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The Source with Kaitlan Collins
L.A. Fires Burn For Fourth Day; Trump Sentenced Without Penalty, Will Take Office As A Felon; Supreme Court Signals It Will Uphold TikTok Ban. Aired 9-10p ET
Aired January 10, 2025 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: So, let's just hope that in the next day or two, the winds do not pick up, as they are expected to, and that the direction that they do blow is a direction away from these homes.
If you want to help people here, go to CNN.com/impact, and you can find -- that's the web address. You can find out all about organizations, which are working here. CNN.com/impact.
This Sunday, I'll have a special hour, on "THE WHOLE STORY." It's our documentary series. A special hour devoted to what is going on here, and what we are seeing on the ground from, including from all our correspondents.
There's a lot more ahead tonight. Kaitlan Collins starts us off right now with THE SOURCE.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): This is CNN Breaking News.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN HOST: Good evening.
Four days into the fight, at least six wildfires are still burning across Los Angeles tonight, as there are some positive developments that we are seeing. Firefighters making a bit of progress today, as those ferocious winds are easing up. But they are also bracing for things to pick, right back up again.
There will be no letup in this kind of air attack that you're seeing here, knocking down flames, for days to come. And as of tonight, the Palisades fire, that is the biggest one that we've been tracking, over the last several days, so far remains only 8 percent contained. More than 21,000 acres have been destroyed just by that fire alone. That is bigger than the size of all of Manhattan.
This is an all-hands-on-deck race by first responders, from the air and on the ground, to save lives, homes, entire livelihoods.
Help is desperately needed, according to L.A.'s Fire Chief, who told CNN earlier, that the City failed her, and her department, by cutting its budget. She says those warnings that she had about that had gone ignored. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KRISTIN CROWLEY, CHIEF, LOS ANGELES FIRE DEPARTMENT: The Fire Department needs help. We can no longer sustain where we are. We do not have enough firefighters.
And I warned, I rang the bell, that these additional cuts could be very, very devastating for our ability to provide public safety.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Now, that is what the Fire Chief is saying.
L.A.'s Mayor, Karen Bass, has said those cuts did not affect the response efforts, and that after that budget was passed, the City passed millions in pay raises for firefighters, and millions for new equipment.
But I can now report this evening, as we come on the air, that Chief Crowley, who you just heard from there, did have a meeting with Mayor Bass, this afternoon. We are still waiting to learn more about the outcome of that meeting, where things go from here.
I do want to note that just about half an hour ago, there was supposed to be a press conference with officials starting. They've been doing these daily, sometimes multiple times a day. We expected Mayor Bass to be at this press conference.
We were watching this, to see if anything came out of that meeting, if anything was going to be said about it. But officials came out, law enforcement officials. Mayor Bass was not there. They only spoke for about 10 minutes at most, probably.
And we've been watching this very closely. We have not heard any more updates. We'll continue to update you that -- on that, and what we're hearing from our sources this evening.
I do want to get straight to the ground, though. Right now, Anderson Cooper is in Pacific Palisades.
And Anderson, as you've been there, reporting today, it was in a remarkable moment earlier, you were witnessing just firsthand, watching this battle to contain these fires from the air. What has that looked like? What have you seen?
COOPER: Yes, it's been extraordinary today. We were up in Topanga Canyon, a small community called Fernwood, along a road called Melody Lane.
And we watched for about an hour and a half, or maybe two hours as, I mean, dozens of helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft were dropping water, and fire retardant on a small spot fire that was threatening this entire community. If the winds had shifted, and it would have swept up through all the vegetation, igniting all the vegetation, and then could have very easily destroyed the homes. The amount of air assets they put to bear was extraordinary, and it's a real sign of just the precarious situation. A lot of these communities are up in these -- in these hills, in these mountains, in the Topanga Canyon area. It's very hard for firefighters to get there. So, if the winds do come, and ember comes, a whole area can go up very, very quickly.
And as we were there, there was another fire, on another ridge, and then another on a farther away ridge. So, you really just get the sense that these things are popping up, and it's like, whack-a-mole.
And these firefighters just have to be on the ground. They're pre- positioned in these places. And they're responding as quickly as possible to these areas, and they're really putting a lot of assets to bear. And they've been able to do that, particularly today with air assets, because the winds have died down today. But again, the real concern is for what happens this weekend.
[21:05:00]
I spoke a short time ago to Thomas Renaud. He and his partner live in the Altadena area. And they evacuated very early. Their home has been destroyed.
This is what Thomas, some of what he said earlier.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
THOMAS RENAUD, LOST ALTADENA HOME IN FIRE: I rounded, you know, the corner to our block, and just saw the devastation. It was really just heartbreaking, like. You know, and this is not just us. You know, it's, our entire community is leveled, you know?
