January 27, 2025 • 32 mins
The John Kobylt Show Hour 3 (01/27) - Royal Oakes comes on the show to talk about all of the lawsuits that are starting to be filed on behalf of wildfire victims. Some residents in Altadena are upset that Pres. Trump didn't visit the area. More on the lackluster response to the fires in the LA area recently.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can't f I am six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
You're listening to the John Cobelt podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
Every day we do the show from one until four o'clock,
and every day if you miss it, there's a makeup opportunity.
John Cobelt Show on demand. The podcast posted after four
o'clock has the whole show on it. In fact, I
would definitely if you're just joining us, listen to the.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Two o'clock hour.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
We had Joel pollakon from Breitbart who talked about his
experience as a Padalisade's resident resident putting out the fire
with a bucket of water to save his house as
Spence was on fire, and speaking up to Donald Trump
at that public meeting on Friday, suggesting how about a
(00:44):
nine to eleven commission to track all the money that's
coming into California to Newsom in Bass because you can't
trust them with the money. It's going to be many,
many billions of dollars, and what they do in life
is blow billions of tax dollars with nothing to show
for it. I didn't know anybody in the right mind
would get give Gavin Newsom or Karen Bass a dollar
(01:08):
And if anyone of Jack's just ask them what happened
to the homeless money, what happened to the high speed
rail money, what happened to all the COVID unemployment money.
There's probably one hundred billion dollars there that hasn't been explained.
And we'll we'll that's on the podcast You Talk You
listen to two o'clock hour and Joel Pollock all right, now,
it's Royal Oaks from ABC News, the legal Analyst. There
(01:31):
are have been a lot of government screw ups that
led to the fire, and a lot of government screw
ups that marked the fire response. And there's going to
be many, many lawsuits. And let's let's get to Royal
on the air to talk about this this whole matter.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Royle, how are you.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
I'm doing great, John, And you know you've been talking
about this. You should have been a lawyer, because you
hit the high points. See, the lawsuits are not just
against Southern California, Edison because we think we saw sparks
coming from your towers, And it's not just against the
DWP that let the one hundred and seventy million gallon
reservoirs stay empty for the last eleven years. There are
(02:13):
all sorts of other things, failure to warn people, cutting
the fire department budgets, failure to power down the power
and yeah, it's against the utilities to a degree. But
already one of the suits has gone against the City
of Los Angeles, not yet as far as I know,
against Mayor Bass or Governor Newsom. But obviously they are
(02:37):
folks who a lot of people blame for the reduction
and budget. You know, at the same time they were
spending all sorts of money for green initiative stuff. And
the advantages of the suits, John is that once you
follow a lawsuit, you don't just trust the government. Oh,
we'll get into the we'll get to the bottom of it.
You know, we'll have the commission or whatever. When you
follow a lawsuit, you get depositions, testimony under oath. If
(03:00):
somebody alive, then they're committing perjury, five years in prison,
You get the service of penis, You get all the
documents that show what really happened. There is a limit.
There's a doctrine called sovereign immunity that says you can't
just sue politicians and governmental entities what Willy Neely. It
has to be a really solid basis there has to
be more than negligence sometimes, and you can't just sue automatically.
(03:22):
You have to follow claim first. The government then says, well,
here's my response to your claim, and then you may sue.
So yeah, just as the fire sworld, we got swirling
lawsuits now and they're not going to end for years
and years.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah, let's talk about that doctrine because obviously governments get
sued all the time. Right, a cop that gets out
of hand, that could be millions of dollars. Right, if
there's an unwarranted beating, somebody trips on the sidewalk, they're
going to get paid off when it comes down to
because that's tangible. Right, there's evidence that there really wasn't beating.
(03:57):
There's evidence that the sidewalk was cracked, bumpy and easy
to trip on it.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
But what about a situation where you're.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Not prepared, where you didn't do enough, or you made
funding choices that were stupid.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
But it does it warrant a lawsuit?
Speaker 2 (04:17):
I mean, can you be held liable for making stupid decisions?
Speaker 3 (04:22):
It makes it tougher when the basis of your lawsuit,
for example, is that well you reduced the budget. It
still can work, and you know, the whole sovereign immunity thing.
It's an age old legal doctor and it basically said
from hundreds of years ago, the king can do no wrong.
You can't see the king. But as you point out,
there are a lot of ways people may soon out
from crackdive box to any number of things. But it
(04:45):
does add some hurdles. It makes it more difficult to
go after them. And one of the things that can
be difficult is demonstrating a clear link between an act
or inaction by the government and a tragedy. So you know,
it's yeah, you know, people are going to be suing
the governmental entities. It's tougher to name an individual, say
like mayor Bass or governor Newsoman. It is very difficult
(05:08):
sometimes to get a court to allow a case to
go forward because the courts are allergic to getting involved
in politics and they see a case against a politician
and they say, oh, you know, you're trying to make
me take sides. But here, you know, if the evidence
is dramatic enough, I mean, you remember what happened with
Grey Davis. I mean, there are other ways to deal
with politicians other than just suing them. That the public
(05:30):
got The sense is you'll recall that, you know, the
energy crisis was crazy and Gray Davis was to blame,
and even after it calmed down a little, there was
enough energy there to get rid of him. And then
we got Arlold Schwartzenext.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Yeah, is there anything actionable when a mayor and a
city council decides to only have fund the fire department.
I'm sure hardly everybody in LA didn't realize that was
the case and had gone on for many years. But
it just seems something that's almost criminal to only fund
the fire department at fifty percent while you're funding the
homeless programs with hundreds of millions of dollars of more money,
(06:08):
and they're the ones starting many of the fires. There
just seems to be something so wrong there.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Yeah, no, you're right, it is so wrong, and it
is legally actionable. It's just that it isn't as easy
as suing just another person or another company. But the
bottom line is that if you can get, for example,
expert testimony, people to come in and say, hey, you know,
I was running public safety issues fire protection in other cities,
(06:34):
and I'm here to tell you that what these people
did seems criminal to me, and I'm not somebody that
can put them in jail, but I'm here to tell
you that it was absolutely negligent and obviously I mean,
like this reservoir, it's just infuriating. It reminds you of
the crazy story. You probably remember it a few years ago.
