December 17, 2025 • 27 mins
The John Kobylt Show Hour 2 (12/17) - As a guest on "The Fifth Column Podcast", LA Mayor Karen Bass gets candid while speaking about the Palisades Fire, and goes on to say that "both sides botched it", unaware that the cameras and mics were still hot. Is LA prepared for the next fire?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can't. I am six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
You're listening to the John Cobelt podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
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John Cobelt Show.
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We're on every day from one until four o'clock, and
you miss stuff every day. I don't know how they
could be, but all right, we have the John Cobelt
Show on demand, the podcast on the iHeartRadio app. How
about that and a little bit after four o'clock that gets.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Released and you could pick up on what you missed.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
For example, in the first hour we had Royal oaks
On had a really interesting conversation with him about Nick
Reiner in court today for the arraignment that didn't happen.
They got a three week postponement. He showed up at
a suicide vest and not wearing much else, and the attorney,
(00:49):
Alan Jackson asked for three weeks because there's well Royle
explains it really well, the different types of please that
he could make, depending on whether it's insanity or it's
some kind of compromised mind because of drugs that he
took some inability to make rational decisions. It can't get complicated,
(01:12):
and you got to believe that there's a chance that
Alan Jackson and Reiner are going to go down that road.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
We'll see.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
But if you want to learn how to look at
it legally, you can't do better than Oral Oaks. And
we had him on first hour of the show, So
go listen on the podcast later if you missed it.
All right, So this is really this is really outrageous.
Karen Bass is actively now running for reelection and she's
(01:41):
going on the podcast tour and she showed up on
something called The Fifth Column and it is hosted in
this case by a journalist named Matt Welch and familiar
with him, but apparently he's a writer and a journalist,
(02:04):
he has written books, a libertarian pundit commentator, and so
he's got this podcast and he goes over to Getty
House to do it at Karen Bass's library. That is
the official mayor's residence that taxpayers pay for and most
(02:27):
of the mayors have lived there. And this was a
sixty six minute podcast, but you can only see sixty
two minutes on YouTube. And here's what happened at the
end of the podcast. I guess he probably said thank
you for coming on the two get up and shake hands,
(02:47):
and the room broke into applause.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Why I don't know. I have a feeling it.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Wasn't a hard hitting podcast, but hey, you know, that's
his show. Then the mayor kept talking and the video
kept rolling, and it seemed that after the official podcast
was over, the mayor decided to be candid and speak
truth and said that in regards to the Palisades and
Altadena fiers, both sides botched it, meaning the city her
(03:17):
city at La County in the case of Altadena, because
the county Fire Department and the County Board of Supervisors
governed Altadena. She started talking about the Altadena fire and
the lack of evacuation alerts, and she said they didn't
tell people they were on fire. Now, she made remarks
like this for four minutes, and I'll read you some
(03:40):
of the others. And so it goes on YouTube and
on November twenty fifth, and I guess nobody noticed, and
I don't know for how long it sat up there,
but eventually the Cara Vasis staff noticed and they called
Matt Welch and said, we'll take it down. That wasn't
supposed to be part of the podcast. That was like
(04:00):
off the record, and he takes it down. You believe this,
This is the first time she's said anything honest about
anything related to the fires, first time, and she's on camera,
she's on mike, and he agrees to take it down.
And then when the All Times called him about it,
he didn't want to talk. He wouldn't say whether Bass
(04:24):
asked for the end of the video to be cut off.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Well, they said, well.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Why can't the final four minutes be found on YouTube anymore?
Speaker 1 (04:32):
He had no comment on that.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
And then he says, we're not going to be talking
about any of that right now, and then he hang up.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
He hung up on The Times.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
This is a journalist, This is a journalist not wanting
truth to come out. Why why does he want to
protect Karen Bass. I don't know I'd ever heard of
the guy. I don't know what he's about. But why
would you protect her? The decision was to put it up,
and for good reason. So he won't talk. So The
(05:02):
Times calls Karen Bass's team and said, yeah, we asked
for the last four minutes to be cut In an email,
the mayor's team told the La Times the interview had
clearly ended, and they acknowledged that when they took it down.
And here's some other things that Bass said, no one
goes after the Board of Supervisors, meaning the county. I'm
(05:22):
responsible for everything. She feels like she got blamed for
stuff that went wrong in Altadena, and she said, yeah,
the city fire department in la failed to deploy to
the Palisades and failed to require firefighters to stay for
an extra shift, which of course we knew back in January,
(05:43):
but she'd.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Never talk about it. Now. Bass was out of.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
The country, you know, going to Ghana, and it said
here on a diplomatic mission. Yeah, she was at a
party celebrating the Ghana president getting elected.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
That's not a diplomatic mission. Now.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Bess talked with The Times about this podcast and said, well,
it was a casual conversation after the podcast, and she
called the situation unfortunate. Well, why do they take it down.
