The Megyn Kelly Show - LA Mayor Stumbles as She Returns to City, and Personal Stories of the Devastation, with James Woods and Adam Carolla | Ep. 979

Episode Date: January 9, 2025

Megyn Kelly begins the show by calling out the "moron" Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass over her stumbles after returning from Ghana, reading the letters "URL" instead of a website to help with the deadly wildfires, the incompetence of Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom, the embarrassing moment when ABC host David Muir was caught trying to make himself look more svelte on camera while covering the wildfires, his vanity as an actor playing dress up, a flashback to an hilarious Dan Rather vain moment, and more. Then legendary actor James Woods joins to discuss his personal story of evacuating from the LA wildfires, putting the incredible devastation into perspective, the incompetent leadership in the city and state and mismanagement that led to the terrible damage, setting politics aside and the humanity he's seen during this trying time in LA, the terrible leaders in the city who must be held accountable, what lack of preparation caused this devastation, and more. Then Adam Carolla, host of The Adam Carolla Show, to talk about his personal story of evacuating from the LA wildfires, the pragmatic way he plans to go about rebuilding from the devastation, the consequences of a focus on diversity by the LA Fire Department leadership, the incompetent leadership in LA and California, the challenge of rebuilding with all the red tape and bureaucracy, the billions California wasted on a failed high speed rail system, and more. Finally Megyn reflects on the devastation of the LA wildfires, the policies that led us to this moment, the need for liberals in the city and state to see this as a wake-up call, and the importance of perspective in trying moments like this.Woods-  https://www.jameswoods.com/Carolla- https://adamcarolla.com/XX-XY Athletics: Go to https://TheTruthFits.com | Code MK20Ground News: Use the link https://groundnews.com/megyn for 40% off the Vantage subscription to see through mainstream media narratives. Grand Canyon University: https://GCU.eduFollow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at noon east. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Utter devastation in Los Angeles as fires continued overnight and were said to be 0% contained. I mean, they've been 0% contained basically since this thing started. We told you how bad the fires were yesterday. Things have only gotten worse. Now at least five people are dead. More than 25,000 acres have burned and hundreds of thousands are under mandatory evacuation orders. Over a thousand structures have been destroyed. These are people's homes, children's schools.

Think about these little kids who have their books and their art projects and their schools completely burned to the ground with nowhere to go now. They've suffered enough, especially out in LA where they closed schools forever during COVID. It is hard to describe the destruction. So many devastating videos and images. This one here encapsulates what our fellow Americans are dealing with right now. This is a photo from Altadena, California. And just for the listening audience, it's satellite. It's a satellite image taken by Maxar Technologies. Before the fires, it looks like a normal city. And then this is the same area in a photo, an image taken yesterday after the entire neighborhood was destroyed.

Look at that. Just fire, destruction. It's just, you can't help but ask yourself, how could this happen in an American city? It's not like a tornado that comes through in minutes and no human can do much about it. Fires are a known risk in California. Water supply is a known issue in Los Angeles. None of this is a mystery. The Santa Ana winds come every year and they do bring serious threats of fire and the spreading of it. I don't, like the level of incompetence to have not been prepared,

they failed at every level. The brave men and women of the LAFD, those, that's a different story. God bless them and the LAPD who are putting their lives on the line going in there trying to battle this blaze and to protect people as they evacuate they're from their homes hats off to them and nothing but respect but they there is only so much they can do when the fire department does not have the water to fight the worst fire in the city's

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tees that hold up to the toughest workouts. Check them out at thetruthfits.com or xx-xyathletics.com. Use the code MK20 for 20% off your order. Don't forget that. Support brands that align with your values and that stand up for girls' and women's rights. Go to thetruthfits.com and don't forget the code MK20. Los Angeles, the city of angels, the home of Hollywood glamour, the site of the 2028 Olympics is telling many of its citizens just flee, flee because it does not have the power or the water that they need to stay safe. But the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, is now finally back from Ghana. Joe Biden sent her there for the inauguration. Who gives a crap? Why is the LA mayor going to Ghana for some political event? What in the actual F? And let me tell you something. The warnings about these Santa Ana

winds being worse than normal and bringing a grave threat were all over the place. You look back at the LA Times now for days prior to this event, they were jumping up and down saying this actually could get really bad. And she's over there in Ghana for this ceremony. Why? Get your ass back home. Now there's a tweet. Let me see if I can find it quickly. Resurfacing online from, yeah, here it is. From when Ted Cruz got ridiculed for leaving Texas to go on vacation in the middle of some, I can't remember what was happening to Texas. Was it fires there? And she, Karen Bass, what was it, Steve? It was a snowstorm. Okay. You don't think snowstorm when you think Texas. In any event, she tweeted out Ted Cruz fleeing Texas in the middle

of a deadly crisis is part of a larger pattern of the GOP abandoning folks in crisis. We need to build a movement to kick them all out. Well, how'd that one go, madam? Is that part of your pattern on your team to abandon folks during a crisis? I mean, I realize you sent a couple of tweets, but in this kind of situation, people like to see and hear from their leaders. And you were in Ghana enjoying yourself. Now, she finally holds a presser, and it was a complete disaster. First of all, before I get to the truly disastrous part, listen to her describing herself. I basically got on the back of Superman to come home. Take a listen to this out too. I've been in constant contact with our fire commanders, with county, state, and federal officials.

I took the fastest route back, which included being on a military plane, which facilitated our communications. So I was able to be on the phone the entire time of the flight. We are fighting for you and everyone in Los Angeles. Okay. I took the fastest route home. Are we supposed to be giving credit for the fact that she didn't book too many layovers? This is an absurd person. And you don't have to take my word for it in response to that inanity you just heard.

Listen to the mayor in her time of crisis, her city's time of massive crisis, in directing people where to go if they need information, which they do because their houses are burning and their family members in at least five cases are dying. Listen to this idiot in SOP 3. Build stronger than ever. Right now, if you need help, emergency information, resources, and shelter is available. All of this can be found at URL. At URL. She is too stupid to be the mayor of Los Angeles. She is too stupid to be in public office. You failed, madam. You failed. You failed to prepare for the crisis. And then when your country and your city needed you, what did you do? Oh, you took the fastest route home with no layovers on a military plane? Uh-huh, great. And when you got there, you were too dumb

to realize that URL was a placeholder and then to actually look to your team and say, what is the URL? What is the web address? You are a moron. And I am sorry for our friends in Los Angeles who don't deserve this. I realize they voted for this woman, but I'm going to assume they thought she had two nickels to rub together in between her ears. Live and learn. Then she gets caught on the way to, I think this was the news conference, by a Sky News reporter. He got her at the airport. And man, did this guy do a good job. Take a listen to this and how I don't really care, to be honest, whether it's she can't or she won't answer the questions. I'm equally horrified either way. Watch.

Do you owe citizens an apology for being absent while their homes were burning? Do you regret cutting the fire department budget by millions of dollars, Madam Mayor? Have you nothing to say today? Have you absolutely nothing to say to the citizens today? Elon Musk says that you're utterly incompetent. Are you considering your position? Madam Mayor, have you absolutely nothing to say to the citizens today who are dealing with this disaster? No apology for them.

That is utter incompetence. Again, picture Trump in that circumstance. Would he ever just sit there ignoring the reporter firing those questions at him? No, he would say something, say something resembling anything, right? Like, take a shot, madam. This is the first, this guy was on the plane with her coming back from Ghana, most direct route, fear not, and started firing questions at her. And this is her first chance to actually say something. I know you're going to a presser. Say, I'll address it more fully at the presser, but here's my message right now. You're an idiot. She's too dumb to do it. That's why she didn't do it. That's why the fire department wasn't ready. That's why she took nearly $20 million from them

instead of fully funding the FD because she had other priorities like the homeless and the illegal immigrants. Those are the reports that she was doling out the money to help all the illegals who are in LA. And she didn't care about a known risk to the taxpaying citizens of LA, the upstanding law abiding citizens of Los Angeles who pay her salary, who help the city stay on its feet. Whatever you think of LA, it's historic. It's beautiful. It's totally charming in its feet. Whatever you think of LA, it's historic. It's beautiful. It's totally charming in its character. Forget the politics, all right? Just put that bullshit to the side. You go out there and you drive around and you think, oh my God, if it weren't for the politics, I'd live here. It's so pretty and cute. And all these sort of no-name charming restaurants that

are just off the beaten path where you can get really great food and like sole proprietors, still mom-and-pop businesses, unlike Manhattan, by the way, which was ruined by another Democrat, where he chased all the mom-and-pop proprietors out with his inane policies. In any event, it's sad that this city is being lost before our very eyes because in part of the utter incompetence of people like Karen Bass. Go to URL. She's too dumb to be your leader. Can you recall a mayor? There should be an immediate recall. I know you can recall a governor. He's no better. Gavin Newsom with his stupid widow's peak. He's done nothing. Listen to him when he was asked about the fact that there's no water in the fire hydrants. What is the situation with the water? Obviously, in the Palisades ran out last night in the

hydrants. I was trying to firefighter in this block. They left because there was no water in the hydrant here. Local folks are trying to figure that out. The local folks are going to figure, Why don't you know the answer? What do you mean the local? Again, picture Ron DeSantis. You think he'd be like, some local folks. You want to be on TV so badly, you want to sit across from Anderson Cooper so badly that you decide to wing it. And then when the tough questions come, oh, the local folks are fake. No, you're the governor. You answer. You. The local folks are in Ghana. It's so infuriating. I mean, honestly, you guys know, my dear friend, who is not a rich person, lost her home. It's utterly destroyed. It is ashes now, every belonging that she has. And she and thousands of others now are looking for answers on how this happened. And oh,

the local folks are going to figure it out. You know what the local folks said? This woman we told you about yesterday, whose salary was doubled. I don't know what the local folks said? This woman we told you about yesterday whose salary was doubled. I don't know what her story is. All I know is she is a woman and she's Hispanic. She's a diversity hire. That doesn't mean she's not qualified, but they doubled her salary from the man who she replaced. She makes $750,000 a year. And this woman is out there saying, well, there were three separate tanks that supplied water to the Palisades. The fire started 1030 Tuesday morning,

