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Jan. 9, 2025 - Sebastian Gorka

02:52:27

Bob Frantz LIVE: Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is a Communist

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	Thank you.
	Thank you for joining us on America First with today's very special guest host, Cleveland's own Bob France. - Yes.
	You know, we listen to that open at the top of America First every day and at the top of the hours and so forth, and we hear those wonderful speeches and some of the most iconic remarks from American leaders.
	And the one that just grabbed me as we were preparing for this broadcast was President Kennedy.
	Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.
	And I'm all about it, and I'm all for it, and I get it, and I'm with it, and I agree with it, except I think it's fair for the people in Los Angeles to ask, what the hell can my city do for me?
	What can my city do to deal with raging, apocalyptic hellfires destroying everything within our sight?
	Everything that we see, all that we survey is burning and what is the city doing about it?
	The city has empty reservoirs.
	The city has dry fire hydrants.
	The city has no management.
	They have a DEI fire department.
	They've got a Marxist mayor that doesn't give a rip, who's in Ghana, Africa, while her city is burning, and then coming back and refusing to even address the issue.
	Holy goodness gracious.
	Welcome to America First.
	I'm Bob France, in for Dr. G, as you just heard.
	I'm going to tell you point blank what's going on here, and I hope we didn't just lose our video.
	We may have just lost our video again.
	I don't know what the tech glitch is, but there's a technical problem here with our video.
	If you're watching on Salem News Channel or on the Rumble or wherever else, I do apologize.
	We'll get that worked out as quickly as we can.
	But here is the point that we are making and that I want to make right now.
	Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, a Marxist, a socialist, a communist, and I'm going to talk all about her in a bit.
	Yesterday's show, by the way, we talked in great detail.
	In depth about how this is not a political situation.
	This is a time when Americans come together.
	This is a time when we put aside our differences, partisan and otherwise, and we say there are Americans who are suffering.
	Our thoughts and prayers are with them.
	We want to support them in any way we can.
	That's what we do, right?
	And I'm going to tell you right now, I'm throwing all of that out the window.
	And it's not a matter of partisanship.
	It is simply a matter of accountability.
	It is a matter of what's right versus what's wrong.
	That's what we're talking about right now.
	What's right and what's wrong.
	And what's wrong is the fact that Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, and Gavin Newsom, the governor of California...
	Along with all of the other mid-level government agencies and administrators and elected officials in between, have failed the people of Southern California.
	Just like they failed the people of Northern California and Central California pretty much all the way through whenever the wildfire season.
	This isn't even wildfire season.
	Because they don't do their jobs.
	And accountability needs to happen now.
	That's different than partisanship, but I'm going to tell you that yes, it is indeed a matter of left-wing Democrat leaders completely abdicating their responsibilities to provide for their people.
	And so we're going to have to address this.
	So I'm coming to you live from Cleveland, Ohio.
	Again, sorry about the tech glitch.
	We're going to work on that camera in just a minute, the video.
	So if you're watching the show, but please pay attention.
	As you can see, we are showing you as much of what's going on in California right now as we can.
	But I want to talk about and I want to welcome you to the program to 83333 GORCA, especially if you are in California.
	If you are in Southern California and you've got stories to share, 833-334-6752.
	Now, we are going to talk with Texas Representative Brandon Gill here in a few minutes, too, because we've got some other things to address about what's going on down there, particularly as it pertains to President Trump taking over in 10 days.
	I know technically today's the 9th, so it's 11 days, but we're not counting the 20th as a Biden day.
	That's President Trump's day.
	So he'll take over, and immediately the issue of illegal immigration is going to be addressed.
	Representative Gill will talk to us about the Remain in Mexico policy that they're going to push in the Congress.
	Coming up in the 4 o'clock hour, Joel Pollack from Breitbart had to evacuate.
	He's Southern California.
	He had to evacuate.
	We're going to talk to him about what's happening there.
	In the 5 o'clock hour, and that would be Eastern time, so I should say in hours 2 and 3, respectively, we're going to talk to town hall senior columnist and Salem fill-in host, Kurt Schlichter.
	Colonel Kurt will be joining us to talk about what he's experiencing down in Southern California as well.
	So we're going to be all over this.
	But for now, we are talking about the leadership at the City level in Los Angeles and Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, got back from Ghana.
	She was in Africa for some reason or another yesterday afternoon slash evening.
	And when she got here or there, she was asked directly, what do you have to say to the people who have been watching their city burn while their mayor is completely AWOL? She refused to answer anything.
	I want you to listen to this.
	Cut 10 and watch this.
	This is cut 10. This is Karen Bass ignoring a Sky News reporter.
	Cut 10. Do you owe citizens an apology for being absent while their homes were burning?
	Do you regret cutting the fire department budget by millions of dollars, Madam Mayor?
	Have you nothing to say today?
	Have you absolutely nothing to say to the citizens today?
	Elon Musk says that you're utterly incompetent.
	Are you considering your position?
	Madam Mayor, have you absolutely nothing to say to the citizens today who are dealing with this disaster?
	No apology for them.
	There's a reason, I believe, why she remains silent there.
	Because she is exactly what Elon Musk called her.
	It's exactly what the Sky News reporter David Blevins asked her about.
	She is incompetent.
	And she did not want to have to address questions from the press about things like this.
	Headline, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass cut fire department funding by $17.6 million just last year for the current fiscal year.
	She wanted to cut it.
	By $23 million.
	But the council drove that back a little bit to 17.6.
	She wanted to focus it on getting drug supplies to drug addicts and shelters for homeless people because of course it's too expensive to try to live in her city and quite frankly in her state for just about anybody.
	So before these wildfires turn the city into a literal hellscape, and that's the headline from the New York Post.
	It really is a hellscape.
	It's exactly what it looks like.
	She went ahead and gutted the fire department, not only by $17.6 million in terms of funding, but reservoirs that were supposed to be filled to capacity.
	We're not.
	And in fact, hydrants were dry yesterday as firefighters, outnumbered as they are by the extraordinary circumstances surrounding this apocalyptic wildfire situation.
	Because, first of all, there's not enough of them.
	There's not enough trucks.
	Even if there were, they don't have enough water because of this mismanagement.
	The winds continue to be a problem as of this morning.
	The Pacific Palisades Fire was still 0% contained.
	The Eaton Fire was 0% contained.
	And last night, a new fire broke out in the Hollywood Hills near the Hollywood sign, the iconic Hollywood sign.
	And portions of Hollywood Hills and surrounding areas were evacuated as well.
	And there's not enough water.
	It makes no sense whatsoever.
	Karen Bass's budget cuts resurfaced as the fire department issued a rare plea of asking off-duty firefighters from anywhere to come and help them battle the blazes.
	But what were they supposed to do?
	Spit on the fire?
	If there isn't enough water.
	So we're talking about leadership management, we're talking about a failure of forestry management, brush management, all of these things, and the residents there are paying an extraordinary price for this.
	The L.A. Fire Chief warned Karen Bass, by the way, that the cuts that she implemented last year for this current fiscal year severely limited fire response.
	And it fell upon deaf ears.
	And now this is where we stand.
	So it is an horrific situation.
	We're going to continue.
	We have a lot to talk about with this situation out there, what this means politically, what this means financially for the people of Los Angeles and more.
	But coming up in just a couple, we are going to talk with Texas freshman Representative Brandon Gill about the policies and what happens on January 20th with the border.
	That conversation is coming up.
	up.
	I'm Bob Franson for Dr. Gorka on America First.
	Music by Ben Thede.
	Music by Ben Thede.
	Music by Ben Thede.
	Music by Ben Thede.
	Now let's get back to the show with Bob France.
	All right, thanks, Dr. G. Let us get back indeed.
	And we're going to go down to Texas now.
	I'm live in Cleveland, Ohio, but we're going down to Texas to talk to Texas freshman, the Congressional Representative Brandon Gill, because guess what?
	There's a new sheriff in town.
	His name is Donald J. Trump.
	His deputy sheriff is Tom Holman, and they plan on...
	Fixing that broken border that has afflicted so many Texans and so many Americans because we are all border states now, as the saying goes.
	Congressman Gill, good to see you and good to talk to you.
	How are you, sir?
	Bob, I'm doing great.
	We've got a lot of work here to do, but you're exactly right.
	We do have a new sheriff in town.
	He's going to be here in two weeks and looking forward to getting started.
	Thanks for having me on the show, though.
	Yeah, it's a pleasure to have you.
	I'm glad we're able to work this out.
	So, yeah, let's talk about the priorities here.
	You know, President Trump, of course, promised that we hang over.
	Pointed out correctly that we had the best border in any of our lifetimes when he was in office for four years.