And it's Altadena is a working-class community, filled with artists, and public servants, and musicians, and writers. And, you know, I think we focus so much on celebrities in these mansions, and people that have lost their homes in the Palisades. And all of that is terrible. But there is a huge community of working-class Americans that have lost everything.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: And that Altadena fire, which is from the fires in Altadena, which came from the Eaton fire, that was the one, two days ago, that just complete -- just really was horrific to watch, devastating that entire neighborhood.
I want to check in with our Nick Watt, who has been working, I mean, tirelessly, since this fire started.
Nick, what's the latest, where you are?
NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, what we've been doing today is hearing from a lot of people, who are very angry about what happened. As the initial shock has subsided, people are asking questions, Could more have been done? Kaitlan was mentioning up, at the top of the show, there, this issue with the Fire Chief here in L.A., saying that she didn't have the resources, she doesn't have the budget, to do what she has to do, she says, as a Fire Chief, as a public servant, which is to make sure that her people have what they need to do their jobs. Now, the investigations, the recriminations, are going to continue for some time.
Governor Gavin Newsom wants to know why that the water stopped in the hydrants here in the Palisades. He's also asked for President Trump to come and visit. Unclear if political posturing on either side. Because Trump, of course, blamed this all on Governor Newsom, and said Newsom should resign. Unclear if that political posturing is actually helpful to anyone, at this point. But that's not for me to say.
The other issue that I'm kind of obsessed with at the moment are the power cables. Now, we know that power cables spark a lot of wildfires. They sparked the Woolsey fire, just down the road from here, in 2018. They sparked that fire that destroyed the Town of Paradise, up in Northern California. Paradise, right now, by the way, is rebuilding, and the Mayor tells CNN that they are rebuilding with the power cables, under the ground, so they can't spark wildfires.
Now, we don't know what sparked these fires here, yet. We don't. There's talk of arson. But as I say, it is often power cables. So, should those power cables perhaps be put under the ground? That's also a question that people are going to have to answer.
A lot of people I've spoken to today, experts in the field, say what these fires should do is they should be a wake-up call. We cannot act like we're still in the 20th Century. The climate has changed. We need to rethink how we build our cities, and how we protect ourselves.
Chief Crowley is saying that these days, you need a lot more firefighters. She's saying that between 2010 and now, the Fire Department in L.A. is dealing with 50 percent more calls, but with fewer firefighters.
So, a lot of questions, not enough answers. They could take time.
Anderson.
COOPER: Yes. Nick Watt, I appreciate it.
Kaitlan, it is remarkable what the Fire Chief said, to Jake Tapper, on CNN, earlier today, directly contradicting what Mayor Bass had said.
Mayor Bass had said, when she returned from her trip to Ghana, and gave a press conference, she said that the budget cuts, to the Fire Department in Los Angeles, did not affect their ability to fight this fire.
The Chief of the Fire Department contradicted her directly, said, It did, and here's how.
So remains to be seen what is going to happen there. But it's -- that's one thing to watch in the days ahead, Kaitlan.
COLLINS: Yes, I mean, and that's something that we were talking about tonight, Anderson, as we were looking at the comments, by Chief Crowley, is, yes, the Mayor is contradicting her. And here's the Mayor outlining what's in the budget, and what they did differently with pay raises, and where these cuts were.
But, I mean, it's the Chief herself, who is -- who was saying this, who was just being straightforward and candid, frankly, about what her firefighters have been dealing with, and what she says are the cuts. I mean, it's straight from her mouth.
COOPER: Yes.
COLLINS: Anderson Cooper, thank you for that. We'll check back in with you on the ground.
[21:10:00]
My source tonight on the ground is also Brent Pascua. He is the Battalion Chief with Cal Fire.
Not affiliated with the L.A. Fire Chief, Crowley, I should note, just as we're talking about the meeting that she had, that we're hearing from a source, with Mayor Bass, this afternoon. We're still trying to figure out more about that meeting.
But I want to talk about what's actually happening on the ground today, the progress that Anderson said he was seeing, because these winds had died down. Are you seeing success? How would you measure it so far, from the last 24 hours or so?
BRENT PASCUA, BATTALION CHIEF, CAL FIRE: Yes.
COLLINS: Can you hear me, Chief? This is Kaitlan Collins with CNN.
All right, we're going to check back in with the Chief. We're going to try to get his audio working. Understandably, he is out on the ground. He has been working with this, and dealing with this.
PASCUA: Now I am.
COLLINS: All right, Chief, can you hear me? It's Kaitlan Collins.
PASCUA: Yes, I can hear you.
COLLINS: I'm so glad that we can hear you. I know you're out on the ground, you're in the work, and taking some time to talk with us. So I really appreciate it.
