Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Joining me now is a longtime LA resident and friend
of the program, one of my best friends in the world.
You see him daily as the host of Entertainment Tonight.
Please welcome back to the show, the one and only
Kevin Fraser. First of all, Kevin Fraser, how are you?
How are you and your family?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
We are safe and we are sound, But there are
so many families who are suffering. Steve and I just
came back from the fires, and TV does not really
show you the depths of the devastation. And this isn't
something that's going to be solved in a year or
three years. It looks like an atomic bomb went on
(00:40):
off in the Palisades area in Altadena. These places are destroyed,
and these are folks who will need help for five
seven years to come as they all try to rebuild.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Crystallize for us the kind of damage that you've witnessed
with your own two eyes, and what people are saying
to you about the damage they've witnessed.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Sure, what you see is literally standing in a neighborhood
and you can see all the way across the neighborhood
because every house is gone. And when I say every
house is gone, the houses are ashes, they have burned
to the ground. And imagine this, Steve. We arrive there
and we are starting to shoot stand ups, and by
(01:25):
the time we're done stand ups, two more houses have
burned down. The fires were active, they were never under
control while we were there, and so it is devastating
to see that. And then it's devastating to see people
return to their home. Like your good friend Eric Braden.
I can't put into words watching him, watching the tears
(01:48):
roll down his face as he looked at his home
of over thirty five forty years. It was ashes and
today and I know you were going to his son's
premiere if it had happened here in La but it's
not down because of the fires. But he was pointing
out the room where his son wrote most of his
(02:08):
new movie, and it's just tears just flowed as he
thought about all that had been built.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
To give a personal insight, you know, because I don't
think a lot of people realize how close he and
I are were very close to the point that you
saw that the house had burnt down before he was notified,
and you called me to get in touch with his
son so his son can give him the information. So
(02:34):
he didn't just go in near blind and all of
a sudden see what he didn't think he would see,
which is the house being burnt down. And he was devastated,
to say the least. And his son is flying back
from London and was flying back from London last night
as we speak, go ahead, keV golheada Steve.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
I was gonna say that he didn't. You know, Eric's
a tough old guy. He's been through everything, through World
War Two and the rebuilding of his homeland in Germany.
He's been through cancer and so many other things. So
I don't think he thought that it would hit him
like it did. And he said to me, he said,
now I understand. I understand what people are going through
(03:13):
when they come to their house and everything is gone,
because he didn't take that much with him. He didn't
think the fires were gonna jump the canyon and come
to his house. So everything is gone.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
What are people in Los Angeles saying now? Are they
saying this is a natural disaster? Are they pointing the
finger as I am at the politicians throughout the state
of California, that's from Gavin Newsom on down to me
and Karen Bass and others it is an absolute travesty
in the state and obviously in Los Angeles and the
(03:46):
surrounding areas Pacific Palisades, Malibu, etc. What are they saying
about their elected officials at this particular moment in time,
and be specific as to what they're saying and why
they're saying it.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Okay, Number one, people are scared. They're terrified because there
has never been anything like this before. And what happened
the first day was basically a hurricane of fire and
no one can prepare for that. No one can be
ready for that. And you understand. But in the days coming,
(04:21):
as more fires popped up and people began to question,
how are these fires just popping up and can't just
be natural? And as they've seen with the fire out
in Calabasas, they believe it was arson. People are frustrated
because the firefighters literally could not react fast enough to
(04:43):
save homes. Literally, they they would come to one house,
it's on fire, they try to stop it, they can't.
They've got to move on to the next house, and
people are like, why weren't the city and even the
state more prepared for this? Now were pointed immediately at
Karen Bass. She was out of town. There was that
(05:04):
interview where she was coming home with a Sky with
a reporter from Sky News who was asking her some
very pointed questions. There is no way Karen Bass could
have done anything, and that's the video of the interview.
There's no way she could have done anything about that
hurricane that happened those hundred months an hour wins. There
(05:26):
is nothing she could have done about that.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
She could she could have she could have had some answers.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
This is the one thing people now need help. They
don't know where they're going. They don't know where their
kids are going to school, they don't know where they're
going to live. There was already a housing shortage in
Los Angeles. Where are these people going to go? The
people in Alta Dina in the other fire, regular folks
who don't have that celebrity money, where they're going? Where
(05:53):
are they going to go? They elected officials to help
them take care of this situation. And I think that
the concern is is that there hasn't been a real
direction laid of what is next? How can we help?
