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Interview With Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX); Interview With Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath; California Fires. Aired 1- 1:30p ET

Aired January 08, 2025 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:57]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: I'm Brianna Keilar in Washington with breaking news.

Officials describing apocalyptic scenes, as four separate wildfires are raging out of control across Los Angeles County. At least two people have died and officials say there are high numbers of injuries as the flames are destroying homes and buildings. Tens of thousands of people have been forced to evacuate.

Ferocious tornado-like winds are battering the area, and that is making an extremely difficult battle even worse for crews who are already stretched to the limit.

We have dramatic video now from a passenger on a plane arriving at LAX who said that people gasped in shock as they looked down at the fire below. The FAA has now banned flights near these wildfires here, and we're also seeing the terrifying moment that a resident and a friend tried to evacuate a home.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, dude. Yes, let's get out of here. We tried.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Los Angeles officials are warning people they need to be able to leave at a moment's notice. You heard the folks there saying "We tried" and then leaving.

Right now, though, there is no sign of relief in sight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT LUNA, LOS ANGELES COUNTY, CALIFORNIA, SHERIFF: We have been in constant communication with both our fire and law enforcement partners across L.A. County and beyond to ensure that all available resources that are needed are being deployed strategically and effectively, but we are prioritizing life over everything else.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: CNN's Stephanie Elam is with us live now from the front lines of the biggest fire, we have, which is the Palisades Fire. We also have CNN's Julia Vargas Jones with us from the front lines of the Eaton Fire.

Steph, let's start with you here. Tell us what you're seeing.

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's very eerie out here, as the winds pick up and then the smoke starts to billow towards us and you can't really see.

We were just watching down here, though, and it's so smoky, I don't know how you will see it, but it looks like this seafood restaurant here along the Pacific Coast Highway looks like it may have some fire burning there.

And what you really need to understand about these fires is, they spread so quickly when it's this windy because it just takes a little bit of an ember that catches on the wind and blows into the rooftop of something else, blows into some brush, into the palm trees, and that can ignite a whole new area.

And that is the fear out here. This is why there has been no containment, because the winds are still very, very strong. I want to show you this building here. We watched overnight while the top of it burned down. There was a massive hurricane-force gust that came through here, and that just lit up the building, and it's blowing us around now.

And it made the whole sky light up. And then that part burned down. And then firefighters came in here and shut down Sunset Boulevard, so that they could go in there and stop this fire. But you can see it's still smoking very heavily, all of this leading to 5,000 acres or so burned here in just this one fire.

The difference though, Brianna, with a lot of the fires that we talk to you about is, it's way more sporadic where you find houses. This is densely populated. That's what's making this so scary is that, right inside Pacific Palisades, there's a lot of windy, twisty streets. It's hard to get in and out.

That's why you saw people abandoning their cars. And you just look across the county and you can see that there are just so much of a drag on resources for all of the firefighters. That's why, here, they're asking firefighters, if you're off, report to duty. That's why they're bringing in firefighters from other parts of the state, so that they could come here and help.

And that's why they're also saying for some people, no water right now because we need to put that water to fighting fires, all of this impacting everyone in the county. When I woke up this morning, I could smell the fire and I don't live anywhere near here.

[13:05:05]

You can see that it's shut down schools. They have closed schools today because of this. And this air quality is also a huge part of the issue here. And that is, it's -- Brianna, I know you're from California too, but, like, I have never seen conditions like this, especially in January.

And that's why you have got to point out climate change, the fact that we're so dry, the driest start to any year, water year, that we have had here in California. It's so dry right now for any record over the last 80 years. So that just shows you that dryness combined with the closeness and all that brush because we haven't burned in here making it very difficult for firefighters to break this fire and bring it down.

KEILAR: Yes, it is -- it's hard to believe what we're seeing right now there, Steph. Thank you so much for that.

Let's go now to Julia Vargas Jones.

You are there, Julia, in Altadena. We see crews working on a fire behind you. Tell us what's going on there.

JULIA VARGAS JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we didn't expect to see this.

Just a few minutes ago, maybe 20 minutes ago, we saw these fire trucks pull up in front of this house, this tree now completely charred. It was a healthy, normal tree, the billboard, businesses to the left and to the right. This house going completely up in flames in a matter of just minutes as we have been waiting here.

We have witnessed the destruction, the ferocity of this fire, how quickly things spread. We are parked just a block away from this. It is quite destructive and moving so fast. And one thing I will say, we're seeing all these resources in this area being pulled into this one spot.

We know this means this is a hot spot, and they want to stop it to avoid further damage. This is just like the Palisades. It is a very densely populated area. Every street we have been down, we have seen damage on both sides of the street, not just damage. I'm going to correct myself. I mean active fires, homes, people's homes where their children grow up in both sides of the street.