She's admitting the fire department botched it. And guess who
wasn't here to supervise the fire department, Caravass. She also
(06:26):
went on another podcast hosted by Big Boy, who hosts
ed on ninety two three Real ninety two three that
one of our FM stations. I knew she was here
one day in the building and on that podcast, well,
I'll tell you what she said on that podcast, and
then I'll.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Tell you why. I'll tell you it was a big
whopper of a lie.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
And it's a big whopper of a lie that she
keeps pushing and pushing and pushing. And I'll read to
you the proof that it was a big whopper of
a lie. That's coming up next.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
You're listening to John cobelt on Man from KFI Am
six forty.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
We are on from one until four o'clock.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
The moistline eight seven seven moist daighty six, eight seven
seven moist d eighty six for Friday. Will play it
twice or eight seven seven sixty six four seven eight
eighty six. If you can only use numbers, use the
talkback feature on the iHeartRadio app. That's another option. Moistline
on Friday. I was telling you about Karen Bass. It
(07:28):
was revealed today in The Times that she had appeared
on some podcast at the end of November where she
admitted that alle fire Department had botched the response to
the Palisades fire. And of course you can't see that
or hear that because she said it in a four
(07:52):
minute conversation that the podcast video camera recorded and was
included as part of the original post on YouTube. It's
the Fifth Column podcast by an alleged journalist and writer
named Matt Welch. And when Bass's staff complained that that
(08:13):
extra four minutes was on the YouTube video, Welch took
it down and then got all up any and belligerent
about it. When The Times was questioning him, he hung
up on them because she admitsed that. And really context
here is because she went to Africa, she wasn't here
to oversee the fire response and oversee Kristin Crowley, the
(08:36):
LA fire chief, her fire chief, who was actively botching
things up, not sending any pre deployment cruise to the
area where the fire had been smoldering for a week. Yeah,
remember that. Because this was a rekittling of the Lockman fire.
Bass ultimately was responsible for not holding meetings all week
(08:56):
and saying, Okay.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
We had a fire up there, is it put out?
Is it still moldering?
Speaker 2 (09:00):
That's her job to do, although you'll see in another
quote she doesn't really think that's her job. So she
goes on this podcast and as I'm looking through some
other transcripts, Welch tells Bass that he viewed the Palises
(09:22):
fire as inevitable given the ferocious strength of the Santa
Ana wins that day. As someone who grew up here,
that fire was going to happen, right, said Bass. That
is total nonsense, total bs. Welch continued, If it's one
hundred mile an hour winds and it's dry, someone is
going to sneeze and there's going to be a fire.
(09:43):
It wasn't one hundred mile an hour winds. That's false.
It was the smoldering that was never put out of
the original fire. It was the interference from state park representatives.
So the fire department couldn't put out the smoldering. They
couldn't build a fire break, they couldn't trample on the
milkvetch plants. Some of these guys, you know, they've got
(10:06):
they've got credentials, they got resumes, but they were either
ignorant or there do public relations propaganda for politicians. I
don't know what the story is with Welch, but Bass
replied to his claim that there's going to be a
fire no matter what. If you look at the response
in Palisades and the county neither side and she paused
(10:29):
and said, both sides botched it. Okay, so we got
that on the record that the LA Fire Department watched it,
which is interesting because we've had three fire chiefs, Kristin Crowley,
Ronnie Vanueva, and Haimi.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Moore, and.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
They have been insisting all year that we did everything
we could, including some other fire officials a little farther
down the food chain. I could read you numerous quotes
that these fire officials in public meetings, in media interviews
insisting we did everything we could. No, they didn't. And
(11:08):
now Bass is admitting it. That's major news. And Matt Welch,
who's under the delusion it was one hundred mile an
hour wins under the delusion that fires are inevitable.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
No, I can tell you I have a.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Dozen ways this should have This one should have been prevented,
or it should have been stopped. I kind of shocking
how sloppy and wrong people in the media are, which
gets me to a second. Make sure I have time here,
because I wanted to get to this other thing. She
said on another podcast, Big Boy, who has a show
(11:45):
on ninety two to three on the FM here with
iHeart in this building, and he has a podcast separate
from the radio show, and Karen Bass was on it,
and she said, had she known of the danger facing
the region in early January, she wouldn't have gone anywhere.
She wouldn't have gone to log Beach let alone, Ghana. Well,
(12:08):
for the record, here, I was looking online for the
warnings that the National Weather Service gave out back in
early January. And you know what, one of the first
posts came up on Google was our own post here,
because we posted in mid February just four of the
many warnings that the National Weather Service put out warning
(12:30):
of severe fire danger and severe wind warnings. We just
have four, a couple of them before she left the country.
So we come back, I'm going to read you those,
and then I'm gonna give you a quote which should
infuriate you when she was asked where blame should be assigned?
All right, so that's next. It's the first time that's
(12:50):
ever happened. It's like our show is the main resource
looking for information when you google the National Weather Service
warnings for the fire. Yeah, there should have been one
hundred and fifty references to that, but that's okay.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
We got to do everybody's job. Here.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
You're listening to John Cobel's on demand from KFI Am
six forty.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
We're on every day from one until four o'clock and
you could follow us at John Cobelt Radio, at John
Cobelt Radio on all the social media platforms. All right,
so the big news at La Times. This morning Karen
Bass did a podcast and she lingered an extra four
minutes after she thought it was over and started talking
(13:33):
honestly for the first time in her life. There is
nobody more dishonest than Karen Bass, this side of Gavenuwsom.
I mean, it's astounding the lies that she tells, and
she keeps repeating them over and over, hoping they become fact.