I saw Gavin Newsom yesterday. I saw him. I ran
into him and ran out and jumped out of the
(06:14):
car to talk to him, and he said, I can't talk.
I'm on the phone with the president, and I understand that.
But they have to fix this situation. They have to
take care of these people, the people who had the
faith to vote you in. Now you must take care
of your constitution.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Well, keV, here's my issue. You didn't elaborate extensively on
firefighters saying there was no water. How do you not
have enough water in the state of California. I'm wondering
about that. And before we go further, I want to play.
I want to show you this quote that was put
(06:54):
out by former President Donald Trump, soon to be president
again come January twenty first with his inauguration, But in
twenty nineteen, he put this quote on x slash Twitter quote,
the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, has done the terrible
job of forest management. I told him from the first
day we met that he must clean his forest floors,
regardless of what his bosses, the environmentalists demand of him.
(07:18):
Must also do burns and cut fire stoppers every year
as the fire's rage in California burns. It is the
same thing. And then he comes to the federal government
for help, meaning dollars no more. Get your act together, Governor.
You don't see close to the level of burn in
other states. That was Donald Trump. That was in twenty nineteen. Kevin,
(07:41):
I want to show you this quote because it's incredibly important.
I wanted to know your thoughts. Governor Gavin Newsom refused
to sign the water Restoration Declaration put before him that
would have allowed millions of gallons of water from excess
rain and snow melt from the north to flow daily
(08:02):
into many parts of California, including, Okay, the areas that
are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way. He wanted
to protect an essentially worthless fish caught a smelt by
giving it less water. It didn't work, but didn't care
about the people of California. Now the ultimate price is
(08:23):
being paid. I will demand that this incompetent governor allowed beautiful, clean,
fresh water to flow into California. He is the blame
for this. On top of it all, no water for
fire hydrants, not firefighting planes. A true disaster and the
only comeback that Gavin Newsom had on Anderson Cooper on
(08:45):
CNN with Anderson Cooper a couple of days ago, was
there are things that I want to say, but I can't.
But it's a shame that he would politicize this. That's
all the comeback that Gavin Newsom had. Go ahead, Kevin.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Floors yours, Steve, let me say this, Okay, there are
there are some points that are valid about California being
prepared for the fire season or for fires each and
every year.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
I will say again, the fire that burned down Palisades
was a once in a lifetime anomaly of one hundred
mile an hour winds and fire pushing it through a neighborhood.
Now that being said, once it starts and once it happens,
you have to call in the cavalry. It was one
night basically where the entire Palisades burned down and they
(09:30):
were gone. But there has to be a plan in
place so that this doesn't happen again. We know we're
in an area where the Santa Ana winds come through
each and every year, and it was so heartbreaking to
see the fires just jumping from house to house to house.
(09:51):
And the next day, while the fires were still burning,
firefighters were there from all over the state. They did come,
and they came from all over the state. But it
was too late. It was too late. People's houses were gone.
The California economy is one of the biggest in the world.
Right if you put it up against other country, you
could put it up against other countries, it would be
(10:14):
ranked very highly. But the problem is is that the
little things are falling through the cracks. And this is
one of those things that fell through the cracks and
turned into armageddon. And now the rebuild and what California
is gonna lose is what really worries me.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Well, it should worry you. You got no money. I'm
looking at this right here, Kevin, Seventeen thousand acres have
been burned. Okay, it's more than that.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Now, it's twenty acres. It's more than.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Manhattan twenty twenty in Manhattan twenty eight.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Imagine all of Manhattan burning.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
That's right. Number two. Officials ordered one hundred and thirty
thousand to evacuate. That number is probably larger now, okay, larger.