	And then Joe Biden.
	And this is something that really, really, you know, irks me and should anger every American.
	Tom Homan points this out.
	It wasn't accidental.
	It wasn't like, you know, they were trying to do some good things and things just went south and went haywire.
	And wow, all of a sudden we had a whole, you know, massive surge of illegal aliens coming into this country.
	It was purposeful.
	It was intentional, as Tom Homan says.
	And that should anger everybody.
	Well, that's exactly right.
	You set it up so perfectly there.
	We had a secure border under President Trump.
	He came in.
	He campaigned on building the wall.
	That's exactly what he did.
	Now, Democrats tried to stop him every single step of the way, but he persevered.
	He instituted multiple executive orders, the Remain in Mexico Act being one of them, that did stem the tide of illegal aliens coming into the country.
	As soon as Joe Biden got into the White House, he rescinded almost every single major border control measure that President Trump had on the books.
	And what was the result?
	The result is that we have seen an absolute deluge of illegal aliens pouring into our country, creating mass chaos and destruction.
	Municipalities who have straining budgets, who are having to cut back on police officers and firefighters and other social services to pay for these illegal aliens who are coming in.
	This is why you have a lady in New York just the other day who was lit on fire by an illegal Guatemalan on a subway while she was sleeping.
	This is why we have apartment complexes in Aurora, Colorado that are being taken over by illegal aliens.
	Because Joe Biden opened up the border and he did it intentionally.
	The border crisis that we're seeing right now is a result of deliberate policy decisions from the Biden administration.
	We have to be very clear about that.
	And I'm thrilled that President Trump is coming back in.
	He's going to fix this problem, but Congress has a major role to play in that as well.
	And I can tell you I'm going to be a huge part of that.
	Well, that is a huge, huge issue is the congressional role in all of this.
	President Trump used executive order powers, of course, his first time around to do so many important things like the Remain in Mexico policy that he negotiated with leadership in Mexico.
	And that was a huge game changer.
	And of course, so many other things President Trump did were undone on day one by Joe Biden on January 20th, 21st of 2021. So we do need legislative action here.
	We do need to make sure that things like the Remain in Mexico policy are codified into law, not just by executive order.
	Can you tell me what your role will be in that and tell me how quickly that will be on the legislative agenda?
	That's exactly right.
	You know, the great thing about executive orders is that they come here quickly and we can get the problem solved quickly, but they don't last.
	The problem is that the next time a Democrat gets into office, we're likely to see them rescind President Trump's executive orders immediately, just like Joe Biden did in the past, to the legislature.
	has to codify these orders into law.
	And that is exactly why today, in fact, I introduced the Remain in Mexico Act.
	All this does is simply take President Trump's executive order from 2019, the migrant protection protocols, and codify those into law to stop a future Democrat from unleashing the chaos that Joe Biden did on this country.
	I was able to get over 70 co-sponsors on this bill.
	We're having more come in every single day, every hour, in fact.
	This is an incredibly popular bill.
	I can tell you the Republican conference is unified behind President Trump and unified in our efforts to secure the border, to stop the flood of illegal aliens coming in and terrorizing our communities.
	Now, the problem that I'm seeing now is that Democrats, our friends on the other side of the aisle, are doing everything they can to stop us.
	So we're going to have to fight them, but we've got a majority.
	Republicans are in charge now, so we're going to get it done.
	Do we have enough of a majority?
	Are you aware of, because you can only lose three or four in order for this whole thing to be flipped if every Democrat goes against this.
	Are you aware of a unified Republican House?
	On the Senate side, I have no concerns.
	We have a stronger majority there.
	But are you aware of any holdouts or anybody that might say, no, we don't want to make this legislative policy?
	No, I'm not.
	And I'll give you a specific example here.
	Two days ago, the House, under Speaker Mike Johnson's leadership, passed a bill called the Lakin-Riley Act.
	Now, the Lakin-Riley Act simply stipulates that if an illegal alien comes into our country and commits burglary or theft, that alien needs to be detained by DHS. It's an incredibly modest proposal.
	Now, Republicans passed that bill.
	Every single Republican who voted, voted for it.
	Now, you would think that Democrats wanting to reach across the aisle and be bipartisan here and come up with solutions for this country, for the crisis that we're in, you would think most of them would be voting with us.
	The majority of Democrats voted against that.
	159 Democrats voted against the Lake and Riley Act.
	Now, if the Lake and Riley Act was law two years ago, Lake and Riley would still be alive.
	So would so many other American citizens who have been killed by illegal aliens who shouldn't be in this country to begin with.
	The Democrat Party that we're up against now is utterly hell-bent on providing a path.
	For illegal aliens to come into this country to murder and rape and pillage American citizens.
	We're doing everything we can to stop the Democrats, but that's what we're up against right now.
	Now, I hope that we can get Democrats to cross the aisle for the remain in Mexico.
	This is about as common sense a bill as you can possibly have, simply saying that migrants from all over the world can have their asylum claims processed in another country before they come here, a safe country.
	For that matter.
	But we'll see what the Democrats do.
	I've got less than two minutes left for you, Congressman Gill, but two quickies for you.
	Two other tools.
	One, President Trump talked about ending birthright citizenship.
	Can you talk about whether or not that's going to be talked about and discussed in Congress?
	Because you've got to get rid of the carrot.
	One of the carrots, which, of course, is to come here, have a baby, and then say you can't break up our family.
	Then the second one is this border wall.
	Joe Biden is on his way out the door.
	He's selling off as many of the border wall parts as he can for, I think President Trump said, five cents on the dollar, which is an intent, obviously, to harm border security.
	Your thoughts on those?
	We've got a minute.
	It is.
	Joe Biden selling our border wall, essentially looting the Treasury on his way out the door, is so reprehensible it's hard to put it into words.
	But yes, I completely agree, and I think the rest of the conference agrees.
	We have got to complete the border wall.
	That was a very effective way of keeping illegal aliens out of the country, and we've got to revisit birthright citizenship.
	It is a travesty that we allow people from all over the globe.
	To pour into our country, have babies, and then become anchored into this country.
	That is not what American citizenship means.
	That is not how you should become an American citizen or how you should have a stake in this country.
	We have got to revisit birthright citizenship.
	I'm glad to hear you say that, and hopefully that is something that's going to be coming up into committee very, very quickly and get that before the full House.
	Representative Brandon Gill from Texas.
	Representative, thank you for the time.
	I appreciate it.
	It's great to talk to you.
	Hopefully we'll do that again soon.
	I'm Bob France sitting in for Dr. G on America First.
	I'm Bob France.
	Now let's get back to the show with Bob France.
	All right, welcome back.
	As we do continue now, it is 33 minutes past the hour, 27 minutes before the top, thanks to Representative Brandon Gill.
	He has just introduced, as you heard, the Remain in Mexico policy in Congress.
	Again, that was the policy President Trump implemented by way of executive order the first time around in...
	His first term.
	And now, you know, he may do that again on January 1st again just to get everything jump-started.
	But in order to make sure it's long-lasting, it's got to be made a law by way of legislative action.
	And that's what Representative Gill is working towards.
	So thank you again for being with us.
	If you're watching on the Salem News Channel or on Rumble or whatever, we do apologize for the video problem.
	We're working very hard to get this resolved.
	But in the meantime, we've got a lot of important information to share with you.
	And we're going to talk about so much about what's happening in California.
	This is more pressing than Texas at the moment solely because of the extraordinary damage that is being done by the hellfires.
	And I think that's the best way to describe it.
	So prior to our conversation with Representative Gill, we were discussing the cuts, the 17, nearly 18 million dollars in cuts that were made to the Los Angeles Fire Department by L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, who is an avowed communist.
	I'm not making that up.
	That's not something for discussion.
	I'll explain why and I'll prove it in just a short while.
	But I want to share with you a little bit of the backlash from all of this.
	And some of this was forward-thinking.
	LA Fire Chief Kristen Crowley warned Karen Bass, according to multiple reports, in a memo dated December 4th, so just one month ago, Crowley wrote that the nearly $18 million in cuts severely limited the department's capacity to prepare for, train for, and respond to.
	Large-scale emergencies, including wildfires.
	Without this funding, pilot compliance and readiness are jeopardized, and aerial firefighting capabilities are diminished.
	That's what the fire chief wrote.
	And Karen Bass, who wanted to cut the department by $23 million, said, too bad.
	That's what they wanted to do.
	They prioritized their economic...
	Agenda over lives and property of homeowners and people in Southern California.
	Now, there's a tweet that I want to share with you as well.
	And this is an image, if we can throw this up.
	This is a tweet from the very popular account, ex-account Libs of TikTok, pointing out something about the LA Fire Department and their own culpability in preparation and readiness for things like this.