Some teenager in Portland, Oregon. It pees into a public
(06:56):
reservoir that's used for water supply, and they caught it
on surveillance camera. They grained thirty eight million gallons of
water because this kid pete in the reservoir. I mean,
it's idiotic, and so they we've got the same deal. Hour,
Oh my gosh, there's a tear in our reservoir one
hundred and seventeen million gallons over in the Palisade area.
(07:18):
Why we can't have there were bird droppings? One of
the politicians said, there were bird droppings in the reservoir.
I mean, come on, can't just strain this stuff, can't
just put some pills in it and get rid of it.
As opposed to seeing out one hundred and seventeen million gallons?
Speaker 1 (07:34):
What did they think happens in hotel swimming pools all
the time.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
I mean that that's absolutely and I you know what.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
One hundred and seventeen million gallons with bird boop in
the U in the reservoir still would have put out
the fire.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
So getting back to your point, Yeah, when you have
an idiotic action and in action by politicians, yes they're
going to pay the price at the ballot box, but
they'll also pay the price in court. But good luck
getting them on criminal stuff, even though a lot of
people might think that that's appropriate.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
You can't get politicians financially liable though personally, which is
my dream in life.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Yeah, unfortunately, the laws written by the politicians are very
effective there. And you know the basis for that is
we got three hundred and seventy million people out there,
and yeah, a few million them probably would like to
spend all their time filing personal, personally oriented lawsuits against
individual politicians that they hate. Oh boy, I want Liz
Warren to spend a million dollars to pay to me.
(08:33):
You have to worry about that when you have a
gigantic population. And so that's why we got some guardrails
to make sure that you know, politicians don't when they
sign up, they are basically signing themselves up for bankruptcy
because all sorts of people can sue them. But where
you have legitimate grievances and people died and people lost
their homes, yeah, the court system is there and lawyers
(08:54):
are gearing up to welcome clients and do battle in court.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
What a mess. Well, thanks for coming on with.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Us Royal Oaks for KFI. Here, ABC News Legal correspondent.
When we come back the out to Dina fire, a
lot of out the Dena residents were hurt and Trump
didn't visit. Also, the origin of the out of Dina fire.
There's an encampment, homeless encampment near that area, and I
(09:25):
think Southern California Edison wants you to believe it was
the homeless that started the fire, which could be except
now there's video which shows sparking near the electrical equipment
that may have actually ignited the blaze because the fire
started right at the bottom of a transmission tower.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
So while so Cal.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Edison is saying, hey, hey, look at that encampment over there,
it's probably more likely that it's the sparking wires above.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
We'll tell you all about it we come back.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
You're listening to John cobelt on demand from ko A
six forty.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Well, we just had Royal Oakson for ABC News to
talk about the uh, the blizzard of lawsuits coming against
everybody in La City and County government for the atrocis
job that various departments did, both preparing for the fire
and responding to the fire.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
There's a lot of material there.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
I don't know if there's enough tax money to pay
off all the claims, but there's certainly good reason to sue.
And on the outa Dina fire, there there is new
video which shows that the the so Cal Edison transmission tower.
(10:44):
Nearby the tower, there was sparks, There was arcing as
the winds were blowing, the wires were touching. There is
video less than a mile taken from the ignition point
of the fire and it shows the strong winds whipping
through the area, light flashing on the hillside. The lights flash,
(11:06):
and attorneys for Attorney's alleged that the video shows arcing
and sparks falling on the dry hillside and a few
minutes after the flashes of light, the hillside begins to burn.
And Edison has said it's premature to come to that
(11:31):
conclusion yet, and they have said they don't believe their
electrical equipment was responsible for the fire. Now they're trying
to redirect scrutiny on some homeless people, claiming that there
was an encampment that included two fire rings, food and
remnants of a tent. Except the encampment was nine hundred
(11:54):
feet away or nine hundred yards away, which is the
equivalent of we last year. It's nine hundred feet that
would be the equivalent of three football fields and an
encampment that is that far away three football fields away.
Could that have caused a fire which seems to have
(12:16):
started directly under the transmission tower. They they don't seem
to have video of any vagrants loitering under the transmission
tower at the time the fire went off. There's already
been over twenty lawsuits against Southern California Edison, and a
lot of people seem convinced that it was sparks from
the wires. Why they didn't shut the power off to
(12:40):
the wires. How many times do we have to go
through this? These are the same companies over and over again.
It's always PG and E and always so Cal Edison.
It's always transmission wires. They don't shut off the electricity
often enough with high winds.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
What did I hear it didn't?
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Did they say it didn't meet their minimum level to
shut off. Minimum level is sixty miles an hour, and
I think the top gust was fifty nine, oh fifty nine,
not sixty, So we didn't shut off the electricity. They
actually said that.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Then you have the.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
People of Altadena and they've got to be pretty pissed
because so much of the coverage is on the Palisades.
And then the president comes to town and they hold
this big news conference and all these officials come out
in the Palisades and nobody went to Pasadena. Judy Chu
is the congresswoman from the Pasadena area the Altadena area,
(13:37):
and said that she was extremely disappointed that Trump was
not going to personally view that fire, which was quite large.
I mean, the Palisades fire was twenty three thousand acres,
eating fire fourteen thousand acres.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
But.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
It burned down more buildings. The Altadena fire caused ninety
four hundred structures to be destroyed compared to sixty eight
hundred in the Palisades. And I was kind of surprised
that they didn't do something. They didn't get Trump over
there for just maybe even a half an hour for
(14:18):
a quick touchdown.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
I don't know why.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
You can always make plenty of excuses when you're scheduling
for the president for the amount of time and the
logistics and this and that, but it seemed like when
you because they had it killed seventeen people, eleven people
in the Palisades, so more people were killed and a
lot more homes were destroyed as well. And Juanita Wes
(14:49):
Tillman she lost three homes in the fire. She's eighty
two years old. She felt ignored. She thought it was
an atrocious act. It truly sounds like we're being totally discounted.
Until you see it, you don't know the impact. I
don't know how he goes to one and not the other,
and I don't see that he was particularly questioned about it.
Catherine Barger represents Alta Dina and she talked about it
(15:14):
during that Friday discussion. Chew was there as well and says,
I know you've gone to the Palisades and you've seen
the devastation. It's apocalyptic in Alta Dina. And he says
Bargerick said, the people in Altadena are the exact people
(15:36):
you talked to when you ran, so I don't really
understand why they didn't schedule a stop for him in Altadena.