California time. And by that night, 3 a.m. overnight, Tuesday into Wednesday, the first one was totally empty. And by the next morning, the other two were totally empty. And therefore, the people did not stand a fighting chance. And her explanation was, well, it's very hard to fight a wildfire in an urban setting with urban water supply. Yeah, we know. You knew that a week ago. You knew that a month ago. Where the F was the planning? We know all that. We know that. Why are they looking at us now just telling us facts that were known like it's an explanation for their incompetence? Here's a little bit of this woman at the presser. We're fighting a wildfire with urban water

systems, and that is really challenging. What happened in Palisades? We have three large water tanks, about a million gallons each. We ran out of water in the first tank at about 4.45 PM yesterday. We ran out of water on the second tank about 8.30 PM and the third tank about 3 AM this morning. Those tanks help with the pressure on the fire hydrants and

the heels of palisades. And because we were pushing so much water in our trunk line, and so much water was being used before it can get to the tanks, we were not able to fill the cans fast enough. So the consumption of water was faster than we can provide water in our trunk

line. So I wanna make sure that you understand there's water on the trunk line. It just cannot get up the hill because we cannot fill the tanks fast enough. 48 hours, the water quality is low. We have a lot of ash in our system. And so please, if you're gonna be drinking water, you need to boil the water. Okay. So the people who were lower down in the hills couldn't get the water to the, they were using too much water to fight fires, such that the people who are higher in the hills couldn't get the water, all of which was foreseeable. These are not explanations. These were foreseeable problems for which you failed to plan. I don't, this is not going to cut it. This is not going to cut it, even with the people of Los Angeles who are probably willing to give most Democrats the benefit of the doubt.

And you can see that already time and time again on X, with many voicing their serious concerns about the failures of leadership and even pieces in the LA Times, quoting heavily from people like Rick Caruso, who was the guy who challenged Karen Bass, who he was up against her for mayor, who again, he ran as a Democrat, but definitely sounds more like a Republican. He owns the Palisade Village Mall, which is in the heart of this West Side neighborhood. And he says it suffered damage, but I don't think it burned. It's actually kind of, the reports are that it's one of the few things that didn't burn. I don't know what he was doing.

But in any event, his daughter's home burned, and he's waiting to find out whether his son's home was still standing. So he did, he has some real skin in this game. And he has come out to say, this is the city's fault in large part. He blasted them for infrastructure problems that struggle to meet the firefighting demand, saying there's no water in the fire hydrants. And saying the firefighters are there, there's nothing they can do. We've got neighborhoods burning, homes burning, businesses burning. It should never happen. The LA City Council member, Tracy Park, who represents the Palisades area and was with this, Janice Quinones, the woman who runs the water department who you just heard from at this news conference, was also in the LA Times words

expressing her fury over the Department of Water Supply Issues. Quote, the chronic underinvestment in the city of LA, in our public infrastructure, and our public safety partners was evident and on full display over the last 24 hours. I'm extremely concerned about this. I'm already working with my team to take a closer look. And I think we've got more questions than answers at this point. They say, okay, well, we brought in other tanks to backfill the water supply, but they had to get the water from a totally different region. And that takes time to bring it up. They're totally underprepared. And now as you've got five people dead, and I'm sure the death toll, unfortunately, will rise

and a thousand plus structures burned. And that number will certainly go way up. You've got ridiculous tweets like this one going out from pride groups like pride.com on the chief firefighter, who we told you about, Kristen Crowley, who's been spending time working on DEI within the fire department and celebrating her own gayness, literally, in her bio and elsewhere. She wants to celebrate how gay she is. Well, no, I refuse. I don't care. With a tweet like this, amid Palisades fire, Los Angeles's first LGBTQ plus fire chief is proving lesbians get it done. There's something wrong with you people. It's a whole article that they tweeted out. There's something wrong with, like you need to have your heads examined. In the midst of people dying and losing everything, this insane group that I'll bet you a lot of

people in LA have donated to, would like us to take a moment to celebrate her lesbianism. We refuse. I think I speak for the Los Angelinos when I say no, no. How is she getting it done exactly? The homes are burning. It's not just this woman in charge of the water department. Why didn't the fire chief have any idea of how much reserves were available and the risks that were about to come and what the plans were? The exit plans for those who needed to be evacuated, the foreseeable problem that those who are in the upper levels of the hills would not have enough water if the people in the lower levels of the hills used a lot of it to fight fires. I'm an anchor at a news desk.

And if you asked me to think about this for an hour, I could have predicted this stuff. These people, they devote their lives to it. Or do they? Or do they? Because this woman, Kristen Crowley, the fire chief, is spending a lot of time thinking about how to hire more women and gays at the fire department. It's infuriating. Now some of the media, I don't know if it's stupidity, ignorance, or bias, but some are actually on the air denying that the fire hydrants ran out of water. Hello, the officials are already admitting that. In this particularly embarrassing report that was on the local LA Fox,

this anchor, Melvin Robert, tries to debunk Rick Caruso, the guy I mentioned who ran for mayor and lost to Karen Bass, tried to debunk his claim that the fire hydrants had run out of water, only to then be corrected by a reporter who was in the field speaking with the firefighters. Watch this. Former L.A. mayoral candidate and real estate developer Rick Caruso criticizing the city's response to the windstorm and fires. Despite what you have heard from Caruso, no firefighters have told us that they are running

out of water. And let's go out to Gigi Gracia. She is live in Pacific Palisades. I know your signal is not the best, but Gigi, what can you tell us? Well, firefighters have told me they have no water on this block. Yeah, they have no water. And by the way, MSNBC reported the same after speaking with one of the fire captains on scene. Take a listen to SOT6. We saw an apartment building engulfed in flames. I saw the fire engine pull up this afternoon. A fire captain have one of his firefighters attach a hose to a hydrant, and that hose didn't fill up, Alex. And I asked the captain, out of every 10 hydrants you attach

to today, on average, how many are you getting full water from? He says little to none. And it was at that point that really the whole crew stopped, looked up at this apartment building, and they realized there was nothing they could do. Think of those poor firefighters and the people who own the homes they're trying to save. Can you imagine? These firefighters put their lives on the line to go out there at great risk to themselves. And they get there, they manage to get through the smoke and the traffic. People are abandoning their cars. It's not easy for these firefighters to even get to the scenes in many cases. And they hook up the hoses and they've got the trucks ready and nothing comes

out because it wasn't planned for, because the mayor was in Ghana and this woman, Janice, didn't do her job that she's getting paid almost a million dollars a year to do. And when asked about why there were utter failures, she says, oh, it's really hard to use an urban water system to put out what is essentially a wildfire. We know that. It's your job, literally, to think about how to overcome those challenges. Then, of course, all of this starts well before the fire is upon the homes in Pasadena or the Palisades or last night it jumped over to the Hollywood Hills before being stopped. All of this starts well before that. And that gets to the cutting back of brush, which LA should have been doing and wasn't,

which individual citizens should have been doing and apparently weren't in many cases. And maintenance of the forests around the area. This is what Trump has been jumping up and down about for quite some time. He mentioned this on Joe Rogan when he went on Joe Rogan before the election and made these points. Billions of dollars a year they spend on forest fires. And, you know, there's a case with the environment. They're not allowed to rake their forest because you're not allowed to touch it. When a tree falls down, after 18 months it becomes very dry. It's like, you know, like real firewood.

It's bad. You know, a tree that's up, these are all things I learned the hard way, the easy way. But when a tree is up, it sucks water. It's wet. I went to that. They when a tree is up, it sucks water. It's wet. I went to that. They had a couple of horrible forest fires in California. And I went, I said, you know, you had a lot of trees standing. Yes, they were healthy trees here.

I said, with this intense heat, you could see they were charred a little bit on the bottom, but they were going to be all right because they're soaking wet because they suck up the water, right? But when they fall, they're like, you know, it's like lighting a match. All they have to do is clean their forest, meaning rake it up, get rid of the leaves, get rid of, you know, leaves that are sitting there for five years. We'll certainly get rid of the dead fall. And get rid of the trees that have fallen.