	The LA Fire Department, and there is a memo, and it's complete with a chart and everything else.
	You're seeing it right now if you're watching the program.
	The LA Fire Department passed a racial equity plan to end systemic, institutional, and structural racism in LA. Part of it is a chart to map out the race of every employee to make sure that the LA Fire Department is racially diverse enough.
	Well, what does all of that mean?
	It means exactly what you think it means.
	It means that rather than the best available applicants for the fire department, they're going to hire people based on what they look like, what their immutable characteristics are, to make sure that it's diverse enough.
	So DEI and woke policies and so on and so forth are infiltrating and causing problems.
	With almost every level of government, including, as it turns out, local fire departments.
	So, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass slashes the budget for the department by $18 million.
	The fire chief, who's implementing DEI policies most of the time, tells her, by the way, that's going to cut down on readiness.
	The hellfires arrive, and where's Karen Bass?
	She's in Ghana.
	She's in Africa.
	And when she gets back, what does she do?
	She blunders her way through the first press conference that she gives discussing what the city is going to do to try to help the residents who have been evacuated, the ones whose homes have been burned to the ground.
	We're talking thousands of structures have been burned to the ground now, at least five people dead, and firefighters turning on hydrants to draw water to battle these things are getting nothing but air.
	Because Karen Bass's reservoirs were not filled.
	How can anyone possibly explain or justify this?
	So she gets up there and tells the people of Los Angeles at the press conference this after refusing to answer questions from Reporters, a Sky News reporter saying, do you have anything to say to your residents?
	She refused to answer, but then she does take to the podium and tells everyone, if you need help, emergency information, resources, and shelter, they are available.
	All of this can be found at URL. Wait, what?
	Not at a URL, and here's what it is, LAemergencymanagement.gov or something, just URL. It's like Joe Biden reading a teleprompter.
	Repeat the line.
	This is incompetence of the highest order and it's going to cost more lives than it has to.
	I'm Bob Franson for Dr. G, coming right back.
	Thank you.
	I'm Seb Goca.
	I'm Seb Gorka.
	Now let's get back to the show with Bob France.
	All right, thank you, Dr. G. It is 43 minutes past the hour, and we are still trying to make some sense out of what's going on in L.A. If you are in Los Angeles, if you're in Southern California, and you can speak to some of the horrific situations that we're dealing with right now personally, we would love to hear from you.
	833-33-GORCA, 833-334-6752.
	You can also email me.
	I am at bob at strictlyspeaking.org.
	Strictly Speaking with Bob Francis is the name of my program in Cleveland, Ohio.
	They air some 9 to noon every day.
	You can listen to it live at strictlyspeaking.org.
	You can also watch a lot of the video content and the other important stuff that we have up there at that website.
	I want to stay on this because why, how can I not?
	Especially given the ramifications of all of this.
	And I'm going to say something that's a little bit insensitive too.
	Because the last thing in the world we want to be doing when we're talking about You know, a hellacious situation like what's going on in California right now is to victim blame.
	I don't want to victim blame.
	But at this moment, it's going to sound like I'm victim blaming.
	Because guess what?
	Every single one of the leaders, every single one of them that is responsible...
	For the mismanagement of California's resources, its water supply, like I said, the forestry control, every single one of them are left-wing Democrats that have been voted for by the very people whose homes are burning right now.
	And I cannot stand the idea of saying that, but it is something that we have to point out.
	This is almost just...
	I'm looking for the right word that is going to be sensitive enough here.
	I want to be very, very careful, but this is...
	It's not justice because nobody deserves this.
	No one deserves to have their house burned down.
	Nobody deserves to lose their lives and be displaced and be evacuated.
	But this is the kind of thing, it's what we mean when we say, be very, very careful when you decide who you're going to vote for.
	Be very, very careful when you decide whether your personal petty grievances that lead to your partisanship in your politics, if that...
	If it overtakes your sensibilities about who's more responsible in managing things, that's a problem.
	And you have to think about that when you cast votes.
	That's all I'm trying to say here.
	And the example of this, by the way, comes from Hollywood celebrities turning on their own party, their own leaders.
	I was reading clips this morning, Sarah Michelle Gellar.
	Tweeted, or I'm sorry, Instagram posted.
	City of LA, if you want, I'm sorry, you want everyone to evacuate, yet you have complete gridlock and not one traffic cop on the roads helping.
	The Palisades fire.
	Oh, I'm sorry, hold on.
	Where's the second part of what she had to say?
	The Palisades Fire, driven by strong Santa Ana winds, began in the Santa Monica Mountains late Tuesday morning, quickly engulfed 200 acres within an hour.
	We, of course, now they are over thousands and thousands of acres.
	Oh, here's the next clip.
	It was from Valentin Chermovsky, one of the Dancing with the Stars professionals, tweeted...
	Fifth largest economy on the planet.
	Firefighters didn't have enough water pressure to do their jobs.
	Are you joking me?
	The taxes we pay for third world infrastructure is unbelievable.
	Come on.
	Model and TV personality Amber Rose joined in, tweeting, How TF, how the blank, is there low water pressure in Los Angeles?
	WTF, the fire hydrants barely work here.
	This is insane.
	Sarah Foster.
	We pay the highest taxes in California.
	Our fire hydrants were empty.
	Our vegetation overgrown.
	Brush not cleared.
	Our reservoirs were emptied by our governor because tribal leaders wanted to save fish.
	Our fire department budget was cut by our mayor.
	But thank God drug addicts are getting their drug kits.
	Mayor of L.A. and at Gavin Newsom, resign.
	Your far-left policies have ruined our state and also our party, end quote.
	And those last words matter.
	And also our party.
	Because these are leftist Democrats who are voting for leftist Democrats, and then they're being shocked when they do leftist Democrat things.
	So it's really, really amazing.
	I want to play a little bit of, you know, this is really important too here in Cut3.
	Scott Jennings on CNN is the lone voice of reason that they allow.
	On CNN. And Scott Jennings wanted to highlight a difference between the job that is done by a competent governor, maybe America's best governor, Governor Ron DeSantis down in Florida, when there are catastrophes, when there are hurricanes, for example.
	The response to natural disasters and so forth between Ron DeSantis and Gavin Newsom.
	You could not draw a better distinction here.
	Scott Jennings, cut three.
	I do think there's a split screen here, too, with Florida, to be honest.
	A lot of what we talk about in terms of emergency management in this country almost always comes from hurricanes and weather.
	Who is the recognized best emergency manager in the country?
	Ron DeSantis in Florida.
	So Newsom is...
	Also, he's under assault from Trump a little bit, but he's also dealing with, I think, a comparative here.
	What do other governors do?
	Is he as good?
	So when you talk about the future politics of it, is he as good at this as another governor might be?
	Could be a real problem for him because right now I think people have serious questions and there are no answers yet.
	He'll have a chance to answer them, but it doesn't look great right now.
	No, it doesn't look great right now because Governor Gavin Newsom has not done what President Trump has been talking about doing for a long time.
	Yesterday we played a clip of President Trump standing in a forest with Gavin Newsom and telling him, hey, you see this forest floor?
	This is what needs to clean up to be able to stop this dry, you know, dead wood from being fueled to spread further wildfires.
	This was in 2018. So President Trump has been talking about this for a long time.
	And you know the last time he spoke about it?
	It was three months ago.
	It was in November, or late October, early November, a week before the election is what it was.
	A week before the November 5th election, he went on Joe Rogan.
	And they talked about everything for over three hours.
	I think it was one of the things that sealed President Trump's victory.
	It reached 40, 50 million people in like 48 hours.
	And people were impressed.
	But one of the things President Trump and Joe Rogan talked about that day was this exact situation right now.
	The problems with California and water and emergency management.
	Cut four.
	We don't have enough time for that.
	Okay, that's all right.
	We'll hold off on it.
	We'll do it in the next clip.
	Or the next segment, I should say.
	Yeah, that's a minute-long clip.
	But Joe Rogan and President Trump talking about the problem with California and water.
	And President Trump yesterday went off on Gavin Newsom.
	We're going to have that clip for you, too.
	President Trump went off and Gavin Newsom talked about how we are going to fix this.
	He tried to get Gavin Newsom to fix it.
	He didn't.
	He said, we will when I take over.
	Newsom did not do a good job, but we are going to fix it.
	And Gavin Newsom, of course, is now on the defensive, as he should be.
	Gavin?
	Communist Karen Bass?
	All of the left-wing leadership in Southern California all own so much of the misery, the suffering, the destruction, and yes, the danger, because the flames continue to blaze in Southern California.
	And we are going to give it to all of them.
