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The Lead with Jake Tapper

At Least Two Dead, Many "Significant Injuries" In L.A.-Area Wildfires; Four Major Fires Whipping Through Los Angeles Area; Biden Tells "USA Today" He Believes He Could Have Won Re-Election. Aired 4- 5p ET

Aired January 08, 2025 - 16:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[16:00:21]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Thanks, Jeff.

Stay tuned to CNN. We have more of our coverage of the fires in Los Angeles on "THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER" starting right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

JAKE TAPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

And we begin with the breaking news. Apocalyptic scenes across the Los Angeles area, as four -- four out of control, uncontained wildfires quickly sweep through this heavily populated region.

This is an urgent life or death situation. Officials are telling residents to be ready to evacuate their homes at a moment's notice. The fires have already killed at least two people and injured countless others in just a matter of hours this afternoon.

The Eaton Fire near Pasadena exploded from about 2,000 acres to more than 10,000, and the Palisades Fire near Santa Monica has doubled to almost 11,000 acres. It's destroyed at least 1,000 structures and counting.

There is also the aftermath of these fires in several parts of the Pacific Palisades community. Today, you see nothing but charred ruins.

Fighting these fires has been a nearly impossible task. Tornado like wind gusts up to 100 miles per hour are catapulting embers in all directions. Some firefighters have been working 48-hour shifts, evacuating residents, patients, the elderly and anyone in harms way.

And now, California Governor Gavin Newsom is deploying the California national guard to try to help.

CNN has live team coverage. Anderson Cooper and Nick Watt are right now on the scene for us.

Let's start with Anderson, who just got to Altadena, California, near the Eaton Fire.

Anderson, tell us what you're seeing on the ground. ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Yeah, this is the results of the Eaton

Fire, embers coming from that fire into Altadena. I'm on Harriet Street and Glen (ph).

We have been here for about 45 minutes now. We have just watched this block house by house, systematically being destroyed. This house is now completely erupt in flames. Jake, what happens though, what's so strange is the trees obviously catch fire. You can see -- I don't know if you can see over there. The tree that's just now full. It's an ember tree. It's full of embers.

And as the winds, you know, its these gusting winds, pick up those embers and it can -- it can fly them for miles to any other location where an ember may fall, land on a vehicle, land on a roof, on a lawn and a fire. A new fire starts up.

But this is very active. This entire street, this entire neighborhood. And we've seen dozens of homes here destroyed. I don't think -- you also get a lot of secondary explosions from other things inside the house, exploding vehicles as well.

So we watch very carefully where the vehicles are. There's none right now which are on fire. But that house wasn't on fire about 20 minutes ago. It was caught between two houses that were it is now erupted in flames. This tree will soon erupt in flames will become thousands and thousands of embers that will then be taken up and very possibly there's a there is a house on the corner that's still preserved.

And oddly, the houses across the street on Harriet Street here, they are -- they are okay. They have not been ignited at this point. So it's very -- it's luck. It's misfortune where these embers land, where the winds happen to blow. And what is destroyed.

Firefighters here, Jake, which is of great concern, ran out of water on this corner of Harriet about 30 minutes ago when I was talking to the captain, they put up the hoses. The water ran dry, so there was very little they can do in a situation like that. They try to create a defensive perimeter around a house that has not yet ignited in flames.

So they look at a house trying to see, oh, is this house, does it have trees that we can cut, that we can clear a perimeter and maybe that will protect the house, but there's not much else they can do. So that fire crew, which was here for about an more than an hour or so, they have now moved on somewhere else to go where there is water to go, where there is some place that they can actually battle this thing.

They did whatever they could on this block. We saw a woman come here a short time ago. She tried to get some things out of her house. She was very confused. She wasn't sure what she should do.

She has one of the houses which hasn't been destroyed yet. We encourage her to leave, which she did. She took her cat. She's gone.

But it is -- it is just a surreal scene in Altadena. And to know that obviously this is just one of several of these large fires which has been burning now all through the overnight hours and well into today, the winds, thankfully, Jake, have died down. So that is a big help.

[16:05:03]

But also the firefighters are saying, look, they're -- they've been on 24-hour shifts already. They have no idea if they're going to do another 12 to 24 hours, which is, you know, a heroic feat to, to do if they have to. There have already been heroic in what they've been able to do thus far, but they need more firefighters.

