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New Fast-Moving Fire In Southern California; Trump Purges Diversity, Equity And Inclusion Protections; Thailand Legalizes Same- Sex Unions; Hughes Fire North of Los Angeles Now 14 Percent Contained; Trump to Visit Los Angeles, Tour Fire Devastation Friday; Trump Blames Governor, Water Policy for Fires' Devastation; 1,500 U.S. Troops Ordered to the Southern Border; Same-sex Marriage Law Takes Effect in Thailand; Nepal Hikes Mount Everest Climbing Fee Up to $15,000. Aired 2-2:45a ET
Aired January 23, 2025 - 02:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[02:00:28]
KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Welcome to all you watching us around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber. This is CNN NEWSROOM. Tens of thousands of people in Southern California are under mandatory evacuation orders as powerful winds fuel a massive new wildfire. U.S. federal workers in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion offices are placed on leave in one of the latest actions taken by Donald Trump.
And Thailand celebrates a milestone becoming the first country in Southeast Asia to legalize same sex marriage.
ANNOUNCER: Live from Atlanta. This is CNN NEWSROOM with Kim Brunhuber.
BRUNHUBER: Los Angeles County Fire crews are scrambling to slow down a new raging wildfire. Winds are increasing overnight, ramping up the fire threat to an area about an hour from L.A. The Hughes fire is now 14 percent contained. It's burning near the community of Castaic in the foothills and mountains of northern L.A. County.
So far, no structures have been destroyed and no one has died, but more than 50,000 people remain under evacuation orders or warnings. The flames have scorched more than 10,000 acres, or about 4000 hectares. The National Weather Service has extended a Red Flag Warning for most of Los Angeles and Ventura Counties until early Friday. This comes about two weeks after fires began tearing through the city of Los Angeles, decimating tremendous amounts of property and killing more than two dozen people.
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MATTHEW VAN HAGEN, HUGHES FIRE PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICER: We're not dealing with a large population and a large amount of residential homes, as we saw with those two fires. Out here it's more sparsely populated. However, out here we are dealing with high winds, which we also saw with the other fires, along with thick fuel bed, very receptive fuel bed, and steep topography again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: CNN's Veronica Miracle has our report from the fire zone.
VERONICA MIRACLE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right now, 31,000 people are currently under mandatory evacuation orders. We are just 45 minutes away from the last deadly and destructive fire that burned in Los Angeles just a few days ago, the Eaton fire. This is the Hughes fire that you're looking at, and you can see the flames roaring behind us over that hillside. Luckily, the fire is burning right now in an area that is desolate.
It's just shrubs and a lot of plants and it's not moving toward residences. But there is, of course, major concern that winds could shift, winds could pick up and blow embers in the direction of houses, of businesses. There's also an R.V. park just right over the hill there. So, firefighters have descended upon this community coming from the Eaton fire and the Palisades fire moving over here.
About 4000 of them are working to make sure that they can contain this overnight and take advantage of cooler temperatures and lower winds.
Veronica Miracle, CNN, Castaic, California.
BRUNHUBER: And Joe 10 Eich is a retired Cal Fire operations chief. He is now coordinator for the International Association of Firefighters. And he comes to us from Maui, Hawaii. Good to see you again. Thank you so much for taking the time and again, I know you're monitoring these latest fires. You and I again talking about these Santa Ana-driven winds, driven fires. What worries you the most about what you're seeing right now?
JOSEPH TEN EYCK, WILDFIRE/URBAN-INTERFACE FIRE PROGRAMS COORDINATOR, IAFF: Thank you for having me again. The issue that we have here is, well, it's not as densely populated as it is right around the city of Los Angeles and surrounding the communities. There still is several thousand people have had to be evacuated because you're running into conditions that have extreme wind coupled with steep terrain and heavy fuels.