There are all sorts of environmental reasons why Gavin Newsom and others in California resist that. They've got a long list of reasons why they think that that's inappropriate or they don't want to get to it, or maybe it's just incompetence. Here's Michael Schellenberger, former Greenpeace activist, worked during the Obama administration with Solyndra to install all of these new green energy programs, only to find out that they didn't work and that they were a lie. And now he's become just a truth teller. He's not even an activist. He's just a truth teller on all matters environmental and truly

one of the most trustworthy sources you can go to on these issues. He's very open-minded to climate change and global warming, all that stuff. But he's very factual. And here he is talking about whether now, because the left is climate change. This is all climate change. And here's Michael Schellenberg talking about whether this is all climate change. I don't think these fires are the result of climate change. If you look at the past hundred years of climates in Southern California, you will find there have been Januaries that have been very dry. There has been Santa Ana wind in January. So these sorts of conditions are what contribute to a fire being particularly destructive at this time of the year, but it's not the result of climate change. 50 years ago, we didn't have events where

fires burned down and burned into communities. In part, that was due because the urban environment was surrounded by citrus orchards. And that's what buffered the communities from the wildland area. They generally burned out. Today, we don't have citrus orchards. We just have more homes. And so population growth is as much responsible for this as climate change. All right, so that's Schellenberger interviewing an expert on his

show, who is John Keely, U.S. Geological Survey scientist who studied fires for 40 years. Here is Trump with some criticism of Governor Gavin Newsom. Take a listen. I'm California, Mr. President. During the pandemic, you often said that you didn't believe that you should bail out blue states that you believe are being mismanaged. Given your criticism of Governor Gavin Newsom, are you willing to work with him? And do you believe that federal aid should be provided to California for as long as it takes? Well, it's very sad because I've been trying to get Gavin Newsom to allow water to come. You'd have tremendous water up there. They send it out to the Pacific because they're trying to protect a tiny little fish, which is in other areas, by the way,

called the smelt. And for the sake of a smelt, they have no water. They had no water in the fire hydrants today in Los Angeles. It was a terrible thing. And we're going to get that done. It's going to finally be done. I got it done from the federal side and he didn't want to sign it, but it's not gonna happen again like that. Then you had Gavin Newsom asked by Anderson Cooper about this feedback. And here's how that went. I hate to even ask this question, but the president elect chose to attack you, blame you for this. One can't even respond to it. I mean, people are literally fleeing. People have lost their lives. Kids lost their schools. Families completely torn asunder. Churches burned down.

This guy wanted to politicize it. Yeah, because there are legitimate questions about how your city got into this position to begin with. And you're the governor and completely fair game. Look at him trying to be all indignant. Let me tell you something, Gavin Newsom. It's not just the homes of Los Angeles that are in flames. It's your political career. You can kiss your presidential hopes goodbye. Goodbye. You've just lost the city of Los Angeles and probably the state of California. Never mind the nation because of your poor planning. Oh, the locals will have to speak to. Total fail. Another word. That was Anderson Cooper, obviously, pretending to be just so disgusted by the fact that Trump would politicize this matter. Even the LA Times is talking about

who's to blame in California. Okay, Anderson, but I will say this about Anderson Cooper. He's an actual war correspondent, and there isn't a natural disaster that he won't go report from. And I respect that, something I've never done, although I did volunteer to go to Iraq back in 2005 and 2006 when Roger Ailes refused to send me. Anyway, I respect that. I respect that he puts himself in danger, and he and I had a long conversation about it on my show on Fox one time. Anderson Cooper does go to these sites, puts himself in danger to bring us the news. And so does Steve Harrigan at Fox News. Same thing, natural disasters, war sites. Rick Leventhal was big on that at Fox for many, many years. And when these guys go, generally, I've never seen in their cases, them worry about how svelte their waists look

while on camera in reporting about the devastation behind them. That is because they actually know how to report from a natural disaster. Unlike David Muir, would you please look at the screen, ladies and gentlemen? Look, he's first of all wearing a fake fireman's jacket. And what you're seeing on the closeup as he turns to reference the scene behind him and shows us his back, which clearly he wasn't anticipating would make it on cam, his clothespins pulling his jacket in, cinching it, if you will, my ladies, so that his waist looks more svelte on camera. The abject vanity of this man. Why is he pretending to be a fireman? This is not dress-up

time. That's something that my little boys did when they were still in the single digits, would put on the fun fireman's jacket and pretend to be firemen. That is not something that the host of World News Tonight for ABC News Broadcast Network should be doing live from a disaster scene. It's not dress up time, my friend. I'm big on the costume nights. We do it at home with my children when we're on vacation, not on the news when people are dying. What are you doing? And there's no need to put David Muir in a yellow jacket with the fireman's reflective stripes on it. He's surrounded by ABC News crews, by ABC News trucks, by ABC News photogs, producers, lighting, sound guys. You can't see them. They don't put them on camera. But trust me, there is a semicircle

on the other side of David Muir that is probably a couple dozen in number. And they want us to be like, well, he's going to get run over by a car. No, he's not. It's for show. He's an actor on screen. That's what's happening there. And the clothespins just put a period behind that sentence. Yes, he's an actor who's worried about his own vanity and beauty on camera. God forbid you think David Muir might be a little boxy in the waist. What in the, I'm like, I don't, I care about how I look on camera for sure. And I have reported from terrible sites, not, not like, not, not fires. I don't think I've ever gone to a fire, but I've gone to disasters before. And sure enough, I wake up in the morning and I put on my makeup. It's not that I go to the

sites without my makeup. And I give a thought to what I'll wear. Will it be appropriate? You know, you don't want to like be showing too much skin, you know, like there's, of course, if you're on camera, you're going to give some thought to how you look, but I'm sorry, this is a bridge too far. His little pretend fireman role coupled with his, is my waist looking skinny enough, vanity is too much. And we saw his vanity on full display at that Trump debate where he tried to do the, I detected no sarcasm in those remarks. He's in love with his own face, waistline, and opinion, and it shows.

He has disgraced and discredited himself this year, and ABC News really needs to move on. I'm sorry. This is just, you need to move on. They've spent so much money trying to build this guy's image. The promos for David Muir, you would think he was Jesus. I mean, the way they, you know, like with the jawline. And I hate to rip on him because he went to Syracuse like me. But rip, I will because he deserves it. But, you know, it's all about image. Like, oh, I'm thinking about this difficult problem. I'm David Muir. I'm tough and I'm smart and I'm hot. And this, look at this. A good producer friend of mine reminded me after I tweeted on this that he's not the first vain, absurd anchorman to obsess over his jacket on television and brought me back to this moment when Dan Rather, I don't know how this came out, but it's on YouTube. Dan Rather was on camera getting ready

for a live shot near the Seattle Space Needle and for 15 minutes, I think it was, was conferring with his producers about whether he would wear his trench coat or just go with his suit jacket and whether he would put the trench coat collar up or wear it down. This is not a 30 second, should I wear the jacket? No. Should I put the collar up? No. For over 15 minutes, they kept a running clock, the guy who posted on YouTube, the number of minutes that they debated. And Dan was totally into it with his producer who went on to run 60 minutes. We've condensed it for you. Look at this. The question is whether we can do it without the coat. Hi, folks. How you doing? Let's take a look and find out.

Jeff would prefer to do it without the coat. It's going to be cold, but... That's good. You know what? The green is good. Is it? Green is good. Okay. You don't need a scarf. Don't need a scarf. You don't think so? Now, let's try it without it. If we wear the coat between now and then, I think that we're going to be all right. All right, good. Good. Does that look good? Now, Does that look good? It looks just a little hot on this side, Tom. The broadcast is not for another 45 minutes. Right.

Temperature? The wind will be up and the temperature will be down. Yes. What do you think? But it looks so windblown this way. I mean, I think the coat looks fine. I agree with you. The coat's subtle.

But what do you think? If you do, if you wear the coat, you'll pick the collar down. Definitely not's subtle. Nobody's on it yet. But what do you think? If you do, if you wear the coat, put the collar down. Definitely not. You want the collar up? Absolutely. Nobody wears trench coat with the collar down. I think we ought to try to do it without it.

Okay. That's what I honestly think. Unbelievable. It went on for almost 20 minutes. This was apparently released by Harry Shear 17 years ago when he was doing like a series of these and it's on YouTube and it's great. We'll link to it in the description and being coached on by his executive producer who would wind up producing 60 minutes, Jeff Fager, like this was a real debate. Like they were debating an actual piece of editorial that they needed to get right, went on and on. Dan Rather complimented, I think,

his wife for selecting a green jacket, and the green looked good, and really lamented that they should have come earlier and pre-taped the show at noon so that he could have done it in comfort in just his suit coat without this disastrous trench coat covering his great look. And then he was really cold, so he needed to wear the jacket, but did he look cooler with the collar up? And how did Dan Rather's career at CBS end in infamy as well? Just like David Muir, which, I mean, he ended his career effectively for half the country in that debate with Trump, because his own opinions, his own vainglorious nature wound up stopping him from understanding what the role of an independent journalist is supposed to be. So there you have it. Two men whose vanity

would ultimately prove to be their downfall in the media. And in this case, it's really sad because David Muir is actually trusted by some number of Americans to bring them the news about what's happening in Los Angeles, this extremely serious situation. And the man's worried about his tiny little waist showing on camera. You can't make it up. All right. Now we're going to turn to two friends of the show who have been directly affected by these wildfires who at this moment do not know whether their homes are still standing or not. We're going to be joined in just a bit by Adam Carolla, who's got a lot of thoughts on these politicians, but joining me next, legendary actor James Woods. We'll be right back.