Appeals have been put out for firefighters, all from a number of western states. It said that, you know, more than a thousand maybe, maybe coming here. They need all the help they can get at this point, Jake.

TAPPER: It's just so stunning, and one of the biggest cities in the world. And what -- what is the explanation for how this happened, how this tragedy is happening without more -- I mean, I'm not blaming the firefighters who are literally working 48 hour shifts and doing everything they could. My friends out there are saying like, thank God, bless them.

But like, why is it so bad?

COOPER: Yeah, well, there's been no rain for eight months. I mean, I think there's been a, I don't know, a quarter of an inch of somebody can correct me on that. But I mean, it's been incredibly dry. There's no rain anticipated.

Usually, you know, they pray for rain and something like this which will dampen things down. There's no rain. Last I heard from a weather forecaster anticipated for two weeks or so, at the very least.

So I think obviously these are incredibly dry conditions. Obviously, they're going to have to look at the water situation in terms of the water pressure issues, certainly in the Palisades, because the way -- look at this. I mean -- this is sorry, Jake, but this is just -- I mean, this is now just really erupted. You can hear that, that crackling.

And now it's a real question, just. Jake, I just want to show you some of. Look over here, this fire. Now, there's a small fire that spread to that hedge over there, that hedge will very likely then erupt, and that will very possibly ignite that house then. And it is this domino effect that we see.

And again, it's largely, you know, it's pushed by the winds. But there's just -- the lack of water is a problem. In the Palisades, the water issue was, is according to authorities, is a gravity issue in order to get the water through the hydrants, up in the -- up in the hills, in the mountains, you know, they have these giant water tanks that use gravity. And those water tanks ran dry.

Part of the problem is a lot of people are using hoses, trying to understandably hose down their lawns, hoping that will stop the fire. A lot of firefighters will say, that's not going to stop a fire like this from burning down your house. You may keep your lawn, but it's not going to keep your house.

But you know, there's this huge water usage all of a sudden. And those tanks on the top, there may be water in the system down below, but if the tanks on the top run dry, there's not enough pressure for gravity to bring the water up into the hydrants. That's in the Palisades. I don't know the water system here in Altadena.

But again, very concerned about this house now next door, these flames spreading. It's already destroyed, by the way, the block over. So it's not a question of more houses on that block being destroyed. They're already gone. They -- they burned down a long time ago.

Something really just ignited inside this house. You can hear that kind of very distinctive sound that that it makes. It's also, Jake, I mean -- it's the middle of the day. I don't know what time it is, but it is like. It is, you know, 10:00 at night. You can't see the sun through, through, through -- peeks through.

And as you said, Jake, there's a surrealness to it. I mean, I was in, you know, I woke up in a hotel in, I don't know, Hollywood area and looked out my window and you could see black smoke, but there was a Starbucks open. And, you know, people are going about their business.

It's surreal. It's ominous seeing that in the sky, you drive 30 minutes and you know, you people aren't allowed in this area. Thankfully, it's all cordoned off, but 30 minutes away, there is this inferno and this entire neighborhood is just been devastated. It is -- it's hard to wrap your mind around it.

TAPPER: Anderson Cooper in Altadena, California, and a quick message to my family members. I just talked to our cousin David, and he and his wife and their kids have gotten out of their home with their dog, but they think that they are going to lose their home as well. But my cousin David, for my mom and dad listening right now.

Let's go about 40 miles west to the Pacific Palisades. And CNN's Nick Watt has been there in the thick of the smoke and heat.

Nick, what are you seeing on the ground there?

NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Jake, what we are witnessing here is an urban wildfire, a wildfire right in downtown Pacific palisades. That's what you're looking at here. The black smoke you can see up there. That's another office building going up.

This over here -- I mean, there is smoke and flames just every which way you look. I was here in the middle of the night last night as the embers were just flying on the wind. Since I was last here, all of this has been destroyed.

