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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Dangerous Palisades Fire Burning Nearly Four Football Fields A Minute, Trump Won't Rule Out Military Force Over Greenland, Panama Canal; Facebook, Instagram Will Get Rid Of Fact Checkers And Replace Them With Community Notes; Meta Cutting Third-Party Fact-Checkers; Palisades Fire Grows In Southern California. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired January 07, 2025 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
GREG YOST, PACIFIC PALISADES RESIDENT: All right, bye.
JEFF MARKS, PACIFIC PALISADES RESIDENT: Bye.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: All right, as we continue to monitor these fires, you can see them here in our live shot off in the distance, as I said, spreading right now, three to four football fields a minute as we understand it.
Those are images of Pacific Palisades, California as these winds are expected to continue throughout the night all the way into the early hours of tomorrow, threatening Los Angeles with their ferociousness and the rapid speeds of those winds right now to 50 miles an hour.
Thank you so much for being with us. I'm going to hand it off right now to AC360.
[20:00:35]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER: 360": Tonight on 360, the president-elect talks about using American troops to seize territory from US allies by force. That and more from a press conference which included his decision, he says, to rename the Gulf of Mexico.
Also, his son visits one of those territories, Greenland and what NATO ally, Denmark says of the Trump acquisition plans.
Plus, Meta's decision to get rid of factcheckers. I'll talk about the impact with business lecturer and podcaster professor, Scott Galloway.
Good evening, thanks for joining us.
We begin right now with the wildfires in California. CNN's Nick Watt is in Pacific Palisades, where evacuations are underway.
Nick, explain what's going on.
NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, the sun has not set here, but you wouldn't know that because you cannot see a thing. But this black, acrid smoke. This house here was fine about 20 minutes ago. I was walking down this road suddenly. Bang! It was up. These houses on the other side of the road. If you pan over here, these have been burning for some time now.
You mentioned evacuations, Anderson. About 30,000 people have evacuated. Hundreds of firefighters, now, in trying to save those people's homes. This place obviously a goner.
But what they're trying to do elsewhere is they're trying to soak down these beautiful big hedges that they have in this neighborhood, because that is just fuel.
The issue, this wind, Anderson, you can see it whipping that smoke. And you see those embers, those are a big problem because those embers are going to fly on that wind. And they can land and they can set a spot fire somewhere else. They can hit another house.
So it's that wind, and that wind is nowhere near its peak yet. We've had big gusts for sure, but the wind is going to peak early, just before dawn tomorrow morning.
So, there is a terrible night ahead for these firefighters and a terrible night ahead for the thousands of people who have evacuated and have no idea what they're going to come back to, if anything.
You know, a lot of people -- the roads around here are very narrow. It's a little hilly, very affluent community. So evacuating people on these roads was a massive problem. There were just traffic jams. People abandoned their cars, walked with their luggage, and then the Fire Department, of course, had to get their firefighting equipment in. So they use bulldozers just to clear those cars out of the way so they can get in to try to fight this fire.
So as I say, Anderson, it's going to be early hours of the morning when we see the worst of this wind. And the other problem, this vegetation. We haven't had significant rain out here in LA since the spring. So there is so much dry vegetation and that that's just fuel -- Anderson.
COOPER: And Nick, where you are, it looks, I mean, it looks like there's fresh -- there's dry vegetation all around you. Is that also in danger of I mean, are you, is that going to erupt in flames as well?
WATT: Am I what -- sorry, Anderson?
COOPER: All the stuff around you, is that going to erupt in flames? Those flames look very close, Nick.
WATT: Well, I mean, it might. Chris, lets come down here. I mean, all of this stuff is green, okay. Which -- listen, that's no guarantee. But, you know, we've obviously parked our vehicle just up the road. We are facing the right way. So, if we need to get out, we can get out.
Look at this home. I mean, it is just disintegrating in front of our eyes. Chris, if you come here, you can just see, you know, as I say, Anderson, 20 minutes ago, half an hour ago, this place was fine. And now look at it. And this is just what we are going to continue to see throughout the night. They are trying to contain this fire, but, you know, the wind started picking up. I was down on the beach eight o'clock this morning. The wind started, you know, picking up a little, by 10:30 this fire had lit and we knew this was coming.
In California, you know, when a Santa Ana event like this comes, you know that there are going to be fires.
So Fire Departments had pre-positioned their resources to try and deal with this. But, you know, between 10:30 and now, we're now up over 1,200 acres just in the space of this very, very dark day.
As I say, it is hard to believe that there is any sun up there right now. Wow, and this wind is just going to get worse.
Anderson, back to you.
COOPER: Nick, it is just incredible. Get to a safe location. We'll check back in with you shortly.
Coming up right now, politics, 13 days from now, Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 47th president. Today, he spoke to reporters, giving them and us a view of coming attractions, as well as his new state of mind, which kind of sounds like his old one.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R) PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: They brought this moron out of The Hague. He's a mean guy. He's a mean, nasty guy. His picture was perfect because you look at his picture, you say that's a bad guy. with his robe, his purple robe, and he executes people. He shouldn't be allowed to execute people because he'll execute everybody. He's a nut job.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[20:05:19]
COOPER: So he's talking about Special Counsel Jack Smith who former served as a war crimes prosecutor at The Hague, which is where they wear those robes. And he didn't execute people, the actually the top sentence for somebody convicted, there is 30 years.