That would have meant a tremendous amount of the people there,
And there really isn't any excuse for it. When we
come back, talk about the the overall, the overall failure
(15:58):
that was years in the coming of the California government,
the Los Angeles County and City government. You know, we
have been out here doing a radio show for thirty
two years, and this all we have detailed, so much
of the incompetence, so many of the bad decisions, the
lack of sense.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
It had to lead to this.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
If I always tell people, I said, look, if we're
right about how badly this state is run, something really
bad is going to happen. It has to otherwise we're wrong.
And I knew we weren't wrong, and maybe it took
this to happen. Oh my god, you really had to
give up twenty eight lives and over ten thousand buildings
(16:41):
to prove what anybody with common sense could see for
years that our system of government is a complete disaster
in this state.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Talk about that when we come back.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
We're on every day from one until four. I want
everybody to understand that the feces that you hear from
politicians and some of the leaders and the fired various
fire departments, that this was nothing could be done. It
was unprecedented. We've never experienced this. We've gone through some
(17:23):
of the history. We've had one hundred mile an hour
firestorms before. We have Santa Ana wins many times each
year in January. I can't believe how many excuses and
the lies have been given out in the past few weeks. Well,
you know, I usually don't have this in January, Yeah,
we do. Usually the winds aren't this strong. Often they
(17:45):
can be this strong. And there wasn't a hundred mile
an hour winds when the fire started at ten thirty
in the morning, winds were much lower than that. In fact,
they did run some planes at the very beginning. It
was a combination of things, a gross lack of preparation.
They conducted their lot. You judge people by what they do,
(18:06):
never by what they say, not what they promise. All
you had to know is they didn't have any strike teams.
They didn't have any teams pre deployed in the Palisades
or really anywhere else along the high fire risk zones
on both sides of the Santa Monica Mountains. The vegetation
(18:26):
had been overgrown for years. They knew that we had
two extraordinarily wet winners. They knew that. They knew there
was a lot of thick vegetation that was extremely dry
because it hadn't rained in at least eight months. They
knew that they had one hundred fire trucks in the
shop and no mechanics to fix them. They knew they
(18:46):
had a thousand extra firefighters that they could have deployed
that morning in advance. They didn't send them. They had
forty engines that were available and not broken, they didn't
send those. They knew they had one hundred and seventeen
million gaps of water that had been drained out of
the reservoir. They knew all they had were three million
(19:06):
gallons left in the tanks in the city. Uh And
and they must have known if the how do you
not know the fire hydrants aren't working?
Speaker 1 (19:16):
I mean they just they did not. When the when the.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
National Weather Service says extreme fire warning, you hear all
the incessant public service announcements in the media, right, God knows,
we run a million of them. But the people who
send out these pronouncements in government don't follow them. There
was there was no interest. Hence Karen Bass in Africa
(19:41):
of all places, will Swain we've had on the show
a number of times and he looks at the government
in the state ruthlessly, and especially on this issue. He's
got a piece called Wildfire of the Vanities, and this
is in the National Review, and he just goes through
(20:02):
all the sins that were committed. And this is from
an outsider looking in that Karen Bass and Newsom ignored
the warnings that the Santa Ana Wins were returning. Bass
flies to Africa, photographed a cocktail party and by the
time she comes back, her city was a flame. So
(20:25):
now we have two dozen people dead, forty thousand acres burned, incinerated,
more than twelve thousand homes in businesses. This was at
the moment he wrote this, two hundred thousand evacuations, two
hundred and fifty billion dollars in damages. What does she
do with her time? She battles about climate change. She
announced that the city is a sanctuary for immigrants in
(20:47):
LGBTQ youth. Newsom was holding a special session. At least
he wanted to to raise fifty million dollars in tax
money to use to trunk proof the state. He could
have helped fireproof the city, but he didn't. And now
there he was standing at the bottom of the staircase
(21:10):
as Trump was coming out of Air Force one, totally defeated,
totally subservient to Trump. Instead of doing the rational things
and rational thing and making friends with the President of
the United States, the first thing he did after Trump
was elected is put together a legal fund with our
tax money to try to fight him, fight him about
(21:34):
what illegal immigration.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Here is. Swam also writes.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
He quotes the Los Angeles Times in twenty twenty two,
and you know, a good newspaper should be the conscience
of a city and point out when the government is
screwing things up, alert the public to information that we
ordinarily would not know if it wasn't for the reporters
and editors. Instead, the LA Times editorial board was a
(22:04):
bunch of fanboys and fangirls for Karen Bass. They applauded
her holistic vision. When she ran for office, Bass helped
write the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act, which was
an important effort to address decades of racial inequity and policing,
(22:28):
while admitting the federal government has little authority over local
police agencies. So in writing about Bass, the Times had
to highlight her George Floyd Bill that she got passed
out of Congress, while admitting it has no effect on
policing because the federal government is not in that business.
(22:50):
They don't get involved in local policing. So they acknowledged
that it was just symbolic nonsense. But that was one
of the hooks to justify the endorsement she should be mayor,
And in fact Swain looks at her resume and says, well,
her resume consists of community activism and some time in
(23:10):
the Assembly of Congress. Meantime, the editors dismissed Rick Caruso.
He's a man best known for building luxury malls. He
poured more than sixty million dollars of his personal fortune
into the campaign. Yeah, but he builds beautiful malls, attracts
(23:33):
millions and millions of customers, creates an enormous economic machine
wherever he builds these things.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
And he's a.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Decisive executive, and with the thousands and thousands of employees
and thousands of decisions he'd have to make regarding the
infrastructure of his shopping malls, surely he would be a
better choice to run a large city and all the
infrastructure that a large city has, as opposed to a
community activist and a legislator who likes to sit and
(24:07):
shoot the breeze at meetings. Swain reminds us that when
Bass won the mayor's office, she was sworn in by
Kamala Harris and declared a state of emergency to battle homelessness,
and within a year homelessness was up ten percent in
the city. Meanwhile, Newsom had come to town during her
(24:32):
campaign and got a lot of TV time clearing a
homeless camp. Well within three months, well within twelve months,
homeless people had repopulated the camp again.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
It was just all symbolism.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
And remember the fire started by homeless people underneath the
ten freeway almost destroyed it. Yeah, they never admitted that
it was a homeless guy. When she wasn't failing on homelessness,
Bass was creating the conditions for another disaster. She appointed
people whose key strengths appeared to have been their diversity.
