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CNN This Morning

Life-Threatening Wildfires Sweep Across Southern California; Trump Muses on Land Grabs of Canada, Greenland, Panama Canal. Aired 6- 6:30a ET

Aired January 08, 2025 - 06:00   ET

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

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: It's Wednesday, January 8. Right now, on CNN THIS MORNING.

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[06:01:11]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This wind is no joke, and it can change on a dime. And you're stuck.

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HUNT: No hope of containment. Fierce winds fueling dangerous wildfires in California. Tens of thousands evacuating. Still evacuating at this hour.

Plus, this. The next six hours, they're going to be critical. The warning from officials, while the worst still yet to come for Southern California.

And then.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: Canada and the United States, that would really be something.

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HUNT: Expanding the U.S.? Donald Trump not ruling out military or economic force to take what he wants.

Plus, President Biden telling the "USA Today" that he still thinks he could have beaten Donald Trump in November. We'll have more from his last print interview as president.

All right. It is 6 a.m. on the East Coast. Here is a live look at Los Angeles County, California, at this hour. It is 3:01 a.m., Pacific Time.

And as we have been discussing all morning, these -- these hours right now, some of the most dangerous hours for people living in and around L.A., forced to evacuate because of these fires.

Good morning, everyone, I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.

We begin with the sheer -- night of sheer hell in Hollywood. Los Angeles County continues to burn three horrifying, devastating wildfires, triggering a state of emergency, threatening thousands of homes and lives.

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(FIRE CRACKLING)

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HUNT: Evacuations widening overnight. The flames being whipped by fierce winds, forcing tens of thousands of people from their homes.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is the worst fire I've ever encountered. I've been within three within a mile, and I've never had to get evacuated. So, I was really surprised that the fire moved so quickly this time.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We were running down. You could see palm trees, just like random palm trees on fire. So, I'm sure leaves are burning and falling down. And it's -- it's literally apocalyptic.

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HUNT: The fires are spreading so fast that it's not yet possible to contain them, or to calculate how many homes and businesses have been lost.

Firefighters telling CNN the flames are burning the equivalent of five football fields per minute in the Pacific Palisades.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: People understand how bad a hurricane is or how bad a tornado is. But you know, you can't stop those. The wind is so strong. There's nothing you can do. You wait till it passes through, and then you fix what's left. Right?

Well, on -- add fire on top of that, and that's what we're up against.

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HUNT: So, let's take a look at the famed Sunset Boulevard. Hundreds of cars were abandoned by panicked drivers there. Fire officials -- there they are -- deploying bulldozers to push them all aside to reopen the road for emergency vehicles.

CNN meteorologist Derek van Dam has been tracking the weather conditions overnight and into this morning.

Derek, what's the latest? DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, this next couple of hours is so

critical right now, because we do anticipate the winds to peak as we head towards the dawn hours on the West Coast of the U.S.

Extreme fire behavior, and as you can see with this video. Look at the little swirls, kind of almost like the actual flame is creating its own weather patterns in and around it.

So, we call this extreme fire behavior. And this is just incredible to see how quickly this -- what's called long-range spotting can occur.

An ember from a flame like that, being driven by 100-mile-per-hour winds, will start additional fires. That is why it's so hard to contain what is happening on the ground in Los Angeles and Ventura counties as we speak.

This is the moment from space when the Palisades Fire broke out late last night, and you can see it and also the direction of the wind. Notice the plume of smoke going directly into the Pacific Ocean. That's the Northerly component to the wind.

[06:05:05]

It is being driven up and over the mountain ridges towards the coastline. This is typical with Santa Ana winds.

Remember, as we go through the overnight period, the land cools faster than the ocean. So, what happens? The air moves from hot to cool, and that increases the wind. That's called a land breeze.

So, it combines with that. And we see that peak of the Santa Ana winds as we head towards the dusk hours.

Look at this view. This is very interesting. This is Santa Monica, and there's the Palisades Fire.

I want to show you just how close this fire actually is to burning additional homes and additional structures. All those white buildings right there are at threat of these embers spreading quickly and creating more additional wildfires as we go through the course of the day.

We are monitoring three active, large, out-of-control fires that are 0 percent contained as we speak in L.A. County.

HUNT: Yes. And again, as you pointed out there, just the tens of thousands of people that are in the path there. And of course, for anyone that's -- that's flown into LAX, you know, this is usually what you're seeing when you're looking out the window of that plane.

And I think we have some video we can show everyone of someone -- this is out the window of a plane last night, landing in L.A., or at least flying over Los Angeles. And that is what it looked like from the sky.

Again, Los Angeles -- LAX is really not that far from kind of -- from Santa Monica along the coastline, where, of course, the Palisades a little bit -- a little bit up from it. But just unbelievably stunning scenes.