I don't know if you heard my question. But I was saying, Anderson was talking about the progress that they've seen, in terms of actually being able to have the aerial firefighters go out, and try to battle these fires from the sky.
What's the latest been on, like, on the ground today? PASCUA: Yes, so the latest on the ground today, the Pacific Palisades, the fire has moved on from there, and found some canyons to use, slope and the dry brush, to fuel this fire now. So, we've had a surge of resources head to the Topanga Canyon area, for structure protection, structure defense.
The aircraft, valuable asset today. I watched number of drops, from the very large air tankers to our sky -- to our Firehawks dropping water directly on the fire, making a huge difference, helping our firefighters on the ground.
COLLINS: Yes, and when you are able to do that. As the winds have been dying down. We were checking what they are, this hour. Obviously lower than they had been earlier. But expected to pick back up again on Sunday. How critical is this window that you can use, to make sure that you know that you can fly, and what do you want to get done in the next 24 to 48 hours?
PASCUA: Right. It's very critical, very important. It's all hands on deck. We're trying to dig our heels in and get as much containment as we can, or at least put this fire out, so it doesn't spread anymore beyond its perimeter.
We know the winds are predicted, but we're optimistic, because they're not to be -- they're not predicted to be as strong as what we first saw at the beginning of this fire, which is a good thing.
COLLINS: Yes. And also, the other thing that we've been talking about here is the water, and the pressure, and what was available as these fires started to break out. And I'm sure you saw that, Governor Newsom is calling for an investigation into the loss of that water pressure. It caused some of the hydrants to run dry, especially in the Palisades, as fighters were trying to battle these blazes.
Do you personally have a better-understanding of what went wrong here, or what could have been different?
PASCUA: You know, I can only speak for what my crews experienced. And on the first night, during the heat of the battle, with every hydrant open, we did lose a little bit of pressure on our hydrants. But we never lost water. And it kind of makes sense. If you're going to open up every hydrant in a town, somewhere it's got to give. Psi, the pressure did drop, but we still had water to fight the fire.
COLLINS: And as you look at that, what questions do you have, going forward, in terms of what could be different here, or what needs to be different? What are you hearing from your crews about, you know -- they're the ones actually on the ground doing this. What are they saying that they think needs to be different, to prevent this from happening again?
PASCUA: They just pull up to a hydrant, and they do what they can. When the water came out, we could boost pressure. When the pressure dropped, we started using our engine's pumps, to actually pump -- to boost the pressure, so that we did have enough water and enough pressure. The whole water system thing, it's not my expertise. I just hope that there's water when it comes out. And we had water, the whole time.
COLLINS: There was a malfunction in the county's alert system that had caused an erroneous evacuation alert. The alert itself was right, but it went to the wrong people. And not just to a few people. It went to almost 10 million people, telling them to evacuate, erroneously.
And I know now, L.A. County is moving to the state's emergency system, to try to fix that, as they try to figure out what is this technical glitch that's going wrong.
But Chief, when you look at that, are you worried that it's going to make people desensitized to alerts, when they very much clearly need to be paying attention to them right now?
[21:15:00]
PASCUA: I hope it doesn't. I really hope it doesn't. I don't think it's going to. I think people are going to see the devastation that this Santa Ana wind-driven fire created. And it's nothing to joke about. This is going to motivate a lot of people to be ready to go in a moment's notice. This is a very eye-opening experience. And I don't think it's going to desensitize people, when they see just how much destruction has been done here.
COLLINS: Yes.
Chief, I know you're very busy, and you have a lot going on. Please, give everyone our best, tell them we're all thinking of them. I know everyone's exhausted. But really appreciate you taking the time, tonight.
PASCUA: Will do. Thank you.
COLLINS: And my next guest is now among many people, in Los Angeles, who now have no home. His family made a split-second decision, to leave, how they found out later that their house had been burned to the ground.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That looks like it's getting closer to us there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Plus, the California Insurance Commissioner put a one-year stop on canceling people's insurance. But thousands of people had already been dropped before this fire happened. What are those victims supposed to do now?
[21:20:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: We're back tonight with more on the dire fight, to put out those six wildfires that are still burning in Los Angeles, tonight.
Firefighters have made some progress today, on some of these fires. But this is, of course, a monstrous mission that is ahead of them. It's like playing whack-a-mole, essentially, where they're putting one fire out and then seeing others pop up.
Meanwhile, there is some uncertainty tonight, about what is going on behind-the-scenes among officials, particularly when it comes to the L.A. Fire Chief, Kristin Crowley, who you've heard from, on air. She did an interview with Jake Tapper, earlier today. And the Los Angeles Mayor, Karen Bass.