Just the way officials kept repeating the nonsense about the
(13:54):
fire being inevitable and it was blowing at one hundred
miles an hour.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Neither is true.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
But you have Matt Welt, the host of the podcast,
repeating that nonsense two baths, and of course she's gonna
going to agree with it. She's the one who put
out the propaganda and mission accomplished. Now you got an
alleged journalist slopping it back at her inevitable stop it,
good lord. One of the things she said on another
(14:21):
podcast that The Times went through on big Boys podcast
is had she known of the danger facing the region
in early January, she would not have gone.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
She wouldn't have gone to log beach let alone. Ghana.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Well, she's claiming she didn't know. That's what she was
claiming back in January and February two, that she didn't
know that there were bad wind warnings at bad fire warnings.
I can't believe eleven months later, she's still selling this
bag of crap. So I went online and I needed
to find a source that might have a link to
(14:58):
the National Weather Service warnings for that first week in January,
and it took me to our own show here because
we had addressed this. I'll tell you when February nineteenth
we posted at three forty two in the afternoon, I guess,
I guess Eric must have done this right. Here are
four examples of warnings from the National Weather Service warning
(15:19):
for fire weather conditions from Tuesday that there was going
to be fire weather conditions from Tuesday the seventh to
Friday the tenth, posted by the National Weather Service Los Angeles.
Yet MARYK Karen Bass said she was unaware of the warnings.
That's what we posted back in February, along with four
examples of the warnings, one of them here January second,
(15:42):
before she went to Ghana National Weather Service. Potential from
moderate to strong Santa Ana wins and extreme fire weather
conditions next Tuesday the seventh through Thursday. In fact, they
had a graphic a photograph of wildfire on the Harai
and it said potential fire weather risk next next Tuesday
(16:06):
and to Thursday, January seventh through ninth. Chance of moderate
to strong Santa Ana winds combined with dry air and
vegetation impacts. Extreme fire growth and behavior possible if a
fire starts and power outages. Use extra caution with potential
fire sources. Again January second, at six twenty six pm.
(16:27):
Cambas has about one hundred staffers in the Mayor's office.
None of them saw this. She didn't see this.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Nobody told her. She didn't hear about this.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
My memory was, is all the radio and television stations
around this. You know what it's like around here. They
don't give you much news. But if there's like some
kind of weather, you know, big winds or rain, it's
non stop. It's almost comical. She's still selling that. Why
all right, let me give you example number two. This
is from January third. By the way, if my memory's correct,
(17:00):
she didn't go to Gone until the fifth. She didn't
arrive and gone until the fifth. So January second and third,
she was here all right. January third, National Weather Service
posts what causes wildfires combination of many components, including the
dryness of fuels, vegetation, and weather. A fire weather watch
is in effect for much of that tour at La
(17:20):
Counties for Tuesday to Friday next week. Take action now
and be prepared. And they have another graphic here to
show that fuel is usually dry vegetation like grass, brush, trees.
Oxygen's almost everywhere, and if you have a spark plus
the fuel and the oxygen, that equals fire. And then
they have also a chart here on how to be prepared,
(17:44):
ready set go, red flag warnings.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
She didn't see this. She wasn't ready set go? Was she?
All right? That's two.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Now, Remember we didn't have we didn't have a deputy
mayor in charge of police and fire because he had
been accused of calling in a fake bomb threat to
city Hall, Brian K. Williams. So there was no backup.
You believe that you believe the backup was actually sitting
at home on paid leave because he was a lunatic
(18:14):
and called it a bomb threat.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Who calls it a bomb threat? Less? They're insane?
Speaker 3 (18:18):
All right.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Here's the third example of the warning, and this one
is let me see where is this from. It says
a fire weather watch is in effect Tuesday through Friday
for portions of l A Inventora counties. There is the
potential for damaging north to northeast wins with no significant
rainfall effect. The fire season will continue into the new year.
(18:42):
This is posted January third as well, So that's one
from January tecond two from January third. That's three of them,
and there were more, but that's three of them we posted.
Bass is still in the country again. One hundred people
work for her, but she goes on these podcasts still
(19:02):
and says she didn't know.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
It's just never challenged. All right.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Now, this one, let me click on it. This one is.
This is January sixth. Heads up, life threatening, destructive widespread
windstorm is expected Tuesday afternoon Wednesday morning across much of Ventura,
LA County. Areas not typically windy would be impacted. See
graphic for areas of greatest concern. Stay indoors away from windows.
(19:26):
Expect power outages. This is January sixth, at eleven an
in the morning, twenty four hours before the fire started.
Kristian Crowley doesn't send any pre deployment to the spot
where the fire had burned six days beforehand and was
still smoldering.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
And ready to burn again.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
If Karen Bass would ever come on our show or
our podcast, I would read her all these That's what
I would do and say, do you think it's credible
you didn't know? You and one hundred employees, and I
could probably find another dozen warnings that they put out
that week. I mean, it's incredible how she continues to
(20:07):
compound the wound to inflame the suffering by insisting she
didn't know, as if that's a defense, that's not a defense,
that should be another round of indictments, and then lies
about it. And she never pays for any of this.