Access points in rural areas are more difficult as well. And so, the conditions for doing the direct fire attack, doing perimeter control operations, are challenging right now until those went subsided. And I believe that that's the case that they have subsided somewhat since the daytime but what is expected is that they're going to come up again tomorrow, and so the work that they're trying to do right now is going to be key during the night to make sure that they can try to get this contained ahead before the wind speed picks up in those areas.
[02:05:03]
BRUNHUBER: Yes. And we're seeing aerial images right now which underscores the question I guess I have for you, unlike early on in the Palisades fire, this is very different. They can still fly and attack this fire at night. How significant is that? EYCK: It's a -- it's a -- plays a big role in supporting the ground forces. In the Palisades and the Eaton incidents, the wind speeds were as such that the aircraft weren't able to operate and operate safely. And this is different in this circumstance right now. So, that the ground forces have support, not only through the night, but through the day coming up. If the winds get to a certain speed to where it's unsafe and the drops are affected, folks that are running operations will make the call whether to discontinue that.
But the fact that they're able to do this right now is going to play a significant role in stopping forward progress on the incident.
BRUNHUBER: Yes. You talked about how hard the terrain is to deal with and, you know, with all that the firefighters have had to contend with in the past couple of weeks, all these fires and all the overtime and working throughout the night, how exhausted must these firefighters be now as they try and attack this latest place?
EYCK: The ones that have been assigned to the other incidents and have done a rapid demobilization off that for reassignment of their feelings of fatigue right now. But the one thing that did happen in front of this was a significant preposition of resources, ground and air resources in anticipation of this event. So, that's going to help out significantly in stopping the forward progress of this and working towards containment.
BRUNHUBER: Yes. All right. So, we've been told that they're investigating this fire for arson, which isn't unusual. We don't know what caused it, but we do know several people over the past couple of weeks have been arrested for arson. Do we often see copycat fires being set after a big fire like we saw in the Palisades?
EYCK: it's not uncommon to see something like that, unfortunately, but there's professional investigators from both the local fire agencies, the state fire agencies, and the federal fire agencies, since they're in unified command right now that are going to be working to determine cause and origin and then track it backwards to find out exactly what happened, and if it is arson, they'll be -- they'll be working on that to be able to identify people that they're going to keep that to themselves for obvious reasons.
BRUNHUBER: Yes. You've been doing this a long time. I just want to ask you about the changing fire season. I mean, we used to call it fire season in California. Now, you know, they're basically calling it a -- it's a -- it's a fire year.
EYCK: It is. You're -- where -- when I started my career going back close to 40 years ago with Cal Fire when it was called the California Department of Forestry, we didn't have fire seasons that were lasting in to the winter like this. It started happening just within the last 10 to 15 years, and in particularly in lap the last seven plus years where our fire seasons are extending to the point where they really are fire years, which makes it really important that we have the workforce stats year-round as well to be able to combat and to be able to mitigate these more successfully. BRUNHUBER: So many challenges in this growing fire season as you say. Joseph Ten Eyck, thank you so much for speaking with us again. Really appreciate it.
ERYCK: My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
BRUNHUBER: Four years after the U.S. Capitol insurrection, the Trump administration is in talks to host some of the newly pardoned rioters at the White House. Sources say no visit has been scheduled, and it's not clear who might be invited. Oath Keepers leader Stuart Rhodes visited lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, after his release. He was serving an 18-year prison sentence for leading the plot to keep Trump in power.
Rhodes says he regrets saying he wanted to hang then Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Here he is.
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MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So bottom line, no regrets?
STEWART RHODES, OATH KEEPERS FOUNDER: Well, I don't regret standing up for my country. I don't regret calling out the election is what it was which was stolen, illegal and unconstitutional, violated many, many state-election laws.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: Meanwhile, President Trump defended his controversial pardons and commutations during a Fox News interview, saying the violent against police was very minor. Here it is.
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DONALD TRUMP (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They were in there for 3-1/2 years, a long time. And in many solitary confinement, treated like nobody has ever been -- treated so badly.
