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At Least 2 Dead In Massive, Destructive SoCal Wildfires; Uncontrolled Wildfires Burn Across Parts Of Los Angeles County; National Guard Deployed To Help Battle L.A.-Area Wildfires; Trump Asks Supreme Court To Pause Sentencing; Meta Eases Rules On What It Considers Hate Speech. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired January 08, 2025 - 13:30   ET

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

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[13:33:08]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: We are following the breaking news in southern California, where deadly wildfires fueled by these ferocious Santa Ana winds are just raging out of control.

They're forcing thousands of people to evacuate. It's shutting down major highways, partially closing the second-largest school district in the country.

The most devastating inferno is the Palisades Fire, which is on the west side of Los Angeles. It has scorched more than 5,000 acres. It has just razed homes. It is just moving through them, businesses, local landmarks as well.

Mandatory evacuations are underway right now for the Eaton Fire, which is another one -- that is in Pasadena and Altadena -- where officials confirmed that at least two people have died and several more have suffered what they are calling "significant injuries."

CNN national correspondent, Julia Vargas Jones, is on the ground in Altadena.

We're coming back to you, Julia. There's been a lot of development there on the ground where you have been. Tell us what you're seeing and what -- it should be a downtown street that you can clearly see down but is very much not.

JULIA VARGAS JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, Brianna, I think that is the shocking part of all of this, right? We see and we're used to the idea of wildfires. This is in the middle of the city. This is the main drag. There's businesses. There's billboards.

You know, we just are in front of these firefighters. They just finished with this one house.

They're emptying out their hoses. They're rolling out and going to the next hotspot because -- and you see this, all of the smoke. This is from this this one house and this one tree that has been on fire nonstop. They are stretched thin and they have to keep on moving. A hundred mile-an-hour winds in this region. That is hurricane-level strength winds. But instead of water, we have fire moving along with these winds.

So they have to move quickly. These firefighters are working, some of them, 36, 48-hour shifts. They are exhausted.

[13:35:06]

Governor Gavin Newsom just actually called in the National Guard to help in these firefighting efforts.

Of course, these high winds, Brianna, mean that it's really difficult to help fight these fires from the air, adding another layer of complexity here.

And you can smell - the -- the idea of it being an urban center. You can smell the chemicals in the air. You can smell the construction materials in the air. It's not a regular fire.

These structures are burning. There's chemicals. It's toxic. They're telling people, get out of here now. Save yourselves. Prevent any further loss of life. Your house might not be safe, but at least you are.

KEILAR: All right, Julia Vargas Jones, thank you so much for that report.

Boris?

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: The harrowing stories coming out of the Palisades have been heartbreaking and, at times, difficult to hear.

In sharing their stories, some residents have broken down in tears, describing how they had to flee for their lives, sometimes on foot, not knowing where they were going or if their homes would survive.

Here was Palisades resident and actor, James Woods, sharing his story with CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES WOODS, ACTOR & PALISADES RESIDENT: We got to walk out? I mean, I'm a 77-year-old, man. I can't walk up these hills. It's like Mount Everest here. It's like, you know, pretty steep.

So, you know, it's just -- you know, I posted this on X. But -- but Sarah was on with her 8-year-old niece last night. And she came out -- I'm sorry, just, you know, one day you're swimming in the pool, and the next day it's all gone. But she came out with her little Yeti piggy bank for us to rebuild our house.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: We were joined now by Palisades resident, Maryam Zar. She's the immediate past chair of the Pacific Palisades Community Council and was also forced to evacuate her home.

Maryam, thank you so much for sharing part of your afternoon with us or your morning, I should say, out in the west coast. How are you holding up right now?

MARYAM ZAR, PACIFIC PALISADES RESIDENT: Hi. Well, I'm holding up OK. My phone is in my hand. As you can probably tell from my neck bobbing up and down, because, as I think most Palisades are doing, we're all texting each other and trying to share information to the extent that we can get it from either our fire department or LAPD or the council office. We're trying to collect that information.