And if you move around here, this used to be an Italian restaurant. This used to be the main street of Pacific Palisades, one of the most salubrious neighborhoods in the country. And, you know, because of the value of the property here, Jake, this could end up being one of the most expensive, one of the costliest wildfires that we have ever, ever seen. Now, as I said, we are in downtown Pacific Palisades now. Of course,

many people have lost homes, over a thousand structures lost in this fire that will no doubt rise injuries. We are also getting some confirmation of a few injuries. Those figures will keep on trickling in. But the next question is how does this community come back? Both of their grocery stores burned down, their theater, burned down, their library burned down, a bunch of the schools burned down. And of course, all of those homes.

And it's not over. This wind is still pretty high. We are still seeing embers. We are still seeing flames getting whipped by these strong Santa Ana winds, which peaked in the early hours of the morning.

Now, everybody here knew that the Santa Ana winds were coming. So we knew that there was going to be some issue. Now, city and county officials prepared for maybe 1 or 2 fires. The problem is we've had four major fires here in the Los Angeles area. That is really stretching the authorities to about 250 firefighters on this fire, about 30 departments from around California here to help.

But still, that's not enough. And it's a very difficult environment in which to fight the fires, particularly up in the hills. And also the problem is for a long period of time, they weren't able to get any air assets up in the air. They couldn't get the choppers, they couldn't get the fixed wing aircraft that drop retardant drop water.

So it was people on the ground sweating through 24 hour shifts, 48 hour shifts, trying to contain this blaze. Jake, it's not over. And this will leave scars in this community for decades. Back to you.

TAPPER: Nick, thank you. Please stay safe.

Joining us now, actor Steve Guttenberg. Cameras caught him earlier, catching him jumping into action as the Palisades Fire -- Palisades Fire moved into his neighborhood. He was moving abandoned cars to block the paths of fire trucks.

Steve, thanks for joining us. I'm so sorry it's under these conditions.

Tell us what you've seen and heard so far today. Have you been able to make it back to your home in the palisades?

STEVE GUTTENBERG, ACTOR: No, I haven't been --

TAPPER: We just lost Steve. We will bring him back. Obviously, comms are a real situation at a time of natural disasters.

We're going to go back live to Altadena, California, just north of Los Angeles, where people are using anything they can to get there, get anything they can get their hands on to battle the flames in one case, a kitchen pot of water. Look at that. I mean, just people desperate to do anything they can to save their belongings.

Seconds earlier, we saw this man risking his life on the roof, flames burning just feet away. He's trying to save his property. These are desperate times, as these fires rage.

We're going to have more when we come back. Were going to fix the comms with Steve, and we'll be right back.

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[16:17:08]

TAPPER: In our national lead. You can see homeowners in Eaton Canyon, California, scrambling there to save their homes, using everything from pots of water to garden hoses. The devastating flames of the Eaton Fire just one of four separate wildfires tearing through Los Angeles County right now, destroying homes, offices and lives.

CNN national correspondent Julia Vargas Jones is in Altadena, California. That's where the Eaton Fire is burning. Already, it's claimed two lives.

Julia, have fire crews been able to mobilize yet and help fight this fire in any meaningful way?

JULIA VARGAS JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: They have mobilized for sure, Jake, 750 of these firefighters fighting the flames here, trying to save peoples homes. They say their priority is to preserve life. I'm going to step out of the way so you can see some of the work that they're doing here.

Look, we're seeing these hoses all over, and we've been following these crews around, but its tough choices that they have to make deciding what is it that they are going to save. We're seeing house after house going up in flames as these this fire jumps over streets, jumps over highways and ends up going through neighborhoods like this one at the foothills of the Angeles national forest. That's how this fire got here in the first place. These engines, they're doing so much work of just following around these flames and trying to pin down.

We saw earlier I spoke to a woman who had come back from being away about 24 hours, where she was told to leave her house. She comes back and it's gone. It's up in flames. There's no hope at this point for so many people.

But we have also seen, Jake, this is something really beautiful that we've seen in this community, is volunteers coming up right over here. We have some of them clearing some of the brush, hoping that this will help keep the fire from spreading any further.

We also spoke to some volunteers who are just going into people's properties, turning on their garden hoses and just swapping the whole house, getting that water into the walls, hoping to keep the fire from spreading into more of these homes. But firefighters have, in some of those instances, told us then it's too late. Get out. We want to make sure that you are in a safe place, 10,600 acres.