Trust in the media is at an all-time low, and let's be honest, it's not without reason. Hello. We are seeing how stories can be shaped-time low, and let's be honest, it's not without reason. Hello. We are seeing how stories can be shaped or even buried, depending on who's in charge, but there's a platform that does not play by those rules, one that prioritizes transparency and lets you see the full picture. That platform is Ground News,

an app and website that gathers related articles from around the world in one place, highlighting each source's political bias and corporate influence. And they show you stories that are underreported by one side of the political spectrum. Ground News has an entire blind spot feed with stories that are receiving lopsided coverage. It reveals how media narratives are shaping the conversation. And my viewers are going to get 40% off their Vantage plan, which gives you unlimited access to their website and app. They're independent and they are supported by subscribers, not corporate interests. Check

them out at groundnews.com slash Megan. That's ground, G-R-O-U-N-D news.com slash Megan to take back control of the news you consume. James, so, so glad to see that you're okay and your beautiful wife I know is okay, but I know your home and your neighborhood are not. How are you? You know, it ebbs and it flows. Like right now, I just got off the phone with Gary Sinise. And as you may know, Gary lost his son, Mac, a year ago, just two days ago. And yesterday on my late brother's birthday, you know, our whole neighborhood burned down. And when you compare the two, not a single person in our neighborhood was injured or died. So you can't compare it really to the heartbreak that Gary went through. You know, it's, it's, you, you put things in perspective

when you go through these catastrophes and, you know, I, I don't want to be bitter, but indeed the gross mismanagement of, of our administration in California is, as my beloved wife said, that when I rail about their stupidity, it's not stupidity, it's willful ignorance. In this case, I think it's willful malicious ignorance. Karen Bass cut the fire department allocation by $17 million a couple of months ago. My insurance company canceled my policy for no reason. And I checked with all my neighbors, every single person in the Palisades who was with this company had their policies canceled on the same day. You know, they can't insure the place. It's, you know, you can't insure a place that's run by incompetent idiots. And the problem is now when they go to rebuild, we're all under what's called California Fair Plan run by the government.

So the same people who are literally responsible for this destruction in the long run and in the larger scope are not going to be the people telling us how to rebuild and make sure that we do everything, you know, to avoid climate change while they ride around in their private jets and, you know, and go to Ghana to represent L.A. for whatever the hell our mayor is representing L.A. about. I mean, honestly, you don't want to be bitter, but when you see people sitting on their sidewalks who've lived there, you know, the five people who live around us, all of whose homes have burned down, were either born in their houses or they, you know, one of them is 94 years old. He built the house. We're the second owners

of our house. You know, these people in this neighborhood, let me explain something about the Palisades. We have a rule up in what's called the Marques Knowles. It's part of our CCNR. You can't block your neighbor's view, can't have a second story. All the houses are kind of original from 1960, and they were all built by the same designer, Earl Lachman. They're're charming mid-century little houses i mean that's a view from my driveway yesterday oh thanks sorry um and you know the the houses like when we renovated our house we brought it back to normal we got even our doors we had redone they have a little loose side handle it's a little. It's got two bedrooms and a laundry room and a den and a pool and magnificent views of, you know, all the way from the Palace Verde to, you know, we can see out to Catalina. We have a beautiful pool.

We swim every day. I mean, I've been on the road for 50 years. Is this the video from your back deck here that we're looking at James? No, this is from my front yard. This is from, this is from my front yard before, just as we were evacuating. Yep. And by the way, keep going. And by the way, five minutes before that, there was nothing. And my neighbor, Robert Trinkteller, called and he said, you know, there's a fire on the hillside,

about a half a mile away. You should come take a look at this. So I drove up to his house because we didn't want, no, that's my back deck here. That's my back deck. And by the way, I cut, we had guys rappelling down the hillside because it's a thousand foot drop and cutting the dry brush, which you are required to do by law and which we do because it protects our homes and our neighbors' homes from fire. And the people below us did not. And that's the fire coming from below. And every day, you know, we'd drive around the neighborhood and Sarah would say to me, you know, look at this. I go, yeah, these people got to cut their brush. And the one that I

railed against every day was the first one to go off. When this fire all started, we were the, that's the house one away from us. We were literally the epicenter of the fire. It was a bright blue, beautiful sunny day with 80 mile an hour gusts. And we were moving all the furniture off the deck. And when I saw that flame, I said, let's go down, get in the car, get ready to go. Because was that Tuesday? That was just yesterday. Yeah. But those that's our house. That's our house. Yeah. That's from our deck. Yeah. So you knew you knew to get out. Was that before the mandatory evacuation? Yeah. Well, yeah. But it came on our phones pretty quickly. I knew it was

coming. You can't have fire and wind in an area that is overgrown with dry brush. You know, I mean, people forget this, but there were a couple of decades ago, there was a Malibu fire and we had another nincompoop, another Democrat running things. And the, you know, the helicopters and the planes go in with these big scoops and scoop water out of the ocean and dump them on the fires. And she said, no, no, you can't do that because the salt water will hurt the vegetation. We said, lady, houses are burning down. People are dying. No, she wouldn't let them do it. This is what we're dealing with. And I don't want to be bitter, but you know what? At a certain point, they need tribunals in the

state. Forget recalls. They need tribunals and figure out what people are doing. Okay, everybody said, well, you know, we've been in touch with the weather report because it's always the weather. We've been in touch with the weather income. We knew there was going to be a windy season. Great, then don't go to Ghana. Stay here in LA. Take care of things.

I'm sorry I sound bitter, but you know, listen, just a couple of things I want to clear up. The 94 year old neighbor that I've been talking about who was rescued literally eight minutes ago, I got a call from his son. They've been reunited. He flew in from Massachusetts. He got to the hospital. They identified him and he's got him and he's got him placed in his caregiver's home. So he's safe. And my hero, Robert Trinkteller, who saved him, who stayed overnight. Here's what happened in our neighborhood. All the houses are on fire on our streets. The fire trucks got up there, but there was no water because Karen Bass didn't fill the reservoirs.

So all the fire reservoirs were not. So the fire trucks were there. They couldn't pump water. Your house is on fire and they could just put it out, but they can't do it. So he put his fires out with a bucket from his pool and he just texted me and said, okay, the house is on either side and every house across the street from you, they're all burned down. The roof of your house is intact. I mean, I ran into the bedroom where I grabbed Sarah and said, the roof's intact. Now, the house may be burned down inside, but it may not. See, what happened was we knew both houses were on fire because their hillsides were not in the best shape. And what happened was they burned. At 11.49 last night, all of our fire alarms in our house were going off.

Oh, the hallway, the master bedroom, the living room, the den, the kitchen. And you could see the fire or the smoke progressing through the house. We were being alerted on our phones by our alarm company. And this is while fire trucks are outside our house, but they couldn't pump. Oh my God, it's a nightmare. So when you're leaving, I'm just curious from a human perspective,

when you and Sarah are leaving your home under these mandatory evacuation orders, and you know this is a real threat, what do you take? What does that conversation look like? Well, sweetie, yeah, yeah, I'm good. What do I need to do? And I won't say which one of us was crying. But no, seriously, I said to her, I said, look, you know, she's had all my medicine first thing, because, you know, suppose you get out there and the whole city goes down.

You know, I take certain medicines. I don't take them. I got like two weeks. I'm gone. You know, I have to take Synthroid because I had thyroid cancer years ago and my thyroid is removed. And without Synthroid, you die. You know, I got to have that medicine. I can't live without that medicine. You know, so I got the medicine and then we're going out. We want to open our garage door. It's a lift up door. And the wind was so strong, it buckled it. And now we can't get the cars out. And the house across from us was on fire. And I said, we're up in the, we're 1,600 feet above sea level. I can't walk through smoke. I'm not a youngster anymore. What are we going to do? And I had remembered when they put in the garage door, they put in the alarm. I had asked for instructions on what to do if there was a fall. He said, here's the way you release the entire garage door. And I remembered it.

And I did it. We got it released. We got one of the cars out. She said, let's take both cars. I said, no, we're going to be back. We have, look, the people who run things around here may be woefully ignorant, but the one thing you got to give unbelievable credit to, the Los Angeles Fire Department is one of the greatest organizations in the history of men and women who do good things for their neighbors. LAFD, the greatest.

Our Sheriff's Department, our Police Department. These are wonderful people in LA. The people in charge, you know, our new fire department. I don't know what work she has done, but she has right on her webpage when she got elected. She's LGBTQ, which is fine. That's her choice, not my judgment. But it's literally in the first line of her bio. The first line of her bio. Inclusion, diversity, equity is my main priority while the tanks that hold the water to stop your houses from burning down have not been filled.

How does that go on the priority list? Just asking. And see what you're showing right now? That's because there was no water, but Hey, we got diversity. And by the way, I don't mind diversity. It's a diverse world we live in now, but I care about ability first. If you got the ability, I don't give a, I don't care if you're four feet tall and green and have warts on your head. You know, it's great. If you can do your job, go do it, man. That's it. I don't care.

I don't care what your gender is. I don't care what your sexual preference is. I don't care what the color of your skin is, what your religion is, what your background is. If you can do the job, God bless you. And I'll vote for you. You know, I mean, you're my person. But the thing to be touting in line one of your bio should be your competence at fighting fires, managing the threat of fire, and hiring the right people. Yeah.

I mean, it's like, honestly. Well, so let me take you back. So you're in the garage. You remember how to override if there's a mechanical failure. And is it just you and Sarah? Have you grabbed, like, an Oscar? Like, what have you grabbed like an oscar like what have you grabbed what have you okay i have meds i have five emmys i have uh my golden globe award

i have my oscar nominations uh i have the maquette from disney of my character hades disney when you do a character you're a disney hero or villain they make two of them walt disney keeps one and the actor keeps the other there's only two in the world and one of mine wow yeah it was there see that so you grabbed it see that bastard of laundry and those three bags next but if indeed our house is burned down that is every possession i have in the world wow did karen take her manuscript she's been or sar Karen take her manuscript? She's been, or Sarah, take her manuscript she's been working on? Uh, you know, we, this is 2024, Kelly, Megan. We have, you know, as you know, we have these digital things where you can. Yeah, she's got, she's got some record.