(25:10):
She staffed listen to this, She staffed her city's fire
commission with teachers' union activists or DEI specialists. The Gang
of Five did not resist Karen Bess's decision twice to
cut millions from the city's firefighting budget. Bass says, well,
she gave the firefighters union higher pay. Well, that makes
(25:35):
firefighting more expensive, but no more effective. Yeah, that was
lost in the debate. You could pay the existing firefighters
more money, but you're short half of fire department. Spending
more money just raising pay doesn't bring you more firefighters,
fire trucks, fire equipment, and water. You're just paying more
(25:59):
money to the existing crew. And he talks about the
urban water system, the fire hydrants running dry, and Bass
said it was unreasonable to expect an urban water system
to support wildlife suppression. Wildfire suppression. But maybe that's what
(26:24):
should have been done by Bass and Garcetti and via Ragosa,
is build a water system that could put out a wildfire.
It's not like we hadn't had a few of those.
Maybe all that money that they spent on all kinds
of nonsense. How much money does the state and the
city spend on illegal aliens tens of billions of dollars
a year. Why didn't that money go for a modern
(26:48):
water system that could fight wildfires to fill up the
one hundred and seventeen gallon reservoir. That's what the money
should go for, not illegal alien health care from cradle
to grave. Some people don't like to hear that harsh truth,
(27:08):
but yeah, I'd rather have every dollar go to building
water systems all over California to store water, to have
the infrastructure.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
To be able to.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Send the water to the fire zones, and then to
have double the fire equipment in La to put the
fires out quickly, rather than fund one.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Illegal alien's healthcare bill.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Because for that issue, Trump's doing the right thing, sending
them back to their home countries where their home countries
can deal with their issues.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
We've paid too high a price. More coming up.
Speaker 4 (27:49):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Listen to the podcast we've posted soon And in the
one o'clock hour, we went through the Trump Aaron Bass
a meeting that was on television where Bass looked overwhelmed
because she was up against an executive who can quickly
make decisions.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
And she was left to shouting.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
But I want to keep you safe, safe, And he's
saying three weeks is a long time. One week is
a long time. Let's let's let them go tonight and
start cleaning up their lots.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Conways, here head out.
Speaker 5 (28:32):
At four o'clock, we have the ex president or the
ex head of FEMA. Remember that got Michael Brown. You know, good,
good job, bron you know down in Katrina. We've got
him coming on to talk about FEMA at four o'clock.
That's a big deal.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Yeah. Yeah, he's the head of FEMA.
Speaker 5 (28:47):
And you know, I'm getting a lot of great feedback
from people who've dealt with FEMA that they said they're
life savers. They're easy to get ahold of, they're terrific.
They're saving a lot of people's lives. So when Trump
goes after FEMA, I think he's going after the top
eschelo and not the guys on the ground.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Those guys.
Speaker 5 (29:02):
But it's like that for everything. Yeah, right, Yeah, it's
not coltrans is a perfect exam. It's not the firefighters,
it's not the police officer. Right, it's management, it's upper management,
that's right. Yeah, that's exactly right. Alex Michaelson's coming in.
He's gonna be on from five to six pm with us.
He wants to see the lay of the land and
maybe fill in every once in a while, maybe for
(29:22):
you or for me or coming here.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
He's coming in in the studio. It's a big deal. John. Yeah.
I thought he's usually on the air.
Speaker 5 (29:29):
Then he I guess he's uh, he's been fired from Fox.
It's looking they get into radio. I don't know what's
going out with that guy. Here's another thing before we
get before we get it, before you gotta get out
of here.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
What is that?
Speaker 5 (29:43):
I gotta go Okay, I gotta go out and say
he's not fired from Fox?
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Is that right? Okay?
Speaker 3 (29:47):
All right?
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Got ail mighty. It's a joke. The lawyers.
Speaker 5 (29:50):
The first lawyer comes in, he goes, hey, can you
clear that up?
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Broke a guy who always stands outside the studio when
you're on the air.
Speaker 5 (29:56):
Hey, here's here's something you know you want to know.
You're gonna want to know if you you have a
go fundme and you're raising money to help you with
this fire, with the you know the damage, and you
put in your GoFundMe to help with fire damage, and
you get FEMA as well. You're gonna have to pay
back every dime to FEMA if it's over a certain
(30:16):
amount of money.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
Is that right?
Speaker 5 (30:17):
Yeah, you can't double dip dating. Yeah, that's one of
the one of the rules. So you gotta be careful
with how you word these go fundmes. If they're there
to help you with the fire, FEMA's gonna come after
you and say, hey, where's the bunny.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
We gave you?
Speaker 2 (30:28):
You know, I know somebody, uh, their place was damaged
in the Palisades, they contact FEMA. Somebody had stolen their
social security Now I've already is that right?
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Yes, my brother's probably done that.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
Damn.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
It sounds like something my brother would do. I think
your brother was the suspect.
Speaker 5 (30:47):
Yes, my brother asked me one day, he says, what
does your signature look like? I'm like, oh, nothing ever
good comes out of that. What's your signature look like?
Speaker 3 (30:55):
Oh? I don't know.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
A big business is the resorted that way? Nature look like?
Got him mighty?
Speaker 5 (31:01):
And then we had a video over the weekend of
the rain. Maybe you saw it on our social media.
I'm your big social media guy. John and I used
my bedroom window for the road. But we have We've
had close to four million hits on that thing. Four
million views, this big, huge four million hits views on
a video we put up on social media of the
rain of the Risks, right, yeah, right, people like the rain? Wow, Yeah,
(31:24):
people enjoy it. Was a guy named Kevin Dalton at
the Kevin Dalton. It took off and we got to
give that guy out of boy think gorong with that guy.
All right, all right, big show to monetize that. Yeah,
you know what I was thinking about it, but then
you piss off a lot of people, and you.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Know, I don't know. I find a sponsor the rain video,
all right?