I'm on the phone now with our school board elected rep, who's going to drive through and see what happened to the schools.

But we're all holding up by just exchanging sort of well wishes and information and trying to figure out what's going on. Obviously, the news is also informing us and what we see and hear on TV and on the radio is disheartening.

SANCHEZ: Sure.

I wonder what the process was like when you had to evacuate. I understand that you've had to move a second time now.

ZAR: Right? So we live on a ridge that's not too far from where the fire broke out. So I think I was probably one of the first people to smell it.

I was, you know, sitting in my backyard on the phone with my mother, and I said, wow, I smell burning eucalyptus. And I looked around and I saw nothing. And she said, well, it's windy. Maybe you're just smelling the eucalyptus as it's coming off the trees. And I said, no. There's an unmistakable smell of burn.

And, you know, in the Palisades, we always know that there's fire risk. And we had also been under a fire risk warning for a couple of days because there we're high winds. And we knew that.

So within a couple of minutes, I looked to my left and I could see the smoke rising. I called the fire department. I texted the people I know there. Some other people had already called.

And then, within about 10 minutes, we heard the helicopters and I could see -- I mean, I could see with my eyes that it was just growing exponentially. Nothing like we'd seen before.

I mean, as I say, the Palisades gets fires once in a while. They're usually small. They're -- they're put out pretty quickly. And you can sort of tell that the fire department is getting their hands around it.

But this one was just growing exponentially. So within probably about 15, 20 minutes, I was inside the house. I was telling the kids to get up, pack up, we probably have to evacuate. And I don't know the timing, but it wasn't too far after that where it

was obvious for a lot of people that we had to go. So that was where I was as it unfolded.

SANCHEZ: Yes. What is that like for you emotionally to have to see your community endure this and then have to gather your children and motivate them to get out the door as fast as possible, knowing that what you've spent so much of your life working to build may not be there when you get back?

ZAR: Well, it is mixed emotions and it isn't easy. But you're sort of going task to task and you're thinking quickly and you're moving quickly. You're not sort of sitting around saying, oh, this is horrible. Although in the back of your head you realize that it is.

[13:40:03]

I mean, with this one, I'm sure that I -- I realized it was. And I think a lot of people looking up could also probably guess it wasn't going to be the usual.

We tried to put together the things that we thought we would need in case we weren't coming back to the house. So it was passports, you know, valuables, a few pictures.

My husband wasn't home. Obviously, it was a Monday or it was a Tuesday. So I tried to gather what I thought he might need, chargers, phones, laptops. You know, the things you think you might need. Asked my kids to do the same.

You know, your -- your adrenaline is pumping and you're moving pretty quickly.

By the time we did all of that and we packed the -- packed, I mean, you know, shoved everything into the two cars and started heading down, that sense of eeriness was setting in because we could see open flames. I could see open flames in my backyard.

And as we were driving down our street, there were a couple of front yards where embers had already landed and they were on fire. And then I came down -- I'm sure you've already covered this -- but Pacific Palisades is a -- is a hillside community. It only has two or three ways out.

And so one of the arteries that I had to come down was an artery shared by, you know, hundreds of other homes. So by the time I got to that main artery, it was already clogged. And so people we're sort of sitting around looking behind them at billowing smoke.

SANCHEZ: It is a harrowing story.

Maryam Zar, thank you so much for sharing it with us. We hope the best for your family and for your community. Thanks.

ZAR: Thank you.

Can I quickly add something, if you've got time?

SANCHEZ: Sure.

ZAR: I just wanted to say that as -- as we were all stuck on that road trying to come down -- it's called Bienvenido -- the council, our council office and our police department was in touch with me and probably a few other people in that lane.

And we told them that it wasn't moving. They mobilized DOT, which is our Department of Transportation, and they got things moving.

So as far as evacuation, it was -- I mean, it happened. Everybody got out. So that was commendable.

SANCHEZ: Well, Maryam, thank you so much for sharing that with us.

Again, we are hoping for the best as we take a look at these live images coming into CNN. You see smoke surrounding homes. An immense, immense fire. Actually, four separate fires surrounding communities across southern California.