I'm teasing. Yes. Yeah. She's got some record. Good. I mean, like that was a crazy story you told me last you know actually how dare you talk to me in that way actually she uh she actually does right by hand but but she she keeps them pretty close to the vest so she had them she did leave a little thing of her grandmother's on the table she thought she had it and she missed it and we couldn't go back up, you know. So it's interesting. You find yourself saying all of a sudden, boy, you interest, you know, you have all these beautiful things that you own and you just go. But, you know, where's that? The one thing I cherish is a watch that my mother gave me just before she passed away. She said just

something to remember her by because she knew. And, you know, I ran back in the house, actually started for that. And I got that. So, you know, there's not much that you really need in life. Here's what I really need and what is so important. I've had hundreds of phone calls from people and texts. My doctor, hey, here's our address. Come stay at our house. My doctor's called, you know, texting me at two in the morning. We know that, you know, that you got evacuated. You know, come stay at our house.

Your doctor. I mean, most people can't get their doctor on the phone. My doctor's calling me, inviting me to stay at his house. I cannot tell you the number of people. I have an ex-girlfriend that I've said I would never talk to again. I wrote a song about her, you know, never to speak to you again, kind of calling, hey, listen, come stay with us. You know, my husband and I were, you know, we've got an extra bedroom, you know, you and sir are welcome. Just, you know, you may not answer. And I said, hey, listen, thank you so much. And, you know, you find yourself, my lovely first ex-wife called, she had lost her husband last year and she's reaching out to me. And I said, you know, Kathy, you lost David. You can't compare a house to David.

And by the way, I might not even have lost my house. I don't even know. At this point, you know, it's either half burned down, some burned down, smoke damage. I don't even know. It is surrounded by every house in the neighborhood, evidently on our street burned down. So no matter what, to go back to our beautiful, our little neighborhood, evidently, on our street burned down. So no matter what, to go back to our beautiful, our little neighborhood, everybody knew everybody. You know, Rick Caruso built an area called the Palisades Village. Honestly, it's like the

Truman Show. We always get about it. But, you know, they have a little park where the kids play on Fourth of July. We had chairs and they sit there with flags. And I mean, you think, oh, my God, this is how America used to be when it was really, really good. And, you know, it's all burned to the ground. I bumped into a lady at Gelson's. She said, hi. We were chatting. We live here. And she said, well, you know, my husband.

I said, who's your husband? She said, John Goodman. I said, John, the John Goodman? She goes, yeah, I'm such a fan of his. I love. Well, he's a fan of yours. I said, oh, who's your husband? He said, John Goodman. I said, John, the John Goodman? She goes, yeah, I'm such a fan of his. I love, well, he's a fan of yours. I said, really? I'm kind of surprised. She goes, oh yeah, back in the Cafe Central days.

And that was the song on the album, remember, Cafe Central. And she said, you were always so nice to him when you were kind of a big star and he wasn't yet. I mean, he's one of my favorite actors. I said, oh my God, that's great. Well, I know that they live on the North side of the Palisades, on the north side of Sunset. And I heard this morning that that entire north side, every house is gone. I don't know if that's true

or not. And I pray to God it wasn't theirs, but I know Ben Affleck, I think lost his, you know, you hear about it, you check it off. It's just, it's, it's, it's hard to take whether it's yours or somebody else's, you feel the same way. You really do. No. And it's like, I feel this way and I don't have any love for Ben Affleck and his political positions, the way he hates Republicans, but I'm genuinely sad that he suffered that loss. I would never wish this. Like, I feel like in a moment like this for any decent person, politics are, they're set aside. Yes, we need to hold the leaders responsible who may have had a hand in causing the damage. But, but, you know, in terms of those who are suffering, we don't give a shit about this.

So we fight, we have big, meaningful policy fights, but on something like this, we're Americans. We love each other. We help each other. We pray for each other. We reach out to one another. I mean, I have been distressed to see the number of messages online directed at you and Sarah like good because people know that there was one I saw, this woman, Karen Piper. She's got, oh, I don't know. She was forced to later delete it, but she's got tens of thousands of followers. She writes, James Woods' house is burning down. It's karma calling. That's disgusting. I can't say it better than Sarah did, but Sarah wrote, you're disgusting. Our sweet little home is probably gone. Our neighbor's homes are gone. Our community is ravaged because of the ineptitude of Karen Bass and Gavin Newsom. And you're rejoicing because you disagree with my husband. Absolutely disgusting. Shame on you. It's there's more good than there is bad, James. James, that's for sure. But there's a fair amount of just raw political nastiness bubbling out there. Well, I don't even have to. I't know about that but because Sarah has a very strong voice of her own but I don't know the person I'm sure she has purple hair if she hasn't cut it off already

I'm sure she's a democrat I'm sure she's you know LGBT I'm sure she's got it all going for I'm sure all of it uh but you know listen when you care about your neighbors and we all took care of each other, a person like this to me is something you scrape off your shoe on a curb. I don't really, I don't even pay attention, you know, when people are telling me, well, here it is climate change, you know, it's like, okay, great. Some guy's telling me about climate change. He was sitting in his mother's basement at a seventh grade education.

I went to MIT and I know a little bit about, you know, people who are getting grants and how they'll be willing to say anything they need to say to keep those grants. I know all about this stuff. By the way, you want it in climate change, get out of your private jets. There's a start. Do more of that. Just try that first of all, you know, stop lecturing us. This is this is not time to give people like this person whose name I have conveniently already forgotten forever is it's not time to give people like this person whose name I have conveniently already forgotten forever. It's not time to think about them. It's time to think about the brave men and women who are fighting this fire, this view you're seeing right now, the neighbors who have reached out and helped each other, the people who are cheering that we will now have a president who will address these things and who will not be subsidizing clowns like Gavin Newsom any longer. I think, you know, there are enough

Democrats whose homes are burning who might want to start thinking about the people they're voting for. You know, I mean, you you vote for this stuff and then you wonder why it happens. Well, what do you when you look at this, there are so many things that played a role. You know, you've got obviously the Santa Ana winds, which come every year. You've got the fire. Once the fire starts and those winds combine, it's a very dangerous combination no matter what. But it does seem like there were many mitigation factors that were ignored, even though the authorities knew or should have known that, for example, there wasn't enough water in the reservoirs, there wasn't water in the fire

hydrants, the electrical lines were still up, even though all this money had been spent to put them underground so that they wouldn't be sitting there like little tinderboxes ready to spread fire, and it hadn't been done. It just seems like there's a fair amount of things you actually, the underfunding of the of the FD, the LAFD, the underfunding of the LAPD to direct traffic and get people out of there in an orderly fashion. I mean, you tell me what where you're going now in terms of what could or should have been done that wasn't. Everything.

I mean, just everything. Look, it's, you know, when I was at MIT, we used to say certain things are blatantly obvious to the most casual observer. And it's really simple. We're going to invade a beach in a war, but our guys aren't going to have guns. They're going to have sticks because, you know, we don't believe in guns and they're not going to have protection because, you know, we believe that the almighty Zutras are a protector and all this horseshit that people come up with. They're all going to get slaughtered on the beach. Or you're going to give them the best weaponry, the best protection, the best intelligence, and you're going to go in, you're going to wipe out the enemy.

It's really simple. We have a multi-pronged enemy in fire zones in California. We are high desert, high and low desert, both in California. We have ferocious scented Anna Wins. They've been here for millions of years. They were not created by climate change. They've been here forever. They happen at the same time every year. It's called weather.

We have an inversion layer, the way that L.A. is a big bowl with the smog that lays on top of it. Cold air lies on top of the marine layer that comes under. We evacuated yesterday, for example, in the direction opposite that everybody else was doing. Because living where we lived, I knew that the wind always came off above the three palm trees across the street. It came this way. If we looked at that video again, I bet you'll see the flames are blowing from my point of view, right to left. And sure enough, all the black smoke was down there and all the white smoke was up there because the planes had come and dropped it, pretty much put it out. And now the winds were blowing the flames where the material was, all the tinder. Look,

a flame doesn't know whether a movie star lives in a mansion in the Pacific Palisades or just some, you know, good, hardworking, decent person living. God forbid it's a homeless person living in another tent. Everybody's a little homeless in their home. A flame doesn't know the difference. It's just flame and fuel. It's flame and tinder. That's all it is. So we looked and I said, everybody's going that way. They're going to jam up the streets where the people are trying to get those children out of the elementary school. We're not going to contribute to that, sir. We're going to drive up that way because the smoke is white. And that means that the planes have put a lot of that fire

out. And sure enough, they had. We got over the hill going into where the fire was because I knew it had burned out because I could see the way it was blowing. And I was familiar with the weather patterns. It's predictable. So what does that tell us as scientific people? If it's predictable every year, then what do we do? Well, let's check and make sure that the water is available. Let's check and make sure that everybody obeys the law and cuts the brush on their hillside. We cut our brush. Our house either survived or was the last to go on our side of the street, as well as Robert Trinkteller, who did the same with his. The people who didn't, many of them, sadly, well, I'll get to it. Well, okay, you don't have to because now your house burned down. I'm not blaming them,

but there are certain ways to protect it. Now, at a certain point, the fire just comes and nothing you can do, okay? But if you are busy worrying about diversity and not worrying about filling the reservoirs, if you're not training people properly, if you're not doing clear cutting, oh, we can't cut down the trees.