I should note, they were supposed to be in a news conference together tonight. We were watching that, as we always do, for developments, and to see what the latest is from officials. Neither of them ultimately showed up to that meeting. Instead, it was law enforcement. They came out and gave a brief update.
Here's what we do know. A source familiar with the meeting tells me that Chief Crowley and Mayor Bass did have a meeting, this afternoon, behind closed doors. But that's all we know right now. Of course, we will keep you updated with what we learn about that meeting.
But this is coming as in that interview with Jake Tapper, Crowley has voiced some pretty public frustration, about budget cuts, from the Fire Department, that she says, hindered preparedness for these fires.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CROWLEY: Let me be clear. The $17 million budget cut and elimination of our civilian positions like our mechanics did, and has, and will continue to severely impact our ability to repair apparatus. So with that, we have over a 100 fire apparatus out of service. So, it did absolutely negatively impact.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Quite a blunt statement there from Chief Crowley.
I want to go back now to CNN's Anderson Cooper, who is on the ground watching the impact of all of this tonight.
Anderson.
COOPER: Yes. Kaitlan, it's fascinating to see, and very curious to see what happens, what the ripple effects of the statement there, by the Fire Chief.
I want you to meet Darrin Hurwitz. His home in the Palisades has been destroyed.
Darrin, I appreciate you taking the time to join us. I'm so sorry, where you are talking under these circumstances.
You haven't actually been back to your home, but I understand you saw it -- you saw it online somewhere. Is that right? DARRIN HURWITZ, LOST PALISADES HOME IN WILDFIRE: That's correct.
Anderson, thank you for having me.
We did see our home, both pictures of it burning and finally destroyed, in the news media, YouTube videos. We are a small community, and it was not difficult to identify that our home has been lost. And obviously, we are devastated ourselves, and also very sad for our community, and the vast majority of residents who appear to have lost their homes.
COOPER: I want to ask you about the evacuation, because it sounds like, I mean, it was chaotic, I think, to say the least. Can you just talk about how it happened? Because I understand, you talked with your wife, about the possibility of, what would we do? And then, all of a sudden, it seemed to kind of just snowball.
HURWITZ: Right. Everything moved very quickly. Tuesday morning began very normally. And I happened to look up in the sky at around 10:30, and the sky just didn't look right. Opened my front door, and there was a wall of smoke, no more than a mile or two in the distance. And you could tell that, or I could tell that, it was moving very quickly.
So, we quickly packed up the few things that we could, grabbed some pictures off the wall, took the kids' favorite stuffed animals, a few collectibles, few devices, and we jumped in our cars. And we could see that what was one wall of smoke had turned into a dozen different fires, spanning from the mountains of the Palisades, down to the beach, within about 10 or 15 minutes. Things were moving very quickly.
COOPER: Yes.
HURWITZ: We had not received an evacuation order, yet. We had not heard anything. And we felt very much on our own. But in part, that was because the fire just erupted.
COOPER: And your kids were in school, is that right? How was that getting them out, like, how was that?
[21:25:00]
HURWITZ: That's correct. Our kids were in school. In fact, we could see that the flames were getting closer to the school. The school's only about a mile and a half from our house.
And we -- fortunately, a mother of one of our kids' friends, happened to pick them up and called us, and we raced to her house. But the kids themselves saw flames, saw smoke, and everybody hurried out of the classrooms.
It was, I would say, orderly, but also chaotic, because, again, all of this was happening very, very quickly.
COOPER: So, what happens? I mean, what happens now? What do you do?
HURWITZ: So for now, we are staying with relatives up in Ventura, California, which is about 50 or 60 miles northwest of Los Angeles. And that's the question we're asking. We don't know. And we don't even know our kids' school was destroyed. Several schools in the Palisades were destroyed.
And what's so hard here is that not only have we lost our home, but we've lost our community. And the Palisades is a very tight-knit small community, which is sometimes hard to conceive of within the larger metropolis of L.A. But I think, as your previous guest talked about, with Altadena, we're a small community, we're close. And the community doesn't exist anymore.
COOPER: Yes.
HURWITZ: People have dispersed around Southern California, at least for now. And I think the challenge is figuring out, where do our kids go to school? We don't know yet. We're hoping to hear, over the weekend. And where can we find housing within the area, in a very tight housing market.
COOPER: Yes. Well, Darrin, I appreciate talking to you, and I wish you the best in the days ahead. Thank you so much, to you and your entire family.
Kaitlan, just one of many stories we are hearing like this. People's lives just completely forever altered, and trying to figure out what the next steps are. It is -- it's going to be a long road ahead.
Kaitlan.
COLLINS: Yes, and it just impacts entire families, kids going to school, as he noted, the housing market there.