It's much larger than that. Now. More than four hundred
twenty thousand people are estimated to be without power.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
That's roughly the population.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Of Minneapolis, and the largest city in Minnesota. One estimate
puts damage in economic losses at anywhere from fifty two
to fifty seven billion. But that was yesterday. It could
be more today.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
It's sixty it's over over sixty billion. It's over sixty
billion dollars, Steven, let's not get this twisted. This is
a shit show. It is an incredible nightmare of epic proportions.
And Eric Braden said it best when he said, this
looks like Germany after World War two. Wow. And now
(11:40):
you have to rebuild in areas where some people don't
even have insurance anymore, where their fire insurance was taken away.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
And why was their fire insurance taken away? Why did
the why did the insurance company take their fire insurance away?
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Kevin, Listen, this is more of and let's understand something.
Whether it's it's the insurance industry as a whole, the
insurance industry as a whole has been taking advantage of
Americans for a long time. And they dropped people's fire insurance,
and by dropping their fire insurance because they were like, oh,
you're in Pacific Palisades, you're never gonna burn, and we're
(12:17):
gonna drop your insurance. And people said, okay, well we
have to gamble. They gambled and now look at they're lost.
These are multimillion dollar homes, and some of these homes
are legacy homes with families that have kept them forever.
And it's people's nest egg and how they're going to
live their life, and now it's gone. So I say
(12:38):
to Gavin Newsom, I say to Karen Bass, you now
have to step up and you have to show leadership
because I don't think and I voted for Karen Bass.
I was excited for her to be the mayor of
Los Angeles, and now I want to see her be
(13:01):
the leader that we expect her to be. Ken Being
that leader means you are going to have to take
care of some people who are in dire straits.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
You are a California resident, a homeowner. I have a
place in California. I just rent it. I can get
rid of it is on a month to month basis,
to be specific. But let me throw this out at you,
my brother. Fiscal year twenty twenty three, this is the
state of California collected the total of two hundred and
twenty point fifty nine billion dollars US dollars in tax revenue,
(13:33):
the highest of any state. You got nineteen different states
in America who shelled out in excess of one billion
dollars for the migrant crisis. California led the country with
expenses of nearly thirty one billion to take care of
illegal immigrants and their children, according to the Fair study.
So I'm looking at that, I'm looking at the one
(13:53):
hundred and fifty nine million allocated to the state of
California by FEMA. I'm looking at the four billion a
year in fun California recently exceeded US received to extend
tax funded, taxpayer funded healthcare to an additional seven hundred
thousand undocumented immigrants. Then I'm thinking about Donald Trump coming
into office as the president elect, and the things he
(14:16):
remembers that Gavin Newsom said about him, the things he
pointed out that about the state that Gavin Newsom wouldn't
listen to, and as a result, he's in this kind
of quandary, this quagmire. What do you think is going
to happen to the state of California based on those
facts that I just.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
Gave you, Well, Stephen, if all of those if Donald
Trump really imposes his immigration initiatives, if he starts to
round up people there's gonna be no one here to
really help to rebuild this city because understand that the
(14:53):
Latino population.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Because we are in Mexico, basically the Latino population fuels
this city. And don't get it twisted. And so that's
a problem now. The immigration status of people and fixing
the immigration laws, that is something that needs to be
worked on, but it needs to be worked on in
a collective way. California is screwed right now. You're right,
(15:19):
there's an imbalance and that's up to the governor and
the mayor to fix it. One of the things that
people expected from Karen Bass is to fix the homeless situation.
It's a nightmare in La and it is believed.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
And by the way, the homeless population is according to statistics,
is responsible for more than fifty percent of the fires
in California.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
And that is true, and that is true, and that
is why we expected the mayor to start to fix that.
And the same problems that you're having in San Francisco,
you're having in Los Angeles. There is no doubt about it.
But we expect them to fix them. That's why they're elected.
And I think that now they are teetering on the
(16:03):
edge of a recall. I would not be surprised if
there was not a recall for Karen Bass.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
There's already been a recall for Gavin Newsom. He survived, Yep,
he survived that. I think he's got a little more
a little less than two years left in office, of course,
approximately twenty two twenty one to twenty two months to
go for him. But you expect there to be a
recall for me and Karen Bass after this.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
I believe that there could be a recall. And I
also think that you know, this damage is Gavin Newsom's
presidential aspirations. Wow, question, they have a chance to fix this.
