing and why I'm doing it, it's there. Why not here? Because it's not as much of a concern for all of us as a community, as our politics and our cultural machinations are.

That's a personal thing, so it's discreet. And if you want to be part of that, go ahead. And I'll let you in on everything I'm doing and why. My friends, the challenges are many. Our approach to all of them must be the same. Let's get after it.