And there are so many people who want to know how to help people, like Darrin. And you can. For more information about how to help these wildfire victims, their families, what they are trying to do next, you can find a list of vetted organizations at CNN.com/impact. Go there, to try to help. So many people have reached out. It's been really heartening to watch.
And of course, we'll continue to check in with Anderson, on the ground, in California. As we've seen, firefighters have been stretched incredibly thin, to say the least.
And some people have been resorting to saving their own homes from going up in flames. There's an incredible story of one man doing so. All he had was a garden hose and a chainsaw.
[21:30:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: An update on some news we brought you at the top of the hour. There was a meeting, behind closed doors, a short time ago, between the Mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, and the L.A. Fire Chief, Kristin Crowley.
The two have been publicly contradicting each other, on whether or not budget cuts had hindered the L.A. Fire Department's ability to respond to these wildfires that are burning tonight.
Chief Crowley had been blunt, including in an interview on CNN here earlier, saying that her warnings, about those budget cuts, and how they were affecting her department, had been ignored.
But the Mayor's office is denying an online report, tonight, that she had fired Crowley. Her office, telling CNN, quote, This is false.
Right now, the threat of a new wildfires, though, is still looming over Los Angeles, and this comes as more than a 100,000 people remain under mandatory evacuation orders tonight, with tens of thousands under warnings. While many people have, not everyone is willing to leave.
CNN's Bill Weir joins me now from Sierra Madre, where the Eaton fire has been burning.
And Bill, you've been talking to people there, who are determined and seeing how thinly-stretched these fire departments are, saying, I'm going to stay and try to save my own home here.
What kind of stories are you hearing from people?
BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Well, I met a really interesting young man today, Kaitlan, who lives a couple doors down from here.
You can see the beautiful twinkling lights of L.A. Downtown is that way through the ruins of this house, up here on this sort of knife ridge line, in Sierra Madre. We're northeast of Pasadena, this edge of the Eaton fire.
But two doors down from here is a guy -- lives, a guy named Miro. He is a former hotshot, who knows a lot about fire, and fire in these lands. And that turned out to be a good thing, because almost single- handedly, he got some help from neighbors, he saved the other homes around this. This one, he was unable to save. But through blood, sweat, tears, luck, pleading with passing crews.
Here's his story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MIRO SERRELL FREED, FORMER FOREST SERVICE FIREFIGHTER: I've been, like, telling them what's going on and, like, telling them what to do. It's been crazy. And like, I'm not even paid for this. Like I always said, for the Forest Service, like, I like to do it. Not for the money. It's like, a great way to be outside and be of service. But I never thought I'd be doing this (bleep) for free. Like, it's insane.
WEIR: Exactly.
SERRELL FREED: Insane.
WEIR: Do you feel like you're in the clear yet?
SERRELL FREED: Yes, here -- here--
WEIR: I mean, can you clear that?
SERRELL FREED: Here we're fine. There's going to be another wind event. But every -- the image has been done, like everything has burnt. And there's nothing left to burn. Yes.
WEIR: What does that feel like? Have you been able to process that yet in terms of?
[21:35:00]
SERRELL FREED: Yes, last night, I was up here by myself, and like the lights were out, I'm just crying. Just we drove through, went by my dad's house, and we were just crying the entire time, and just -- yes, called a couple of my crew members that I work with that are laid off, and yes, I just cried to them. And yes, it's unreal. It's crazy.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WEIR: Now, Miro, in multiple trips, up and down the hill, had used the garden hose, his own chainsaw to try to clear brush, to fight the fire. He was putting out doors of neighboring homes, as he saw them alight.
Really, a fire siege, Kaitlan, that one guy and a few neighbors, and then passing crews, he cajoled them into helping him on a couple of occasions. But you could just see the exhaustion in his eyes there.
He saved the house. He saved some of his neighbors around him. But his father, other family members, down in Altadena, lost their home. So, the psychological toll, you could see it there, is really, really palpable.
Now, there's support crews up here. We saw a crew from Yuba City, Arizona, not exactly familiar with fighting in these kinds of landscapes, but doing their best to help out under -- with Miro helping out and giving -- giving them suggestions on how to fight new kinds of fires here.
COLLINS: Yes. I mean, you can just see the, not just a physical exhaustion, but just an emotional exhaustion, from what everyone has been through. That's an incredible story.
WEIR: Yes.
COLLINS: Bill Weir, I'm glad you -- glad you met him and glad you found him. Thank you for that, Bill Weir, on the ground in California.
And as we look at people, who have lost their homes, there was already an insurance crisis that was growing in California. Then these fires hit. So the question tonight is, if you're a homeowner, and your home was destroyed, can you rebuild? How do you rebuild? What does that look like?
We're going to talk to California real estate expert, Josh Flagg, here to join me live next.