[02:10:02]
They were treated like the worst criminals in history. And you know what they were there for? They were protesting the vote because they knew the election was rigged and they were protesting the vote.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: The President also addressed his predecessor Joe Biden's pardons for his family and others, but not himself.
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TRUMP: This guy went around giving everybody pardons. And you know, the funny thing, maybe the sad thing, is he didn't give himself a pardon. And if you look at it, it all had to do with him. I mean, the money went to him. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Should Congress investigate that?
TRUMP: Well, I don't know. It's, you know --
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You ordered the DOJ.
TRUMP: I've always been -- look, he didn't give himself a pardon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: The Trump administration is taking aim at Diversity Equity and Inclusion programs and protections for federal workers and it's urging employees to report any efforts to conceal DEI initiatives by changing job descriptions or using coded language. CNN's Jeff Zeleny reports.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF U.S. NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: On his third day in office here at the White House, one of President Trump's biggest executive orders is already taking effect in Washington and indeed at federal agencies around the country. It also could have a sweeping effect in the private sector as well. That is effectively ending Diversity Equity and Inclusion programs known as DEI of course, so common in the government and indeed the private sector as well.
Now all staffers who work on those programs were ordered to go on paid administrative leave Wednesday, beginning at 5:00 p.m. and as of next week, their jobs could be in question. All diversity related programs were ordered to be canceled. The Web sites were wiped clean of this kind of language. This certainly has been one of the centerpieces of the President's campaign promises.
It's a piece of the Republican cornerstone of their agenda as well. They believe that hiring practices simply have become overrun by these DEI programs. But so many questions about this are still yet to be answered. This effectively rewrites President Lyndon Johnson's executive order establishing affirmative action. Many of these protections are still going to be in place in federal law, but these programs will not be.
So, it certainly is one of the biggest, most tangible effects of the new Trump administration. There is no question about that. Also at the White House, the President holding a variety of meetings with congressional leaders as well. A sweeping beginning first part of the week here to his new administration as he returns to power. But this executive order on the DEI program certainly will have far reaching effects
Also ordering the Justice Department to investigate private sector companies that do business with the government on these DEI programs. So certainly, one of the big effects of the new Trump administration.
Jeff Zeleny CNN, the White House.
BRUNHUBER: All right. Just ahead. Thousands of Afghan refugees who spent years planning to make their way to the U.S. are now having to cancel their flights. The direct result of one of Donald Trump's new executive orders.
Plus, Donald Trump is planning to ramp up pressure on Russia to try to push Moscow to talk peace with Ukraine. We'll have that and more coming up. Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: U.S. President Donald Trump has begun deploying 1000s of troops to the southern border with Mexico. In the first phase, 1500 more active-duty troops have been ordered to join the roughly 2200 forces that are already at the border, thousands more expected to follow in the coming months. Now this comes just days after Donald Trump declared a national emergency at the border. It's not clear whether the troops will be armed.
No active-duty U.S. troops are allowed to enforce domestic law without authorization, such as making arrests and conducting searches. In his executive order, Trump says he will decide whether to invoke an act that will allow him to U.S. -- to use U.S. troops in law enforcement roles.
Another one of Trump's executive orders could affect thousands of refugees who were scheduled to travel to the U.S. after years of dealing with a cumbersome process. A source familiar with a State Department memo to resettlement partners says the flights for about 10,000 refugees have been canceled. Breakdown of the countries the refugees were coming from wasn't available, but they generally come from Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Venezuela, Syria and Burma, also known as Myanmar.
Trump's executive order could leave at least 2000 approved Afghans in limbo who had previously been approved to resettle in the U.S. The program is being suspended beginning on Monday, January 27th for at least 90 days, if not longer. Many of the Afghans risked their lives to help the U.S. during the war in Afghanistan.
But for more on this, we're joined by retired U.S. Army Colonel Steve Miska. He's also the author of the book Baghdad Underground Railroad. And he is in Culpeper County, Virginia. Thanks so much for being here with us. And when we're talking about these Afghan refugees who were supposed to come here to the U.S., who exactly are affected?