There was a fire in Washington state several years ago. The place was just another liberal shithole. And I'm sorry, but you know, the way it's run, not the people, actually, my cousin lives there. And, you know, everything was on fire and nobody going to do, and it was horrific. And then there was the border to Canada and that whole area, there was no fire. How did the fire know to stop at the borderline? Because the Canadians up there before Trudeau knew how to manage the forest up there. They knew how to do what are called clear cuts. You cut a whole area of all the trees down so the fires can't jump and the firefighters can get in and dig, you know, do all the stuff they do. I don't know all of the technicalities of it, but you've got to know that stuff and you've got to do that stuff. And if you're busy saying, hey, I'm the new fire chief

and my main priority, and this is what I'm going to dedicate myself to. Well, then who's doing the job that you are truly assigned or elected or promoted or delegated to do? You were checking the fire. Who's checking the reservoir? What? Who's checking the fire hydrants? Who's checking the reservoirs instead of sitting at their desk worrying about how many women they have on the LAFD? I don't know. I mean, listen, somebody wasn't. I can tell you that. Here's all I want. Look, for 55 years, I was Cal Ripken as an actor. I showed up every single day. I missed, I think, one day when I had an injury in my eye from a stunt, a piece of wood flew in my eye. I mean, I literally never missed a day's work for 55 years. And I showed up on time and I knew my lines. And I did 170 movies and series and TV shows and all that stuff. And, you know, I was nominated several times, all that stuff. But here's what I was. I was a good old Cal Ripken guy. I showed up and did my job every single day. I had a job to do and I did it. Here's what the police chiefs, the brave, great, glorious men and women, and I'm saying this totally from the heart of the Los Angeles Fire Department, have the equipment, the training, and all of the elements they need to do their jobs well, because they are putting

their lives on the line to do it. And if you don't give them that, shame on you. James, thank you. I'm going to say another prayer for you both that the house is still there and that irrespective of how it turns out, you guys are okay. And you'll find a new home and a new neighborhood. And I'm sure your neighbors will rebuild too. That's the American spirit. And we don't generally give up and tuck tail and run. We may be angry. We may have to find new solutions, but I really hope you'll rebuild and then convince your probably left-wing neighbors to reconsider the way they vote. I think, you know, sometimes it takes a real slap in the face. And listen, a final thing. When the Paradise fires were happening, then the Malibu fires, I started a website. And even the California Highway Patrol said go to James Woods. It was a a way of saying, look, I'm not official, but, and I would, Sarah and I worked for 14 days straight, 12, 15 hours a day. They even wrote an article about it in all places, the New York Times. And we gave information to people and we were a place where people would

say, hey, my uncle is caught in his house. Hey, is anybody on this road? So-and-so's uncle is caught in the house. Well, one of the things I did was Alyssa Milano had five horses and she couldn't control them and get them all out. And I mentioned, hey, does anybody near Alyssa Milano? She has five horses. Can you guys go up and help her? And someone said, James, what's helping Alyssa Milano? And it was a conservative person. I said, yeah, dude, she's a human being and she's got animals and she's scared and she's doing the best she can, but she's, you know, she needs help. Of course we're going to help her. And she immediately went on and said, thank you, James Woods for helping me. And, you know, people,

we sniped at each other online a million times over politics, but when push came to shove, I helped her. She said, thank you. She helped other people. I helped, you know, that's what we need to do now. I don't have any liberal left-wing neighbors. I don't have any conservative neighbors. I have my friends and neighbors in the Pacific Palisades and my heart and my hands and my ability to help them and vice versa.

We are open to each other and we are going to rebuild together. That's a promise. Thank you, Megan. You and your neighbors. Stay well. You bet. Wow.

This is so deeply wrong. It's just so wrong what's happening. And it keeps happening over and over in California. And they keep promising certain reforms, which they don't do. And people are really hurting, really hurting. Coming up next, Adam Carolla joins us. Stand by. Grand Canyon University, a private Christian university in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona, believes that we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. GCU believes in equal opportunity and that the American dream starts with purpose. By honoring your career calling, you can impact your family, friends, and your community.

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Find your purpose at Grand Canyon University, private, Christian, affordable. Visit gcu.edu. I'm Megyn Kelly, host of The Megyn Kelly Show on SiriusXM. It's your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations with the most interesting and important political, legal, and cultural figures today. You can catch the Megyn Kelly Show on Triumph, a Sirius XM channel featuring lots of hosts you may know and probably

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Subscribe now. Get your first three months for free. Go to SiriusXM.com slash MK show to subscribe and get three months free. That's SiriusXM.com slash MK show and get three months free. Offer details apply. Joining me now, our friend Adam Carolla, California native. And Adam, what's your status?

Thanks for joining us on this crazy time. Are you out? You're safe? Your family, pets, all of them? Yeah, I'm in Burbank, California at a hotel. Probably tell by the picture behind me. It feels very San Fernando Valley. Doesn't look like something you would necessarily choose.

No, but I'm safe. And I fled and I was given the marching orders about six o'clock in the evening yesterday to clear out via the phone. And so clear out, we did. Wait, and can you just tell me, do you listen to that as a Californian when you get one of those, do you listen? Is that like, oh, they don't do this that often? Or is it one of those things like living in Florida

where you get one for every small storm and then you have to spend the next hour figuring out whether it's real or not? Well, I don't listen to them, but my girlfriend does. And that's why we got up and left. I'm a little more hang out till I can feel the flames, but she's a little more, they said to leave, we should leave. And when this happened three and a half weeks ago, we left as well. People forget we had a fire less than a month ago in Malibu. We did leave and it turned out we probably didn't have to leave.

In this case, we left and we did have to leave because everything around us is burnt to the ground. Oh, wow. How about your home? I don't know. I get little drips and drabs of information. And it's really hard because you turn on the news or someone sends you something from the Internet and you see Pacific Coast Highway. And you can kind of see that's where your house is, but it's not your house because the camera's facing the other direction. So it's about a coin toss right now, as far as I can tell. But everything around it definitely burnt up. And I think your viewers should understand that it's one thing for the mountain and the hill and the brush to burn up when the fire jumps the highway, when it jumps PCH and burns all the houses. Yes. On the other side of PCH,

that is a major, major issue. And those houses are $20 million a piece. Mm-hmm. We were talking about this on our show yesterday. I have a friend who lives in the Pacific Palisades who is not a rich person at all. Her entire neighborhood is gone. It is gone. She's next to a retired nurse, a retired college professor, that kind of thing. And it's

gone. There's not a shred left. All that's left of her house is the chimney. So it's sort of a weird time for you as you wonder, as you don't know. I just wonder, like, if I were in your position, what would I be thinking about all the things in my home that I love? And I was thinking about it earlier, you know, it's not just your keepsakes, the things that you adore, like family photos that go back, you know, in the seventies when we were kids, but like, you know, there, there's a reason that you chose the fixtures you did in your kitchen. Maybe you're like, you put a lot of love and thought into certain parts of your home to make them reflect you and the things that you love. And it's the background, you know, Richie Sambora has a

song, the soundtrack of your life, like your home is sort of the background of your life and it's, it's meaningful to you. So I wonder if what you're thinking about when you think about what's there. Yeah. I mean, there's a kind of pragmatic side. You start thinking about insurance and compensation and rebuilding and relocating, you know, there's a nuts and bolts side of your brain that's going off. Like I physically need somewhere to live now. And then there's a sort of emotional part thinking about pictures and keepsakes. And then there's just a sort of destruction part. Like people say when their home is robbed and ransacked, it's not just they got stereo equipment, but you feel invaded. You know, you feel like sort of emotional about it. And the fire is sort of the ultimate

destruction. So, I mean, there's a lot of components to it. I guess, thankfully, I'm more of a pragmatist. And so I'm sort of in where would I stay? How would I rebuild? What kind of insurance are we talking about? How long would it take to rebuild? And things that are more mechanical, because I have a background in construction, I just tend to think sort of mechanically.

And it helps in these cases, because if I went pure just sort of feelings and viscera, I'd probably just be in a fetal position right now. Yeah, right, right. I totally understand that. You have a mechanical background. You almost had a firefighting background, but didn't. And it's the reason why is related to one of the things that people are complaining about today,

which is the obsession with DEI. Even years ago in the fire department, including in the LA fire department, you actually testified before Congress in 2017 during a house hearing that was about free speech and white privilege, white male privilege too. And you made, you told a story that went totally viral and has gone viral again now for obvious reasons. Take a listen to part of your story here in SOT2. I graduated North Hollywood High with a 1.7 GPA. I could not find a job.

I walked to a fire station in North Hollywood. I was 19. I was living in the garage of my family home. My mom was on welfare and food stamps. And I said, can I get a job as a fireman? And they said, no, because you're not black, Hispanic, or a woman. We'll see in about seven years. And I went to a construction site and dug ditches and picked up garbage for the next seven years. I got a letter in the mail sent to my father's house saying, your time has come to do

the written exam for the LA Fire Department. I took it and I was standing in line and I had a young woman of color standing behind me in line. And I said, just out of curiosity, when did you sign up to become a fire man? Because I did it or a person seven years ago. And she said, Wednesday. Unbelievable. I remember, first off, very clearly, the test was at Hollywood High. We're standing outside on a Saturday, just waiting in line. And not only did she sign up on Wednesday, she was diminutive. I mean, she was 95 pounds and five foot two. She couldn't carry anybody out of a building. She couldn't put a 50 pound pack on and go up a ladder. She would be completely useless as a fire person. And yeah,

the point of that story was it's not really about skin color. I was poor and I needed a job and I would have made a good fireman because I played football in high school and I was kind of strong and I was eager for the fray. Like I would have went into the burning building at 21 or 19 or whatever. So, yes, that is a problem. And and it's been going on longer than people think, because that story dates back to the mid early 80s. Yeah. Well, today, I mean, there was just a firefighting headline, not today, but June of 2023 in NPR that reads as follows. Firefighting is mostly white and male. A California program aims to change that. So all those years later, they hadn't solved the problem.