Smith, as you know, has seen his cases against the president-elect go away and Mr. Trump is trying to keep his final report of those cases from being published. Now, the incoming president also renewed his gripes about electric versus gas heat.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Gas heater is much less expensive. The heat is much better. It's a much better heat, as the expression goes, you don't itch.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: And he also talked about low flow faucets.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: No water comes out of the shower. It goes drip, drip, drip. So, what happens? You're in the shower ten times as long. You know, no water comes out of the faucet.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: He also railed against wind power and listed a number of reasons, including the mental health of whales.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: You see what's happening up in the Massachusetts area with the whales, where they had two whales wash ashore, in I think, a 17-year period, and now they had 14 this season. The windmills are driving the whales crazy, obviously.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: According to the federal government, they're not. But as strange as some of that might sound, it's all part of a serious plan to reverse Biden-Obama environmental policies, which Donald Trump campaigned on and won. Meaning what he said today may not yet just be talk, nor, perhaps are his recent musings about buying Greenland, demanding back the Panama Canal and even annexing Canada.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Can you assure the world that as you try to get control of these areas, you are not going to use military or economic coercion?
TRUMP: No.
REPORTER: Are you going to negotiate a new treaty? Are you going to ask the Canadians to hold a vote? What is the strategy?
TRUMP: I can't assure you, you're talking about Panama and Greenland. No, I can't assure you on either of those two. But I can say this, we need them for economic security. The Panama Canal was built for our military.
REPORTER: -- the military --
TRUMP: I'm not going to commit to that now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, not only did he not rule out military or economic power to strong arm our NATO ally, Denmark or Greenland, or a regional partner, Panama, his National Security adviser designate tonight doubled down on some of it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MICHAEL WALTZ, INCOMING WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Greenland is key to our National Security and the Arctic is important for our National Security.
REPORTER: So, you agree with that?
WALTZ: The president knows that.
REPORTER: Thank you.
WALTZ: I think he just said all options are on the table.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: As for the Gulf of Mexico, stay tuned.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We're going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, which has a beautiful ring. That covers a lot of territory, the Gulf of America, what a beautiful name.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Joining us now is Kaitlan Collins, who anchors "The Source" at the top of the next hour. Also, CNN political analyst and "New York Times" senior political columnist Maggie Haberman.
Kaitlan, did the president-elect just riff in front of the cameras today? Is he serious about potentially military action to gain control of Greenland and Panama Canal? Is that just kind of leaving options on the table for some negotiation?
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF CORRESPONDENT: I think the answer would be yes and yes, Anderson. I mean, the idea, though, that he is just coming up with this on the fly, that's not the case. I mean, he's been talking about buying Greenland since he was in office the last time eight years ago. It was in 2019 or so that he came up with this idea and started talking about it.
He actually tasked some of his foreign policy aides at the time, one of them in his National Security adviser, Ambassador John Bolton. I'm going to talk to him in the next hour about this. He pressed him to figure out specifics on this matter.
So, it was something that National Security aides talked about. It kind of blew up and never really went anywhere after it became public in a report by "The Wall Street Journal."
But it's certainly something he's entertained and then the Panama Canal has been a fixation of his for the last several weeks from people that I've been talking to in his orbit. It is something that he has gone on at about at length talking about that, talking about Chinese influence. And it's something that that people that I've spoken to have said that he seems increasingly serious about when he is talking about it behind the scenes. Now, we've heard from Panamanian officials saying that this is not happening, that they are not negotiating on this, that it is not going to belong to any other country. So it is a real question of once he does regain power 13 days from now, what this looks like, because you are seeing his incoming National Security aides, Michael Waltz there, the Florida congressman defending what Trump was articulating earlier, which is that there is a National Security purpose to the United States obtaining Greenland.
I think the thing that surprised people, even in Trump's orbit today, was that he wasn't ruling out taking military action in order to achieve those goals in order to do that, whether it is Greenland or the Panama Canal. And so, that's really going to be the question there, because that's different than some kind of negotiation or a treaty about security. That is Trump saying that he's not ruling out using the military to achieve his interest here.
[20:10:30]
COOPER: Maggie, how did you see today's press conference?
MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, I think everything Kaitlan said is correct. You know, especially on Greenland, these things are not all the same. Panama is a relatively new focus of his, as Kaitlan said, Greenland, not only has he been talking about it for some time, but a lot of people have been talking about it for some time.
This idea of acquiring Greenland for strategic purposes has happened, you know, for decades and a close friend of Trump's suggested it to him in his first term, Ron Lauder. It's never totally gone away.
But Trump is clearly in an expansionist mindset. He also keeps talking about Canada as a 51st state, that is clearly much more of a troll than sort of a dominance play. But in terms of Trump talking about military action, or at least not ruling it out, as Kaitlan said, that caught a lot of people by surprise.