STEVE MISKA, RETIRED U.S. ARMY COLONEL: Well, thanks for having me, Kim. It's, you know, these are people who served alongside U.S. forces in Afghanistan. In many cases, they served with NGOs in country. They might have worked for some of our defense contractors. And so, they have materially contributed to our national security objectives during the conflict, and now they're being put on hold.
BRUNHUBER: So how will being put on hold affect their safety, especially those, as you say, who've helped us forces and might be at risk of Taliban reprisals? MISKA: Yes. I mean, they have gone through intensive vetting procedures, and many of the security checks are linked to medical checks as well. In addition to interviews, they're all interlocked. And so, when there's a disruption in that flow, some of these screenings have expirations. And so then you might need to get back in line and it could impact them for years to come.
They've been in the queue already for years and these are people who their families -- they might have families in the United States waiting for them and prepared to receive them. Many of the local communities are -- have sponsor circles that are prepared and ready. They've been notified and now all that's put on hold and they could be in danger as a result of that.
BRUNHUBER: Yes. And, you know, these are people who were meant to leave their homes. They've often sold their belongings and so on in anticipation of coming here to the U.S. I imagine there must be a sense of injustice. They've risked their lives for America, and now this, after the mismanagement of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, Donald Trump's now National Security Adviser Mike Waltz accused the Biden administration of abandoning its Afghan allies and breaking its promises for their security.
I mean, would you now accuse the Trump administration of basically doing the same thing?
MISKA: Yes. This is -- this is a major problem to create this amount of anxiety in a process that has worked and we've seen the vetting process has been proven. These are people who went on patrol with us, in many cases, every day. And our lives depended on them and now that their lives depend on us, it's a sacred promise that many veterans like myself feel really passionate about, and so we need to honor our obligations.
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BRUNHUBER: Yes. Because this, you know, has implications beyond just the people who are affected here. I imagine this might have their long-term consequences on the country's ability to recruit local allies for the next conflict, right? The word of America is on the line here.
MISKA: Exactly it. This is -- this is not Mother Teresa foreign policy as much as it is a moral obligation for us, many veterans feel that way. It's our code that we serve alongside people with. But it's got real national security consequences right now. We've got men and women in harm's way now who are relying on local national partners, interpreters and others to carry out our foreign policy objectives.
We are undermining that trust right now with counterterrorism investigations that are going on around the globe to keep our country safe. Who is going to want to provide valuable intelligence to our investigators if they're not sure the U.S. is going to safeguard them for doing so? You know, these are just some of the real issues that we need to face. BRUNHUBER: Yes, absolutely. So, this is being suspended sort of temporarily right now, if it is suspended indefinitely, what other options do these refugees have?
MISKA: It's difficult to say. If they are stuck in limbo in a third country it depends on the capacity of that country or other follow-on destinations. But there, you know, our allies follow our lead in many cases. The U.S. is tends to be the major player in the marketplace here with respect to defense and security. So, when we cancel this type of obligation, you know, our colleagues in NATO and other forces that served in Afghanistan and elsewhere might also consider whether or not they can continue following their obligations.
So, there are not a lot of options if people are stuck in Afghanistan, that's even worse, especially if there were women. I mean, we've all seen that those types of freedoms just keep getting pulled back by the Taliban and it's really becoming difficult for women to have any sort of life in Afghanistan.
BRUNHUBER: Yes. I mean, helping these people who've been partners to the U.S. was a bipartisan issue, so let's hope that they can be -- there is some political solutions to be had here. Steve Miska, thank you so much for being here with us. Really appreciate it.
MISKA: Thank you, Kim.
BRUNHUBER: All right. We're going to go to Turkey now where funerals have been held for the victims of a deadly fire at a ski resort. Mourners gathered to pay their respects to the memorial services in Istanbul. At least 79 people were killed in the fire early Tuesday, including children. More than 50 people were injured. Hospital officials say at least a dozen of them are still receiving treatment.