She never pays for being too lazy or too stupid
to hold meetings that week when there were fire warnings
(20:29):
that I'm sure, I mean, I mean, there are some
radio stations that do weather every ten minutes.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
There's there. These are all just from Twitter. Nobody, nobody
in the.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
LA office has the national Weather Service Twitter feed. When
when when you've got these kind of warnings. I can't
believe I was still talking about this eleven months later,
because she's still going around lying about it. And if
she really didn't know, then that should have been grounds
for resignation immediately. I mean she should have been recalled, fired,
impeached something. And now she's running for re election and
(21:00):
everyone's acting like that's normal. Remember that dope be reporter
we played from Channel five a few days ago.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Well, you know, the fire's been a challenge.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Now we come back after Palisades failures. Another headline in
the Times today is the fire department prepared for the
next major wildfire. Most people and governments say no, You
imagine that eleven months and they're not ready if something
bad happens. Because we're coming on the year anniversary, we'll
(21:31):
talk more about it. We come back and at three
o'clock we're going to have Katie Grimes on to talk
about the complete failure. Up in Sacramento. There's a eighteen
billion dollar budget deficit, and many agencies have been declared
high risk, high risk agencies because of their precarious financial situation.
(21:55):
All Gavin Newsom policies. Yes, the state government is about
to collapse into the ruins of functional bankruptcy.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
We'll tell you about it coming up.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
They are bleeding billions in Sacramento under Gavin Newsom. We're
going to talk with Katie Grimes from californiaglobe dot com
after three o'clock about the financial disaster that we're in
the middle of already.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
All right, here's another story.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Time's put out about the fire, and it's about next
fire comes. Is al a fire department prepared and a
lot of fire officials say no, could you believe this?
Eleven months under Karen Bass's rule here, since the fire,
we've gotten through three fire chiefs, and right now we
(22:54):
have Heimi Moore and he is requesting a fifteen percent
budget increase. Remember, the fire department's only half funded, so
it's it's half it says. If it's half funded, if
we only have fifty percent of the firefighters and the
equipment we need, by definition, we are not ready for
another major wildfire. The firefighters Union wants a sales tax
(23:17):
to bring in another three hundred million dollars a year.
I have an idea, why don't you shut down all
the programs that service illegal aliens and let's see where
we are.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
But it's not just the money.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
It's that they mismanaged what they did have last January,
starting with leaving the scene of the original fire on
New Year's Day and letting it smolder so that it
could be whipped up into a full blown blaze on
January seventh. Time says city and city officials and fire
(23:48):
experts don't think La is ready. Pass of course, claims
that the city is on the path to be completely ready.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
I don't know what that means.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Fire department has been way more aggressive, has done deployment,
been very visible, alert's going out early, trying to be
very very aggressive, so she says. But Genethia Hudley Hayes
is president of the Board of of Fire Commissioners. She
says the fire department's unprepared. Hasn't been enough time to
make changes. She said, the technology is two decades behind.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
You believe this.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Our technology in the la Fire Department is from the
two thousands. I am not confident there would be a
different result if a similar disaster strikes that's the president
of the Board of Fire Commissioners, Janethah Hudley Hayes, Tracy Park,
she's the council event on the west side Palisad's in
her district.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
She agreed.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
She said some changes have been made now the firefighters
have to stay the extra shift during red flag warnings,
but she said still eleven months later, too many fire
engines are still out of service, there's still not enough mechanics,
and all the questions about the original fires still are unanswered.
Mark Eckstein is an emergency physician who served as the
(25:05):
fire Department's medical director and commander of its Medical Service
Bureau until he retired a few years ago. Eckstein says
more money won't solve bad decision making by top officials.
There you go, that's a direct hit. Without transparency and
accountability of the fallback is always going to be what
it has been. He says, we need more of everything,
(25:26):
more people, more money, more fire trucks, more fire stations,
and you also need intelligent people making correct decisions.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Instead, I be more.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
The latest fire chief is pissed off, claiming everyone's smearing
as firefighters. Hey, we're not the ones who left early
and they didn't tell anybody about it. Exstein says a
modern fire agency has to have flexibility to surge during
a disaster. He says a panel of outside experts should
have been given access to fire department records to get
(25:57):
an unbiased look on how the department perform leading up
to enduring the fire. They still haven't done that. We
haven't had any outsiders. Look at the mess that they made,
he says, it's a playbook. Okay, how do we prevent
this from happening again? The fact that it didn't happen
is a disgrace. So they haven't really done an investigation.
(26:19):
They haven't really been given access to all the fire
department's records. This is truly crazy land, and vass is
running around running for reelection by now. She should have
pulled all this together and everything should have been reformed
and fixed and accounted for. There should have been a
massive budget increase. Instead, what did she spend the year doing?
