CA Gov. Gavin Newsom tried to use President Biden as a shield when a distraught wildfire victim confronted him Thursday -- but his efforts kinda blew up in his face.
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00:00LA is still just struggling with everything that's going on.
00:06There are so many thousands of people displaced, homes lost, worldly possessions gone.
00:13People don't know where to live, where to go, where their kids are going to go to school.
00:17It is a mess here.
00:19And now people are rightfully demanding some answers.
00:23They're angry.
00:24There are a lot of people who are angry.
00:25And one person who is extremely angry got to put her concerns directly to Governor Gavin
00:33Newsom as he was leaving, as I guess he'd been touring some of the damage in Pacific
00:38Palisades and was walking to his vehicle when she ran up to him and fired off a series of
00:45questions.
00:46Now, you're going to see here, Governor Newsom tries to, how do I say this?
00:52How do I say it nicely?
00:53Diffuse the situation?
00:54I guess he was trying to diffuse, really, he didn't want to talk to her.
00:57He was trying to get out of the conversation.
01:00He wanted to get into his SUV without dealing with this woman.
01:05But it didn't happen.
01:06That was my daughter's school, Governor.
01:07Please tell me what you're going to do.
01:08I'm not going to hurt him.
01:09I promise.
01:10I'm literally talking to the president right now to specifically answer the question of
01:16what we can do for you and your daughter.
01:18Can I hear it?
01:19Can I hear your call?
01:20Because I don't believe it.
01:21I'm sorry.
01:22I'm sorry.
01:23There's literally, I've tried five times.
01:24That's why I'm walking around to make the call.
01:25Why is the president not taking your call?
01:26Because it's not going through.
01:27Why?
01:28So I have to get self-service.
01:29So let's get it.
01:30Let's get it.
01:31I want to be here when you call the president.
01:32I appreciate it.
01:33I'm doing that right now.
01:34And to immediately get reimbursements, individual assistance, and to help you, I'm devastated
01:35for you.
01:36I'm so sorry.
01:37Do you know there's water dripping over there, Governor?
01:38There's water coming out there.
01:39You can use it.
01:40I appreciate it.
01:41I'm going to make the call to address this.
01:42I'm sorry.
01:43I'm sorry.
01:44I'm sorry.
01:45I'm sorry.
01:46I'm sorry.
01:48I'm sorry.
01:49I'm sorry.
01:50I'm sorry.
01:51There's water coming out there.
01:52You can use it.
01:53I appreciate it.
01:54I'm going to make the call to address everything I can right now, including making sure people
01:55are safe.
01:56I'd like to make sure you do.
01:57Can I have an opportunity to at least tell people you're doing what you're saying you're
02:00doing?
02:03Could somebody have a contact?
02:04Can I have your contact information?
02:05I would love to.
02:06Yes, she might be right there.
02:07First of all, she was really aggressive with him.
02:10She's a lawyer, by the way.
02:12Yeah, she's a lawyer.
02:13He was on television before, so she is making her presence known everywhere.
02:19But in terms of what Newsom did, you know, the first thing he said was, I'm on the phone
02:24with the president.
02:25And then it pivoted to, well, I'm trying to get on the phone, and I don't have cell service,
02:31and once I do, then I'll get him on the phone.
02:34It just looked like he was trying to avoid the conversation.
02:40And it's an uncomfortable one.
02:41So on the other side of it, I would say some of the things that she was saying, like there's
02:45water dripping over there, we could use that.
02:47I mean, that wasn't the issue.
02:49That's not the issue at all.
02:52He's not alone in all of this.
02:54Our mayor, Karen Bass, is taking a lot of heat for not just the reaction to the fire
03:02and the leadership, but also things that preceded it, which include recommended budget cuts
03:09that could have shut down, I believe it was 16 stations.
03:15It was like a $48 million cut that was recommended.
03:18And remember, I mean, all cities are struggling.
03:20L.A. is struggling.
03:22She has to balance the budget.
03:24And one of the ways she was doing it was to cut expenditures in the fire department.
03:30And now people are looking at that saying, what is going on?
03:34On top of that, now we find out that there's a big reservoir in the west side that had
03:41millions and millions, could have had millions of gallons of water.
03:44But it had been shut down for a regularly scheduled maintenance.
03:47So it was empty and dry.
03:49It's interesting, right?
03:51Reservoirs need maintenance sometimes, and they're going to be empty when it's in maintenance.
03:55Typically, this is our wettest season of the year here in Southern California.
03:58They do the best they can.
04:00And sometimes weather events happen.
04:01I'm not justifying Mayor Bass, especially in her difficulty articulating even what the
04:06plan is.
04:07But to pin on her budget cuts, for example, we can always prevent these things by paying
04:14gobs and gobs more taxes and have everything up to date.
04:17But that's not the way it works.
04:18They're budget, difficult budgetary cuts.
04:20It's not like she cut all this money from the fire prevention and therefore pocketed
04:26it in the pockets of millionaires.
04:28She did that in order to preserve spending on schools.
04:30Yeah, but that's what we don't know, Jason.
04:33What we don't know is what was preserved at what expense.
04:37But just the knee-jerk reaction to just say she cut it, therefore she's to blame is, A,
04:42silly from a scientific point of view.
04:44These fires were not going to be prevented by more water.
04:46And number two, no.
04:48No.
04:49I'm sorry.
04:50It was not going to be prevented by more water.
04:52And firefighters themselves have said, and I know they wanted and needed to have better
04:58water pressure, but that wasn't going to make the difference of what happened late
05:02Tuesday night.
05:03No.
05:04We would have had a massive fire.
05:05The issue is it's a firefight with a knife.
05:09It's like...
05:10Well, but they couldn't fight it at all with 100-mile-an-hour winds.
05:13They have to back up for their own lives, for their own safety.
05:16Right.
05:17But the winds did die down, and they were still having...
05:19They did.
05:20We literally had somebody in LA who had his wife go to the store to get bottled water
05:28to throw it on their neighbor's fire because they couldn't get any water from the hydrant.
05:33I want to just take a moment.
05:34We need to be fair to Governor Newsom.
05:38After we saw that video, that exchange, we called his office to get some response about
05:43was there going to be any action taken.
05:47And the governor said that...
05:48The governor's office said that he actually did get on the phone.
05:52There was a video call with President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
05:56And Karen Bass.
05:57And that the president had committed the government to covering recovery costs for the first 180
06:05days.
06:06And that 100 percent...
06:07Normally, it's 75 percent.
06:09They got the president to go to 100 percent.
06:12Right.
06:13Which is a win.
06:14My name is Ahmad.
06:15I'm actually in Los Angeles myself.
06:18I definitely don't believe that Governor Newsom was on the phone with the president like he
06:23said he was.
06:24He was just trying to avoid her.
06:26He didn't want to have anything to do with her.
06:28The response he gave was politically correct.
06:30Anytime there's a situation like this, anytime there's a natural disaster, they're always
06:34saying that they're doing the best that they can in situations like this.
06:37But at the same time, it was kind of giving Karen, she's not the only person that this
06:41is affecting.
06:42And she was really bold.
06:43And it was not like he was going to be able to fix it on the spot.
06:46Well, the way you just said it is the prevailing view in our newsroom.
06:50That is exactly what everybody in the newsroom said.
06:52He was trying to dodge her, but man, she was a lot.
06:55A lot.