It's not clear if that's actually something he's thinking about or something he said, because he was quite visibly in a pretty bad mood during this press conference. I think primarily because of the legal challenges that he's facing this week in the New York criminal case, and with the possibility of the Jack Smith report and the documents federal case getting released.
So, what that looks like when he gets into office remains to be seen, but it's not a surprise that Trump, at least in his language, has never been especially respectful of sovereign borders. We'll see what that looks like in actual practice.
COOPER: Well, Maggie, how much of this is about also, you know, obviously he ran on mass deportations starting on day one. How much of this is sort of trying to have there be focus on other things as well, in case that doesn't necessarily happen as promised?
HABERMAN: Yes, I don't actually think that so much of things are willful distractions as just the fact that Trump and a lot of his advisers like to flood the zone with a number of things, and it swamps the media and overwhelms the media and overwhelms his critics and opposition and then it's much harder to stop any of them.
He may not get, you know, the sweeping level of mass deportations that he has promised. It's worth remembering that he made the same promise in 2016, and it didn't quite happen that way. But do I think there will be a lot of actions related to immigration on day one or shortly thereafter? I do, and I don't think that he's especially concerned with distraction. I think he has a lot of things that he wants to get done, and he is going to throw them all out there and see what he can succeed at.
COOPER: Kaitlan, I want to play some more of what the president-elect said today about President Biden.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: President Biden's actions yesterday on offshore drilling, banning offshore drilling will not stand. You know, they told me that we're going to do everything possible to make this transition to the new administration very smooth. It's not smooth because they're doing that. They're playing with the courts.
China is running the Panama Canal, and they come to see this Biden, this guy who should never have been allowed even to run for president. This was a Biden fiasco that he got us -- that should have never happened, if we had a real president --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: I mean, President Trump is supposed to get in a limo with President Biden less than two weeks to ride up the Capitol for the inauguration.
COLLINS: We'll see if that actually happens. I'm not convinced that that it will necessarily take place. He's alternated between speaking highly of President Biden in recent weeks, and then today clearly was fuming. He's been arguing that Biden is trying to hamper the transition. Obviously, that was the irony of ironies, given Trump was certainly trying to hamper his transition, to say the least, four years ago.
But I think one thing he's been complaining about is the executive orders and the actions President Biden has been taking in his last few weeks in power. That's something you see every president who is on their way out do, whether it's pardons or executive actions, trying to cement their legacy, whether they've had four years in office or eight years.
Trump himself did it four years ago. He actually had signed double the executive orders that President Biden has signed in this period when he was about to leave office. I think it was about 14 and Biden has signed six or so, so far with maybe more to come.
And so, I think though really, you know, hearing Trump speak there and listening to him as he came out today, what was so clear was that he was so angry, and he very quickly made clear what he was angry about. And that is, as Maggie referenced there, his legal cases and his issues, his issues before him, whether it's the Jack Smith report that could be coming out within a matter of days, depending on how an appeals court rules and also whether or not he's going to be sentenced on Friday in New York because he was just rejected by another appeals court in New York today. His attorneys are still working on that. I think that was an underlying part of so much of what we heard today.
COOPER: Maggie, there has been this expectation the president-elect wouldn't pardon rioters convicted of assaulting police officers on January 6th, more than about 150 or so officers were injured.
Today, he didn't seem to rule that or he didn't rule it out. Do you think it's going to -- what will make the distinction if and when he chooses those pardons, do you think?
[20:15:20]
HABERMAN: It's not clear, Anderson. It was one of the more astonishing parts of that press conference, although, I will say the assumption that he wouldn't do that was just that, an assumption. He has never said that he wouldn't. And he likes to leave himself maximum room. He is really testing what the public is going to tolerate with this suggestion about pardons for people connected to January 6th.
Now, what some of his advisers were saying a year ago or six months ago was, well, some of these people who were arrested, you know, were barely in the building or were not part of it or were and so forth. And that's why this is going to be acceptable to people if we issue these clemency grants.
But, you know, suggesting -- pivoting from he got asked a question specifically about a hundred -- roughly 140 police officers who were injured that day. And would he issue clemency grants to people who were involved in those incidents? And he answered by saying, Ashli Babbitt, a supporter of his, was the only person who was killed.
So, you know, we will see where this goes. But the question of exactly who gets clemency here in terms of the pool of people connected to J-6 and who doesn't, has been a very hard subject to pin down for the last couple of months, I think, because there is not agreement within Trump's world on what to do.
COOPER: All right, Maggie Haberman, thanks, Kaitlan. We'll see you at the top of the nine at "The Source" in your conversations mentioned with John Bolton.
Next, in a rising sea of social media disinformation, what to make of Mark Zuckerberg's decision to end factchecking on Facebook and Instagram. The always interesting Professor Scott Galloway has a lot of thoughts on that, he joins me.
Also ahead, an update from the fire lines in the LA area. These fires are just crazy to see, the smoke everywhere in Los Angeles.
We'll be right back with more.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:15:53]
COOPER: Four years ago today, Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook and Instagram would indefinitely block then-President Trump's accounts in the wake of the January 6th attacks. The CEO wrote on his own Facebook page, "We believe the risks of allowing the president to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great." So that was exactly four years ago.