(26:42):
Running around screaming about ice agents arresting illegal alience that
was her issue of the year. Did nothing, did nothing
to prevent or respond to the fire, has done nothing
to prepare the city for the next fire. Nothing just
screams about ice agents like a Looney tune, like one
(27:06):
of the homeless women in MacArthur Park. That's the only
time she shows any animation, any energy, any interest.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
It's always for the illegal aliens.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
It's never about us, the taxpayers, the American citizens, the.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
People who work every day and pay her salary. She's
never interested in any of us.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
We come back, we're gonna have Katie Grimes from californiaglobe
dot com on the disaster in Sacramento, the financial collapse
that's going to be happening this year under Gavin Newsom. Hey,
you've been listening to The John Cobalt 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. I am six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
You're listening to the John Cobelt podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
John Cobelt Show.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
We're on every day from one until four o'clock, and
you miss stuff every day. I don't know how they
could be, but all right, we have the John Cobelt
Show on demand, the podcast on the iHeartRadio app. How
about that and a little bit after four o'clock that gets.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Released and you could pick up on what you missed.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
For example, in the first hour we had Royal oaks
On had a really interesting conversation with him about Nick
Reiner in court today for the arraignment that didn't happen.
They got a three week postponement. He showed up at
a suicide vest and not wearing much else, and the attorney,
(00:49):
Alan Jackson asked for three weeks because there's well Royle
explains it really well, the different types of please that
he could make, depending on whether it's insanity or it's
some kind of compromised mind because of drugs that he
took some inability to make rational decisions. It can't get complicated,
(01:12):
and you got to believe that there's a chance that
Alan Jackson and Reiner are going to go down that road.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
We'll see.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
But if you want to learn how to look at
it legally, you can't do better than Oral Oaks. And
we had him on first hour of the show, So
go listen on the podcast later if you missed it.
All right, So this is really this is really outrageous.
Karen Bass is actively now running for reelection and she's
(01:41):
going on the podcast tour and she showed up on
something called The Fifth Column and it is hosted in
this case by a journalist named Matt Welch and familiar
with him, but apparently he's a writer and a journalist,
(02:04):
he has written books, a libertarian pundit commentator, and so
he's got this podcast and he goes over to Getty
House to do it at Karen Bass's library. That is
the official mayor's residence that taxpayers pay for and most
(02:27):
of the mayors have lived there. And this was a
sixty six minute podcast, but you can only see sixty
two minutes on YouTube. And here's what happened at the
end of the podcast. I guess he probably said thank
you for coming on the two get up and shake hands,
(02:47):
and the room broke into applause.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Why I don't know. I have a feeling it.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Wasn't a hard hitting podcast, but hey, you know, that's
his show. Then the mayor kept talking and the video
kept rolling, and it seemed that after the official podcast
was over, the mayor decided to be candid and speak
truth and said that in regards to the Palisades and
Altadena fiers, both sides botched it, meaning the city her
(03:17):
city at La County in the case of Altadena, because
the county Fire Department and the County Board of Supervisors
governed Altadena. She started talking about the Altadena fire and
the lack of evacuation alerts, and she said they didn't
tell people they were on fire. Now, she made remarks
like this for four minutes, and I'll read you some
(03:40):
of the others. And so it goes on YouTube and
on November twenty fifth, and I guess nobody noticed, and
I don't know for how long it sat up there,
but eventually the Cara Vasis staff noticed and they called
Matt Welch and said, we'll take it down. That wasn't
supposed to be part of the podcast. That was like
(04:00):
off the record, and he takes it down. You believe this,
This is the first time she's said anything honest about
anything related to the fires, first time, and she's on camera,
she's on mike, and he agrees to take it down.
And then when the All Times called him about it,
he didn't want to talk. He wouldn't say whether Bass
(04:24):
asked for the end of the video to be cut off.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Well, they said, well.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Why can't the final four minutes be found on YouTube anymore?
Speaker 1 (04:32):
He had no comment on that.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
And then he says, we're not going to be talking
about any of that right now, and then he hang up.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
He hung up on The Times.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
This is a journalist, This is a journalist not wanting
truth to come out. Why why does he want to
protect Karen Bass. I don't know I'd ever heard of
the guy. I don't know what he's about. But why
would you protect her? The decision was to put it up,
and for good reason. So he won't talk. So The
(05:02):
Times calls Karen Bass's team and said, yeah, we asked
for the last four minutes to be cut In an email,
the mayor's team told the La Times the interview had
clearly ended, and they acknowledged that when they took it down.
And here's some other things that Bass said, no one
goes after the Board of Supervisors, meaning the county. I'm
(05:22):
responsible for everything. She feels like she got blamed for
stuff that went wrong in Altadena, and she said, yeah,
the city fire department in la failed to deploy to
the Palisades and failed to require firefighters to stay for
an extra shift, which of course we knew back in January,
(05:43):
but she'd.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Never talk about it. Now. Bass was out of.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
The country, you know, going to Ghana, and it said
here on a diplomatic mission. Yeah, she was at a
party celebrating the Ghana president getting elected.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
That's not a diplomatic mission. Now.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Bess talked with The Times about this podcast and said, well,
it was a casual conversation after the podcast, and she
called the situation unfortunate. Well, why do they take it down.