According to CNN Turk, all 14 members of one family are among the victims. They were laid to rest together at a funeral on Wednesday, attended by the Turkish president, who helped carry one of the coffins. Turkish authorities have detained at least 11 people as part of the investigation into the fire. Among them the local deputy mayor in charge of the fire department, as well as the department's director and the owner and managers of the hotel and business.
Well, the easy way or the hard way. That's how U.S. President Donald Trump is spelling out Russia's options as he tries to push the Kremlin into making peace with Ukraine, and he's threatening Moscow with new sanctions and tariffs if it chooses the difficult option.
CNN's Nick Paton Walsh has more.
NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, it is the second time in about 48 hours in which President Trump has tried to strike a far from cozy tone with Vladimir Putin, a counterpart with whom his relationship during his first term many question as being too sympathetic.
His lengthy statement talks about the need to end this ridiculous war, how he'd be doing Russia a favor by allowing them to strike a deal, something Vladimir Putin should accept because of the economic damage that's been doing. And he says if this idea is not seized on by the Kremlin head, then he'll be left with, "no choice" but to implement tariffs, taxes, and more sanctions against Russia.
Now, it's unclear quite what tightening of the sanctions screw there is left to do. Just in the closing days of the Biden administration, new tougher sanctions were placed on the Russian oil and gas industry. And I think many experts assess that the west is doing pretty much all they can without damaging themselves significantly through the sanctions that have already been implemented.
But still the threat is indeed there. And it's one, I think, designed to try and push Russia to the negotiating table. We haven't really seen a serious proposal emerges as to how those talks could potentially take place.
[02:25:07]
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also said at Davos that his team would meet Trump's team, and then eventually he would meet Trump. That's all part of the stagecraft of diplomacy here, policy makers getting together and trying to establish what a road map towards some kind of deal would be. But the big missing part of the equation here is exactly how Moscow feels about this.
They have welcomed Trump to office and sounded like they would be interested in serious negotiations around ending the war in Ukraine, but that is a quite a contradiction, their conduct here, their statements domestically, much more maximalist at times in what they want to try and achieve. And regardless, during all this wait for diplomacy to take shape. They are incrementally, but steadily and consistently winning on the frontlines.
And that's the mood music, frankly, here. We have Trump trying to sound, perhaps for his own domestic reasons, that it'll be tough on Moscow. Zelenskyy tough on Europe, trying to get them to pay more for their own security to police Trump. And Putin welcoming Trump to office, but not at this stage, sounding like he wants to immediately engage in a process to end the war, that he is slowly, frankly, at this point, but surely winning.
So, a very complex road ahead here, despite this opening salvo from Trump that suggests he wants to provide potentially some tougher incentives for Russia to come to the table.
Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, Kyiv.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: Much more to come here on CNN NEWSROOM. We'll have details of the new wildfire burning north of Los Angeles and how it's expected to move in the next 24 hours.
Plus, President Trump blames California's water policies for the fire's destruction, ahead of a visit to Los Angeles on Friday. We'll have That story more straight ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BRUNHUBER: Welcome back to all you watching us around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber. This is CNN NEWSROOM. Let's get the latest on our top story this hour. An intense new wildfire is burning in Southern California. The Hughes fire erupted Wednesday morning. It's already consumed more than 10,000 acres, about 4000 hectares, and is 14 percent contained.
[02:30:03]
Thirty-one thousand people are under evacuation orders and another 23,000 under warnings. Late Wednesday officials warned that the gusty winds driving the Hughes Fire will peak overnight.
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CAPT. SHEILA KELLIHER BERKOH, SPOKESPERSON, LOS ANGELES COUNTY FIRE DEPARTMENT: It's a completely different beast. It's a different fire with the wind. So that's the good news about this fire. We're fortunate because we can dip right out of Castaic Lake. So, we've got a lot of water up there. There's a lot of resources as far as where we can fill up our helicopters and fixed-wing crafts and stuff. So, we've got plenty of water to fight this fire.