We're going to keep an eye on this story and many more and take a quick break. Stay with CNN.

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[13:47:49]

KEILAR: President-Elect Donald Trump making an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court, trying to pause his sentencing on Friday in the New York hush money case.

Judge Juan Merchan has signaled that Trump will face no legal penalties after he was convicted last May on 34 counts of falsifying business records.

CNN chief legal affairs correspondent, Paula Reid, is following the story for us.

All right, Paula, what is Trump arguing here?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: So he wants the Supreme Court to step in and block Friday' s sentencing.

He argues, quote, "This court should enter an immediate stay of further proceedings in the New York trial court to prevent grave injustice and harm to the institution of the presidency and the operations of the federal government."

So he's saying that, as president-elect, he should not have to attend the sentencing.

But let's put this into context. This is expected to be a pretty short proceeding. There will be no penalties. And he's even allowed to appear virtually. Because the judge is making a rare concession to his status as president-elect, saying, look, I know there's a lot of physical and mental demands on you right now because you are going to be president. So I'll let you appear virtually. And that's what we expect Trump to do.

So now they're asking the Supreme Court to step in and stop this. But Trump's team believes that his status as president-elect should not only delay the sentencing but mean that the entire case should be tossed out.

So in addition to the immediate issue of what happens Friday, they also have these larger appeals that they are filing, arguing that, as president-elect, he should not be subject to any state level proceedings.

And also arguing that the Supreme Courts immunity decision on Trump's January 6th case earlier this year, that that also means that this verdict on 34 counts of falsifying business records should be tossed.

Now, it is unlikely that those arguments are going to succeed. They have failed so far at the lower courts. But right now we're watching and waiting what the Supreme Court does.

Look, this court has surprised us in the past on some of these Trump- related issues. But given the way that the judge has tailored the sentencing, it would be highly unusual if the Supreme Court were to delay.

KEILAR: All right, Paula, thank you so much. We'll be watching to see what happens here.

[13:38:48]

There are some sharp questions for Meta after the company said it's getting rid of fact checkers on Facebook and Instagram and following in the footsteps of Elon Musk's X. We'll have that next.

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[13:53:24]

SANCHEZ: You may soon notice a big shift in some of your social media feeds. Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram and Threads, just loosened the rules on what it considers hate speech on its platforms.

Yesterday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced sweeping changes to content moderation, including replacing independent fact checkers with user-generated community notes.

At least one company executive acknowledged the move is directly related to the changing administration.

Let's get the latest now from CNN media correspondent, Hadas Gold.

Hadas, tell us more about how these quiet changes to hate speech rules might affect users.

HADAS GOLD, CNN MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this is definitely being seen as a reaction to the new administration. Remember that President- Elect Trump once threatened to jail Mark Zuckerberg.

But what's notable is not only the changes to the fact checking that they're getting rid of in the United States, at least of the fact checking, but also the changes, as you noted, to the hateful conduct and content that was once banned on Facebook that now will be allowed.

And so one of the things that will now be allowed that Meta is saying is that they say, "We do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality, and common non-serious usage of words like weird."

Other things that you can now do on Meta platforms are calling things -- calling women objects or household property, calling transgender non-binary people as it, arguing that women or some LGBTQ people should not hold certain jobs when the content is based on religious beliefs.

[13:54:59]

And this is something that the new -- Facebook's new policy chief said. You know what, we realize that you could say some of these things in Congress, but you couldn't say them on our platforms. And we didn't think that was OK.

Now, this is raising a lot of alarms in the LGBTQ community, and even amongst one of the co-chairs of Metas own oversight board, who says they are concerned because they have seen how hate speech can lead to real life harm --Boris?

SANCHEZ: Hadas Gold, thank you so much for that important update.

Still ahead on CNN NEWS CENTRAL, fires are tearing through Los Angeles County, and we are expecting that President Biden will receive a briefing from Cal Fire in just minutes. We're going to bring that to you live, next

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