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Conways next and then uh Krusher is the news live
in the KFI twenty four our newsroom.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Hey, you've been.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Listening to the John Covelt Show podcast. You can always
hear the show live on KFI AM six forty from
one to four pm every Monday through Friday, and of
course anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
Can't f I am six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
You're listening to the John Cobelt podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
Every day we do the show from one until four o'clock,
and every day if you miss it, there's a makeup opportunity.
John Cobelt Show on demand. The podcast posted after four
o'clock has the whole show on it. In fact, I
would definitely if you're just joining us, listen to the.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Two o'clock hour.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
We had Joel pollakon from Breitbart who talked about his
experience as a Padalisade's resident resident putting out the fire
with a bucket of water to save his house as
Spence was on fire, and speaking up to Donald Trump
at that public meeting on Friday, suggesting how about a
(00:44):
nine to eleven commission to track all the money that's
coming into California to Newsom in Bass because you can't
trust them with the money. It's going to be many,
many billions of dollars, and what they do in life
is blow billions of tax dollars with nothing to show
for it. I didn't know anybody in the right mind
would get give Gavin Newsom or Karen Bass a dollar
(01:08):
And if anyone of Jack's just ask them what happened
to the homeless money, what happened to the high speed
rail money, what happened to all the COVID unemployment money.
There's probably one hundred billion dollars there that hasn't been explained.
And we'll we'll that's on the podcast You Talk You
listen to two o'clock hour and Joel Pollock all right, now,
it's Royal Oaks from ABC News, the legal Analyst. There
(01:31):
are have been a lot of government screw ups that
led to the fire, and a lot of government screw
ups that marked the fire response. And there's going to
be many, many lawsuits. And let's let's get to Royal
on the air to talk about this this whole matter.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Royle, how are you.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
I'm doing great, John, And you know you've been talking
about this. You should have been a lawyer, because you
hit the high points. See, the lawsuits are not just
against Southern California, Edison because we think we saw sparks
coming from your towers, And it's not just against the
DWP that let the one hundred and seventy million gallon
reservoirs stay empty for the last eleven years. There are
(02:13):
all sorts of other things, failure to warn people, cutting
the fire department budgets, failure to power down the power
and yeah, it's against the utilities to a degree. But
already one of the suits has gone against the City
of Los Angeles, not yet as far as I know,
against Mayor Bass or Governor Newsom. But obviously they are
(02:37):
folks who a lot of people blame for the reduction
and budget. You know, at the same time they were
spending all sorts of money for green initiative stuff. And
the advantages of the suits, John is that once you
follow a lawsuit, you don't just trust the government. Oh,
we'll get into the we'll get to the bottom of it.
You know, we'll have the commission or whatever. When you
follow a lawsuit, you get depositions, testimony under oath. If
(03:00):
somebody alive, then they're committing perjury, five years in prison,
You get the service of penis, You get all the
documents that show what really happened. There is a limit.
There's a doctrine called sovereign immunity that says you can't
just sue politicians and governmental entities what Willy Neely. It
has to be a really solid basis there has to
be more than negligence sometimes, and you can't just sue automatically.
(03:22):
You have to follow claim first. The government then says, well,
here's my response to your claim, and then you may sue.
So yeah, just as the fire sworld, we got swirling
lawsuits now and they're not going to end for years
and years.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah, let's talk about that doctrine because obviously governments get
sued all the time. Right, a cop that gets out
of hand, that could be millions of dollars. Right, if
there's an unwarranted beating, somebody trips on the sidewalk, they're
going to get paid off when it comes down to
because that's tangible. Right, there's evidence that there really wasn't beating.
(03:57):
There's evidence that the sidewalk was cracked, bumpy and easy
to trip on it.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
But what about a situation where you're.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Not prepared, where you didn't do enough, or you made
funding choices that were stupid.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
But it does it warrant a lawsuit?
Speaker 2 (04:17):
I mean, can you be held liable for making stupid decisions?
Speaker 3 (04:22):
It makes it tougher when the basis of your lawsuit,
for example, is that well you reduced the budget. It
still can work, and you know, the whole sovereign immunity thing.
It's an age old legal doctor and it basically said
from hundreds of years ago, the king can do no wrong.
You can't see the king. But as you point out,
there are a lot of ways people may soon out
from crackdive box to any number of things. But it
(04:45):
does add some hurdles. It makes it more difficult to
go after them. And one of the things that can
be difficult is demonstrating a clear link between an act
or inaction by the government and a tragedy. So you know,
it's yeah, you know, people are going to be suing
the governmental entities. It's tougher to name an individual, say
like mayor Bass or governor Newsoman. It is very difficult
(05:08):
sometimes to get a court to allow a case to
go forward because the courts are allergic to getting involved
in politics and they see a case against a politician
and they say, oh, you know, you're trying to make
me take sides. But here, you know, if the evidence
is dramatic enough, I mean, you remember what happened with
Grey Davis. I mean, there are other ways to deal
with politicians other than just suing them. That the public
(05:30):
got The sense is you'll recall that, you know, the
energy crisis was crazy and Gray Davis was to blame,
and even after it calmed down a little, there was
enough energy there to get rid of him. And then
we got Arlold Schwartzenext.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Yeah, is there anything actionable when a mayor and a
city council decides to only have fund the fire department.
I'm sure hardly everybody in LA didn't realize that was
the case and had gone on for many years. But
it just seems something that's almost criminal to only fund
the fire department at fifty percent while you're funding the
homeless programs with hundreds of millions of dollars of more money,
(06:08):
and they're the ones starting many of the fires. There
just seems to be something so wrong there.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Yeah, no, you're right, it is so wrong, and it
is legally actionable. It's just that it isn't as easy
as suing just another person or another company. But the
bottom line is that if you can get, for example,
expert testimony, people to come in and say, hey, you know,
I was running public safety issues fire protection in other cities,
(06:34):
and I'm here to tell you that what these people
did seems criminal to me, and I'm not somebody that
can put them in jail, but I'm here to tell
you that it was absolutely negligent and obviously I mean,
like this reservoir, it's just infuriating. It reminds you of
the crazy story. You probably remember it a few years ago.
Some teenager in Portland, Oregon. It pees into a public
(06:56):
reservoir that's used for water supply, and they caught it
on surveillance camera. They grained thirty eight million gallons of
water because this kid pete in the reservoir. I mean,
it's idiotic, and so they we've got the same deal. Hour,
Oh my gosh, there's a tear in our reservoir one
hundred and seventeen million gallons over in the Palisade area.