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BRUNHUBER: Daniel Veluzat is the Co-Owner of the Santa Clarita Movie Ranch and earlier he spoke with CNN, described the moment when the fires forced him to stop the production being filmed on his property. Here he is.
DANIEL VELUZAT, CO-OWNER, SANTA CLARITA MOVIE RANCH: I felt the need to halt production today, both filming, construction and striking. I took an early look at the fire from one of our upper ridges and it was just moving at such a rapid rate. And I thought the interesting thing about this fire was that this fire was actually pushing against the wind and so that concerned me. The wind was going in the right direction for our sake, but the way I saw the fire kind of pushing back against the wind and kind of going in just about any direction it wanted to is what put the fear into me today to put production companies in a safe place.
BRUNHUBER: President Donald Trump will visit California on Friday to survey damage caused by the deadly wildfires that have ripped across the region. He sat down for his first Oval Office interview since returning to the White House on Wednesday. He said the federal government shouldn't "Give California anything" and blamed the destruction on the state's governor and its water policy. Here it is.
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DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: They have water coming down from the Pacific Northwest, which is a lot of water. So much water that they'd have to let some of it go at some point. They don't need reservoirs. They don't need anything. They're spending all this money on these reservoirs, and they're fake reservoirs, they're --
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: But the reservoirs were empty. The hydrants didn't work. And they're not practicing the science of forestry, which is --
TRUMP: Their sprinklers didn't work in the homes because they had no water (ph).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: Now, one of the executive orders Trump signed on Tuesday directs federal agencies to reroute water in California. The order says that the state needs to put people over fish, a reference to efforts to protect delta smelt, an endangered species. And while there has been a water shortage in Southern California, experts say there's no basis for linking the fires to smelt protection efforts.
I'm joined now by Political Analyst, Brian Sobel in Petaluma, California. Thank you so much for being here with us. So, as you well know, this water fight goes back a long ways. It's something that Republicans in California feel strongly about, that the Democrats are prioritizing fish over people. How valid are those claims, especially when it comes to fighting fires?
BRIAN SOBEL, POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, there's a lot of myths that go along with this. To your point, it has been a fight in California for many, many years, pitting Central Valley farmers, frankly, who need a lot of water, against environmentalists. The smelt is a small fish. It is just one piece of the argument, but it has to be a bifurcated argument in terms of the fires in Southern California.
What happened there was the systems were terribly overwhelmed. And -- but at the same time, it's also true that there has not been a new reservoir built with a large capacity since the late 1970s here in California.
BRUNHUBER: Yeah. So it sounds like they're trying to simplify the argument saying, well, they couldn't fight the fires because they're trying to protect this little fish, which obviously isn't true. For Californians, and maybe Americans overall who are worried about things like rolling back these environmental regulations and so on, is there anything that can be learned from Trump 1.0? I mean, many of the things Trump tried to do took years to actually implement, if at all, because of lengthy legal battles, and we're going to see plenty of those in California. Both sides will have learned from their first go around, right?
SOBEL: Absolutely. And we saw this huge slew of executive orders, people over fish being one of them, that is directed at California with the idea that you would take water from Northern California and the San Joaquin and Sacramento areas of California, and move it to Southern California. But there's a bigger play here, and it's really about Donald Trump's feeling that California is dysfunctional and he blames the governor of California. But again, this is a decades-old argument, and California at nearly 40 million people, just a perspective, nearly the same population as that of the vast country of Canada in terms of geography, produces a great deal of food for the nation and for the region. And so, water is very, very important.
[02:35:00]
BRUNHUBER: Yeah.
SOBEL: But a lot of these arguments get mixed together.
BRUNHUBER: Yeah. So water, very important. The other battle will be immigration. Many cities in California are sanctuary cities, the state sees itself as a sanctuary state which brings it, of course, in direct conflict with Trump's new policies. Trump just said in an interview he'd considered cutting funding to sanctuary cities. So, how do you see this conflict playing out this time around compared to Trump's first term?