For some reason, they just couldn't find enough women who could do the job or wanted to. And then along came your current fire chief, who happens to be a woman and bonus, gay, because who's not thinking about what kind of sex my fire chief likes to have. That's really where your mind goes when you're hiring someone for that job. And unlike somebody who maybe got it and just said, okay, that's fine. You factored it in, but let's ignore it. Boy, oh boy, has this woman leaned in. Her name is Kristen Crowley. Here she is in one soundbite that was played on NBC in 2022. It's not three. I'm super inspired.

She took time out of her already busy schedule to tell us about her vision for the department's future. One that includes a three-year strategic plan to increase diversity. People ask me, well, what number are you looking for? I say, I'm not looking for a number. It's never enough. Out of 3,300 city firefighters, only 115 are women right now.

When it comes to inclusivity and diversity at this department, she's a proud member of the LGBTQ community. That just kind of opens the door of people that thought, I didn't even know that that was an opportunity for me. So that's where things stand now today. Yeah. And you just saw whoever's in charge of safety in New Orleans 20 minutes ago. She didn't really seem up to the job either.

You kind of wonder if she didn't get pushed to the front of the line. Secret service. Like, look, we need the most competent people in these types of jobs. And if they happen to be lesbian or female or black or anything, then so be it. But that shouldn't be a criteria that's factored in. The jobs are too important. And now we're seeing the chickens come home to roost.

People are dying because we've taken incompetent people and we put an emphasis on something else. I mean, it could go no other way. If we said, look, you're an air traffic controller, but first you're a gay man. And we really want to kind of focus on that. There would be planes hitting each other. Why wouldn't there be? Why wouldn't it? It could go no other way. So it's our fault, obviously, for emphasizing this junk. And hopefully enough people have died now where it's going to come back around. Right. I mean, it's a crazy statement, but you're exactly right. Yeah. Hopefully enough Americans are dead that someone's going to rethink

these things. And we're starting to see it, seeing it globally now blow back against left wing policies and politicians. By the way, I know this newsflash, Joe Biden is still the president. He's the current president. And he held a presser with Gavin Newsom on Wednesday. And right on brand, the president thought now would be a great time for him to lighten the mood and have some fun as people like you are seeing your homes get burned down, your neighborhoods get burned down. And this is the pivot. Watch. I'm a baby girl, baby boy. So I'm going to have to stay a lot longer. He's a great grandfather. And he had a great grandchild who's a baby boy or a baby girl.

Not clear which. He said both. So I'm sure you feel reassured. Look, if it's a baby girl, she can run the Los Angeles Fire Department. And if it's a baby boy, then he can go off to Russia and China and hammer checks on his dad's name. So either way, or his grandfather's name. So either way, that kid's going to land on his feet. Good point. I do want to say something to address what James Woods was eloquently saying on your program moments ago.

And I think it's going to be interesting. He's talking about rebuilding. Rebuilding in Malibu, Palisades and Santa Monica, requires permits, lots of permits. And you're going to have to deal with the Coastal Commission. And the Coastal Commission is not friendly and they don't expedite anything. Suzanne Summers, the late great Suzanne Summers and her husband, Alan Hamill, had a house burned down in Malibu years ago, tried to rebuild, couldn't deal with the Coastal Commission. For seven years, they had to deal with permitting in the Coastal Commission

and ended up moving to Palm Springs. You're going to see a lot of people in Malibu who may have voted blue start voting red if their permitting and the Coastal Commission and all the bureaucracy starts getting involved. If people cannot rebuild their home in a timely fashion or gets regulated to the point where it just becomes impractical or undoable, you're going to see a lot of angry campers, which is what happened to Bill Maher. Bill Maher was hard left and as hard left as they would go

until he tried to pull a permit to put solar power in his home in Beverly Hills. And after three years of arguing with the city, he's starting to sound like me. You know, I should I should tell our audience he was going to be on the show today, but he had to postpone because of the fires. I think he's in the midst of this dealing with it himself. Yeah, no, he's he hasn't been totally red pilled because he's got some TDS going there. He definitely hates Donald Trump. But he is one of the normal liberals who we all used to know and love and argue with, but didn't get grossed out by. Like these woke people who care more about who you're sleeping with than whether you can fight fires when they put you in charge of a department. Look, I don't know whether this

Kristen Crowley's incompetent or not, but I know that the reservoirs weren't filled and the fire hydrants didn't have water. And it seems like something she should have been jumping up and down about for a long time because that's literally her job. There's a report, though, that a bunch of money, Adam, I mean, I haven't totally followed the California reservoir politics for a long time, but Jillian Michaels, she tweeted out that in 2014, voters in California put $2.7 billion towards securing future water storage through Prop 1. By 2025, not a single reservoir has been completed. I mean, that's unbelievable. 2.7 billion towards securing future water storage in, you know, 10 years ago. And by today, not a single reservoir has been completed. They spent

money to put power lines underground, which also didn't happen. And they're also spending all this money on freaking high-speed rail, which has almost no chance of happening. So it's impossible to look at this and not ask whether some huge portion of it is due to mismanagement. Well, I mean, the high speed rail you speak of $80 billion over budget, and it's connecting Bakersfield with Merced. Now, for those of you who are not in California and never heard of Merced, neither have people who live in California. Nobody I know even knows where Merced is, and they have lived here for many years. There's nothing in between Bakersfield and Merced. There's no reason to connect those two places. They're about two hours apart if you drive, which everyone does. And there's no thinkable,

reasonable, rational reason why they keep dumping money into this boondoggle. But yet they do. We could have had power lines that were buried. We could have had reservoirs. We could have had aquifers. We could have had some system for collecting rainwater and so on and so forth. Instead, we have a $100 billion train to nowhere that no one's ever going to ride, and no piece of track has even been laid yet. This report, I want to get to the real again inice Quinones, who replaced a guy named Martin Adams.

And they doubled the salary for that position. He was getting $435,000, $435,000. She got $750,000. They said they had to do it to stay competitive. So this woman, okay, who is younger and diverse and a woman, gets the salary doubled and the fire hydrants remain empty. So it just seems like a problem to me. I don't know whether Los Angeles residents are going to find it a problem or not, but all this needs to be evaluated. And I don't know, I'm not saying it's because she's a woman, but I'm saying these people shouldn't be getting a pass because they're women either. They've been put in very important

positions. And where is the fucking water for the reservoirs? Well, look, your bigger point, I think, is this, which is. We don't know if she's there because she's Latina and female. We don't know if the fire chief is there because she's a lesbian. We don't know if we know Kamala Harris is incompetent and there because she's a female of color. But the bigger problem when you start doing this is. If you are a young black male and you're walking through the quad at Harvard, you now have people thinking you're there because of this. You may have graduated top of your class in high school. You may have scored a perfect score on your SATs, but we think you're there because of the color of your skin, which is a horrible, it's horrible for the person. So this woman who's in charge of the aqueducts in the water in LA

may be perfectly qualified, but you and I are wondering, and the reason we sort of have a little bit of not so fast is because this is what they do over and over again. So now whenever I just see a woman, oh, woman of color. Okay, all right, she's not qualified to be there, which is totally unfair to her. Mm-hmm, exactly. Well, I don't care what color she is or what gender she is. It appears there's been a massive screw-up.

It's just like, this was known. They were calling attention to this. It came out a couple of months ago that the reservoirs were a problem and that the fire hydrants were not full. And as great as the firefighters may be, they can't do the job without water. I mean, that's just not possible. On the high-speed rail thing, it's just an example of incompetence. California is probably the best example in the country of blue control, total blue control, and total utter incompetence. And this high-speed rail project, which has taken

so much money and gone absolutely nowhere, is a great example of it. Congressman Kevin Kyle of California was railing, pardon the pun, Kylie, about this the other day, saying we should not be giving more money to this project. The Fed should not. Californians should not. It's gone nowhere. And here he is espousing that. The high speed rail project was originally projected in 2008 to cost $33 billion. It is now projected to cost up to $127.9 billion. Its estimated completion date was 2020. Of course, we are past 2020 now. As of 2024, zero passengers have been transported. Indeed, the majority of the system has not even been fully designed. A few years ago, the New York Times did an expose, the New York Times, reporting that at the current pace, the high-speed rail project will not be completed this century.

Even if the high-speed train, quote-unquote high-speed, magically materializes by the end of the decade, it will still be yesterday's technology. China right now is working on a train that they are planning to complete by the end of the decade that will go up to a thousand kilometers per hour. That's your tax monies, a Californian and mine and our listeners as federal taxpayers. It's a joint effort. And what we might well have done instead is just taken our money, done this and flushed it down the toilet. And so you can't help but think of it as California burns. Yeah, it's a it's a it's an actual thing that happens, but it's sort of a metaphor for California on a larger scale, which is these sort of hopeful ideas. You know, we look at ourselves as the leader of the first things first. California loves Europe and they go in Europe, they have bullet trains. I've seen the bullet trains and we're California. We're first,

we're the tip of the spear for everything. But it's a lot, the bullet train in California is a lot like saying sanctuary city. It sounds great. No one's illegal. Everyone is welcome. We'll take care of everybody until a busload of migrants shows up and then you're screwed. And we like the idea of a bullet train, but we can't pull it off because of the bureaucracy and the expense and the red tape. And by the way, we're never going to have a bullet train. Nothing gets built in California. And you're right, when something is sort of majority blue, it's not going to get done. There's no gravity. These people can waste money in perpetuity, waste time in perpetuity. There's no pushback. I mean, Gavin Newsom, you know, got recalled

essentially, and he still won. We had a choice between Rick Caruso, a sort of qualified, able-bodied businessman for mayor. We ended up with Karen Bass. Like, we sort of get what we deserve. And I do want to say to all the people in Malibu, very blue. Palisades, very blue. Santa Monica, very blue. You guys like all this. This is who you voted for these people. You're sitting around right now going, how come the fire hydrants don't work? Where's the mayor? Why is she out of the country? What's going on with the aqueducts? You voted for these people. This is who you voted for.