Last year, the accounts were reinstated. Today, Zuckerberg announced the rebranded Meta, which includes Facebook and Instagram, will now end its factchecking program. User generated community notes, which now police misinformation much as they do on X, formerly known as Twitter. So today, in response to a question from CNN's Steve Contorno, Trump said this about the announcement.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I watched their news conference and I thought it was a very good news conference. I think they've honestly, I think they've come a long way, Meta, Facebook. I think they've come a long way. I watched it, the man was very impressive.
REPORTER: Do you think he's directly responding to the threats that you have made to him in the past with these.
TRUMP: Probably, yes, probably.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Donie O'Sullivan has more on the new policy.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARK ZUCKERBERG, CEO OF FACEBOOK: I've seen some of the stories that you're talking about around this election.
DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Mark Zuckerberg, just days after the 2016 election.
ZUCKERBERG: The idea that, you know, fake news on Facebook, of which, you know, it's a very small amount of the content influenced the election in any way, I think is a pretty crazy idea.
O'SULLIVAN (voice over): But 12 months later, as the full scope of the role of misinformation and Russian trolls became more clear, Zuckerberg apologized, saying his comments were dismissive and that he regretted them.
ZUCKERBERG: What's clear is that in 2016, we were not as on top of a number of issues as we should have, whether it was Russian interference or fake news.
O'SULLIVAN (voice over): By the time the 2018 midterms came around, Facebook was showing off its so-called election war room.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's really the culmination of two years of massive investments that we've made.
O'SULLIVAN (voice over): The company also launched a global factchecking program.
ZUCKERBERG: No one tells us that they want to see misinformation, right? That's why we work with independent factcheckers to stop hoaxes that are going viral from spreading.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The factcheckers, I don't trust them.
O'SULLIVAN (voice over): But soon many conservatives and Trump supporters specifically took issue with factcheck labels appearing over their Facebook posts.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Anything I put on there about our president is generally only on for a few minutes, and then all of a sudden they're factchecking me, saying this, that, which I know is not true. Their factchecker is wrong.
O'SULLIVAN (voice over): But Zuckerberg made one group exempt from being factchecked on his platforms -- politicians.
REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): So, you won't take down lies or you will take down lies. I think that's just a pretty simple yes or no.
ZUCKERBERG: Congresswoman --
OCASIO-CORTEZ: I'm not talking about spin. I'm talking about actual disinformation.
ZUCKERBERG: Yes. In a democracy, I believe that people should be able to see for themselves what politicians that they may or may not vote for --
OCASIO-CORTEZ: So you won't them down.
ZUCKERBERG: -- character for themselves.
O'SULLIVAN (voice over): In 2024, as candidate Trump gained in the polls, he had this to say about Zuckerberg in a book published two months before the election. "If he does anything illegal this time, he will spend the rest of his life in prison."
After Trump won the election, Zuckerberg met with him at Mar-a-Lago in late November. Then, on Tuesday morning --
ZUCKERBERG: Hey everyone --
O'SULLIVAN (voice over): Zuckerberg announced he was shutting down Meta's factchecking program in the US.
ZUCKERBERG: After Trump first got elected in 2016. The legacy media wrote nonstop about how misinformation was a threat to democracy. We tried in good faith to address those concerns without becoming the arbiters of truth.
But the factcheckers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they've created, especially in the US.
ALAN DUKE, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, LEAD STORIES: Too politically biased, that was a very disappointing thing to hear.
O'SULLIVAN (voice over): Alan Duke, a former CNN journalist, runs a fact checking organization hired by Facebook.
DUKE: If in the six years that we were factchecking for Meta, we had been politically biased at all. They never said anything. We never heard one example of where that had happened.
O'SULLIVAN (on camera): Were you surprised by Mark Zuckerberg's decision to shut down the fact checking program?
ANGIE DROBNIC HOLAN, DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL FACT-CHECKING NETWORK: I was and I wasn't. There's been a lot of political pressure on journalists generally, and factcheckers specifically from the Trump administration and its supporters.
I'm surprised that the tech platforms in general are being so accommodating to the government.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[20:25:12]
O'SULLIVAN (on camera): And, Anderson, look, I mean, it is pretty clear that Meta and Zuckerberg are trying to placate Trump here in many ways with a lot of the moves they've made over the past few weeks. But if you really track what Zuckerberg was saying over the years through 2016, 2020, and, you know, you could tell his heart was never in this. He never really wanted to have Facebook in this position where they were applying these factcheck labels.
So, although there's a huge change, a seismic change for the rules on the platform, and remember, billions of people use this platform around the world, millions here in the United States.
For Zuckerberg himself, I mean, I do think this is going back to the roots of how he sees this platform, which is a bit hands off.
COOPER: Yes, well, there's also an economic incentive, which we're going to talk about right now.
Donie O'Sullivan, thank you.
Perspective from Scott Galloway, Professor of Marketing at NYU Stern School of Business. He's also host of "The Markets Podcast" and co- host of "Pivot" with Kara Swisher.