This fire has just ballooned in this community and people were caught off guard. And it goes to show how important it is to heed those warnings. When authorities say, get out, pack a bag, be ready to go. You must listen to those warnings, Jake.

TAPPER: All right. Julia Vargas, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

Let's turn to Democratic Congresswoman Laura Friedman right now. She's the brand new U.S. representative of California's 30th congressional district, which is under an evacuation order right this second.

Congresswoman, I'm so sorry to be welcoming you to Washington under these conditions. Huge swaths of your district are surrounded by flames.

[16:20:02]

How are you doing? How are your constituents doing? What needs to happen to stop this?

REP. LAURA FRIEDMAN (D-CA): Well, people are devastated right now. People's hearts are broken. My heart goes out to the families of those who lost their lives in Pasadena. It's awful.

My constituents are frightened. People have not had power sometimes for, you know, all night long. So they're in the smoke. They see the fire, they don't exactly know where it is, and they don't necessarily have power in their homes.

So everybody is scared all over Los Angeles. And people are devastated hearing that their neighbors and their friends are losing their homes. I just got off the phone with two close friends of mine whose homes are total losses. One of the women raised her children. Their children got married in the house and she said, were senior citizens now.

And I'm thinking, where am I going to live? She said, Laura, where -- where am I going to live now? And this is what a lot of people are going through, hundreds of people.

So there's a huge amount of need. But I would love to just say, though, that were also seeing people opening their own personal homes and going on social media and saying, if you need somewhere to stay, I have an extra bedroom, I have an ADU. If you need somewhere to come, to come to my home, we're seeing that all over Los Angeles, and that is making me feel like there's hope here.

TAPPER: How are the evacuation efforts going? Are people taking them seriously? And where -- where do they go if they don't have friends, family or people on social media offering rooms?

FRIEDMAN: So all of the cities in the region are offering emergency shelters. The city of Burbank, city of Glendale, city of Los Angeles, and there are resources that are available. They're posted on my website. They're posted on the various cities websites.

We've seen labor unions opening their halls and putting out cots and telling their members to evacuate there if they need to. So there are places for people to go. And I've even heard of community groups trying to find more permanent housing for people who need housing, as well as emergency shelters. So people are taking it on themselves to take care of their neighbors.

And also the cities are prepared to -- but let's be clear, we have hundreds of people losing their homes, and we are having tens of thousands of people under evacuation orders. That's a lot of housing to have to find for -- for our residents. This is a fire that is ringing Los Angeles.

And I want to be clear that its not the kind of fires that we've sometimes seen in the past in California that are more remote, that are in more rural areas or up in the mountains. This is in fairly central Los Angeles. These are very dense communities of many, many homes. So when these fires go into a community, it's not a house here separated by an acre and another home. These are homes that are right next to each other.

And that's why these fires are so hard to contain, because there's very little to stop them from going from climbing onto the fuel from home to home. Now, California has done a lot, and I've done a lot of work, when I was an assembly member to try to make communities more resilient. So California has done more than most other places when it comes to fire, because we have seen massive fires around Los Angeles. But nothing can compare you to an extended drought followed by 100 an hour winds, followed by the kinds of conditions that were seeing.

TAPPER: What does California need to put these fires out? Obviously, everybody in Los Angeles and the surrounding area is on the case in terms of firefighters. Obviously, Governor Newsom is enacting the National Guard, getting them on the case. But obviously you need more.

What do you need? And is the federal government providing it or are other states and cities providing it?

FRIEDMAN: I did hear that Arizona is sending firefighters. The Pechanga Indians are a Native American tribe is sending their firefighters. We are seeing wonderful joint response from other states from northern California. And California is used to sharing fire resources. This is something that's already been set up. Certainly we could use more and we can certainly use some rain.

TAPPER: Yeah. Congresswoman Laura Friedman, thank you so much. Appreciate your time.

President Biden just left southern California. He's now on his way back to Washington, dc right now, after pledging the full support of the federal government to respond to these horrific, devastating fires.

Biden is also making news from a brand new interview he did listen to, why he believes he could have won the 2024 election, and what he has to say about the possibility he will issue protective pardons on his way out the door. The journalist who conducted that interview will be here next.