She's admitting the fire department botched it. And guess who
wasn't here to supervise the fire department, Caravass. She also
(06:26):
went on another podcast hosted by Big Boy, who hosts
ed on ninety two three Real ninety two three that
one of our FM stations. I knew she was here
one day in the building and on that podcast, well,
I'll tell you what she said on that podcast, and
then I'll.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Tell you why. I'll tell you it was a big
whopper of a lie.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
And it's a big whopper of a lie that she
keeps pushing and pushing and pushing. And I'll read to
you the proof that it was a big whopper of
a lie. That's coming up next.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
You're listening to John cobelt on Man from KFI Am
six forty.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
We are on from one until four o'clock.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
The moistline eight seven seven moist daighty six, eight seven
seven moist d eighty six for Friday. Will play it
twice or eight seven seven sixty six four seven eight
eighty six. If you can only use numbers, use the
talkback feature on the iHeartRadio app. That's another option. Moistline
on Friday. I was telling you about Karen Bass. It
(07:28):
was revealed today in The Times that she had appeared
on some podcast at the end of November where she
admitted that alle fire Department had botched the response to
the Palisades fire. And of course you can't see that
or hear that because she said it in a four
(07:52):
minute conversation that the podcast video camera recorded and was
included as part of the original post on YouTube. It's
the Fifth Column podcast by an alleged journalist and writer
named Matt Welch. And when Bass's staff complained that that
(08:13):
extra four minutes was on the YouTube video, Welch took
it down and then got all up any and belligerent
about it. When The Times was questioning him, he hung
up on them because she admitsed that. And really context
here is because she went to Africa, she wasn't here
to oversee the fire response and oversee Kristin Crowley, the
(08:36):
LA fire chief, her fire chief, who was actively botching
things up, not sending any pre deployment cruise to the
area where the fire had been smoldering for a week. Yeah,
remember that. Because this was a rekittling of the Lockman fire.
Bass ultimately was responsible for not holding meetings all week
(08:56):
and saying, Okay.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
We had a fire up there, is it put out?
Is it still moldering?
Speaker 2 (09:00):
That's her job to do, although you'll see in another
quote she doesn't really think that's her job. So she
goes on this podcast and as I'm looking through some
other transcripts, Welch tells Bass that he viewed the Palises
(09:22):
fire as inevitable given the ferocious strength of the Santa
Ana wins that day. As someone who grew up here,
that fire was going to happen, right, said Bass. That
is total nonsense, total bs. Welch continued, If it's one
hundred mile an hour winds and it's dry, someone is
going to sneeze and there's going to be a fire.
(09:43):
It wasn't one hundred mile an hour winds. That's false.
It was the smoldering that was never put out of
the original fire. It was the interference from state park representatives.
So the fire department couldn't put out the smoldering. They
couldn't build a fire break, they couldn't trample on the
milkvetch plants. Some of these guys, you know, they've got
(10:06):
they've got credentials, they got resumes, but they were either
ignorant or there do public relations propaganda for politicians. I
don't know what the story is with Welch, but Bass
replied to his claim that there's going to be a
fire no matter what. If you look at the response
in Palisades and the county neither side and she paused
(10:29):
and said, both sides botched it. Okay, so we got
that on the record that the LA Fire Department watched it,
which is interesting because we've had three fire chiefs, Kristin Crowley,
Ronnie Vanueva, and Haimi.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Moore, and.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
They have been insisting all year that we did everything
we could, including some other fire officials a little farther
down the food chain. I could read you numerous quotes
that these fire officials in public meetings, in media interviews
insisting we did everything we could. No, they didn't. And
(11:08):
now Bass is admitting it. That's major news. And Matt Welch,
who's under the delusion it was one hundred mile an
hour wins under the delusion that fires are inevitable.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
No, I can tell you I have a.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Dozen ways this should have This one should have been prevented,
or it should have been stopped. I kind of shocking
how sloppy and wrong people in the media are, which
gets me to a second. Make sure I have time here,
because I wanted to get to this other thing. She
said on another podcast, Big Boy, who has a show
(11:45):
on ninety two to three on the FM here with
iHeart in this building, and he has a podcast separate
from the radio show, and Karen Bass was on it,
and she said, had she known of the danger facing
the region in early January, she wouldn't have gone anywhere.
She wouldn't have gone to log Beach let alone, Ghana. Well,
(12:08):
for the record, here, I was looking online for the
warnings that the National Weather Service gave out back in
early January. And you know what, one of the first
posts came up on Google was our own post here,
because we posted in mid February just four of the
many warnings that the National Weather Service put out warning
(12:30):
of severe fire danger and severe wind warnings. We just
have four, a couple of them before she left the country.
So we come back, I'm going to read you those,
and then I'm gonna give you a quote which should
infuriate you when she was asked where blame should be assigned?
All right, so that's next. It's the first time that's
(12:50):
ever happened. It's like our show is the main resource
looking for information when you google the National Weather Service
warnings for the fire. Yeah, there should have been one
hundred and fifty references to that, but that's okay.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
We got to do everybody's job. Here.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
You're listening to John Cobel's on demand from KFI Am
six forty.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
We're on every day from one until four o'clock and
you could follow us at John Cobelt Radio, at John
Cobelt Radio on all the social media platforms. All right,
so the big news at La Times. This morning Karen
Bass did a podcast and she lingered an extra four
minutes after she thought it was over and started talking
(13:33):
honestly for the first time in her life. There is
nobody more dishonest than Karen Bass, this side of Gavenuwsom.
I mean, it's astounding the lies that she tells, and
she keeps repeating them over and over, hoping they become fact.