Scott, what's your reaction to this decision by Meta, especially the timing, the political backdrop, obviously?
SCOTT GALLOWAY, PROFESSOR OF MARKETING AT NYU STERN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS: Well, the timing is pretty obvious. This was I mean, essentially, Mark Zuckerberg is one of the most brilliant businessmen in history, and we should stop using the term stakeholder value, it's all about shareholder value. And this will reduce their safety and content moderation budget which was $5 billion in 2022.
So, if they can cut that in half without the need to moderate content and reduce their safety and security team at a PE of 30, you're looking at a $75 billion increase in market cap. This is $10 billion in Zuckerberg's pocket.
The more Meta effect, if you will, is it will weaken democracies. One of the keys are the three pillars of really strong democracies that trust in our institutions, shared values or shared stories and social networks that have a lot of trust and this will weaken all three, because the level of misinformation is about to skyrocket across the mediums, where between one-half and two-thirds of Americans get their news.
COOPER: I just want to play what President-elect Trump said today at Mar-a-Lago. When asked by CNN's Steve Contorno about Meta's decision.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I watched their news conference and I thought it was a very good news conference. I think they've -- honestly -- I think they've come a long way, Meta, Facebook. I think they've come a long way. I watched it. The man was very impressive.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Steve also asked him if Meta's decision to get rid of fact checkers was in direct response to threats he's made to Mark Zuckerberg in the past. And Trump said, yes, probably. I mean, the extent to which a lot of these tech billionaires are kind of following or trying to play catch up, I guess, with Elon Musk in making inroads with the new administration.
GALLOWAY: The best investment, the best trade of 2024 was Elon Musk put $250 million into the Trump campaign, and since then, the value of his companies and his stake in those companies is up by about $140 billion. So, that's about a 5,600 percent return.
COOPER: And that's not any change in the in Tesla and the output or anything --
GALLOWAY: Nothing to do with the company. Nothing to do with their operating margins, their innovation, their sales. It's based on a general assumption that America has become a full kleptocracy like Russia, that the largest, deepest pocketed customer in the history of our modern economy, the US government will effectively is now or effectively is now pay to play and will shuffle contracts, moneys, and impose regulatory punishment on the competitors to the companies who do not invest in the Republican Party or in his inaugural campaign, as evidenced by the fact that very few of these tech executives invested in the inaugural campaign fund for Biden, and they are all doing it for Trump.
We have gone full kleptocrat, and if you don't think this hurts everyone, this raises prices. And for the little guy or the companies that don't want to engage in this type of pay for play, it hurts them. This is now -- this will increase prices and weaken our democracy. This is absolutely no different than how Putin became the wealthiest man in the world.
COOPER: Do you think this is a long-term change in the political direction of these tech companies, or would they shift course when the president-elect leaves office?
GALLOWAY: Yes, absolutely. I mean, there's two things going on here. This is good for shareholder value, for Meta to not have to live up to the standards of traditional media companies.
News Corp, decided to circulate misinformation around dominion voting machines, despite the fact they knew that was false information. They were sued because it resulted in economic harm against dominion, and they were punished to the tune of about three-quarters of $1 billion.
What happened at News Corp on Fox was a dumpster fire compared to the nuclear mushroom cloud of what took place on Meta, yet, Meta is immune. So what you have is these companies that are circulating or kind of a misinformation lollapalooza, quite frankly, are just running away with it in terms of profitability, in terms of shareholder value.
So they're totally driven by shareholder value. They're doing their job. We're not doing our job in terms of electing terms of electing representatives who have the backbone to stand up to attempts to weaponize the government and still believe in a Democratic America, where there's competition, where misinformation, where a lack of truth, a lack of trust in our institutions remain pillars of our society. That's seems to be eroding, but they will they will go where the puck goes and that is whatever increases the value of their shares.
COOPER: Scott Galloway, I appreciate your time. Thank you.
GALLOWAY: Thank you, Anderson.
[20:30:49]
COOPER: Coming up, back to the fires in the Pacific Palisades. A live report from two of our correspondents right in the middle of them.
Plus, why Donald Trump Jr. was just in Greenland the day his dad would not rule out taking it by force.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:35:00] COOPER: Take a look at some of the dangerous and fast-moving wildfires burning in Los Angeles. President Biden, who is in Los Angeles, has been briefed on the situation, and FEMA has already approved emergency assistance money for affected communities. CNN's Nick Watt and Natasha Chen are both on the story. First, let's go back to Nick. Nick, explain where you are and what you're seeing.
WATT: Well, so, Anderson, I'm at the same house I was at when I spoke to you last time, it had just caught fire. Look at it now. This is the garage. Cars inside, up in flames.
You know, Governor Gavin Newsom called this the perpetual fire year. It used to be fire season in Los Angeles was limited. It's not anymore. We need to get this -- it's getting a bit hot here, Anderson. We're just going to walk up the hill a little bit.
So, look at these embers. You can really see them. Chris, if you pan up those -- that's the problem. Look at all those embers coming off this one house. Thousands, millions of embers that could start other spot fires further away.