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[16:28:11] TAPPER: And we're back with our breaking news. The four fast moving, out of control wildfires tearing through the Los Angeles area, creating horrific devastation.

Let's go straight to Natasha Chen, who is in Altadena, California, where the Eaton Fire is raging and zero percent of it has been contained.

And, Natasha, you're in the thick of it. Tell us what you're seeing.

NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Jake, this is a main thoroughfare in the city of Altadena, and every single block that we are seeing is either on fire or has been burned. Right now, these are main businesses that were seeing up in flames. You have firefighters working on one side just beyond that Bank of America on the other side that's fully engulfed there you can see flames even further on the next block.

If you take a look, I'm just going to walk you around kind of 360 here. This used to be a restaurant and it looks like a dentist's office. There are still some flames hotspots here. We were hearing explosions in the distance.

Down the block over here, let's take a walk over here. We have more emergency crews and more businesses on fire. Now that one in particular, we've been seeing particularly thick, dark smoke and, you know, popping sounds. Not exactly sure what business that is. You can see the plumes of smoke just rising in the air. It's a blood orange sun.

Now, in order to get to this intersection, we did pass through a number of residential blocks. If we can, just at this intersection, turn just a bit to the left, you can see what's already been burned. We have a number of houses along those blocks where they were burned to the core. Just a few, you know, left to just the foundation.

And then on my left, over here, there seems to be an apartment complex that is on fire right now.

[16:30:04]

And we did see, I think, a fire engine trying to work on that.

Let's walk a little bit closer and take a look here. Luckily, this plaza that were walking through is doing okay for the moment, but you can see just because of the way that the embers are flying around here, it's so easy for one structure to catch fire, and we're seeing, just more, it's a lot of emergency vehicles flying through here.

And of course, we are being extremely cognizant of when the flames are getting a little too intense. We have a direction to go if we need to get out of here quickly.

But again, there are neighborhoods, blocks and blocks that we passed to get here where there are no houses left standing. There are cars just you see the metal frames of them and this is far from over. You see how many different spots they're working on, 360 all around us, Jake.

TAPPER: All right. CNN's Natasha Chen in Altadena, California, thank you so much.

And President Biden has just approved a major disaster declaration for the state of California as those four wildfires burn out of control. We're going to talk more about that. And the other big news he's making today, with only 12 days left in office.

Stay with us.

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[16:35:25]

TAPPER: And we're back with our breaking news.

You're looking at live images now over the Palisades Fire in the Los Angeles area, which constitutes to which continues to grow in size and threaten more homes and more lives. And new CNN analysis shows that approximately 155,000 people were under evacuation orders in Los Angeles County as of this morning.

Firefighters right now cannot really contain the blazes because of the intense winds. Let's go to our meteorologist, Chad Myers, in the CNN weather center.

Chad, when is it anticipated that the windstorm might die down and allow the firefighters to get in there and really contain these fires?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: The picture you just showed, Jake, was the best thing that could happen.

It means the helicopters are now able to fly. So the winds you see behind me 80, 90, 100 miles per hour. They are gone. And when that was happening, the helicopters, the firefighting crews could not at all get up in the air. They were all grounded.

So now that we know there's a chopper here in the sky, we know that there's fire one, two, three and four, I've seen that on flightradar24. They are in the air. They will be able to start the air attack because now for I don't know, it must be 15 hours, there hasn't been an air attack.

There's been no water, no Phos-Chek being dropped and everything was on the ground. So now that we have the winds dying off a little bit, now it's just enough to get those firefighters in the air, dropping water and really helping out the entire situation, as the winds continue to blow. But they're no longer 60 or 70. They're 20, 30 and 40.

Yes, we have four big fires well over 25,000 acres combined. So the winds from the 30s down to the 20s tonight and even overnight down by tomorrow morning, still down even lower than that, likely only in the teens. Now, that's still a little bit of a wind that can still carry an ember, but at least it gives the firefighters a fighting chance -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, let's hope so. Chad Myers, thanks so much.

Let's turn to our politics lead. President Biden just left California. But in a brand new interview out today, he said he believes he could have won the 2024 election if he'd stayed the nominee.