Derek, can -- can Los Angeles County residents, can they expect any relief from these winds? I mean, what -- what time of day are we looking at when people might be able to breathe a sigh of relief that, at least, it may not get worse from there?

VAN DAM: Remember, the most erratic, the most powerful winds are anticipated here within the coming hours. So, as we combine that land breeze with the Santa Ana winds, we expect the strongest winds to occur as we head towards the dawn morning hours, as we get that sunrise on the West Coast, roughly 7 a.m.

And then we will get a bit of a relaxed -- relaxing in the winds through the course of the afternoon. Pay attention to the legend at the top portion of my screen, and you can see how they drop in numbers.

But then the cycle repeats itself overnight tonight and into the day tomorrow. We expect this extreme fire behavior to continue, at least for the next 24 hours. Maybe that brief window in time during the course of the daylight hours today.

But the strongest winds, again, occurring overnight because of just the sheer nature of how Santa Ana winds work and operate here in Southern California, driving up and over those mountain tops, funneling through the valleys and the sides of these mountains, almost creating this wind tunnel effect.

Remember, when it gets squeezed, wind between these canyons, that's when the wind accelerates even further. And so, when we have those peak winds this morning, that is where we anticipate the most erratic and most intense and most dangerous part of this ongoing wildfire situation in L.A. County.

HUNT: All right. Derek van Dam for us this morning.

Derek, thank you. We'll be coming to you throughout the rest of this hour.

But I want to go now to Brian Rice. He is the president of the California Professional Firefighters union.

Sir, very grateful to have you on the show this morning. What have you been hearing from crews on the ground? What are they facing right now?

BRIAN RICE, PRESIDENT, CALIFORNIA PROFESSIONAL FIREFIGHTERS UNION: Good morning.

And I just -- I spoke to a firefighter just a few minutes ago. You know, I've been following this like everyone else, but we're hearing, unfortunately, the same things that we've heard over the last several years.

This is apocalyptic. We've never seen fire behavior like this. It's moved so fast. And the wind is so powerful. It's all the things that you've already been talking about. I thought one of the telling pieces of video were the abandoned

vehicles. That tells you that people felt so imperiled that they exited their vehicles because of a traffic jam and ran.

We saw similar things in the Paradise Fire several years ago. The difference was many of those vehicles were burned over before they were even able to push them out of the way.

But this really looks almost like the Lahaina Maui fire. It started as a brush fire. It's moved into the interface area and into neighborhoods, and it is really wind-driven.

HUNT: Brian, you said that you spoke recently with a firefighter. Are you hearing anything at this time about the human toll here?

I mean, you note, of course, that people clearly, incredibly afraid. We've heard here at CNN that at least one firefighter was injured.

But do you know anything more about how many people may have been injured or, God forbid, killed so far in these fires?

[06:10:07]

RICE: Just general information. We know -- have not heard of any reported civilian deaths, nor firefighter deaths. We're seeing in the civilian population. There have been several, I've been told, multiple burn injuries that have reported kind of into the PCH area and then into the beach areas. They've been treated, taken to hospitals. Don't have a number, don't -- don't know the severity.

You're going to get that information probably later today when the fire department and the incident command gives an overview. As far as firefighter injuries, we're seeing the very typical things -- strains, sprains, eye injuries, smoke inhalation.

The other piece of this that I think is really important, if you don't live in the area, don't go sightseeing. And the smoke is a toxic soup.

It's not just the brush that's burning, but homes are burning. And homes contain plastics that are built from petrochemical compounds.

And the firefighters right now, not only the exposure to the wind and the flames and the heat, but the respiratory exposure is incredible. And if you do not have to be in that area and breathe that environment in, don't. It's dangerous.

HUNT: That's a really, really important note.

Sir, one of the things we've been hearing from authorities through the night is that, because of the speed of the winds, that it's not really possible to actually fight these fires or try to contain them at this point. But rather, they have had to focus on life-saving missions.

What insight can you give us into how firefighters think about this kind of a weather pattern, and what that means they have to do now, and when they may be able to change that mission? RICE: They're watching what's in front of them and finding

opportunities, and they may be little -- to make a little save here and there.

But right now, their primary mission are moving the citizens, the civilians, and the residents out of harm's way. That is the most important thing that they're doing. They will find places where they can begin to make a stand.

But it's going -- it's going to be small. Their main focus right now is saving life and getting people to safe harbor.

HUNT: What can you tell us about, as well, just briefly, in your -- you mentioned how this fire behavior is just so different than it has been in the past.

What does that mean for firefighting crews? You know, what -- what more do they need? And does it start to feel hopeless at a certain point?

RICE: We -- you know, we -- we -- as a firefighter, you never feel hopeless. You might feel like you're really behind the eight ball. And if there's one thing that we need that we're never going to have, we need to be able to control the weather. And we can't.