This fire is jumping so quickly. And, in part, it's because of this wind that I'm sure you can see behind me this wall of smoke. Over this way, this is Angeles National Forest. This is the foothill of these mountains.

And this is the community of Altadena. That is where the fire is coming from. But we are at least about 15 blocks from that. It is not close. And just like Stephanie, I also smelled the fire this morning when I woke up inside my house. And, also, I live at least, like, 30 minutes from this location. It's

everywhere. And it feels apocalyptic. It's the sense that Los Angeles is now just surrounded by the fire on these three or four different locations, 30,000 people here under evacuation orders. And it doesn't feel like there's any end in sight, Brianna. This is the desperation of this thing.

We talked to folks in this three-, four-block radius. But they said they left last night thinking that they would come back today and be able to check on their homes and get their things, get their affairs in order.

And the regret that we heard from them, the regret of coming back home this morning and realizing that everything that they left in there will go up in flames, and it's not anyone's -- it's anyone's best guess what will happen next.

And another thing I will say is, we have also seen a lot of volunteers trying their best to douse homes in water with water from their hoses, trying to keep it from spreading any further. But, at this point, firefighters are saying, turn around, leave. It's too late. You might not be able to save this. Go home. Stay safe, because the priority here, it is to preserve life, Brianna.

KEILAR: Yes. And that's -- I know a lot of people in these areas may not be used to that, but that is the equation right now with this fire traveling on the wind.

Julia Vargas Jones, thank you. Stephanie, thank you as well -- Boris.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: A resident of Pacific Palisades who had to evacuate her home said that seeing her community surrounded by flames felt like being inside the movie "War of the Worlds." And she spoke to CNN earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRICIA COSENTINO, PALISADES FIRE EVACUEE: There were just vehicles on fire on the road burning. There's a church school at the bottom of the Hill. Some of my students go to it. It is -- it was on fire. The grocery store, the -- I mean, it actually -- it was so surreal, I felt like we were in that movie "The War of the Worlds."

[13:10:08]

I didn't recognize the streets that I were on as our own. My family is safe. My daughter, luckily, just went back to college a few days before. We have our pets. Everyone I have spoken to, all of our friends, my clients, everyone is safe.

I would say half of the people I know -- I have about 200 students. I think about half of the people I know have lost their homes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Joining us now live on the phone is Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, and she represents Pacific Palisades.

Lindsey, thank you so much for being with us.

Just first, if you could, get us an update on efforts to contain this specific wildfire that's threatening your community. I understand there are several obstacles in the way of getting that effort started.

LINDSEY HORVATH, LOS ANGELES COUNTY, CALIFORNIA, BOARD OF SUPERVISORS: Well, it is a very complicated set of circumstances.

I will say, when the Palisades Fire started, it started in the city of Los Angeles with the city leading, but, within two hours, we were in unified command, city, county, and state fire entities working to address what was going on the ground.

And so there's a lot that's at stake in an area like the Palisades, which are densely populated and in the hills, as opposed to some of the more spread-out or sparsely populated areas in the Santa Monica Mountains, where perhaps we have seen some of these other fires.

So there's a challenge also with the Topanga Canyon area, which is densely populated in this canyon that is very difficult to access. So we had to evacuate the entire canyon last night. Last year at this time, we also were facing a road closure of the Topanga Canyon because of landslides because of wet weather.

So we know these extreme weather conditions are contributing to these crises, and we are grateful to those who are on the front lines working hard to keep everybody safe at a time like this.

SANCHEZ: No question about that. They are putting themselves in danger to protect others.

Lindsey, I have learned that something like 1,000 structures have been destroyed by the Palisades Fire so far, including your community library. Could you give us a sense of where the damage is concentrated? Is it in residential areas, businesses, a combination of both?

HORVATH: It is widespread. It is not concentrated in any one kind of area.

We have widespread loss of businesses, and as well as residential structures. And so we are still working hard to get this thing contained. Overnight, the winds picked up between 10:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. -- 5:00 a.m. this morning. They were hurricane-like conditions. So we had to ground all of our aerial vehicles, which are typically tools that we can use to move faster at getting this fire under control.

Unfortunately, we couldn't use those tools last night because it was too dangerous. So we're hoping that we will be able to get to a situation where we can deploy them later on this afternoon.

But we are still in red flag conditions through the end of day tomorrow. And this is an ongoing, challenging event. So we're asking everyone to follow evacuation orders and to support our first responders by doing this.