(07:18):
Why we can't have there were bird droppings? One of
the politicians said, there were bird droppings in the reservoir.
I mean, come on, can't just strain this stuff, can't
just put some pills in it and get rid of it.
As opposed to seeing out one hundred and seventeen million gallons?
Speaker 1 (07:34):
What did they think happens in hotel swimming pools all
the time.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
I mean that that's absolutely and I you know what.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
One hundred and seventeen million gallons with bird boop in
the U in the reservoir still would have put out
the fire.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
So getting back to your point, Yeah, when you have
an idiotic action and in action by politicians, yes they're
going to pay the price at the ballot box, but
they'll also pay the price in court. But good luck
getting them on criminal stuff, even though a lot of
people might think that that's appropriate.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
You can't get politicians financially liable though personally, which is
my dream in life.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Yeah, unfortunately, the laws written by the politicians are very
effective there. And you know the basis for that is
we got three hundred and seventy million people out there,
and yeah, a few million them probably would like to
spend all their time filing personal, personally oriented lawsuits against
individual politicians that they hate. Oh boy, I want Liz
Warren to spend a million dollars to pay to me.
(08:33):
You have to worry about that when you have a
gigantic population. And so that's why we got some guardrails
to make sure that you know, politicians don't when they
sign up, they are basically signing themselves up for bankruptcy
because all sorts of people can sue them. But where
you have legitimate grievances and people died and people lost
their homes, yeah, the court system is there and lawyers
(08:54):
are gearing up to welcome clients and do battle in court.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
What a mess. Well, thanks for coming on with.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Us Royal Oaks for KFI. Here, ABC News Legal correspondent.
When we come back the out to Dina fire, a
lot of out the Dena residents were hurt and Trump
didn't visit. Also, the origin of the out of Dina fire.
There's an encampment, homeless encampment near that area, and I
(09:25):
think Southern California Edison wants you to believe it was
the homeless that started the fire, which could be except
now there's video which shows sparking near the electrical equipment
that may have actually ignited the blaze because the fire
started right at the bottom of a transmission tower.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
So while so Cal.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Edison is saying, hey, hey, look at that encampment over there,
it's probably more likely that it's the sparking wires above.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
We'll tell you all about it we come back.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
You're listening to John cobelt on demand from ko A
six forty.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Well, we just had Royal Oakson for ABC News to
talk about the uh, the blizzard of lawsuits coming against
everybody in La City and County government for the atrocis
job that various departments did, both preparing for the fire
and responding to the fire.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
There's a lot of material there.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
I don't know if there's enough tax money to pay
off all the claims, but there's certainly good reason to sue.
And on the outa Dina fire, there there is new
video which shows that the the so Cal Edison transmission tower.
(10:44):
Nearby the tower, there was sparks, There was arcing as
the winds were blowing, the wires were touching. There is
video less than a mile taken from the ignition point
of the fire and it shows the strong winds whipping
through the area, light flashing on the hillside. The lights flash,
(11:06):
and attorneys for Attorney's alleged that the video shows arcing
and sparks falling on the dry hillside and a few
minutes after the flashes of light, the hillside begins to burn.
And Edison has said it's premature to come to that
(11:31):
conclusion yet, and they have said they don't believe their
electrical equipment was responsible for the fire. Now they're trying
to redirect scrutiny on some homeless people, claiming that there
was an encampment that included two fire rings, food and
remnants of a tent. Except the encampment was nine hundred
(11:54):
feet away or nine hundred yards away, which is the
equivalent of we last year. It's nine hundred feet that
would be the equivalent of three football fields and an
encampment that is that far away three football fields away.
Could that have caused a fire which seems to have
(12:16):
started directly under the transmission tower. They they don't seem
to have video of any vagrants loitering under the transmission
tower at the time the fire went off. There's already
been over twenty lawsuits against Southern California Edison, and a
lot of people seem convinced that it was sparks from
the wires. Why they didn't shut the power off to
(12:40):
the wires. How many times do we have to go
through this? These are the same companies over and over again.
It's always PG and E and always so Cal Edison.
It's always transmission wires. They don't shut off the electricity
often enough with high winds.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
What did I hear it didn't?
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Did they say it didn't meet their minimum level to
shut off. Minimum level is sixty miles an hour, and
I think the top gust was fifty nine, oh fifty nine,
not sixty, So we didn't shut off the electricity. They
actually said that.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Then you have the.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
People of Altadena and they've got to be pretty pissed
because so much of the coverage is on the Palisades.
And then the president comes to town and they hold
this big news conference and all these officials come out
in the Palisades and nobody went to Pasadena. Judy Chu
is the congresswoman from the Pasadena area the Altadena area,
(13:37):
and said that she was extremely disappointed that Trump was
not going to personally view that fire, which was quite large.
I mean, the Palisades fire was twenty three thousand acres,
eating fire fourteen thousand acres.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
But.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
It burned down more buildings. The Altadena fire caused ninety
four hundred structures to be destroyed compared to sixty eight
hundred in the Palisades. And I was kind of surprised
that they didn't do something. They didn't get Trump over
there for just maybe even a half an hour for
(14:18):
a quick touchdown.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
I don't know why.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
You can always make plenty of excuses when you're scheduling
for the president for the amount of time and the
logistics and this and that, but it seemed like when
you because they had it killed seventeen people, eleven people
in the Palisades, so more people were killed and a
lot more homes were destroyed as well. And Juanita Wes
(14:49):
Tillman she lost three homes in the fire. She's eighty
two years old. She felt ignored. She thought it was
an atrocious act. It truly sounds like we're being totally discounted.
Until you see it, you don't know the impact. I
don't know how he goes to one and not the other,
and I don't see that he was particularly questioned about it.
Catherine Barger represents Alta Dina and she talked about it
(15:14):
during that Friday discussion. Chew was there as well and says,
I know you've gone to the Palisades and you've seen
the devastation. It's apocalyptic in Alta Dina. And he says
Bargerick said, the people in Altadena are the exact people
(15:36):
you talked to when you ran, so I don't really
understand why they didn't schedule a stop for him in Altadena.