And right now, the firefighters on the line, these men and women, are going to put in 24-, 36-, 40-, 48-hour shifts. They're not going off the fire line anytime soon. And that -- that's just the way it is.

Everyone is at the mercy of the wind right now. And until we see a shift in the wind or a drop in the wind, it's -- it's just not going to -- it's not going to let up a couple of interesting things.

The governor's Office of Emergency Services pre-positioned 65 engines and over 120 personnel throughout L.A., Orange, San Bernardino and Ventura County prior to the fires.

CAL FIRE pre-positioned 45 additional engines and six hand crews.

So, the wind event was anticipated, and resources were moved in. But when you have weather like this, with sustained winds, you know, over 40 miles an hour -- 40, 50 miles an hour -- gusts that are reported into the 60s, 70s and 80s, you're not going to control that. You're going to get people out of harm's way and find your opportunity to begin to bring control to that situation.

But it's -- it's going to be a little bit of time right now. And the daylight hours, and the reports for today, and the weather reports for today, and what's observed are going to be critically important.

HUNT: All right. Brian Rice, thank you very much. I know it's been quite a night for you. Middle of the night out there in Los Angeles.

And I'm sure you've got a lot of friends, associates whose lives are on the line tonight. So, we're thinking about them. We're thinking about you. I really appreciate your insight this morning. Thanks for being here.

RICE: You're welcome. Thank you.

HUNT: All right. Coming up here on CNN THIS MORNING, a vision of expansion. Donald Trump laying out his plan to gain control of Greenland, the Panama Canal, and Canada.

And we're going to continue to follow those destructive fires burning across California. We are live on the ground in Los Angeles, ahead.

[06:15:07]

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you ever seen anything like this?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Never, never. And I've lived in Malibu my whole life, and I've seen tons of fires. This is nothing -- I was -- I was scared for my life. It was -- It's terrifying.

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TRUMP: People really don't even know if Denmark has any legal right to it. But if they do, they should give it up, because we need it for national security. That's for the free world.

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HUNT: "They should give it up." The incoming president of the United States making clear he wants the island territory of Greenland to be American.

During a press conference which lasted more than an hour Tuesday, Donald Trump went into some detail about how he might go about annexing Greenland, the Panama Canal, and even potentially our neighbors to the North.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you assure the world that, as you try to get control of these areas, you are not going to use military or economic coercion?

TRUMP: No. You're talking about Panama and Greenland? No. I can't assure you on either of those two.

But I can say this. We need them for economic security. The Panama Canal was built for our military.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) will not use military -- TRUMP: I'm not going to commit to that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you also considering military force to annex and acquire Canada?

TRUMP: No. Economic force. Because Canada and the United States, that would really be something. You get rid of that artificially drawn line.

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HUNT: The leader on the other side of that, quote, "artificially drawn line" -- should we do a history lesson? -- firing back at Trump's idea.

The outgoing Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, writing in response, quote, "There isn't a snowball's chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States."

Leaders in Panama and Denmark also throwing cold water on Trump's ideas.

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JAVIER MARTINEZ-ACHA, PANAMANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER (through translator): The sovereignty of our canal is not negotiable. The only hands that control the canal are Panamanian, and it will remain that way.

AAJA CHEMNITZ, MEMBER OF DANISH PARLIAMENT, GREENLAND RESIDENT: Greenland is not MAGA. Greenland is not going to be MAGA. And I think in many ways, it's a Trump stunt.

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HUNT: All right. Our panel is here to discuss: Michael Warren, senior editor at "The Dispatch"; Elliot Williams, CNN legal analyst; Susan Wild is a former Democratic congresswoman from Pennsylvania; and Kristen Soltis Anderson, CNN political commentator and a Republican strategist.

Good morning to all of you. Thank you very much for being here. We haven't even gotten to the fact that he wants to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.

Michael Warren, you know, as the -- as a journalist who has spent a lot of time on the right, this kind of rhetoric -- and God bless David Sanger for being there to ask these questions of Donald Trump -- what is actually going on here with him?

MICHAEL WARREN, SENIOR EDITOR, "THE DISPATCH": Well, we're talking about Donald Trump. He's not president yet, and we're talking about him.

I don't know. I had a flashback. I watched that entire press conference live yesterday. It's just like what it was like to cover the first Trump White House and the first Trump presidency.

He threw out a lot of things. It was -- it was really -- there were a couple of glances down at some notes, but it was sort of a stream-of- consciousness, classic Trump press conference. Everything that was on his mind sort of coming out on this.

I think he's trying to get attention. I think there is some seriousness to some of these. I really do think he's serious about Greenland.

You know, his son, Donald Trump Jr., was there in Greenland this week as a -- I guess, a fact-finding mission --

HUNT: I think with a bobblehead of his father.

WARREN: I think so.