It's not only about keeping our residents safe, but the longer people wait when an evacuation order has been issued, the more we're putting our first responders at stake. So we have to make sure that we're all working together. This kind of partnership is what's going to ultimately lead to success.

But, right now, it is an incredibly complex set of circumstances.

SANCHEZ: Yes, such an important message to get out there.

I just want to let our viewers know these are actually live images from Los Angeles. You see what appears to be a home there fully engulfed in flames.

Lindsey, I also am curious about the human cost of these fires, and specifically in your community of Pacific Palisades. I understand there were several injuries sustained overnight and into the early morning hours. I'm wondering what the status of that is now. Has there been any loss of life?

HORVATH: We don't have a total number of injuries.

Our sheriff did report this morning that there were two fatalities in the Altadena area, which is a different fire than the Palisades Fire. But there are several simultaneous fires ongoing throughout Los Angeles County. Another fire, the Hurst Fire, is in a different part of my district. But that one is also ongoing.

And so we have unified command on all of these -- all of these fires. We have -- we're throwing everything we have got at all of them to get them contained. But we never could have predicted that this confluence of circumstances, that this number of fires would hit us all at once. And so we are doing our best with every resource we have.

[13:15:01]

And I am grateful to everyone who's stepping up to work hard on this.

SANCHEZ: And we are grateful for you giving us this update.

Lindsey Horvath, thank you so much for the time.

HORVATH: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Please keep us updated on where things stand in your community.

HORVATH: Will do. Thank you very much.

SANCHEZ: So, firefighters are up against brutal wind gusts as they race to contain the flames.

We want to get an update now from the CNN Weather Center with meteorologist Allison Chinchar, who's tracking conditions.

Allison, what can we expect in the coming hours?

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: All right, so the good news is, we will start to see some of these winds come down in the coming hours, but you have to look at what they have been.

Look at some of these wind speed gusts that have been measured so far. 80, 90, even 100 miles per hour. So, keep in mind, even if we cut these numbers, say, in half by the time we get to the evening hours, you're still talking 40-to-50 mile-per-hour gusts. That is plenty to continue moving these fires along.

And it's not just one fire. It's Ford. You have got the Eaton, the Hurst, the Woodley and the Palisades. Now, for people who are not familiar with this area, we have put some points on here that maybe you would understand where they are, say, for example, the Hollywood sign, Dodger Stadium, the Rose Bowl Stadium, to kind of put this in perspective.

Now, the Palisades Fires specifically, again, having some of those areas that zoom down, where you could see where that fire was, one of the concerns is going to be the wind gusts here. Again, you're still looking at 30-, 40-, 50 mile-per-hour wind gusts even as we go through the afternoon as well as the evening hours.

We really don't start to see the improvements in a lot of these wind speeds until we get to overnight tonight and into tomorrow.

SANCHEZ: Allison Chinchar, thank you so much for that important update.

Stay with CNN. There is much more of our coverage on the deadly fires across Los Angeles throughout the hour.

Plus, we're looking at the fallout from president-elect Donald Trump's comments about controlling Greenland and the Panama Canal, how foreign leaders are reacting today.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:21:16]

KEILAR: Here in just a few hours, president-elect Donald Trump will be meeting with Senate GOP leaders on Capitol Hill, as Republicans are strategizing how to pass Trump's agenda.

Trump is calling for -- quote -- "one big, beautiful bill." In the meantime, Trump's suggestion that the U.S. should control Greenland and the Panama Canal and rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America is rattling U.S. allies around the world. Greenland is part of Denmark.

A Danish lawmaker being clear, saying in an interview with CNN -- quote -- "Greenland is not MAGA."

With us now, Congressman Brandon Gill, who is a freshman Republican from Texas. Welcome to Washington, Congressman. You are going to love it or hate

it, I am confident. And we appreciate you being with us.

I do want to ask you. In this press conference yesterday, Trump was asked if he'd rule out using military force to get control of Greenland and the Panama Canal, and Trump would not rule that out. How would acquiring that land help everyday Americans better afford their day-to-day expenses?

REP. BRANDON GILL (R-TX): Well, first of all, Brianna, thanks for having me. Really appreciate it.

Listen, President Trump is bringing us into a golden age of America. This is the new manifest destiny. Acquiring -- reacquiring the Panama Canal, acquiring Greenland, renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, this is the light of America expanding.

We have a very clear strategic interest geopolitically both in Greenland and in the Panama Canal. The Panama Canal, as you know, was created with the blood, toil, tears, and sweat of American citizens. We put an enormous amount of money into it. I don't think we ever should have relinquished control of the Panama Canal.