So, it is now nightfall and the firefighters are going to be here all night. We're not going to see the peak of these winds until the early hours of the morning. And so, this wind is just going to keep on whipping these flames, whipping these embers, and it is just so dry.
All of this is just Vegetation, we haven't had rain here since the spring, really significant rain. So, it's just fuel. And so, this beautiful hillside, just to the kind of northwest of Los Angeles, is burning right now. And the question is just, how far will it go?
You know, evacuation orders have stretched down towards Santa Monica. They're a couple of blocks away from my house. It would be unprecedented for a fire to reach that far. But as I say, it's those embers on the wind that are the problem. So, here, fire departments from around the area are going to have a very long night, Anderson, a long night.
COOPER: Yes, my understanding is those embers, I mean, they can actually go pretty far distances and set down and start another fire. What is the strategy for firefighters? I mean, I see the fire truck to the left, or I guess facing -- where you're facing in that direction, is it to just -- is this area is kind of just lost so they let it burn out? What is the strategy on fighting?
WATT: Yes. I mean, listen, you don't want to let too much burn out because that's just more and more embers. But it's -- you know, at some point, there's not much more they can do for these houses. And so, they're just trying to contain.
So, they're wetting -- they're hosing down. You know, I saw some homeowners as well as firefighters earlier just hosing down their yards, hosing down their hedges, just hoping that that might help, that if an ember lands on a wet leaf, it won't light. That's what they're trying to do. Trying to contain a fire in an area like this, Anderson, is nearly impossible. It is steep. It is just crisscrossed by these tiny little roads. It is very hard to get in and like dig any fire lines, you know, clear any areas. You're really relying on roads largely, the Pacific Coast Highway, which is down there, you know, that's a big barrier. That's what they're relying on. They're trying to contain.
But look, I mean, look at -- you know, things like this. So, many houses we've seen today. You know, I mean, I saw a house just further up the hill, a multimillion-dollar home that hadn't even finished construction gone. I don't know. I've covered a few fires, this is bad.
COOPER: Nick, how much time does a homeowner in an area like this have to evacuate?
WATT: Well, not long. So, this fire started at 10:30 in the morning. I mean, listen, people were warned ahead of time that this was going to come. But of course, it's human nature. It's not going to come near my house. So, people didn't get out. Then the mandatory evacuations came in and people were just stuck on these tiny little roads.
You know, I walked -- was down just by the Pacific Coast Highway about an hour or so ago, and you just saw BMWs, Teslas, lots of other normal people cars as well, just bulldozed off the carriageway so that these fire engines could get through.
People were just stuck in traffic. They were trying to get out. They took their bags and they walked. I spoke to a couple of people who live high up in the hills here who tried to evacuate, couldn't. So, just had to go back home and sit tight and hope for the best. Anderson.
COOPER: And how long has the fire that you're in there, I mean, is it going all the way up the hill or down the hill? I assume this is an area that has the kind of winding roads with houses built all around it, snaking up and down the hill.
[20:40:00]
WATT: So, -- exactly. So, the fire started higher up. So, this neighborhood, this beautiful neighborhood climbs up the hills into the Santa Monica Mountains and beyond the houses, beautiful trails. It's a great recreational area. Beautiful area, that's where the fire started, and then it's been moving with these winds.
See, these winds are moving. These warm winds are moving from the desert inland down through this area and then down to the ocean. So, the winds are coming. The fire started up in Santa Monica Mountains. The winds are taking those flames and those embers down through this neighborhood and down towards the Pacific Ocean.
The question is, is it also going to turn sort of southeast into Santa Monica, into the rest of Los Angeles? That's the fear, of course. That's what they're trying to avoid. You know, this place -- I covered one other fire here in 2021. And we thought it was bad at the time. It was nothing like this. They are calling this like the most devastating wind event in over a decade. This is what that looks like.
COOPER: Yes. Nick, stand by. We're going to talk to Sheila Kelliher right now. She's captain for the Los Angeles County Fire Department at their command center, which I understand is now under threat from the flames. Captain, I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us. Can you tell us about what your firefighters are up against right now? And what's your situation where you are?
CAPT. SHEILA KELLIHER, LOS ANGELES COUNTY FIRE DEPARTMENT: So, thank you, Anderson, for having us. The winds are kicking us and it's coming down the hill and the fire has actually burned some of the lifeguard towers on the beach. So, it's jumped the 101. So, where we're sitting by Will Rogers Beach, it's a big parking lot. But we're going to have to move our command post down to a safe area of Convention Center by Santa Monica.
So, these winds are --
COOPER: So, it's burned the lifeguard stations on the sand on the beach?
KELLIHER: Yes. That's correct. There's two lifeguard towers that actually have been burned as it jumped the 101. So, as I'm looking at this hillside, maybe I can go here so you can see. The lights are probably in the way, but the fire is up on that hill and it's coming at us. So, yes, it's --
COOPER: How fast is it moving?
KELLIHER: Boy, I would say we've got 30-mile an hour sustained gusts up to 40 and 50. It's just moving along pretty quick.
COOPER: How does this compare to things you've seen?