And I was one of the people who believed that
Gavin Newsom would make a fantastic Democratic nominee for the presidency.
(16:47):
I think that he is smart, he is a great orator,
he is has compassion, He really does believe in his constituents.
And the way he governs is the way I would
once on one to govern. Cav Now, you've got to
fix some things.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
You're my brother, you know I love you, and you
know we talk a lot. We disagree. I think he's
done after this. I think he's done. Kevin. You cannot
you cannot look at it. This is a natural disaster,
I get, but it was exacerbated by clear incompetence or
(17:25):
dereliction of duty, one of the two. When you combine
that with it being a homeless individual that has been
accused of stoking this fire, when you consider.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
The starting the firing, starting firing, calabasas when you.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Consider the fact that it's a homeless issue that has
now come to the forefront along with a migrant issue
to some degree, because you're talking about money and funds
and what's lacking and how that compromised what the firefighters
could do. I don't know how you get over this,
calv I don't well.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Hold on, stee hold on, hold on. I think there's
a couple of things to clarify. Number one is that
La City is one thing. La County is another thing.
La County is where a lot of these fires have happened,
not in La City, but La County, and so that
is outside of Mayor Karen Bass's jurisdiction. She is La City.
So we give her that and we give her a
(18:22):
grace there. Also, we have to stand that the main
fire that burned everything down was a once in a
lifetime anomaly. That being said, and also I think we
need to point out that the budget that was cut
for the fire department was administrative jobs, but money was
also moved around. They did not lose they did not
(18:44):
lose any firefighters. All that being said, the system is archaic.
There wasn't enough water, and there weren't enough firefighters on
the ground it and at one point it was too
dangerous for those firefighters to be there when everything really
really burned down. The winds were just too chaotic. Planes
could not get up in the air, and that's why
(19:05):
you saw it spread so quickly. But my big problem
is when you are the mayor, come back with a plan.
Come back and reassure me, because you know what, you're
the parent. Be the parent, be the adult in the room,
and show me that you have a plan and that we,
(19:25):
your constituents, will be cared for. That's what I want
to hear. I haven't heard that yet. I've heard a
bunch of talk, but I haven't heard a plan, and
I haven't heard saying that we're going. You know, in Hawaii,
they opened up some of the resorts for the people
that were affected by the fires there, so that they
had somewhere to go immediately because people were suffering, They
(19:47):
needed a place to go. Where are you sending the
people in the LA You can't just send them to
a random gym, and you can't send them.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
To a random stop You there, let me stop you there, Kevin.
Last question, yep, you have poor people. We know that.
As unfortunate as it is for those who are affluent
that have suffered losing their homes and the fires, we
know they have the means to cover themselves. Some we
(20:14):
know they have the means to cover themselves. Poor people
do not. Their homes have been burned, they've been they've
been displaced, and in a city like Los Angeles, in
a state like California, this hemorrhaging money, they don't have
much And somehow, some way, all of this is true
when you've collected over nearly two hundred and twenty one
(20:36):
billion in tax revenue, the highest of any state in
this country. keV. I don't even know what to say
anymore about these elected officials in California. To meet the
first order of businesses, how you're gonna find someplace? You
just talked about the home shortage, all right, in California,
where the hell you're gonna take these people? We gonna
(20:58):
do but.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Seeve, that's what I'm talking about. That's leadership. That's when
you are going to whether it's hotels and Airbnb right
now is giving people free stays. But there are kids
who are going to be out of school, they've lost everything,
they don't have a place to go. Where are you
sending all these people? Where are they going to stay?
And that's why I mentioned what happened in a while
in Lohina. They literally took some of the resorts and said,
(21:23):
we're moving people into these resorts.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Got it.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
And whether it's you start building, you know, whether you
put people in mobile homes or whatever. You need to
figure this out and I need to hear a plan
from leadership. Also, I just want to mention this because
I think it's important to say, listen, in California, you
pay a lot of taxes. Hell yes, and you know what,
(21:46):
the people in Palisades, they paid a lot of damn taxes.