Just the way officials kept repeating the nonsense about the
(13:54):
fire being inevitable and it was blowing at one hundred
miles an hour.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Neither is true.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
But you have Matt Welt, the host of the podcast,
repeating that nonsense two baths, and of course she's gonna
going to agree with it. She's the one who put
out the propaganda and mission accomplished. Now you got an
alleged journalist slopping it back at her inevitable stop it,
good lord. One of the things she said on another
(14:21):
podcast that The Times went through on big Boys podcast
is had she known of the danger facing the region
in early January, she would not have gone.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
She wouldn't have gone to log beach let alone. Ghana.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Well, she's claiming she didn't know. That's what she was
claiming back in January and February two, that she didn't
know that there were bad wind warnings at bad fire warnings.
I can't believe eleven months later, she's still selling this
bag of crap. So I went online and I needed
to find a source that might have a link to
(14:58):
the National Weather Service warnings for that first week in January,
and it took me to our own show here because
we had addressed this. I'll tell you when February nineteenth
we posted at three forty two in the afternoon, I guess,
I guess Eric must have done this right. Here are
four examples of warnings from the National Weather Service warning
(15:19):
for fire weather conditions from Tuesday that there was going
to be fire weather conditions from Tuesday the seventh to
Friday the tenth, posted by the National Weather Service Los Angeles.
Yet MARYK Karen Bass said she was unaware of the warnings.
That's what we posted back in February, along with four
examples of the warnings, one of them here January second,
(15:42):
before she went to Ghana National Weather Service. Potential from
moderate to strong Santa Ana wins and extreme fire weather
conditions next Tuesday the seventh through Thursday. In fact, they
had a graphic a photograph of wildfire on the Harai
and it said potential fire weather risk next next Tuesday
(16:06):
and to Thursday, January seventh through ninth. Chance of moderate
to strong Santa Ana winds combined with dry air and
vegetation impacts. Extreme fire growth and behavior possible if a
fire starts and power outages. Use extra caution with potential
fire sources. Again January second, at six twenty six pm.
(16:27):
Cambas has about one hundred staffers in the Mayor's office.
None of them saw this. She didn't see this.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Nobody told her. She didn't hear about this.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
My memory was, is all the radio and television stations
around this. You know what it's like around here. They
don't give you much news. But if there's like some
kind of weather, you know, big winds or rain, it's
non stop. It's almost comical. She's still selling that. Why
all right, let me give you example number two. This
is from January third. By the way, if my memory's correct,
(17:00):
she didn't go to Gone until the fifth. She didn't
arrive and gone until the fifth. So January second and third,
she was here all right. January third, National Weather Service
posts what causes wildfires combination of many components, including the
dryness of fuels, vegetation, and weather. A fire weather watch
is in effect for much of that tour at La
(17:20):
Counties for Tuesday to Friday next week. Take action now
and be prepared. And they have another graphic here to
show that fuel is usually dry vegetation like grass, brush, trees.
Oxygen's almost everywhere, and if you have a spark plus
the fuel and the oxygen, that equals fire. And then
they have also a chart here on how to be prepared,
(17:44):
ready set go, red flag warnings.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
She didn't see this. She wasn't ready set go? Was she?
All right? That's two.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Now, Remember we didn't have we didn't have a deputy
mayor in charge of police and fire because he had
been accused of calling in a fake bomb threat to
city Hall, Brian K. Williams. So there was no backup.
You believe that you believe the backup was actually sitting
at home on paid leave because he was a lunatic
(18:14):
and called it a bomb threat.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Who calls it a bomb threat? Less? They're insane?
Speaker 3 (18:18):
All right.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Here's the third example of the warning, and this one
is let me see where is this from. It says
a fire weather watch is in effect Tuesday through Friday
for portions of l A Inventora counties. There is the
potential for damaging north to northeast wins with no significant
rainfall effect. The fire season will continue into the new year.
(18:42):
This is posted January third as well, So that's one
from January tecond two from January third. That's three of them,
and there were more, but that's three of them we posted.
Bass is still in the country again. One hundred people
work for her, but she goes on these podcasts still
(19:02):
and says she didn't know.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
It's just never challenged. All right.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Now, this one, let me click on it. This one is.
This is January sixth. Heads up, life threatening, destructive widespread
windstorm is expected Tuesday afternoon Wednesday morning across much of Ventura,
LA County. Areas not typically windy would be impacted. See
graphic for areas of greatest concern. Stay indoors away from windows.
(19:26):
Expect power outages. This is January sixth, at eleven an
in the morning, twenty four hours before the fire started.
Kristian Crowley doesn't send any pre deployment to the spot
where the fire had burned six days beforehand and was
still smoldering.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
And ready to burn again.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
If Karen Bass would ever come on our show or
our podcast, I would read her all these That's what
I would do and say, do you think it's credible
you didn't know? You and one hundred employees, and I
could probably find another dozen warnings that they put out
that week. I mean, it's incredible how she continues to
(20:07):
compound the wound to inflame the suffering by insisting she
didn't know, as if that's a defense, that's not a defense,
that should be another round of indictments, and then lies
about it. And she never pays for any of this.