SOBEL: Well, I think we have to consider that there are probably two things that led the way in terms of the Trump election. One is the economy and two is immigration. A lot of people across the United States feel very strongly about immigration. In California, it's a bit of a different argument. There are a lot of immigrants in California, migrants who have arrived here, who help, frankly, with a lot of the crops and other things that are grown and harvested in California.
And it's a very, very liberal state, a very blue state. And so, there's going to be considerable pushback from California and the sanctuary cities. You're seeing it bubbling up already in terms of California beginning to figure out how it can defend itself from some of the Trump initiatives.
BRUNHUBER: Yeah. So, immigration is a divisive issue, but something that used to be fairly bipartisan, recovery aid has even become political and polarized. The Trump administration has threatened to withhold aid to California or put conditions on it.
So that's further complicating this already fraught relationship between Gavin Newsom and Trump. Newsom had invited Trump to survey the fire damage for himself. Now, Trump is coming. Air Force One touches down in the state Friday. There was a lot of confusion as to whether the president and the governor will meet. What more do we know?
SOBEL: We don't know much at this hour, but I suspect that Gavin Newsom, Governor Newsom will be meeting with the president. And he has said that where he can find agreement with the federal government, that is the state of California, he will cooperate; where he cannot find agreement, he will defer or argue against it.
I think Donald Trump arrives in California on Friday to survey the Southern California, the Los Angeles area fire damage, and right there will be Governor Gavin Newsom.
BRUNHUBER: Yeah, we will see how that will play out because, of course, Gavin Newsom has presidential ambitions. A fight with Donald Trump is something that he possibly relishes as possibly the Democrat's face of opposition to the Trump regime. We'll have to leave it there, but really appreciate talking to you, Brian Sobel. Thank you so much.
SOBEL: My pleasure. Have a great evening.
BRUNHUBER: All right. Up next, a day of celebration for hundreds of same-sex couples in Thailand, now the first country in Southeast Asia to recognize marriage equality. Stay with us.
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[02:40:13]
BRUNHUBER: Hundreds of same-sex couples are getting married across Thailand as the country becomes the first in Southeast Asia to recognize marriage equality with full legal, financial, medical, and other rights. The LGBTQ community fought for more than a decade to have the same rights as straight couples. The landmark bill was passed by Thailand's parliament and endorsed by the king last year.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PEHTHAI THANOMKHET, LGBT SPOUSE (through translator): We now have rights and recognition in terms of assets, inheritance, and I hope people can open their minds to this.
NATHNICHA KLINTHAWORN, LGBT SPOUSE (through translator): The most important thing is that love is beautiful, regardless of gender. No matter what gender someone identifies as, love is beautiful. Everyone wants to experience good love. So, I hope people can stop limiting love to just men and women. People of all genders to deserve to have beautiful love.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: Thailand is now one of three places in all of Asia to recognize marriage equality, after Taiwan and Nepal. It's one of 38 countries worldwide where same-sex marriage is now legal. The Netherlands was the first to establish it as long back in 2001.
A ball and chain was used to send a message to international leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. On Wednesday, Greenpeace activists attached an inflatable ball and chain to a private jet used by some of the participants. The move was meant to show that the plane was symbolically confiscated to support taxing the richest people to finance the fight against climate change. The Forum is an annual event where some of the world's richest and most influential people discuss the key issues of the year.
Adventurous mountaineers looking to climb Mount Everest will soon have to pay a steeper price. Nepal is raising permit fees, making it 35 percent more expensive to summit the world's tallest peak. A permit to climb in the popular April to May season will now cost $15,000, up from $11,000. Permits for other months will also go up, but are still thousands of dollars cheaper than the peak season. It's the first price increase in nearly a decade. Nepal is often criticized for allowing too many climbers on Everest and doing little to keep it clean or to ensure climbers' safety.
Well, I'm Kim Brunhuber. We'll be (ph) back in 15 minutes with more "CNN Newsroom." "World Sport" is next.
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