[21:40:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Tonight, residents in devastated Pasadena and Altadena were allowed a one-time visit, to go and see whatever it is that is left of their homes.
But California's dire insurance crisis has made any thought of rebuilding, even more daunting, for so many of these families. The state's Insurance Commissioner has put a one-year freeze policy -- a one-year freeze, I should say, on policy cancelations for homes in that fire zone, tonight.
But millions of homeowners had already been rejected from renewing their policies since 2020. Over half a million of them lived right in Los Angeles County.
My source tonight is a real estate expert, and star of Bravo's "Million Dollar Listing," Josh Flagg.
And it's great to have you back here on the show.
I mean, you are one of the world's most successful real estate agents. And when you're looking at this, I think so many people's question from--
JOSH FLAGG, CELEBRITY REAL ESTATE AGENT, STAR OF BRAVO'S "MILLION DOLLAR LISTING": Yes.
COLLINS: --whether they are in a million dollar home or whatnot, is what happens here now? Is there going to be any appetite to rebuild, given how quickly it can be destroyed?
FLAGG: Well, I think you have to consider, like, everybody is different.
Like, let's take this step by step. Well, first of all, let's just figure out what's going on here. Do you -- you do realize that this is so apocalyptic, this -- can you -- I was walking through Manhattan today, and I was thinking, This would literally be like if all of Manhattan, times two, was gone.
This would never happen if things were properly organized. It's just -- can you imagine this happened in Los Angeles? It's unbelievable.
COLLINS: Yes, it's hard. I mean, I was just telling you, I was there last week, in the Palisades, and just looking at this. And it's not even just the homes. So many beautiful parks and areas here.
What are you hearing from your friends in L.A.?
FLAGG: Well, all my friends' houses are gone. I was like -- as the house is burning, I'm on the phone with Candy Spelling, I'm texting with Rick Caruso, house is gone. On the phone with Melissa Rivers, house is gone. All of my friends' houses are gone. And this should not have happened, if they were properly prepared. Like, this would never happen in New York.
This is really poor on Karen Bass. And I'm sorry to say it. I don't want to make this political. But this is -- this is an embarrassment.
As for what's going to happen from here on? Well, let's see.
COLLINS: Yes.
FLAGG: People in the Palisades, let's look -- let's start at the top, like, let's say you've lived there for your entire life, and you're in your 70s or 80s. Are you going to start rebuilding when you're 75- years-old? Are you going to start rebuilding? Nine months of permitting?
And by the way, you have -- it's like, it's going to look like a farmland or like Mars all around you. There's nothing there. You're going to build your house. You'll be 85 by the time you're done. No. They're going to buy condos and move on. Like, maybe younger people will rebuild.
But, like, who wants to live in like, Mars? Like, well, there's -- there's nothing around you. So, I think there's going to be half of the people are going to do an exodus, are going to go to Beverly Hills, maybe Brentwood, whatnot. And then the other people that are like, true die-hard Palisades and Malibu people will rebuild. So that's what's going to happen.
COLLINS: Yes. But what if you're someone -- you see -- you see the Malibu coastline, and how it's just totally wiped out. But I was also thinking about, these areas also have a lot of working-class people who live there. And if you have a mortgage, and your house was totally decimated, I mean, what are--
FLAGG: You got to pay it off.
COLLINS: Yes, what are your options here?
FLAGG: You are -- it's like somebody gives you money for an investment, and the investment goes sour, you still have to reimburse that person. It's the exact same thing. Just because your house is decimated does not mean that the mortgage doesn't have to be paid off. So as long as you have insurance, the insurance will obviously repay the mortgage.
And by the way, there is laws that insurance companies have to pay within 30 days, at least, I believe 30 or -- 30 to 40 percent. So that's helpful.
[21:45:00]
But who knows what's going to happen with these insurance companies? Because a lot of them, I think, were over their head, never thinking it's like this would happen. So the smaller insurance companies may declare bankruptcy. I'm not talking about Chubb, and some of the bigger ones. But this is going to be a really big problem.
And, by the way, let's talk about the contractors. The contractors are going to come in, they're going to be like, This is a field day. All of these properties, they're going to think, OK, let's jack up the prices, like in COVID.
COLLINS: Yes, well, on the insurance, I mean, I was looking into this. It was already a pretty fragile insurance market, and there have been -- you know, the state's biggest insurance, I was reading, just a few months ago, stopped providing home insurance to more than a 1,000 homeowners in the Palisades, because they deemed that it was too risky to insure.
So, if you're one of those people, or you think that you're insured, but you're underinsured, because some of them have the only insurance they can get, but their house price might be worth more than what that is. I mean, it doesn't seem like you have many good options.
FLAGG: No, you don't. You're trying to put in a nicer, you're screwed. It's really unfortunate.