You live in Santa Monica. You live in these places. This is how you roll. This is what you agree with. You think it's more important to have a woman of color versus a qualified person. You think it's more important to have a lesbian running the fire department than a qualified person. You think it's more important to have a lesbian running the fire department than a qualified person. Well, you asked for it. You got it. Now your house is on fire. Yeah, right. And the house is so many people who don't have money,

don't have insurance, don't have the first clue about how to rebuild or where to go. There was a woman speaking to ABC Local talking about coming to get her parents who were, I think she said 90, out of their home in Pasadena, which was burning. And she was trying to save what she could of it. But look, this is like a real person who I'm sure she's complaining about the insurance. Take a listen. I know I'm not supposed to be here, but this is my parents' home. I know the feeling. And they just lost. They got canceled from their fire insurance. So they're dealing with this. They're 90 years old. They've lived in this house for 75 years, and they've had the same insurance. And these insurance people decided to cancel their fire.

And we're going through this, and it just happened, and they have no fire insurance. So thank you, California insurance companies supporting residents who pay taxes and love California. And they wonder why people leave California. That was Lynn. She's a nurse, Adam. I have something that's interesting. Obviously, all right, we all know what it's like. And maybe this is I say to say to people people i say to people when's it gonna end you know when are we going to change course and uh then you know what the

number one answer for california when are we going to change course like when are we going to go a different direction the answer is when we bottom out and i always say why do we have to bottom out. And I always say, why do we have to bottom out? Why? Why can't we see where this thing is going? I would always use the example of like, you go to your daughter's bedroom and you find empty pill bottles and syringes. Get her some help now. Why do I have to wait until she's flatlining to intervene? You know, there's a problem. Intervene. But this may be us bottoming out. This maybe is the bottom. And I have another thought for you, Megan, because I know you enjoy that. But I was talking about on my podcast today, which is we have a huge problem with the homeless. And the people who start these fires

are either the homeless or decaying power lines that blow over the wind and start the fire. Either way, it's on the city and the state's back. Homeless people start most of the fires we're dealing with because they're drug addicts and they're living up in the hills and they're smoking meth and there's a fire. All these people in the Palisades,

and we call them the homeless. No, we call them previously housed or unhoused, unhoused people instead of junkies who are insane. But OK, they're homeless. And we talked to the progressives in California. They go, they're homeless because they need a home. And if they had a home, they would have a place to live. Thousands of people just got displaced from their homes. Thousands. Palisades, Malibu, now into Pasadena, Altadena, La Cunada. Thousands and thousands of Californians got displaced overnight, over in eight hours. They're all displaced. How many of them are going to be sleeping on a sidewalk tonight, physically sleeping under an overpass?

And the answer is none of them. Because even though they don't have a house anymore, they have a network and they're not junkies and they will go somewhere. I mean, I don't have a house, but I have many places. I talked to Dr. Drew. I talked to Jimmy Kimmel. They said, come stay with me. I have a network.

I'm not, I'm not a junkie. I'm not schizophrenic. I have a network. So all the people just got unhoused are all going to sleep on a bed tonight somewhere. I'll tell you what, you can come stay in our house too. We have a little cottage right next door and Jimmy Kimmel can come too. Even though we disagree politically,

I would help Jimmy Kimmel in a time of need. Feeling very magnanimous, but no, truly, I really am. I'm so sorry for the stress of all of this for you and everybody out there, Adam. All my best to you. Thanks, Megan. Keep us updated. What a nightmare. I mean, what an absolute shit show. Charlie Kirk tweeted this out. He writes, a friend of a friend in West LA just saw looters plunder her evacuated house on her ring camera. I mean, it is crazy. We have a bunch of security at our house. We actually just added a ring camera. So I'm just now getting used to the joys of that thing. It's actually quite fun.

I can see everything. We have another like more official one that other people monitor, but like this is for me and Doug. And it gives you the little ring on your phone. You're like, oh, what's happening? What am I getting? Who's there? I mean, I'm sure it would feel very different if it were an actual burglar, robber, or ne'er-do-well. Anyway, what he's reporting is that there was a woman who saw looters go into her evacuated house. Sounds like it wasn't burned down. It's just evacuated. He writes her friends, including some who voted for Harris are calling for summary execution of the looters. That's something you say, right? Like they should be executed. Turns out in this house, we believe politics disappear when your house does. I get it. I understand the spirit in which he's offering that. I'm sure that's, that's probably true. Who wouldn't be sitting there

thinking that if their house, they had to evacuate because of serious threat of fire got looted? Who wouldn't be thinking about reevaluating the competency of politicians who allowed all of these safeguards to fail? All of them, whether it's this woman at the Department of Water, the head of the LAFD, the mayor, Karen Batt, like stop, stop. Trust me, absolutely nothing against women, nothing against women. Totally believe in strong female leaders too. Not seeing examples of them here. Be honest. Stop. Like one of the things I saw when I was preparing for the Bill Maher interview, which will take place again when he can do it, um, was he, he, uh, he had a quote about how, um, Oh God, what was it? He was saying

it was about wokeness and how sick and tired of wokeness he is and how like he's, he's hoping at every turn that people will reevaluate it. You know, that they're going to see these choices they've made have not come back to help them. I can't remember the specific quote in any event. I'll get to it when he comes on, but it was a great quote. And it just underscored how the left is so busy trying to like reach behind to give itself pats on the back at how virtuous they are. They've lost all touch with the number of people who get seriously hurt from those very efforts, right? So like they're so busy virtue signaling and hoping we think they're good people and trying to tell themselves they're good people in this house,

we believe that they forgot to actually be good people and hire good people to protect good people. This is the problem in California. This is a problem in Canada. This is the problem in the United States, which we just pushed back against massively. So this was the thing that Bill Maher was saying. He doesn't like Trump, as you know, but he said, even I, as a liberal, am kind of excited to see what Trump is going to do. I'm kind of excited to see, I think he's interested in Elon and potentially RFK. I'm kind of interested to see how it works out. And one of his lines was, I'm going to mess it up, but it was like, we don't need a revolution in America. We need a colonic,

you know, like a clearing out of the system. We're old and we're stodgy and we're doing things in a way that's not working for people. That's why Trump won. That's why his team of superheroes is going to be ushered, not just into the presidency, but into the administration around Trump, the cabinet. And it's why Californians, my dear loving friends in California, must rethink the decisions they've made at the local level, because the federal government can't really help you. That's the God's honest truth on something like this. You know, there could be some FEMA relief. It's not going to, it's not, what you needed was good local assistance. You needed competent local managers who know how to plan for these disasters and manage them when they come, like Ron DeSantis. I mean, let me ask my friends. We see who listens to the show. We have actually a lot of California listeners. Let me ask you this question. Do you think this would have happened

to this extent? No one's saying some magical politician can stop fire. And the winds, of course, are the massive factor that pushes it fast and far. But do you really think this would have happened to this extent with these problems if Ron DeSantis had been your governor or the mayor of LA? Do you really think that? This guy is a technocratic, prolifically hardworking Yale graduate who has a lifetime of elbow grease behind him. He didn't do well glad handing in the coffee shops of Iowa. He's not a natural retail politician. If you have him over for dinner, he's probably not going to be the most loved guest, right? But he's an incredibly effective politician, a leader, you know, someone who gets elected via politics,

who then must lead is my point. You need someone like that. Okay, maybe you're not going to go quite as right as a Ron DeSantis, though he will be looking for a job soon because of term limits in Florida. You should be so lucky as to get him in any role out there. But can you find your own? Can you say yes when this businessman runs against Karen Bass and says, I'll do the job. I'm actually a Democrat, but I will, and I have money, but I will help you. Can you be more open-minded so that instead of making yourselves feel good by patting yourselves on the back, You just do good. You check your identity politics, your obsession with DEI hiring and all that bullshit. And you look at who's the most competent manager we can unleash on the beautiful citizens of our beautiful cities and state.

Because what seems to have happened here is one of the gems of the United States of America, California, one of, if not the most beautiful states in the union, has been destroyed by left wing politics and the decisions that come with them. Maybe it's too late. There are no red seats in the state house, in the U S you know, delegate, like there are no, there's no red in California at all. So maybe it's too late, but maybe Adam's right that enough people have now died or been hurt as a result of these decisions, that they'll start to make different ones. Here is the Bill Maher quote. Okay. I'm a big America booster, Maher says to the Wall Street Journal. One of my problems with the younger generation is they have no idea, no perspective. Of course, if they've gone to elite universities, factories, they've been indoctrinated into this idea that they live in the worst country in the world at the worst time in history, when actually they live in, with all of our flaws,

still probably the best, with definitely indisputably the best time in history. I like America. America does not need a revolution. What it needs is a colonic. Yeah, right on. Looking forward to speaking with Bill. On a personal note, really hope his house is okay. Hope Adam and James Woods get good news. Hope my friend Brian Friedman gets good news. I don't think so. And praying for my friends who I know have lost their homes and for those in all the area who are wondering and suffering today. Thank you all so much for listening and we'll be back tomorrow. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.