That would have meant a tremendous amount of the people there,
And there really isn't any excuse for it. When we
come back, talk about the the overall, the overall failure
(15:58):
that was years in the coming of the California government,
the Los Angeles County and City government. You know, we
have been out here doing a radio show for thirty
two years, and this all we have detailed, so much
of the incompetence, so many of the bad decisions, the
lack of sense.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
It had to lead to this.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
If I always tell people, I said, look, if we're
right about how badly this state is run, something really
bad is going to happen. It has to otherwise we're wrong.
And I knew we weren't wrong, and maybe it took
this to happen. Oh my god, you really had to
give up twenty eight lives and over ten thousand buildings
(16:41):
to prove what anybody with common sense could see for
years that our system of government is a complete disaster
in this state.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Talk about that when we come back.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
We're on every day from one until four. I want
everybody to understand that the feces that you hear from
politicians and some of the leaders and the fired various
fire departments, that this was nothing could be done. It
was unprecedented. We've never experienced this. We've gone through some
(17:23):
of the history. We've had one hundred mile an hour
firestorms before. We have Santa Ana wins many times each
year in January. I can't believe how many excuses and
the lies have been given out in the past few weeks. Well,
you know, I usually don't have this in January, Yeah,
we do. Usually the winds aren't this strong. Often they
(17:45):
can be this strong. And there wasn't a hundred mile
an hour winds when the fire started at ten thirty
in the morning, winds were much lower than that. In fact,
they did run some planes at the very beginning. It
was a combination of things, a gross lack of preparation.
They conducted their lot. You judge people by what they do,
(18:06):
never by what they say, not what they promise. All
you had to know is they didn't have any strike teams.
They didn't have any teams pre deployed in the Palisades
or really anywhere else along the high fire risk zones
on both sides of the Santa Monica Mountains. The vegetation
(18:26):
had been overgrown for years. They knew that we had
two extraordinarily wet winners. They knew that. They knew there
was a lot of thick vegetation that was extremely dry
because it hadn't rained in at least eight months. They
knew that they had one hundred fire trucks in the
shop and no mechanics to fix them. They knew they
(18:46):
had a thousand extra firefighters that they could have deployed
that morning in advance. They didn't send them. They had
forty engines that were available and not broken, they didn't
send those. They knew they had one hundred and seventeen
million gaps of water that had been drained out of
the reservoir. They knew all they had were three million
(19:06):
gallons left in the tanks in the city. Uh And
and they must have known if the how do you
not know the fire hydrants aren't working?
Speaker 1 (19:16):
I mean they just they did not. When the when the.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
National Weather Service says extreme fire warning, you hear all
the incessant public service announcements in the media, right, God knows,
we run a million of them. But the people who
send out these pronouncements in government don't follow them. There
was there was no interest. Hence Karen Bass in Africa
(19:41):
of all places, will Swain we've had on the show
a number of times and he looks at the government
in the state ruthlessly, and especially on this issue. He's
got a piece called Wildfire of the Vanities, and this
is in the National Review, and he just goes through
(20:02):
all the sins that were committed. And this is from
an outsider looking in that Karen Bass and Newsom ignored
the warnings that the Santa Ana Wins were returning. Bass
flies to Africa, photographed a cocktail party and by the
time she comes back, her city was a flame. So
(20:25):
now we have two dozen people dead, forty thousand acres burned, incinerated,
more than twelve thousand homes in businesses. This was at
the moment he wrote this, two hundred thousand evacuations, two
hundred and fifty billion dollars in damages. What does she
do with her time? She battles about climate change. She
announced that the city is a sanctuary for immigrants in
(20:47):
LGBTQ youth. Newsom was holding a special session. At least
he wanted to to raise fifty million dollars in tax
money to use to trunk proof the state. He could
have helped fireproof the city, but he didn't. And now
there he was standing at the bottom of the staircase
(21:10):
as Trump was coming out of Air Force one, totally defeated,
totally subservient to Trump. Instead of doing the rational things
and rational thing and making friends with the President of
the United States, the first thing he did after Trump
was elected is put together a legal fund with our
tax money to try to fight him, fight him about
(21:34):
what illegal immigration.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Here is. Swam also writes.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
He quotes the Los Angeles Times in twenty twenty two,
and you know, a good newspaper should be the conscience
of a city and point out when the government is
screwing things up, alert the public to information that we
ordinarily would not know if it wasn't for the reporters
and editors. Instead, the LA Times editorial board was a
(22:04):
bunch of fanboys and fangirls for Karen Bass. They applauded
her holistic vision. When she ran for office, Bass helped
write the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act, which was
an important effort to address decades of racial inequity and policing,
(22:28):
while admitting the federal government has little authority over local
police agencies. So in writing about Bass, the Times had
to highlight her George Floyd Bill that she got passed
out of Congress, while admitting it has no effect on
policing because the federal government is not in that business.
(22:50):
They don't get involved in local policing. So they acknowledged
that it was just symbolic nonsense. But that was one
of the hooks to justify the endorsement she should be mayor,
And in fact Swain looks at her resume and says, well,
her resume consists of community activism and some time in
(23:10):
the Assembly of Congress. Meantime, the editors dismissed Rick Caruso.
He's a man best known for building luxury malls. He
poured more than sixty million dollars of his personal fortune
into the campaign. Yeah, but he builds beautiful malls, attracts
(23:33):
millions and millions of customers, creates an enormous economic machine
wherever he builds these things.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
And he's a.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Decisive executive, and with the thousands and thousands of employees
and thousands of decisions he'd have to make regarding the
infrastructure of his shopping malls, surely he would be a
better choice to run a large city and all the
infrastructure that a large city has, as opposed to a
community activist and a legislator who likes to sit and
(24:07):
shoot the breeze at meetings. Swain reminds us that when
Bass won the mayor's office, she was sworn in by
Kamala Harris and declared a state of emergency to battle homelessness,
and within a year homelessness was up ten percent in
the city. Meanwhile, Newsom had come to town during her
(24:32):
campaign and got a lot of TV time clearing a
homeless camp. Well within three months, well within twelve months,
homeless people had repopulated the camp again.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
It was just all symbolism.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
And remember the fire started by homeless people underneath the
ten freeway almost destroyed it. Yeah, they never admitted that
it was a homeless guy. When she wasn't failing on homelessness,
Bass was creating the conditions for another disaster. She appointed
people whose key strengths appeared to have been their diversity.