So President Trump is really just undoing some terrible decisions that have been made in past administrations. And that's going to be a key theme of his presidency. The biggest job for Republicans coming in this election cycle, after this election cycle, is cleaning up the chaos and destruction that Democrats have unleashed on this country over the past four years.

President Trump was a leader in border security. We had a secure border under President Trump.

KEILAR: Can you answer my question? Can you answer my question?

I'm asking you a question about the economy, because that really -- if he does have a mandate, that's so much what it's about. I will also note that, when it comes to the labor on the Panama Canal, so much of it was not American. We know that.

But when it comes to helping Americans before...

GILL: Well, you know, I think it's hilarious that Democrats spent four years telling us that the economy was in the greatest shape of our lives, telling Americans to not believe the evidence of their eyes and ears, not believe their pocketbooks that they were looking at the end of every week, and trying to force Americans to believe that we were in a booming economy.

And now, all of the sudden, Democrats are obsessed with bringing inflation down. And inflation not long ago they said didn't exist.

So, the economy was great under President Trump. It was horrible under President Biden. We've got a mess to clean up.

(CROSSTALK) KEILAR: I understand your frustration with Democrats.

GILL: And it's a mess that the Democrat Party created.

KEILAR: I understand you have some frustration with Democrats, but looking forward here, as Republicans will be controlling both chambers of Congress and the White House, how does something like acquiring the Panama Canal, Greenland, how is that going to help economically?

I hear you saying there are geopolitical advantages. Maybe you can make more of a case there, but how is this going to help everyday Americans?

(CROSSTALK)

GILL: Brianna, we have got clear trade interests in the Panama Canal specifically.

But you know what? I want to know, what's going to help Americans is going to be securing our border. I will tell you, because you want to look forward, let's look forward. Let's look at what happened just yesterday with the new Congress, where Republicans, under Speaker Mike Johnson's leadership brought a bill to the floor, the Laken Riley Act, which was a modest proposal, which simply stated that criminal illegal aliens who are in on our territory, on our soil, who are committing burglary and theft should be detained by DHS.

[13:25:24]

That is unbelievably modest. That bill, had it been enacted two years ago, would have saved Laken Riley's life, and 159 Democrats voted against it. I find that absolutely disgusting. This is a Democrat Party that is more interested in advancing the interests of criminal illegal aliens on American territory committing crimes against American citizens than they are in advancing the interests of this nation.

I find that utterly repugnant, and that is something President Trump is going to fix. And, listen, I think that the people of Panama, I think that the people of Greenland, I think that the people of Canada, for that matter, should be honored that President Trump wants to bring these territories under the American fold.

KEILAR: OK. They don't seem honored, just to be clear.

But I do want to ask you, because of this idea of using American military force. You were born on a military base. You were a military kid. Your dad was there, of course.

GILL: I was.

KEILAR: Do you support Americans fighting, which always means potentially dying, for the U.S. to acquire Greenland or the Panama Canal?

GILL: It's really funny that you bring that up. I'm going to leave the methodology to President Trump and follow his

lead here. But Democrats have made the world a much less safer place over the past four years. We have had over half-a-million people die in the war in Ukraine that would have never happened if President Trump was in the White House.

KEILAR: Can you answer my question, please?

GILL: That would have never happened if President Trump was in the White House.

KEILAR: I'm talking about American lives, Congressman. I'm talking about...

GILL: And it's amazing to me that all of the sudden you're concerned about people dying in war, when our weak foreign policy under President Joe Biden is the reason that the entire world has erupted in chaos.

KEILAR: My concern, Congressman, in people dying in wars is not sudden, and it is earnest.

And so, when you're talking about the possibility of Americans, as we are here, can you please answer my question?

GILL: I'm telling you, and President Trump mentioned it at the press briefing yesterday, he's leaving options on the table. I will leave that up to him.

KEILAR: You have an opinion. You're a congressman. You can leave that up to him what he wants to do, but you have an informed opinion on this. What are your concerns about that?

GILL: Listen, what I'm concerned with is advancing America's interest. I don't think we should have ever relinquished control of the Panama Canal.

I think that we have a clear strategic geopolitical interest in Greenland. President Trump can handle the process for how that goes about over the next few years, but I'm interested in America's interests.

And that's something that's quite refreshing to see from the White House. We have had an America-last foreign policy over the past four years with Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress, and that's changing. And it's great. And it's incredibly refreshing to see.

KEILAR: Congressman Brandon Gill, thank you so much for being with us.

GILL: Thanks for having me on.

KEILAR: We're watching these fires in Los Angeles. They're spreading so quickly that people are racing to stay out of their path, as evacuation orders expand.

And, ahead, we're going to speak to someone who had to evacuate twice to stay ahead of the flames.

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