"USA Today" Washington bureau chief Susan Page asked President Biden, point blank quote, do you believe you could have won in November? Biden replies, quote, it's presumptuous to say that, but I think, yes, based on the polling that Biden trails off and then page asks again, do you think he would have had the vigor to serve another four years in office? Biden says, I don't know.

He then goes on to say, quote, I really thought I had the best chance of beating him. But I also wasn't looking to be president when I was 85 years old, 86 years old, unquote.

I want to bring in the woman who interviewed President Biden, "USA Today's" Washington bureau chief, Susan Page, is here. Also with us, Kate Bedingfield, who is Biden's former White House communications director until 2023. David Axelrod is with us also. He was a senior adviser to president Obama.

So, Susan, first of all, what was your main takeaway from your interview with President Biden?

SUSAN PAGE, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, USA TODAY: Well, he wants to make the case that these recent controversies over his -- his health, over his pardon of his son should not be the defining all that defines his legacy. So he wanted to make the case that his legacy is broader and more consequential than that.

He's also -- it's also clear he's not quite ready to leave the oval office. You know, I did the last print interview with George W. Bush. He was ready to leave the Oval Office. Joe Biden wishes he had four more years.

TAPPER: Well, Bush got eight years to just -- that's one big thing.

What do you make of this climate, this claim that he would have won if he had stayed the nominee?

PAGE: You know, that's not the conventional political wisdom that he could have won. The conventional wisdom is that he was in a place where he was not likely to win if he stayed in the race after that disastrous debate. And so he is at odds with the opinions of most politicians in that.

But I thought more extraordinary than that, because politicians, you don't become president unless you have a lot of confidence in yourself. More extraordinary than that, to me, was his admission that he's not sure he could have served four more years.

TAPPER: Yeah, that is quite an admission, because obviously when you run for president, you're running to be president for four years. You're not running for two. And I never heard him say, I'm going to run for two years and then step down.

David and Kate -- Kate, I'll start with you. Do you know of any polling that he's referring to that actually bears out this idea that the polling indicated he would have beat Trump? I -- I know of only data to the contrary.

KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah. Look, I didn't see any polling at the time when he decided to drop out that would have suggested he would have won. That's kind of the tricky thing about polling, though, and this is an argument that we were having at the time he was dropping out.

Polling can't tell you definitively what's going to happen four months, six months from now. But no, was there polling at the time he decided to drop that suggested he would have won that race?

[16:40:01]

No. But look, Susan's absolutely right. Nobody becomes president of the United States without a sense of confidence. Some would say a sense of ego.

And I think what, you know, what would you expect him to say? Of course, he's going to say that he, you know, he thinks that he could have won. I would have loved to see him answer that question in a way that didn't necessarily make it the driving headline coming out of the piece, because there were so many other things that he, I thought, articulated really well in terms of defending his record and his legacy, you know?

But sometimes he's just going to say what he thinks.

TAPPER: Always, he says what he --

BEDINGFIELD: Or he's always.

TAPPER: That guy. But I mean, look, I remember George W. Bush saying to me when he was a governor, I'm not going to walk through a minefield of hypotheticals. I mean, that's an answer for him next time.

BEDINGFIELD: Or, hey, does it matter now?

TAPPER: Right.

BEDINGFIELD: Which is another way. Well, it's also kind of a slam on Vice President Harris in a way, David, because she obviously didn't win.

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah. And let's be honest, one of the reasons she didn't win was because she was seen as a as the number two official in the Biden administration. And this was a judgment about the fairly or not, this was a judgment about the Biden administration.

Kate's right. You can't project for months ahead in polling, but we know what polling was on Election Day, which and Joe Biden had a 40 percent approval rating. I don't think there's a president who's won reelection with an approval rating that low.

So you -- look, you know, one has to comfort oneself in these moments. And, you know, that's probably what he's doing. But I think its nuts to think that he would have won that election.

The bigger thing, though, is this notion that I don't know about, you know, what ill be like when I'm 85 and 86. That was the whole concern years in advance.

And it wasn't a judgment about Joe Biden. It was a judgment about the human. And, you know, human species that, you know, was an actuarial concern that was very real, that you, when you're that old in a job this hard, that it's doubtful that one can go full steam for another four years. And that was a concern that, you know, he blew through when he decided to run.