That's going to be very interesting to see how this
plays out because those people who have been paying that
boatload of taxes millions of dollars into the system are
now the neediest in the state.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
And by the way, they're the ones that put Gavin
Newsom and people like Karen Bass in office.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
That is a power source for the Democratic Party, that
Palisades area where you can o their money.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
So now you realize you have Democrats who helped put
them in office screaming about their level of incompetence and
neglect and clamoring for Donald Trump to be back in office.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
You realize that, right, I don't know if they're clamoring
for Donald Trump to be back in office now, clamoring
for help right now? No no, no, no, no, no, no,
no no no, Because listen, Steve, Steve, Donald Trump is
going to go and round up folks once he starts
this immigration suite. Who the hell's gonna build the houses,
who's gonna build the houses, who's gonna help with the
construction the people who are here that do the the
(22:52):
the mountain share of the labor in this city.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Are you ready for this?
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Are latino?
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Do you want my latino? Do you want my answer?
Speaker 2 (23:00):
I want to hear your answer.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
He's gonna back up off for all of that because
it's gonna make him look good that he utilized them
to come to the rescue for the second largest state
in the Union and hopes that it'll turn it red
from blue. He's gonna put and if he pulls that off,
the citizens of California gonna remember that, and they're gonna
look at the Democratic leadership and say, we've given y'all
enough money and enough time. That's what I think is
(23:24):
going to happen. I'm not wishing for what. I don't
care about it, but it is politics right now. It
is politics right now. That's why you clamoring for leadership.
You ain't clamoring for leadership from the five chief You
ain't clamoring for it for the head of the Water Department,
you ain't clamoring for it for anybody else. You're looking
at the politicians and you're saying, we need leadership from them.
You're a California resident, Ain't that what.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
You're looking for?
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Yet, listen, she got my vote, and she damn sure
has my money. I live in the city, she has
my money. Gavin has my money. So I feel like
I have a right to call them out and say,
what the hell are you gonna do? And I need
a plan. And that's why it bothered me yesterday when
I got out of my car and I said, hey,
(24:06):
mister governor, can we talk to you for a second,
And he said he could on the phone with the president.
I'm on the phone with the president. But that's that's
a lie. He seemed to have told somebody else.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
And they were lying when they asked. They said, I
want to hear the call. I want The woman said,
I want to hear the call. I want to hit
a call. And he says, I'm trying to get him
on the phon right now. Well, you said you had
him on the phone. And then he said, I'm trying
to get him on the phone.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Stephen. I will wrap this up, say go ahead. Nothing
will make me happier than Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass
pulling it together and taking care of these people and
righting the ship in Los Angeles and in the state
of California. But if not, if not, then they gotta go.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
They gotta go. You know what, they gotta go. I
don't give a damn if they do. They after what
I've seen last day, they gotta go. I'm done. I'm done, Kevin,
I'm done.
Speaker 5 (24:59):
Steve had sometime, Steve, sometimes there are natural disasters you
can't do a damn thing about when a hurricane hit
your house down in South in Florida, what can you do?
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Are you yelling at the politicians.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
I'm not out there and stop the win, keV. I'm
not going off about the fires. The fires is not
their fault. But when firefighters are standing there and saying
there's not enough water in the fire, that's true. When
when Donald Trump asked for water to be pumped from
Canada into the LA system and Gavin Newsom opposed that.
When you're hearing about environmentalists compelling him to protect smelt
(25:34):
and little fish and salmon at the expense of LA citizens,
of California citizens, Kevin, I don't need much else than that.
I just don't. Maybe you're nicer than me. Maybe I'm
too cruel. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of it.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
If you walk down any street in the Pali Sage
right now, you'd see that it is. I understand being
sick of it. If that was my house, I'd be
sleeping at theirs.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Well, Eric's house is gone. That's my buddy. I'll be
there to see him this week. My heart's broken.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
He will love to see him. He will love to
see him because his heart is broken right now.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
keV. Love you, Bro, Appreciate you, my man. Be safe,
Be safe because I know you're have been reporting on
this stuff and heal and all that. Here. Hey, I
hope you're wearing a mask and covering yourself with some degree. Okay,
don't get sick on me, Steve.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
I'm taking care of myself.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Love you,