And by the way, just as you said, the insurance game was a nightmare for those -- ever since, like the Woolsey fires, like, I think maybe three, four years ago, everybody pulled out. Like, I'm paying a 100 grand a year in insurance. I guarantee you, next year, I'm paying you four -- I'm paying 400 grand for insurance. It's a nightmare.
COLLINS: I mean, it's amazing to see this, and just--
FLAGG: And that's if you could even get insurance, by the way. Most of -- I know so many people, wealthy people, that are self-insuring, because they have -- they can -- literally cannot get insurance. This is just--
COLLINS: Yes, and those are wealthy people. What's everyone else supposed to do?
FLAGG: It's so sad. I mean, look at that. That's La Costa Beach. I've sold half of those houses. They were beautiful, gorgeous homes, and they don't -- they're gone now. And they didn't need to -- this did not need to happen.
I swear to you, if Rick Caruso would have been elected mayor, this would have never happened. And I'm sorry. I don't mean to be political. But this is absurd. This is Los Angeles.
COLLINS: Yes.
FLAGG: This is not the middle of Saskatchewan.
COLLINS: Yes, it's hard to look at that, and to see, hear these families and their stories.
Josh Flagg, it's great to have you. Thank you for joining tonight.
FLAGG: Thanks, honey. COLLINS: And if you're impacted by these wildfires, you can go visit California.gov/LAfires, fires for more information about disaster insurance, other resources that you can get. We're going to continue to follow all of that here.
Also, here in Washington, it's been a pretty notable day. We'll catch you up to speed. Because here in politics, the President-elect has just escaped real punishment in his historic sentencing.
And this comes as TikTok is maybe on the verge of actually being banned in the United States, because you'll have to see where the Supreme Court was very clearly leaning during arguments today.
[21:50:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Tonight, the man who will reenter the office that you're looking at there, the highest in the land, 10 days from now, is now officially a convicted felon.
President-elect Donald Trump was sentenced today, in New York, for that 34 criminal counts of falsifying business records, in his hush money case. But he was given a symbolic punishment that does not carry any penalty.
Trump appeared remotely from his Mar-a-Lago Club, as you can see here, alongside his attorney, Todd Blanche.
And as they were speaking, Judge Juan Merchan noted that because of the extraordinary protections afforded to Trump, because of the office he's about to take, that is what played a factor into his sentence, as Merchan emphasized that it is, those are protections that Trump is going to have because voters recently decided to return him to Office.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JUAN MERCHAN, ACTING JUSTICE OF THE NEW YORK STATE SUPREME COURT: Never before has this court been presented with such a unique and remarkable set of circumstances.
The only lawful sentence that permits entry of a judgment of conviction, without encroaching upon the highest office in the land, is an unconditional discharge.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Now, moments before the judge spoke, we also heard from Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND CURRENT PRESIDENTIAL- ELECT: This has been a very terrible experience. I think it's been a tremendous setback for New York and the New York court system.
It's been a political witch hunt. It was done to damage my reputation so that I'd lose the election, and obviously that didn't work.
I am totally innocent. I did nothing wrong.
I was treated very, very unfairly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: As you can see, no contrition from the President-elect. But the sentencing now clears the way for Trump to appeal his conviction. That is all going to play out, as he is back in the White House.
Meanwhile, another critical argument was playing out today, in the nation's highest court. That is because in just a few days, one way that a lot of Americans get their news, information, and just entertainment, could vanish.
A 170 million people in the United States are on TikTok. About four in 10 young adults say they get their news from there. And the justices, on the Supreme Court, today, seemed prepared to let that change.
TikTok's parent company is running out of time to sell or be banned in the United States. That is scheduled to happen nine days from now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRETT KAVANAUGH, ASSOCIATE JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES: What happens after January 19 if you lose this case, can you just spell that out?
NOEL FRANCISCO, TIKTOK LAWYER: At least as I understand it, we go dark.
On January 19th, as I understand it, we shut down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Now, that was what Justice Brett Kavanaugh was asking, to the lawyer for TikTok who was arguing, and argued that this law violates the First Amendment.
[21:55:00]
Chief Justice John Roberts seemed persuaded by national security concerns, though, that we have heard, namely, that the Chinese government could gain access to data on many of its users.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN ROBERTS, CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE UNITED STATES: Congress doesn't care about what's on TikTok. They don't care about the expression. That's shown by the remedy. They're not saying TikTok has to stop. They're saying that the Chinese have to stop controlling TikTok.
So it's, it's not any, a direct burden on the expression at all. Congress is fine with the expression. They're not fine with a foreign adversary, as they've determined it is, gathering all this information about the 170 million people who use TikTok.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: My sources tonight are:
CNN Legal Analyst, and the former federal prosecutor, Elliot Williams.