And the shame of it is, I think, a lot of the accomplishments that he is proud of deserve the attention that they're not getting now, and they're not getting that attention because of the way he ended and the bad decision he made to run and to persist. Had he chosen a different path, I think he would have a different set of circumstances right now.

TAPPER: Susan, you also asked President Biden if he would issue preemptive pardons for those who are in the crosshairs of President- elect Trump, former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci. And Biden said, quote, well, a little bit of it depends on who he meaning Trump puts in, what positions.

So tell us more about that and that interaction and what that might mean.

PAGE: You know, he talked a little about what he told Trump when the two men met a week after Election Day in the Oval Office for almost two hours. And he said he encouraged Trump to drop this idea of retribution. He said it wasn't going to serve Trumps own purposes to do that.

And he said that Trump did not say he was going to follow Biden's advice, but he didn't dispute him. He listened to what he had to say. I thought that was interesting.

The other interesting thing about him talking about that meeting with Trump, and we don't know much about what went on in that meeting, not he said, that Trump praised his economic record. Now, Trump has been nothing but relentlessly critical of Joe Biden on the economy and everything else. But Biden said he said, I had a good record.

TAPPER: Kate, do you think Biden should issue these preemptive pardons to Liz Cheney Anthony Fauci, et cetera?

BEDINGFIELD: I personally have not been a fan of this. I think by its nature, if you're issuing a preemptive pardon, you're suggesting that somebody did something wrong. There's an element of admission of guilt that comes with a pardon. I also think there are questions about whether a preemptive pardon would stand up in court in different situations.

So I haven't been a huge fan of it, but I certainly understand, given everything that Trump has said about what he intends to do with, with, with the presidency and with his government, I can understand the reason for it. But again, I just to me, it's -- it's -- it's an admission of guilt that I think is unnecessary.

TAPPER: All right. Thanks to all of you. Really appreciate it.

Congratulations, Susan, on the interview. Great stuff.

We're going to go back to southern California. I'm going to be joined by an actor who drove into the flames to try to help with evacuations. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:48:37]

TAPPER: And we are back with the breaking news. Images from Anderson Coopers camera just moments ago in Altadena, California. Flames charring through a neighborhood there. We're going to go back to Anderson shortly.

But first, let's go back to CNN's Nick Watt, who is in the area of Pacific Palisades.

And, Nick, tell us what you're seeing.

WATT: Well, Jake, we are seeing more smoke, more flames. This just has not stopped. If you pan around, I mean, this is downtown Pacific Palisades, Palisades Village. It looks like a war zone now.

And already people are starting to ask questions. How could this have happened? Now we know that there were strong winds. We know we've had a drought here in California for a long time, so we had a lot of dry brush. But there are issues. For example, 3:00 in the morning, the firefighters, the water ran out for them in and around this area because there was just so much demand for water to try and douse these flames. They ran out.

Also, you know, county and city officials have said that they prepared for maybe 1 or 2 fires. They did not expect four. And I mean, it's surreal walking around a neighborhood that you come to.

I have dinner with my kids in here. I come shopping over here and it's gone, along Sunset Boulevard, the homes along Sunset Boulevard, both sides of the road, destroyed.

This -- this used to be a bank.

[16:50:01]

This used to be a restaurant. It's all gone. Apartment buildings just gone.

This fire wreaked more havoc than I think anybody was really anticipating. We knew it could be bad. I don't think anybody thought it could be quite this bad.

Now they are, of course, trying to contain it. Once they get the aerial assets in place. That should help. Now, I know some of the evacuation zones further towards Santa Monica have not been hit yet.

So people were evacuating, but they have not been hit. We are hearing about some more fires over there, but it's not over yet, Jake. It's not over and its going to take decades for the scars to maybe heal.

Back to you.

TAPPER: All right. CNN's Nick Watt, thanks so much.

Sticking with our national lead and the four major wildfires spreading throughout southern California right now, all four of those fires are zero percent contained, zero percent. They are raging out of control.