	Coming up, Bob France in for Dr. G on America First.
	Music by Ben Thede
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	by Ben Thede Now let's get back to the show with Bob France.
	You know, I think it would be unfair to say that President Trump is right about everything because he's not.
	He's human.
	But I'll tell you what, there are so many things that he has been proven right about time and time again.
	And one of them is California's...
	Management of their forests and of their preparations for emergencies.
	That's what we're seeing right now.
	Before the election, President Trump sat down with Joe Rogan in that very, very widely viewed three-hour conversation on the most popular podcast in America.
	And this subject did come up.
	Listen to what President Trump said.
	Cut for.
	They said, we have no water.
	I said, do you have a drought?
	No, we don't have a drought.
	I said, why do you have no water?
	Because the water isn't allowed to flow down.
	It's got a natural flow from Canada all the way up north of water.
	More water than they could ever use.
	And in order to protect a tiny little fish, the water up north gets routed into the Pacific Ocean.
	Millions and millions of gallons of water gets poured.
	I could have water for all of that land.
	Water for your forests.
	You know, your forests are dry as a bone.
	Yeah.
	Okay?
	Dangerous.
	That water could be routed.
	You know, you could have everything.
	Not only dangerous, billions of dollars a year they spend on forest fires.
	And you know, there's a case with the environment.
	They're not allowed to rake their forests because you're not allowed to touch it.
	And all they have to do is clean their forests, meaning...
	Rake it up.
	Get rid of the leaves.
	You know, leaves that are sitting there for five years.
	We'll certainly get rid of the dead fall.
	And get rid of the trees that have fallen.
	Yeah, this is what President Trump has been talking about for some time now.
	And California's leaders do not follow suit and deal with it.
	And that's why President Trump said, well, if they're not going to fix it, we will.
	Cut number five.
	This is from yesterday.
	Well, it's very sad because I've been trying to get Gavin Newsom to allow water to come.
	You'd have tremendous water up there.
	They send it out to the Pacific because they're trying to protect a tiny little fish, which is in other areas, by the way, called a smelt.
	And for the sake of a smelt, they have no water.
	They had no water in the fire hydrants today in Los Angeles.
	It was a terrible thing.
	And we're going to get that done.
	It's going to finally be done.
	I got it done from the federal side.
	And he didn't want to sign it, but it's not going to happen again like that.
	There's no reason.
	Can you imagine?
	You have farmers that don't have any water in California.
	They have plenty of water.
	They don't have a drought.
	They send it out to the Pacific.
	So, you know, this is honestly what it's all about.
	I'm sorry, and I don't mean to make it as cut and dried and partisan as I am, but look, some people get it and some people don't.
	Donald Trump gets it.
	The people who voted for him get it.
	And right now, the people who voted for the other side voted for Kamala Harris, voted for Gavin Newsom, voted for Karen Bass.
	These are the people who are paying the price.
	And again, that's not victim-blaming.
	It's not victim-shaming or anything.
	It's just a reality.
	You're going to have to start paying attention to these issues and go beyond your, you know, wokeness or your trans this and your CRT that and your progressive this.
	You're going to have to get beyond that, honestly.
	I don't want anyone to suffer the way the Californians are suffering.
	But if they don't want to suffer anymore, they're going to have to change their mindset and they're going to have to make their minds up about whom they're going to vote for and what their reasons are.
	Alright, there's a lot more to come on this, but also coming up next hour, we're going to go to Southern California.
	Joel Pollack, who writes for Breitbart, very, very important writer.
	He's in Southern California,
	and he was forced to evacuate two days ago. . . and he was forced to evacuate two days ago. . .
	. . .
	Thank you.
	All right, thank you, Dr. G. It is good to be with you here on America First.
	I am coming to you live from Cleveland, Ohio, the ReliefFactor.com studios.
	Of AM 1420, the answer.
	My homepage is strictlyspeaking.org.
	My local show is called Strictly Speaking with Bob France.
	And I would love it if you would follow me.
	Bookmark that page and follow me and give me some subscriptions and some notifications and so forth on Twitter, on Rumble, on YouTube, on Spotify, on Facebook, on Instagram, and on Truth Social, as Dr. G likes to say.
	Hit me in all of those different places if you could.
	Coming up in about, I don't know, 10 or so, 10, 12, 14 minutes, we're going to talk with Joel Pollack from Breitbart.
	Joel.
	He's in Southern California, and he's facing what so many others are.
	He was evacuated from his home.
	Fortunately, to my knowledge, he has not had his home burned down yet.
	I don't want to say yet, but we're going to find out.
	There is a video that he had posted on social media of him actually helping out one of his neighbors by putting water from a gutter on hot spots to stop it from spreading, and it's the worst of all scenarios.
	For Joel and for everybody else.
	So we're going to bring that conversation to you coming up in a bit.
	In the final hour of the broadcast, we're going to talk to Kurt Schlichter.
	Colonel Kurt, of course, is a senior columnist at townhall.com, and he is a fill-in host on a number of the national radio shows here, just like I'm doing today.
	So we're going to talk to Colonel Kurt.
	In between now and then, I would love to hear from you.
	You can dial us at 833-33-GORCA, 833. 3-3-4-6-7-5-2.
	I want to start, actually, in Orlando, Florida, because Sam has been waiting ever so patiently to comment on this situation in California.
	So let's bring Sam up and on the radio on America First.
	Hey, Sam, it's Bob in for Dr. Gorka.
	Fire away.
	Bob, you're fire hot.
	I'm going to have to definitely get you on the phone, on the app, so I can sit there and call you a little bit.
	I like how you talk, what you say.
	Thank you.
	Appreciate that.
	Yes, sir.
	Much so.
	There's a Purple K. It's called PKP in the Navy.
	We use it on our ships because there's plenty of ocean, but you're 100 feet off the ground when you're in a aircraft carrier, off the water surface.
	Though, you know, it smothers.
	It melts when heat hits it, so it takes the oxygen away from, which is the fuel for a fire.
	Electrical can be used on, but eventually you've got to cut the power to totally extinguish it.
	Why are they not?
	Because it gets pumped out of the trucks.
	Animal fat, PKP, Purple K, they both get pumped out of a fire truck.
	They get pumped just like water.
	Why are they not using that?
	That's a question I don't have an answer for because I don't have the experience and the expertise that you do in this.
	Do you have any suggestions as to why not?
	I have to believe the people out there know about the capacity of this, and I just don't know as far as maybe it is a capacity issue.
	Maybe they don't have it.
	We don't have enough of it.
	I don't really have any idea.
	What I don't understand, and maybe you could explain this to me with your expertise, I don't understand why they aren't pumping ocean water.
	If they're running out of water in their reservoirs, which they are, I understand from some that I have heard that salt water being pumped through the pumps to be used to fight fires is bad for the pumps.
	And so maybe it's not something you want to do as a regular practice.
	But when you're in the emergency hellish scenario that they are right now, if you've got, you know, an unlimited supply of ocean water, why are they not pumping that out and using that and running those through the lines?
	Agreed.
	100%.
	Bob, agreed.
	That was a big answer, and they're not doing it.
	Why is there not 18-wheelers getting their tanks full?
	So they're not hauling milk, they're not hauling gas.
	Let's haul some water and put the freaking fire out.
	Yeah, and again, it's a common sense question.
	There's probably a common sense answer to it, because I don't think we're dealing with stupid people out there, with the exception maybe of the mayor and some of her leaders, with the exception maybe of Gavin Newsom.
	But I mean, seriously, the engineers and the people in the fire department who are responsible for these things, one would think they would say, look, we have an unlimited supply of the antidote for what is killing us right now, which is water to fire.
	Let's go use it in whatever capacity that we have to.
	I don't understand that part, but that's where we sit, and thank you for the call from Orlando there, Sam.
	This is what the people of California have to deal with.
	Now listen, I want to play something for you here.
	I have been calling Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, who was absentee at the beginning of this big mess because she was in Africa.
	Then she came back yesterday and had a whole mouthful of nothing to share.
	She would say nothing to reporters asking if she would apologize to the people of Los Angeles for the condition, the circumstances, and her absence.
	And when she did speak in her little mini-press conference, which was more just a statement, she told the people of Los Angeles, Her city, her constituents, if you need assistance, go to URL. What the hell does that even mean?
	A URL is the address of a website that you were typing in.
	When I tell you to type in strictlyspeaking.org or, you know, sebastiangorka.com, that's a URL. What is the URL? She just said URL. She sounded like Kamala Harris reading from a teleprompter and had no idea what she's reading.
	Sounded like Joe Biden reading from a teleprompter and has no idea what he's reading.
	What does that even mean?
	But it's more than just incompetence when it comes to Karen Bass.