KELLIHER: Well, I was around for the Woolsey Fire and it's a very similar with the wind that the Woolsey Fire produced. And because it's in this hard, heavy terrain and steep hills and canyons, it makes it very challenging because this wind just keeps whipping. And although it's kind of prevailing out of southwest, it'll whip around and come back.
So, it's pretty incredible to know that the wind event peak is tonight between 10:00 and 6:00. So, that's hard to believe.
COOPER: So, wait a minute, the wind event peak -- it's 5:42 right now. So, you're -- I mean, that -- you're -- that's -- you got a long ways to go. It's going to be a rough night.
KELLIHER: It's going to be a long night. Everything that the weather service has been saying is that we are going to have the peak of the wind event from 10:00 p.m. our time to 6:00 a.m. So, we're in for a fight tonight.
COOPER: Do you have any sense of how many houses have been destroyed? I mean, how big is this? We're looking at a wide shot from KABC right now. I mean, it's the -- it looks like it's a vantage point for looking through Hollywood to the hills. I mean, it's incredible. It's like the fire lines stretching as far as you can see.
KELLIHER: That fire line is huge. Yes, it is. We haven't gotten -- the last updated was 1,200 acres, but I'm sure it's gotten bigger than that. We don't have a number of structures lost, but just listening to the radio, there are plenty of structures that are on fire. This is a tough one.
COOPER: Well, Captain Kelliher, I know you probably got to go. I don't want to take up your time. Thank you for all you're doing. I appreciate it. And we'll check in with you throughout the night. Thank you so much.
KELLIHER: Thanks for having us. Take care.
COOPER: All right. I want to go to CNN's Natasha Chen. Natasha, explain where you are right now and what you have been seeing tonight.
NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We're just up the road a little bit, up Pacific Coast Highway from the captain there. And I was about to tell you, Anderson, that you and I have covered a lot of hurricanes. I've stood next to you. The wind gusts right now feel like a tropical storm. And that is the real danger here than you heard that it's actually going to pick up and become even worse overnight. So, that is the real danger for how they are going to try and control this.
We actually just saw someone get put on a gurney behind us. And I'm not sure who that was. But we're very concerned about hearing whether there are any injuries, if any of the residents are still stuck up there. Just like Nick, I've talked to a lot of people who came down Sunset Drive -- Sunset Boulevard right here today. Throughout the day, we saw people coming down here, abandoning their cars, coming down by foot.
[20:45:00]
This is their only in and out point from their neighborhood, and the Pacific Coast Highway, the iconic PCH, you wouldn't even be able to tell what it typically looks like because of this -- the hazy smoke all throughout the day. And looking down in that direction, I can see flames along the highway as well.
So, really, you're talking about a difficulty with aerial strategy as well, because when you have winds this strong, you really can't have aircraft flying over. And when you're talking about dumping retardant or water from the ocean, it's just going to scatter in not the places that you targeted it to. So, that's becoming very difficult for the firefighting crews.
The people that I spoke to said that in their decades of living here, they had not seen the fire moved so quickly, come so close to their homes, and now, of course, they are very, very concerned about what homes they will have left to go back to. Thankfully, there were some schools that were evacuated.
But earlier today, we did see a lot of anxious parents knowing that their kids were getting evacuated, trying to get past the roadblock there. Anderson, we came up the Pacific Coast Highway to get to where we are today. And looking around, I am pretty sure that we can't go back the way we came.
COOPER: Well, also, Natasha, again, we're looking at this picture from KABC, and you can see this long fire line. What you can't see, I mean, you get a hint of it, is the smoke that is, is being generated by this fire. I mean, you can see some of it just illuminated by the flames there, but there is just a wall of smoke and it is -- I mean, it is moving incredibly fast. And anybody in this area, in Los Angeles, I mean, you can see this, it is dominant, it is filling up the sky, and as darkness comes, I mean, this is -- wow, it is going to be a very, very long night for a lot of people. Natasha, I appreciate your reporting, be careful. We're going to be checking in throughout the hour and the night here on CNN.
Up next, more on the president-elect's call for the U.S. to own Greenland, not ruling out the U.S. military to make it happen. We'll have more ahead.
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[20:50:00]
COOPER: And welcome back. We continue to look at this. This is a ridgeline above the Pacific Palisades. The line of flames several miles long, we're told. The high winds pushing them not expected to peak for hours tonight. CNN's Nick Watt is up there amidst those flames. I want to go back to him now.
Nick, I mean, it is surreal to see you there on the street for the last hour that has just been burning all around you. How many streets are there like this where you are?
WATT: Well, we took a back road up off Sunset Boulevard, and all of the little side streets, every little side street had houses like this or used to have houses like this, houses that now are no more.
And as you say, there's that ridge of fire that's sort of moving down, and we just heard, you were just speaking to the captain from the county fire a little while ago who said that, you know, the flames have also jumped the Pacific Coast Highway. That's a wide highway. That's four lanes, sometimes six. It's -- that's a big road. That's usually a fire break. These flames managed to jump that fire break and set some lifeguard huts down on the beach on fire.