My next guest braved the elements trying to rescue animals.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM MCNAMARA, RESCUING ANIMALS FROM CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES: I got a message asking to help evacuate. It took me a long time to get here. Apparently, they don't have the resources to -- to put out the fires here or to save the people, older people and their pets. So I'm trying to do something. I don't know what though.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Actor William McNamara joins us now. He's in Santa Monica.

And, William, you're on the ground. Tell us what you've seen.

MCNAMARA: So I started yesterday morning from my place in Santa Monica. I was in the kitchen doing dishes at 9:30, and I saw like, a giant plume of smoke. It looked like an atomic bomb. And it looked like it was very close, like on Montana, which is very close to me.

So I got in the car and I drove over there. It wasn't on Montana, but I kept going up to sunset, and that's where I started videotaping the planes, dropping water, and it looked pretty bad, but it looked like they had it because they it was different from the Woolsey Fire. The planes were up right away, and there were a lot of them, and they were doing a phenomenal job.

So I thought things were going to be fine, and it turns out things were not fine. And -- and I got a few text messages. I'm sort of in a rescue organization. I work with Eastwood Ranch Foundation, which is Allison Eastwood's Dog and Cat Rescue and Adoption.

So I've been doing this for a long time. I did it in the Woolsey Fires. I went into the fires and rescued some horses, some pigs, and a tortoise. So I kind of feel comfortable doing it. I want to stay out of everybody's way, of course.

But -- so I drove in there and -- and it was, it was, it was, it was, it was -- it was crazy. I've never seen anything like it. And I was in the Palisades trying to look in windows to see if there were any pets in there, because people were like in a complete panic, the fire and the smoke. The fire was bad, obviously, but the smoke was overwhelming. It was just -- you couldn't -- you couldn't stay in it.

TAPPER: How much success have you had rescuing animals so far?

MCNAMARA: Well, that's an interesting story. So not -- not so much success. And, you know, I -- when I -- by the time it took a long time, believe it or not, to get from -- to get from the village of Pacific Palisades to those houses where I was looking around down on to where I was asked to go to next, which is the RV center. The RV, sort of the -- the homes, the mobile homes, the modular homes on PCH, just -- just south of Sunset.

But there are a lot of police and barriers. So it was very tricky. It took a couple of hours. Unfortunately, by the time I got there, the fire was raging and I got trapped on PCH. I couldn't go north or south because it was so hot going in either direction that I had to go to a parking lot on the beach, thank God.

And -- and I waited there and I tried to cross to go into the RV. It was just out of control and the firemen weren't doing anything. Not that they could, by the way.

And I just want to respond to your reporter when he said that there was no water. The other issue is because I talked to the firemen all night last night is a lot of people were using the water on their homes, which is a good intention, but so many people were using the water to spray down their roofs that they lost the, you know, the water pressure. So the best thing to do is, is probably not to do that.

TAPPER: William McNamara, thank you so much. Really appreciate your time.

CNN's teams are spread out across the Los Angeles area as crews are scrambling to get these fires under control. We're going to check in with them in moments.

Plus, I'm going to be joined live by a member of the Los Angeles City Council for an update on evacuation efforts.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:58:45]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

TAPPER: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper, and we are following two major stories this hour.

The first was on Capitol Hill, where this evening, President-elect Donald Trump is going to meet behind closed doors with Senate Republicans. There are 53 Senate Republicans now. They have the majority, and they are the very lawmakers who will ultimately decide whether President-elect Trump gets his cabinet picks confirmed.

Our teams are spread across the capitol. We're going to check in with them in moments, but we're going to start with our lead story and the incredible grim scenes on the West Coast, four wildfires burning out of control in and around Los Angeles. New images showing incredibly large flames burning right now in Altadena, California. These flames, fueled by these strong winds, gusts of up to 100 miles per hour, and homes, cars and businesses reduced to ash in just minutes.

The flames spreading so fast that fire hydrants are running out of water. At least two people have been killed. Fire officials say there are, quote, significant number of people injured. And the Los Angeles County fire chief says there are simply not enough firefighters to contain these blazes.

CNN anchor Anderson Cooper is on the scene in Altadena, California, right now near the Eaton Fire.

Anderson, what we saw from you there about an hour ago was -- was heartbreaking.

Homes just going up in flames seconds after seconds. How widespread are those flames?

COOPER: I'm sorry, I don't have IFB.