	This is my belief.
	My belief is she doesn't care enough to get it right.
	She does not care enough because she doesn't like this country.
	She doesn't like this country and she doesn't like these people.
	Why?
	Because she's a communist.
	Bob, what are you saying?
	That's a pretty bold statement to make.
	Yeah, well, it's rooted in fact.
	There is a massive, massive webpage dedicated.
	To exposing the communist roots of people like her, of people like Kamala Harris as well.
	And I exposed a lot of that during the campaign as she ran for president.
	And this is a very, very short summary video of some of her communist roots, her ties to Cuba, her ties to Castro, her ties to radical terrorist organizations.
	This is a woman who I'm telling you right now has served in Congress for years and years and years now serving as mayor of Los Angeles and cannot stand the country in which she serves.
	If you don't believe me, let's watch the videotape.
	Please play cut 14. November 7, 1983.
	Remember this date, but first let me introduce you to Karen Bass.
	Back in the 1970s, community activist Karen Bass went on at least 15 trips to Cuba, many with a group known as the Venceramos Brigade, a Marxist group started by the Castro regime to subvert American interests, weaken democracies, and spread communism around the world.
	Founded in 1969, the Venceramos Brigade...
	Organized trips to Cuba every year for half a century.
	They attracted the most radicalized and delusional segments of the American left, including overtly Maoist and pro-Soviet communist groups.
	In fact, a Los Angeles police investigator who infiltrated the group testified to Congress saying that to be a member of the brigade, you had to be confirmed as a Marxist-Leninist, as a brigadista, and then moving up the ranks to organizer.
	For the Venturemos Brigade, Karen Bass visited Cuba every six months.
	Their mission?
	To radicalize young, impressionable American leftists in terrorist tactics and guerrilla warfare.
	Members of the Venturemos Brigade were even taught how to make bombs.
	Jesus Christ!
	Karen Bass admits, on her many pilgrimages to Cuba, she went to see Fidel Castro speak several times, even calling him charismatic.
	And upon his death, Another group, the M19, took its belief in revolutionary anti-imperialism to extremes, violent extremes.
	The M19 was the first and only women-created and women-led domestic terrorist group.
	Since their founding in 1978, M-19's tactics escalated from robbing armored trucks and abetting prison breaks to building their own explosives and carrying out terrorist bombings.
	From 1983 to 1984, M-19 bombed an FBI office, the Israel Aircraft Industries Building, the South African Consulate in New York, D.C.'s Fort McNair, and Navy Yard, which they bombed twice.
	But that wasn't enough for them.
	On the night of November 7, 1983, the M-19 called the U.S. Capitol switchboard and warned them to evacuate the building.
	Minutes later, the M-19 bombed the north wing of the U.S. Capitol.
	November 7, 2023 marks 40 years since the M-19's bombing of the U.S. Capitol.
	Members of the M-19, like Susan Rosenberg, traveled to Cuba with...
	And were radicalized by the Vince Ramos Brigade.
	The South Los Angeles Vince Ramos Brigade was led by Karen Bass, who is now mayor of Los Angeles.
	I can't add a whole lot to that.
	If you paid attention to that entire video, it's only three minutes long.
	You heard some chilling stuff.
	Karen Bass was more than just radicalized.
	She was a...
	Radicalizer.
	She was a part of the brigade.
	She was a brigadier in order to raise and rise in the organization to the level of organizer.
	She went to Cuba every six months.
	She supported Castro.
	She learned, as so many others did, about bomb making.
	I'm not suggesting she ever bombed anything or anybody.
	But, you know, what she did and the organizations that she was a part of, is there any wonder?
	That she cares and was so stone-faced and so cold about what was just happening in her city as it was on fire when she came back yesterday.
	It's very astounding and it's very disturbing.
	Joel Pollack from Breitbart evacuated this week.
	We're going to talk to him next right here on America First.
	We're going to talk to him next.
	We're going to talk to him next.
	We're going to talk to him next.
	We're going to talk to him next.
	We're going to talk to him next.
	We're going to talk to him next.
	We're going to talk to him next.
	We're going to talk to him next.
	We're going to talk to him next.
	This is my house.
	Miraculously intact.
	Over the 24 hours of fire.
	I feel terrible for my neighbors.
	I was across the street completely gutted.
	And I'm here with my son's baseball bucket, picking up water from the gutter that's running downhill from where they have some water pressure from something.
	Maybe a broken water main, maybe firefighting.
	And I'm putting out hot spots so that the fire doesn't get to the house itself.
	I put out part of my neighbor's fence as well.
	This is a remarkable thing that we're watching right now.
	Welcome back.
	I'm Bob Franson for Dr. Gorka.
	It's good to have you here with us this afternoon.
	The person you saw in that video there is Joel Pollack.
	He is a senior editor-at-large for Breitbart, and he, we were informed yesterday by Jennifer Horne, who was with us, who is also in Southern California, of course, that Joel had to evacuate his home.
	And that is exactly what he has done.
	And so we said we want to talk to him and kind of get a first-hand account of exactly what he's experiencing in his neighborhood there in Pacific Palisades.
	Joel Pollack, thanks for joining us here on America First, Joel.
	How are you this afternoon?
	And I ask that question cautiously, of course.
	We're good.
	What more could you ask for?
	All right.
	Fair enough.
	And you're right.
	That is the most important thing.
	So far, I think there have been five confirmed fatalities.
	I don't know how many people have been displaced, but I know you are one of them.
	So tell me, give us what you can, Joel, about when you learned that the fires were headed your way and to the point where you were indeed being forced to evacuate.
	Well, my nanny sent a text to myself and my wife.
	She was walking the baby in the neighborhood.
	She said that she smelled smoke and saw smoke, and that happened in rapid succession.
	Usually you'll see it first, and you won't smell it unless it's very close.
	So I sent a text back saying, okay, pack everything up.
	We may have to evacuate.
	Got back home.
	Got out very quickly.
	We were one of the first families to leave.
	Spent just 15 minutes at home.
	Necessities, documents, all that stuff.
	And we cleared out before the gridlock happened.
	And we stayed in Santa Monica with friends.
	Until I was able to go in, and actually I'm back in Palisades now, I'm at the base of Sunset and PCH, about to go back in, and it's a hellscape up there, unfortunately.
	The entire town virtually has been destroyed.
	There are a couple of neighborhoods that are okay, but this one is not where I'm standing right now.
	I'm standing at the...
	The bottom of Marques Knolls, basically, and you can see the buildings along Pacific Coast Highway, those are intact, but once you start getting into the neighborhood, it's a near total loss.
	Joel, I think what a lot of people would want to know right now is, is the worst over for your neighborhood?
	You know, the video you showed of you getting buckets of water to kill hot spots so that something doesn't flare back up again.
	I don't know what the winds are like.
	We know the Santana winds have been responsible for blowing these flames from, you know, one structure to the next, to the next, to the next.
	Have they calmed down any and is the worst behind you, or are you still on just as much of an alert as before?
	Yeah, the winds have calmed down, and what we have now is a slight onshore breeze.
	It was a very strong offshore breeze, or really hurricane-force offshore wind, coming from east to west, down the mountainside, and through the canyons.
	And the canyons have a channel effect that intensifies the strength of the wind.
	So when that fire erupted on a hillside in a canyon, On a road called Palisades Drive, it's like starting a fire in a wind tunnel.
	It just turns into a flamethrower, and that's what was happening.
	But now the wind has changed directions, and there's a very mild onshore breeze coming from west to east, so it's actually blowing back toward the direction of the fire.
	That's good news because it means that firefighters can get into tough spots.
	I don't see any...
	Helicopters are planes above me right now, but apparently they were working overnight.
	They were finally able to get in and dump some water on things.
	So I think hopefully the worst is over, but we don't know because there are fires still burning.
	We can see the smoke above us and live power lines and all kinds of things that are above us.
	We're going to go back in there in a minute and just check things out.
	I haven't seen...
	My house, since yesterday, I saw it on a neighbor's video last night.
	Another person was able to get in and took some footage, and ours is the only house.
	I think our neighbor's house is also still there, but basically the two houses are the only ones that survived in that immediate environment.
	Every other house, we're on a corner.
	The other three corners have all burnt down.
	That's incredible.
	First of all, I'm very, very happy for you and hope that stays the case, that your house remains standing and that of your neighbor.
	Of course, prayers for every one of those who didn't in your neighborhood and beyond, who weren't as fortunate.
	We're talking to Joel Pollack, Breitbart News, senior editor-at-large.
	His house is still standing, as he just said.