And CNN Media Analyst, and Senior Media Reporter for Axios, Sara Fischer.
I mean, Sara, based on what we heard today, and no one likes to guess what the Supreme Court is going to do, it sounds like they're leaning this way, which would mean that this huge medium, that so many Americans use and rely on, could be gone in a matter of days.
SARA FISCHER, CNN MEDIA ANALYST, SENIOR MEDIA REPORTER, AXIOS: Yes, although it's going to be a slow and gradual fadeout.
So, you can't ask people to just remove an app from their phone. But what would happen is that app stores, Google and Apple, would be forced to pull the app out of the store. So, if TikTok wanted to make changes, security updates, improve the product, the only way you can do that is to update it in an app store.
Eventually, the product would become obsolete. But it's not like if you have it on your phone, it goes away. Still, this is a big deal, because eventually, if it does go away, like you said, 170 million people rely on this app.
COLLINS: Well, that's interesting. So, if you have TikTok on your phone, and this goes into effect, and you just don't delete it or update it, you would still be able to keep it?
FISCHER: That's exactly right. But again, you need to be able to update apps. Eventually, they won't work, if you can't update them. And if the app gets pulled from the app store, then obviously you can't update the app.
Now, you could also use a VPN, Kaitlan, to try to go around app store bans. There's a lot of things consumers can do. But what's so ironic here is that for years, we've criticized China for banning U.S. apps, and forcing people in China to use VPNs to get them. This is sort of the first time that we're doing something like that, because we believe there's a true national security threat.
And might I just say, there are other Chinese-owned apps that are in our app stores today that are not being targeted by this law. But anything owned by ByteDance is targeted by this law. So it's not just TikTok. It's Lemon8, it's any app owned by ByteDance.
COLLINS: Yes, and Congress passed this law, obviously. One question was, you know, Trump -- Trump was the one who -- he agreed and said that the Supreme Court should step in here, and pause, so when he takes office, they can kind of reconsider this and try to find a happy medium.
Justice Sotomayor seemed concerned about that very prospect of Trump not enforcing this law today. Listen to what she said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SONIA SOTOMAYOR, ASSOCIATE JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES: I am a little concerned that a suggestion that a President- elect or anyone else should not enforce the law, when a law is in effect and has prohibited a certain action that a company would choose to ignore enforcement on any assurance, other than the change in that law.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: So, I don't think the justices were particularly persuaded by this idea of punting to January 21st, or at least beyond the 19th, to let Donald Trump take it over.
Number one, that seemed to suggest that a political negotiation would be the resolution here, not the core First Amendment and national security reasoning that they had, when they thought about it.
And also, more importantly, the brief that Trump's team submitted on this was quite weak. It relied very heavily on the skills of Donald Trump, as a businessman, and a negotiator, and a television personality, and what else, but not really much about the First Amendment.
So, it just -- they're going to resolve this before the 19th.
COLLINS: Could we talk about something else, though, that we confirmed tonight. New York Times reported it first. CNN confirmed.
Mark Zuckerberg was at Mar-a-Lago today, at Donald Trump's club. That came, of course, after one, not only the huge changes that Meta made this week, when it comes to fact-checking and not having that anymore. But also, he did a podcast today with Joe Rogan, where he had some blistering criticism of the Biden administration, and how they handled vaccine information.
FISCHER: I'm shocked by this, Kaitlan. Because it's one thing to dip your toe in the water. A bunch of tech companies are going to Mar-a- Lago. A bunch of tech companies are donating to the inauguration. But Meta is taking a full swing right. And the danger there is that they look like they're flip-flopping.
WILLIAMS: Yes.
FISCHER: During the Biden administration, they said they adhered to political pressure, and that they overregulated information on the platform because of political pressure. Now they're saying they're removing DEI platforms. They are completely changing their ideas around content moderation, shifting to the right.
How do I not know that if a Democratic administration comes in, you're not going to sway the other way around. I think Meta looks a little bit foolish. COLLINS: What do you make of watching all this, just in terms of, in a legal sense of what this looks like? They were saying that they felt pressured to take stuff down, that he wanted to have, a place for speech.
[22:00:00]
WILLIAMS: Fully within their legal rights. I think it's more reputational, when they look like they're flip-flopping. They're -- they -- it's an about-face on all these issues.
COLLINS: Yes, it'll be interesting to see how Trump himself responds to this. Because, and we've known Trump has a pretty good antenna for when that is also happening with people's political convenience. We'll see.
Sara Fischer. Elliot Williams. Thank you both for being here.
Thank you all for being here. Have a great weekend.
"CNN NEWSNIGHT WITH ABBY PHILLIP" is up next.