(25:10):
She staffed listen to this, She staffed her city's fire
commission with teachers' union activists or DEI specialists. The Gang
of Five did not resist Karen Bess's decision twice to
cut millions from the city's firefighting budget. Bass says, well,
she gave the firefighters union higher pay. Well, that makes
(25:35):
firefighting more expensive, but no more effective. Yeah, that was
lost in the debate. You could pay the existing firefighters
more money, but you're short half of fire department. Spending
more money just raising pay doesn't bring you more firefighters,
fire trucks, fire equipment, and water. You're just paying more
(25:59):
money to the existing crew. And he talks about the
urban water system, the fire hydrants running dry, and Bass
said it was unreasonable to expect an urban water system
to support wildlife suppression. Wildfire suppression. But maybe that's what
(26:24):
should have been done by Bass and Garcetti and via Ragosa,
is build a water system that could put out a wildfire.
It's not like we hadn't had a few of those.
Maybe all that money that they spent on all kinds
of nonsense. How much money does the state and the
city spend on illegal aliens tens of billions of dollars
a year. Why didn't that money go for a modern
(26:48):
water system that could fight wildfires to fill up the
one hundred and seventeen gallon reservoir. That's what the money
should go for, not illegal alien health care from cradle
to grave. Some people don't like to hear that harsh truth,
(27:08):
but yeah, I'd rather have every dollar go to building
water systems all over California to store water, to have
the infrastructure.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
To be able to.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Send the water to the fire zones, and then to
have double the fire equipment in La to put the
fires out quickly, rather than fund one.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Illegal alien's healthcare bill.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Because for that issue, Trump's doing the right thing, sending
them back to their home countries where their home countries
can deal with their issues.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
We've paid too high a price. More coming up.
Speaker 4 (27:49):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Listen to the podcast we've posted soon And in the
one o'clock hour, we went through the Trump Aaron Bass
a meeting that was on television where Bass looked overwhelmed
because she was up against an executive who can quickly
make decisions.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
And she was left to shouting.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
But I want to keep you safe, safe, And he's
saying three weeks is a long time. One week is
a long time. Let's let's let them go tonight and
start cleaning up their lots.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Conways, here head out.
Speaker 5 (28:32):
At four o'clock, we have the ex president or the
ex head of FEMA. Remember that got Michael Brown. You know, good,
good job, bron you know down in Katrina. We've got
him coming on to talk about FEMA at four o'clock.
That's a big deal.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Yeah. Yeah, he's the head of FEMA.
Speaker 5 (28:47):
And you know, I'm getting a lot of great feedback
from people who've dealt with FEMA that they said they're
life savers. They're easy to get ahold of, they're terrific.
They're saving a lot of people's lives. So when Trump
goes after FEMA, I think he's going after the top
eschelo and not the guys on the ground.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Those guys.
Speaker 5 (29:02):
But it's like that for everything. Yeah, right, Yeah, it's
not coltrans is a perfect exam. It's not the firefighters,
it's not the police officer. Right, it's management, it's upper management,
that's right. Yeah, that's exactly right. Alex Michaelson's coming in.
He's gonna be on from five to six pm with us.
He wants to see the lay of the land and
maybe fill in every once in a while, maybe for
(29:22):
you or for me or coming here.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
He's coming in in the studio. It's a big deal. John. Yeah.
I thought he's usually on the air.
Speaker 5 (29:29):
Then he I guess he's uh, he's been fired from Fox.
It's looking they get into radio. I don't know what's
going out with that guy. Here's another thing before we
get before we get it, before you gotta get out
of here.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
What is that?
Speaker 5 (29:43):
I gotta go Okay, I gotta go out and say
he's not fired from Fox?
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Is that right? Okay?
Speaker 3 (29:47):
All right?
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Got ail mighty. It's a joke. The lawyers.
Speaker 5 (29:50):
The first lawyer comes in, he goes, hey, can you
clear that up?
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Broke a guy who always stands outside the studio when
you're on the air.
Speaker 5 (29:56):
Hey, here's here's something you know you want to know.
You're gonna want to know if you you have a
go fundme and you're raising money to help you with
this fire, with the you know the damage, and you
put in your GoFundMe to help with fire damage, and
you get FEMA as well. You're gonna have to pay
back every dime to FEMA if it's over a certain
(30:16):
amount of money.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
Is that right?
Speaker 5 (30:17):
Yeah, you can't double dip dating. Yeah, that's one of
the one of the rules. So you gotta be careful
with how you word these go fundmes. If they're there
to help you with the fire, FEMA's gonna come after
you and say, hey, where's the bunny.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
We gave you?
Speaker 2 (30:28):
You know, I know somebody, uh, their place was damaged
in the Palisades, they contact FEMA. Somebody had stolen their
social security Now I've already is that right?
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Yes, my brother's probably done that.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
Damn.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
It sounds like something my brother would do. I think
your brother was the suspect.
Speaker 5 (30:47):
Yes, my brother asked me one day, he says, what
does your signature look like? I'm like, oh, nothing ever
good comes out of that. What's your signature look like?
Speaker 3 (30:55):
Oh? I don't know.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
A big business is the resorted that way? Nature look like?
Got him mighty?
Speaker 5 (31:01):
And then we had a video over the weekend of
the rain. Maybe you saw it on our social media.
I'm your big social media guy. John and I used
my bedroom window for the road. But we have We've
had close to four million hits on that thing. Four
million views, this big, huge four million hits views on
a video we put up on social media of the
rain of the Risks, right, yeah, right, people like the rain? Wow, Yeah,
(31:24):
people enjoy it. Was a guy named Kevin Dalton at
the Kevin Dalton. It took off and we got to
give that guy out of boy think gorong with that guy.
All right, all right, big show to monetize that. Yeah,
you know what I was thinking about it, but then
you piss off a lot of people, and you.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Know, I don't know. I find a sponsor the rain video,
all right?
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Conways next and then uh Krusher is the news live
in the KFI twenty four our newsroom.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Hey, you've been.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Listening to the John Covelt Show podcast. You can always
hear the show live on KFI AM six forty from
one to four pm every Monday through Friday, and of
course anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
The John Kobylt Show News
Host
John Kobylt
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