	Joel, at what point, and it's probably not there yet, maybe for you because you're in the middle of all of this, but from a distance, I've reached this point where I'm talking and kind of moving the conversation from What is going on to what in the hell happened and what kind of blame needs to be passed out here?
	Your mayor or the mayor of Los Angeles showed up after her trip to Africa last night and refused to answer questions, then gave a very superficial and almost meaningless little bit of a statement in a mini press conference.
	So people now are wondering what happened, what started these fires, and why were officials so extraordinarily unprepared for them, Joel?
	That's a story that's going to take a long time to tell, but generally I would summarize it as...
	The people who run Los Angeles and California have not prioritized the basic tasks of governance.
	They have prioritized identity politics.
	Gavin Newsom cares more about gender transitions in red states than he does about stopping wildfires in his own state.
	Karen Bass cares more about showing solidarity with an African country that most Angelenos have very little to do with.
	than she does with making sure that there are enough police on the streets, making sure that the fire department has the equipment it needs.
	She proposed budget cuts to the fire department last year, $23 million.
	Ultimately, they cut just under $18 million, but $13 million of that was operating supplies.
	And when you see videos of firefighters literally using handbags to take water from their trucks to throw onto flames instead of hoses...
	You understand what $13 million of operating supplies might have bought you.
	So there's just a lack of attention to the basic tasks of governance.
	The guy she ran against, Rick Caruso, is a property developer.
	He owns one of the malls in this area, the Palisades Village Mall.
	It's a very expensive mall, very beautiful mall, and it's the only structure that survived in downtown Palisades because Rick Caruso made sure that his mall was protected.
	So everything else around it that Karen Bass was responsible for burnt down.
	And that's because we don't demand that our public officials make public safety a priority.
	Karen Bass ran on abortion.
	It was her number one issue in 2022, the year of the Dobbs decision.
	And that was why she said people from Los Angeles should trust her and not Rick Caruso because he gave to pro-life causes in the past.
	And because he's a big Catholic philanthropist, I guess that means you're not trustworthy on that issue.
	Joel, I've got a hard break coming here, but I'd like to talk some more with you.
	Can you hang on for one more segment?
	I can't, unfortunately.
	I cannot.
	I have to go in now.
	I'm so sorry.
	I understand.
	I understand.
	Thank you for the time you could give us, Joel Pollack.
	Thank you, and our prayers are with you.
	you and everybody there in Pacific Palisades.
	We'll be back.
	Now let's get back to the show with Bob France.
	Okay, 33 minutes past the hour.
	Yeah, Bob France sitting in for Dr. G here in Cleveland, Ohio.
	Please check out my webpage and bookmark it and subscribe to my channels.
	Look at strictlyspeaking.org for all of them, strictlyspeaking.org.
	Appreciate you being with us.
	We'll take calls, too, at 833-333-Gorka, 833-334-6752.
	I want to play a clip here as we talk about some of the responses to the fires in California.
	We've talked all show long about Karen Bass and about Gavin Newsom and so on and so forth.
	What about the big guy?
	What about the current president of the United States, the current occupant of the White House?
	He was giving a press conference about this yesterday as well, and it's kind of interesting.
	The focus that he chose to make during this press conference, the idea that he chose to change the focus from the fires and the victims and the Los Angelenos and the American citizens to, well, putting the focus on himself.
	Listen, cut one.
	The only one thing to do is my son was out here in the Quay.
	I'm up there.
	I think I got a notification yesterday.
	They're home and probably running around.
	Today, my parents have a baby still standing.
	I'm not sure.
	But the good news is I'm a great grandfather as of the day.
	I'm a granddad.
	I'm a baby girl, a baby boy.
	What?
	Now, if you're just listening on the radio, you may have had a hard time making some of that out.
	If you were watching it, we have the subtitles on the screen.
	Joe Biden was talking about people whose homes had burned to the ground.
	But on the plus side, I'm a great-grandfather as of today.
	He literally said, but the good news is, I'm a great-grandfather.
	Ten pounds, four ounces, or whatever it was.
	Then he said, baby girl, baby boy.
	I don't know.
	Maybe did he say because he doesn't know, or are they waiting to allow the child to choose when the child's older?
	I don't know what the reason was.
	But the point is, how about time and place, Mr. President?
	Time and place, time and place, time and place.
	This is not about you.
	This was not your time to pursue, you know.
	And then, of course, the pause, saying, I'm a great-grandfather as of today.
	Pause, pause.
	And then out of almost, you know, feeling compelled, you know, the reporters around, okay, we're happy for you.
	We're here to talk about people's lives being destroyed, people's properties being destroyed.
	And you want us to talk about your great-grandchild.
	I mean, hey, that's super, but time and place, sir.
	I want to talk about Joe Biden.
	And I want to spend a little bit of time on this.
	Because Joe Biden is on his way into the sunset.
	He's got, again, today's the 9th, so we'll say he's got 10 days left.
	Because on the 20th, he doesn't get anything.
	That's Donald Trump's day.
	So he's got 10 days left.
	And we've talked all week long.
	On this program, and I'm sure elsewhere, you've heard people talking about what Joe Biden is doing to make life more difficult for Donald Trump coming in and make life more difficult for the American people as President Trump comes in.
	So yesterday, Biden did.
	And listen, I'm just going to tell you point blank.
	They laid Jimmy Carter to rest today.
	They laid Jimmy Carter to rest.
	God rest his soul.
	All of the living presidents were under the same roof and in the same couple of rows for the first time in a very, very long time.
	Barack Obama sat next to Donald Trump, who sat next on the other side of Obama was Laura Bush, and then George W. Bush, then Hillary Clinton next to George W. Bush, and Bill on the end, then in the front was Joe and Jill and Kamala and Doug Emhoff.
	So they're all there.
	And they're, you know, eulogizing and laying Jimmy Carter to rest.
	And as that happened, of course, after you say the requisite, you know, God rest his soul, and I mean that very seriously.
	He was a kind man who did a lot of nice things when he was out of office.
	But when you look at Jimmy Carter the way you look at every other president, you look at legacy.
	And he's regarded largely as the worst president of our lifetimes, probably everybody listening right now.
	And maybe going back historically, you could find a spot for him among the worst of all time, just in terms of performance and competence, right?
	I watched Jimmy Carter get laid to rest today, and I said to myself, I'd rather have him in his current condition laying in that coffin over Joe Biden.
	Joe Biden is by far a worse president than Jimmy Carter was.
	In large part because Joe Biden was not what Jimmy Carter was, which was a nice man, a decent man, a Christian man who was, you know, just a little bit overwhelmed by the moment and wasn't really, quite frankly, competent enough to do what he was asked to do when he became president of the United States.
	Joe Biden is not a kind, decent man.
	Joe Biden is a very, very bad man.
	He's a very, very evil man, and he's a man who is as delusional as he is evil in my view.
	And that's why I'm going to continue to say Let's Go Brandon, and I'm playing Let's Go Brandon at the end of every one of my Cleveland radio shows.
	I'm going to do it long after he's out of office on January 20th.
	I'm going to do it long after he's off of this earth, quite frankly, because he's not a good man.
	And yesterday he did an interview with Susan Page of USA Today, kind of an exit interview, in which he was asked about his legacy.
	And I'm going to tell you what he had to say.
	And then we're going to tell the truth about what his legacy really will reveal.
	That's coming up next.
	Stay here.
	This is America First with Dr. Sebastian Gorka.
	I'm Bob France sitting in. . . . .
	.
	Thank you.
	Thank you. Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
	I'm Seb Gorka.
	Now let's get back to the show with Bob France.
	All right, thanks, Dr. G. It is 17 minutes before the top of the hour.
	Don't forget, in the next hour, we are going to be talking with senior columnist from townhall.com, our friend, Dr., I'm sorry, Colonel Kurt Schlichter.
	Colonel Kurt is another Southern Los Angeles guy, Southern California guy, I should say, in L.A., and we're going to find out.
	He told me this afternoon he's about 12 miles away from the nearest fire, so he's pretty safe where he is, but he is, of course, watching it all very closely.
	We're going to get his thoughts on the management issue here, because that's what this is all about.
	But right now, I want to go back to Biden.
	Joe Biden did an exit interview yesterday, if you want to call it that, as he looked at his legacy and was answering questions about his presidency from Susan Page at USA Today.
	The New York Post covered this USA Today article and interview with the headline, Joe Biden is still deluded about the legacy he leaves.
	And delusion is literally Joe Biden's middle name.
	Unless, of course, it's dementia.
	Joe Biden told the USA Today in this exit interview that he's still upset because he could have beaten Donald Trump in the last election.
	Asked how the heck he could say such a thing, he said the polling.
	First of all, two things.
	Number one, what polling?
	He was, you know, only 24% of Americans considered him mentally sharp.