And as the captain said, this is going to be a long -- every now and again, you can just hear the boom of something going up. This is going to be a very long night. You know, I've felt the wind getting steadily, steadily stronger throughout the afternoon, and it's not going to peak until the early hours. It's going to start getting even worse in about 10 minutes. That's 6:00 p.m. our time through to the morning.
It's going to be a rough night. And I do not know how they try to fight these flames in this terrain. I just don't know how they're going to do it.
COOPER: So, I mean --
WATT: I mean, there's all these huge fire trucks down these little alleys. Sorry?
COOPER: With wildfires in remote areas, they can bring in -- or in mountainous, they can bring in, you know, helicopters dropping water. Is that something they would do in an area like this?
WATT: You know, I've seen them do it in this area before in 2021, they were doing that. I have not seen any today. Wind is obviously a big problem when you've got assets in the air. You know, usually they would have huge fixed wing aircraft and helicopters dropping, and that is a big plus. They can douse flames, they can drop retardant. I have not seen any of those today.
That's not to say they haven't been there. I have not seen them in the air. I can only imagine it's the wind that is keeping that stuff out of the air. So, this is a fire that's being fought on the ground. And right now, that fire is winning, Anderson.
COOPER: How many -- do you have any sense of how many firefighters they're able to muster, you know, and do they bring in new, fresh ones all during the night? I mean, I assume people -- firefighters from all over the area are coming in.
WATT: Correct. And you know, they knew this was coming. They knew these winds were coming. They knew there was a high chance of fire, so they prepositioned assets.
So, of course, with all these fires, you get fire departments from all over California coming to help. There are hundreds of firefighters on the ground here. Most of the time in these fires, these guys will work 24-hour shifts on some of these fires. And I don't see many people getting much sleep here tonight.
They have a very active fire. They have winds that are only going to be getting worse and they have a lot of property to try to save here. Anderson.
COOPER: Yes, Nick, we're going to check in with you a moment. Joining us right now is Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, the Palisades are part of her district. Supervisor Horvath, thanks for being with us. What are your thoughts on seeing these fires?
[20:55:00]
LINDSEY HORVATH, L.A. COUNTY SUPERVISOR: It is unimaginable what we are seeing, but this is also what we prepare for with all of our communities. We work with our fire department. We work with law enforcement and first responders, our office of emergency management to prepare communities for this, but this is exactly the kind of emergency that people need to listen to those orders, evacuate, and do all that we can to keep people safe because this is a wild one.
COOPER: How do you prepare for something like this?
HORVATH: We have educated the community what is possible to happen in a time like this, with power outages, with difficulties in communications and cellular and internet connections. There are all kinds of challenges that people will face in a circumstance like this.
So, we prepare them with radios, handheld radios that they can use to connect to local radio frequencies to get information in a different way. We work to make sure they know where rallying points are in- person, to check in in-person. We empower local volunteer teams, like our TSEP team in the Topanga Canyon area, which is trained to communicate with the folks on the ground there. And today, we're having to evacuate the entire Topanga Canyon because of the intensity of this fire and the risk tonight.
The winds are going to kick up. We're going to see the worst of it between 10:00 p.m. tonight and 5:00 in the morning. So, we are evacuating even more areas. The Getty Villa is at risk right now. And so, we've asked county fire to provide additional resources to Los Angeles City fire efforts that are ongoing there.
But we do know that, you know, this is very dangerous. The worst is ahead, and we need everyone to be following those evacuation orders, not only to keep themselves and their family safe, but also to keep our first responder safe while they are going in to fight this fire, we have to keep those pathways clear, and that's part of why these evacuation orders go into place.
COOPER: Yes. Well, Supervisor Horvath, thank you for your time. I appreciate it. And it's going be a long night, as you said. Thank you.
Coming up more on this and the fight to contain, and we'll be right back.
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COOPER: In just the space of an hour, we've seen the wind whip up flames, consume more of the Pacific Palisades section of Los Angeles. We're going to quickly check back in with Natasha Chen. What are you seeing, Natasha?
CHEN: Well, Anderson, I can see the flames down the Pacific Coast Highway a little bit south of us that have been described as jumping the highway, that is now the reason why this -- a large swath of this iconic PCH is closed.
This has been just the craziest wind event, and I cannot even imagine anyone standing out here in the middle of the night if it's about to get worse. You asked earlier about water drops and dropping retardant on the flames in this area, yes, I did see that this afternoon. There were planes flying overhead, but I have not seen that in several hours now. And earlier, officials were explaining that if the winds pick up further, that's not something they can continue to do.
This has been extremely stressful for a lot of the people who had to make it out this afternoon. Luckily, we're seeing it more quiet now, partly because the streets are closed. The Pacific Coast Highway is now -- there's no way to go south in that direction because of the flames we see. But there are some people who perhaps have to hunker there.
So, there have been explosions that we've heard. We've seen the building behind us with the flame there and palm trees on fire. And so, there is just so much for them to tackle right now. And of course, residents wondering what they have to come home to.
COOPER: Yes. I mean, we just saw in the -- one of those last shots, people waving, those were, I think it looked like homeowners.
[21:00:00]