She never pays for being too lazy or too stupid
to hold meetings that week when there were fire warnings
(20:29):
that I'm sure, I mean, I mean, there are some
radio stations that do weather every ten minutes.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
There's there. These are all just from Twitter. Nobody, nobody
in the.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
LA office has the national Weather Service Twitter feed. When
when when you've got these kind of warnings. I can't
believe I was still talking about this eleven months later,
because she's still going around lying about it. And if
she really didn't know, then that should have been grounds
for resignation immediately. I mean she should have been recalled, fired,
impeached something. And now she's running for re election and
(21:00):
everyone's acting like that's normal. Remember that dope be reporter
we played from Channel five a few days ago.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Well, you know, the fire's been a challenge.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Now we come back after Palisades failures. Another headline in
the Times today is the fire department prepared for the
next major wildfire. Most people and governments say no, You
imagine that eleven months and they're not ready if something
bad happens. Because we're coming on the year anniversary, we'll
(21:31):
talk more about it. We come back and at three
o'clock we're going to have Katie Grimes on to talk
about the complete failure. Up in Sacramento. There's a eighteen
billion dollar budget deficit, and many agencies have been declared
high risk, high risk agencies because of their precarious financial situation.
(21:55):
All Gavin Newsom policies. Yes, the state government is about
to collapse into the ruins of functional bankruptcy.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
We'll tell you about it coming up.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
They are bleeding billions in Sacramento under Gavin Newsom. We're
going to talk with Katie Grimes from californiaglobe dot com
after three o'clock about the financial disaster that we're in
the middle of already.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
All right, here's another story.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Time's put out about the fire, and it's about next
fire comes. Is al a fire department prepared and a
lot of fire officials say no, could you believe this?
Eleven months under Karen Bass's rule here, since the fire,
we've gotten through three fire chiefs, and right now we
(22:54):
have Heimi Moore and he is requesting a fifteen percent
budget increase. Remember, the fire department's only half funded, so
it's it's half it says. If it's half funded, if
we only have fifty percent of the firefighters and the
equipment we need, by definition, we are not ready for
another major wildfire. The firefighters Union wants a sales tax
(23:17):
to bring in another three hundred million dollars a year.
I have an idea, why don't you shut down all
the programs that service illegal aliens and let's see where
we are.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
But it's not just the money.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
It's that they mismanaged what they did have last January,
starting with leaving the scene of the original fire on
New Year's Day and letting it smolder so that it
could be whipped up into a full blown blaze on
January seventh. Time says city and city officials and fire
(23:48):
experts don't think La is ready. Pass of course, claims
that the city is on the path to be completely ready.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
I don't know what that means.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Fire department has been way more aggressive, has done deployment,
been very visible, alert's going out early, trying to be
very very aggressive, so she says. But Genethia Hudley Hayes
is president of the Board of of Fire Commissioners. She
says the fire department's unprepared. Hasn't been enough time to
make changes. She said, the technology is two decades behind.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
You believe this.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Our technology in the la Fire Department is from the
two thousands. I am not confident there would be a
different result if a similar disaster strikes that's the president
of the Board of Fire Commissioners, Janethah Hudley Hayes, Tracy Park,
she's the council event on the west side Palisad's in
her district.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
She agreed.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
She said some changes have been made now the firefighters
have to stay the extra shift during red flag warnings,
but she said still eleven months later, too many fire
engines are still out of service, there's still not enough mechanics,
and all the questions about the original fires still are unanswered.
Mark Eckstein is an emergency physician who served as the
(25:05):
fire Department's medical director and commander of its Medical Service
Bureau until he retired a few years ago. Eckstein says
more money won't solve bad decision making by top officials.
There you go, that's a direct hit. Without transparency and
accountability of the fallback is always going to be what
it has been. He says, we need more of everything,
(25:26):
more people, more money, more fire trucks, more fire stations,
and you also need intelligent people making correct decisions.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Instead, I be more.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
The latest fire chief is pissed off, claiming everyone's smearing
as firefighters. Hey, we're not the ones who left early
and they didn't tell anybody about it. Exstein says a
modern fire agency has to have flexibility to surge during
a disaster. He says a panel of outside experts should
have been given access to fire department records to get
(25:57):
an unbiased look on how the department perform leading up
to enduring the fire. They still haven't done that. We
haven't had any outsiders. Look at the mess that they made,
he says, it's a playbook. Okay, how do we prevent
this from happening again? The fact that it didn't happen
is a disgrace. So they haven't really done an investigation.
(26:19):
They haven't really been given access to all the fire
department's records. This is truly crazy land, and vass is
running around running for reelection by now. She should have
pulled all this together and everything should have been reformed
and fixed and accounted for. There should have been a
massive budget increase. Instead, what did she spend the year doing?
(26:42):
Running around screaming about ice agents arresting illegal alience that
was her issue of the year. Did nothing, did nothing
to prevent or respond to the fire, has done nothing
to prepare the city for the next fire. Nothing just
screams about ice agents like a Looney tune, like one
(27:06):
of the homeless women in MacArthur Park. That's the only
time she shows any animation, any energy, any interest.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
It's always for the illegal aliens.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
It's never about us, the taxpayers, the American citizens, the.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
People who work every day and pay her salary. She's
never interested in any of us.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
We come back, we're gonna have Katie Grimes from californiaglobe
dot com on the disaster in Sacramento, the financial collapse
that's going to be happening this year under Gavin Newsom. Hey,
you've been listening to The John Cobalt 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
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