So, look, I think he's serious. I think he's very, still -- If you listen to that press conference, he's torn up --

HUNT: He is.

WARREN: -- about the Panama Canal, something that, you know, happened 50 years ago, almost. And I think it's something that he is motivated by.

The question I have is there is a segment of his coalition that is very against sort of United States expansionist foreign policy. And I think that is going to come into some tension in these next few years.

SUSAN WILD (D), FORMER PENNSYLVANIA CONGRESSWOMAN: Well, I couldn't help but think about the -- the GOP-controlled Congress that I just left, where the -- the trend was completely toward isolationism and nothing outside our own borders.

And here we are now facing, I guess, becoming an imperialist country and just exerting our power over other sovereign entities, which is certainly not what I thought the GOP was headed for.

KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: But what -- what -- Donald Trump is trying to argue is that there are many other conflicts around the world where it's not in our interest to be involved. We've gotten too overextended.

But this is in our interest. This is in our hemisphere. This is something that is important for us to do.

And in a way, I think the reason why you see Donald Trump so animated about all of this is I think he views it as a really big real-estate transaction.

What does Donald Trump do? Big real-estate transactions, branding. The Gulf of America. I mean, this is -- this is just Donald Trump taking the same playbook he's been running for decades and now trying to apply it to the U.S. government yet again. ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: And I'd say that combining

both your points, it's -- we were here four years ago where the former president, president-elect will make these claims that, in many ways, are kind of preposterous, but there's an element of truth to them.

Like, yes, we technically could, under the laws of the military, annex another nation if we so chose. But here we are, once again, assessing the seriousness of these kind of harebrained, almost, schemes being cooked up by the former president. That could be the future of America. But it's hard to know where we go from here.

[06:25:13]

WILD: Keep in mind, he didn't rule out the idea of using military power. Invading Greenland would mean invading a NATO country, and under Section V of the NATO treaty, and all NATO countries have an obligation to come to the defense of any of their allies.

I mean, it's just preposterous that we would ever be able to do that by way of some sort of --

ANDERSON: If we actually invade -- if we actually invade Greenland, have me back on the show. Show me this clip of me saying, we're not going to invade Greenland, and you can tell me I'm dumb. You can tell me I'm foolish.

WILLIAMS: It's going to be --

ANDERSON: We're not going to invade Greenland. But I think, to the extent that Donald Trump thinks of this as, like, a real-estate deal, he says things like, "All options are on the table," because he's trying to have the strongest negotiating posture.

It may be ridiculous. We're in for four more years of it, but this is totally in line with how Donald Trump works.

HUNT: Congresswoman, you want to jump in?

WILD: I just -- I think that it's more than a real-estate transaction to him. I think this is his expression of his ultimate power over not just this country, but the world. And that's what he is trying to convey.

ANDERSON: I will agree with that.

HUNT: Yes. Congresswoman, how -- for Democrats, you know, we were talking earlier about how there is a sense of approaching this second Trump term a little bit differently about -- "freaking out," I think, was your -- was the phrase that you used. Not doing that quite so much. How do you counter this as Democrats in Congress?

WILD: Well, I think -- I hope that Democrats in Congress and elsewhere have learned from the first Trump administration.

John Fetterman made a very good point. Pace yourself. There's going to be a lot of this. And if you freak out at every single thing, you're going to get exhausted quickly, and you're also going to lose some credibility.

I do hope that what the Democratic Party does -- and, you know, there's this debate within the party. Do we move further left? Do we move? Do we become Republican lite?

And my answer to that is you don't do either one. You find -- you figure out what the most pressing concerns are of the largest number of Americans, and you focus on those issues.

And I would submit to you issues like childcare, and what are we doing about childcare, and how are we making it happen?

HUNT: One second. I'm sorry.

Congresswoman, we didn't get a chance to talk about this earlier, but the Ethics Committee report -- you were the top Democrat on the Ethics Committee -- that came out about Matt Gaetz. And that required Republicans to -- to vote to release it publicly.

Can you take us behind the scenes and help us understand why they were willing to do that? Was it because they are not -- they don't like Matt Gaetz, or is it because they were willing to take on Donald Trump?

WILD: I can't take you behind the scenes of how the Ethics Committee operated, but the report itself is public now. But I can't discuss what happened behind the scenes or what motivated anybody.

HUNT: Are you confident the report's comprehensive?

WILD: Yes. That was a report that was worked on for a very long time and was gone over many, many times.

HUNT: All right, Congresswoman, thank you. I appreciate it.

All right. Still ahead here on CNN THIS MORNING, with just days left in office, President Biden giving his final print interview as president. And he's still adamant he could have won the 2024 election.

Also, apocalyptic scenes in Southern California. A CNN crew making a harrowing escape last night from the flames. We'll bring you that, just coming up next.

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