	He was losing to Donald Trump overwhelmingly in the battleground states.
	And he had a 30-plus percent approval rating.
	What polling is he talking about?
	That's number one.
	Number two, he said he was elbowed out of the election.
	I thought the Democrats were telling us.
	I thought Kamala Harris told us.
	I thought Chuck Schumer just a couple of days ago said that Joe Biden very, very selflessly sacrificed his own re-election to hand the baton to the next generation and so forth.
	Here's Joe Biden.
	He's still ticked off.
	That's one of the reasons he's doing what he's doing when I say he's salting the earth on the way out.
	He's still mad that they booted him.
	And he's telling people, yes, that they booted him.
	They forced him out.
	He didn't leave in a self-sacrificial way for the good of the country.
	That's a very important part.
	But this is the part I really want to get to.
	His self-delusion goes so deep when he is asked what will endure about his legacy.
	Here was his response in USA Today.
	I hope that history says that I came in and I had a plan.
	How to restore the economy and reestablish America's leadership in the world.
	And I hope it records that I did it with honesty and integrity.
	And I'm sorry.
	But I'm not sorry.
	When I just get very, very angry listening to those kinds of things.
	Because two things that Joe Biden has never been in his political career are honest or done with integrity.
	He has never been honest.
	He has never been a man of integrity.
	He has been exactly just the opposite.
	He has lied, cheated and stolen his entire way through his adult public life.
	He cheated in law school.
	He lied about law school.
	He plagiarized.
	He plagiarized speeches when he was a senator.
	He plagiarized speeches when he was running for president.
	He was a liar and a cheat when he was in the vice president's office with Obama.
	And he has been absolutely horrific.
	What honesty!
	You lied for four years about your mental capacity until it was all laid bare for the whole world to see in that debate in June against Donald Trump.
	Joe Biden lied every step of the way, claiming that he was mentally sharp and he had everybody in his orbit lying for him, that Joe Biden is doing cartwheels down the hallways in the West Wing and we can't even keep up with him.
	He's amazing.
	He lied every single step of the way.
	And as far as, I hope history records that I came in with a plan on how to restore the economy.
	What are you talking about?
	Donald Trump handed you a great economy that, yes, was crippled by COVID and by mostly blue state Democrat governors who agreed with you and shut down thousands and thousands of businesses and put out millions of people out of work.
	Other than that, I mean, Donald Trump had a phenomenal economy with low mortgage rates, low interest rates, way higher take-home pay, lower taxes.
	More jobs, more energy, lower costs, $239 a gallon gas when he left office.
	You're talking about the economy that you came in and blew up with 40, 50, 60-year high inflation.
	Record high or near record high mortgage rates.
	$239 gas became $550 gas.
	People still can't afford to put enough groceries into their cart to feed their families without sacrificing something else in the monthly budget.
	What are you talking about?
	He wants to be remembered as being a man of honesty and integrity who did great things for the economy and restored leadership, America's leadership at the world stage.
	You came in and because of your weakness, Vladimir Putin said, we're going into Ukraine right now.
	America's not going to do anything with this boob in charge.
	And he was right.
	He was absolutely right.
	Hamas looking at Israel and said, We're going into Israel right now.
	We're going to kill a whole bunch of them.
	America's not going to do anything, not with that guy leading.
	And they were right.
	What is he talking about?
	The majority of Americans will indeed remember Joe Biden as being an abysmal president, a horrible president.
	A new Gallup poll released just two days ago found that 54% of Americans believe Biden's presidency will be remembered either as below average or poor.
	A 37% plurality rating Biden's time in office as poor.
	Another 26% say it might be considered average.
	Joe Biden's brand was used to sell access to Barack Obama in the White House for eight years of his presidency.
	Jim Comer, the chair of the House Oversight Committee, is just coming out with a book that is going to detail the 170 suspicious bank transactions that the Bidens filed with the Department of the Treasury.
	He found over $30 million, or nearly $30 million, funneled into the First Family's bank accounts, into Joe's bank account, 10% for the big guy, into Brother Jim's bank account.
	Into his niece's bank accounts.
	We're talking about some extraordinary things.
	And all of these Biden family assets are, I want to say all, but they're corrupt.
	This is what the Biden family crime syndicate is all about.
	Hunter Biden getting on boards in foreign countries, taking jobs that he has no business in because he doesn't understand anything about it.
	But the only thing he was supposed to do for his paychecks was give them access to Joe Biden and to Barack Obama, which is exactly what he did.
	How is he hoping on being seen as a man of integrity and honesty?
	He has been nothing but the opposite.
	And on his way out the door, what is he doing?
	He's closing down Gitmo and taking 9-11 hijackers and 9-11 supporters from Al-Qaeda and putting them in Oman.
	He's commuting the sentence of federal death row inmates and giving them life in prison.
	He's giving awards to the 12-year leader of Planned Parenthood who oversaw 4 million abortions, Celine Richards giving her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
	How is this man a man of integrity and honesty in all seriousness?
	Joe Biden is a man who should be seen as, again, Rest easy, Jimmy Carter.
	You are no longer the worst president of our lifetimes.
	We'll be back.
	Now let's get back to the show with Bob France.
	Do not remember him as a good president.
	Do not remember him as a good man.
	Remember him as an incompetent...
	Socialist who essentially sold his soul for 30 million pieces of silver.
	That's what I want you to remember, Joe Biden.
	Okay, let's go to some phone calls.
	833-33-GORCA. We're going to go to Los Angeles.
	Joe, you are in the middle of this?
	Maybe?
	Tell us what's going on in L.A., Joe.
	Go right ahead.
	I call it because I'm curious as to why you're using the tragedy that is occurring in my city to score political points.
	So many lies have been spread by the MAGA people in this country about what's happening in my city.
	How many lies do you want?
	Give me one.
	Lie number one.
	This is the result of forest mismanagement.
	How do we know this is a lie?
	Because these fires are not occurring in forests.
	These are urban fires being spread by embers.
	These embers travel miles and miles and miles.
	They then land on rooftops and start fires.
	Where are these embers originating, Joe?
	Where are they coming from?
	Because what you're talking about is literally what we're talking about.
	We're talking about forests.
	We're talking about deadwood.
	We're talking about dry deadwood and things that spread fast, things that are lightweight, things that spread in high winds, things that burn.
	This is exactly what we talked about with the Woolsey fire from a few years ago.
	This is mismanagement.
	You are wrong.
	You don't know what you're talking about right now.
	Tell me why the reservoirs are not full.
	That is not true.
	Reservoirs are not full?
	Yeah, tell me why the fire hydrants are empty.
	They're trying to pump water.
	They're getting air.
	Why is that, Joe?
	Not true.
	So you're telling me that the firefighters are lying.
	You're telling me that all of the emergency first responders are lying.
	Joe, don't try to talk over me.
	It's not going to work.
	You're telling me, though, that they're making that up just to score political points against your left-wing losers?
	I'm a left-wing loser.
	There you go.
	I've got ashes falling down on my yard right now.
	I've got my daughter...
	Listen to me, Joe.
	I want you to understand something here.
	We have nothing but compassion for the people who are suffering.
	But we want you to understand that the people you elect, the elections have consequences, as Barack Obama famously said.
	Your election of people who have no concern whatsoever, who cut...
	Tell me why your mayor cut $17.6 million out of the fire budget this year.
	I'm sorry, did you just tell me why they cut $18 million out of the budget?
	Tell me that again?
	Because we support a rapist?
	Are you really gonna go there?
	Joe, thank you for the call, but you, my friend, are a perfect example and a reason why politics matters in this case.
	The people you vote for butcher emergency preparedness.
	Look at the difference between Republican Ron DeSantis handling emergencies in Florida compared to Gavin Newsom in California.
	People you vote for, people like Karen Bass, the communists that you vote for, unprepared and putting people in danger for your climate change fantasies.
	That's the reason.
	Politics matter in this case.
	I'll be right back. I'll be right back.
	I'll be right
	back. I'll
	be right back.
	I'll be right
	back. I'll
	be right back.
	I'll be right
	back. I'll
	be right back.
	I'll be right
	back. I'll
	be right back.
	I'll be right
	back. I'll
	be right back.
	I'll be right
	back. I'll
	be right back.
	I'll be right
	back. I'll
	be right back.
	Cleveland's own Bob France.
	Yes.
	All right, thank you, Dr. G. And once again, this is the last Dr. Gorka America First show that I will guest host.
	There is only one more America First show to come, and that's tomorrow.
	The guest host will be Hugh Hewitt, who of course is going to be taking over that slot and making it his own on Monday.
	So make sure you are sticking around for that.
	And of course, as I said many times, Very, very sad to lose Dr. Gorka's show and all of the education that he provides for so many people on the radio, but I feel so good about him becoming deputy assistant to the president and senior director of counterterrorism.
	I feel safer already having Dr. G in that role working with President Trump.
	I want to continue our conversation now of what's going on in Southern California with another SoCal friend.
	He is the senior editor.
	Or a senior editor with...
	No, I'm sorry.
	I'm giving you Joel Pollack's job description there.
	I apologize.
	Kurt Schlichter is a senior columnist for TownHall.com.
	And he is in Southern California as well.
	He's also a frequent guest host here, of course, on the network and on this show, too.
	Colonel Kurt, good to see you, buddy.
	How are you?
	I'm doing well.
	I am not in...
	For everybody asking, I'm not in the fire.
	I'm about 12 miles away.
	I'm in what's called the South Bay.
	Which is Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach, El Segundo.
	It's the area south of the airport.
	And it's kind of out of the way.
	A beautiful area full of rich liberals who don't let poor people in.
	So it's relatively safe.
	Much like the Palisades itself.
	Except the Palisades, the average house is like $3 million.
	The average house here is only like $2 million.
	It is...
	You know, I was out on Manhattan Beach Pier just about an hour or so ago, looking north, and you can look across Santa Monica Bay, and the whole northern part of the bay, which is, you know, it goes from Santa Monica, and then it kind of goes around to Malibu, and it's all those beach places you saw on Baywatch and Point Break and stuff, and that is all wrapped up in smoke, and much of it's been destroyed.
	This is a major level disaster.
	You write about people assuming that everybody's in it, because that was my first message to you today.
	I texted you just to see how you're doing.
	Because I know you're in Southern California.
	And I don't know the geography of Southern California.
	Not a lot of people do.
	So I just said, Kurt, are you safe?
	And you said, yep, I'm good.
	I'm 12 miles away from the nearest flames.
	So that's a good thing.
	So I'm glad to hear, you know, because again, our mutual friend, Joel Pollack from Breitbart, he is in the middle of this.
	We talked to him last hour.
	He had to evacuate.
	So I'm glad you are farther away from that.
	But, Kurt, can you give us a sense, even though you are a little bit of distance from that, can you give us a little bit of sense of the...
	It's really huge.
	You've got to understand that the fires actually got into city, okay?
	There are banks, Starbucks, that sort of thing, all burnt out.
	It wasn't just, you know, some hippie house in the hills, okay?
	These were city blocks.
	These got to the point where it's commercial blocks.
	And it's not done yet.
	And remember, there's more than one fire.
	There's the Palisades fire.
	And then you've got the Hollywood Hills Fire, which is about five miles over, over Sunset Boulevard, you know, where they have, you know, all the, you know, Sunset Strip and stuff.
	Those hills are burning.
	And then you've got Pasadena, Altadena, which is kind of off to the northeast.
	And one called the Eaton Fire.
	The Eaton Fire was the other one that they were talking about, too.
	And the crazy thing is, we're 48 hours or plus from the start of these things, and from what I saw just a few hours ago, the Palisades Fire and the Eaton Fire are still at 0% containment because of these crazy winds, as well as some other things, which is what I want to ask you about.
	There are a lot of reports from all over talking about empty fire hydrants, dry fire hydrants.
	Energy reservoirs, they don't have enough water to deal with these things, as well as other mismanagement.
	Now, we just had a caller calling and saying, how dare you turn this into a political thing?
	Well, if the political leaders are not prepared for these emergencies, Kurt, what are we supposed to do?
	What can you guys count on?
	Well, look, this is the same thing.
	Every time you try and hold liberals accountable, you get the same thing.
	Remember, it is liberal from dog catcher up to governor hairstyle.
	There are no Republicans.
	When I say no Republicans, I mean no Republicans.
	I mean there's a supermajority in the legislature in the Senate.
	There are no Republican elected officials in the city government or in the state government.
	So naturally, it's all got to be Trump's fault.
	Naturally, it's got to be your fault for pointing out the inadequacy of the Democrat administration.
	And we see that all the time.
	I mean, we just saw it last week in England with the rape scandal, where the problem wasn't that thousands of girls were molested by the third world immigrants imported by the British establishment.
	No, the problem was people noticing it and saying it.
	That's the problem.
	Elon Musk pointing it out is the problem, not the, you know, rapes.
	And that's what we have here.
	It's not the fire.
	It's you people pointing out that we suck.
	The mayor of Los Angeles, and I do not live in the city of Los Angeles because I refuse to submit myself to those morons, is a borderline clinical moron.
	I think her IQ is probably in the 80s.
	She's a clown.
	The fire department is a DEI nightmare.
	All the leadership are...
	Unattractive lesbians.
	And they have not proven themselves up to the job.
	I mean, if these were, like, great lesbians and they, like, did a great job putting out the fire, I'd be like, hey, I'm proud of our lesbian fire sheet.
	You know, she's amazing, but she's not.
	We keep seeing it.
	And we saw it in, you know, we saw the same failure in...
	New Orleans.
	We saw the 300-year-old New Orleans police chief who could barely walk.
	And then we saw Special Agent Nose Ring, who could barely speak English and couldn't figure out that the guy flying the ISIS flag might, I don't know, like ISIS? I don't know.
	Maybe?
	Well, you know, you're obviously right, Kurt.
	We're talking with Colonel Kurt Schlichter, who is a Los Angeles-based attorney and, of course, senior columnist at townhall.com.
	What you're talking about, all of these people involved in the decision-making as far as preparation for disasters, and again, every single year during the dry season or whatever it is that you want to call it, when the wildfires and the brush fires start going crazy there, everybody, once again, President Trump has done it for a long time, talked about.
	The clearing of the forest floors, getting rid of the dead wood and all of the stuff that fuels the spread of these things.
	But when you point those out, when Donald Trump points those out, what you're doing, Kurt, is you are taking away one of their best talking points, which is climate change must have caused this.
	Climate change caused the severity of the fires to be worse, and they don't want to hear that.
	Well, look, it's anything but them.
	Look, you know, if you're in a place where fires are to be expected...
	Maybe I expect my leadership to expect it and to do things consistent with that expectation, like ensure that the infrastructure works, ensure that the reservoirs are topped off, ensure that people know, hey, we've got a problem coming.
	Maybe we need to evacuate you sooner.
	Maybe we need to, you know, maybe there are other steps we need to take, but they didn't do any of that.
	This has been purely reactive and slow.
	They didn't get the Cal National Guard out there until yesterday afternoon.
	I'm a little familiar with that.
	I was in the Cal Guard for 23 of my 27 years, and I commanded a reinforced cavalry squadron task force running northern San Diego during the fires there in 2007. I know our capabilities.
	I know how we can help.
	And they weren't called in.
	It's amazing to me, even now.
	They called him in and said, well, we've got some MPs and we've got some troops to actually fight the fires, which is their worst possible use.
	And we've got some aviation assets.
	Okay, that's fine.
	Well, what about engineers?
	What about medical support?
	What about quartermaster support to, you know, clean, you know, to run laundries, to run shower points?
	What about all that stuff?
	What about prepare food for people?
	There's so much more that could be done.
	And it's like...
	When they're expected to actually govern, Bob, these guys completely fail.
	I mean, if you're Governor Newsom and you've been governor for a while, how the hell do you not know what your National Guard could do?
	That would be one of the first thing I would do if I was the governor.
	Bring my adjunct general and brief me on your capabilities.
	Let me know what you can do.
	And then when one of these things start, pick up the phone, hey, general!
	You guys can send 500 guys out to relieve the exhausted cops.
	You can send military police, right?
	Oh, yeah.
	You bet we can do that.
	And we can support them, too.
	Well, General, go do that.
	Go do that right now.
	But no.
	You know what's frustrating about it, Kurt, too, is there's a model.
	There's a model that they could follow here.
	And Scott Jennings talked about this on CNN last night.
	Yeah, we had it in California.
	We were the best at it in the country.
	When I was here, when I was still serving 10 years ago.
	Well, the best added in the country now is on the other end of the country.
	It's down in Florida.
	And Governor Ron DeSantis handles these hurricanes and disasters, like, so expertly uses every resources that he has at his disposal.
	And Gavin Newsom, you know, you could watch a little and learn from the way it's, you know, from the places that are doing it right.
	And I don't understand, you know, why this is that difficult for them.
	Because governing isn't the point for them.
	It gets in the way of what they want to do, which is be in charge.
	You know, even in the military, you have a bunch of officers.
	Colonel, we've got the hard break here at 10 seconds.
	Can you stick for one more segment?
	You bet.
	Let's do it.
	Colonel Kurt Schlichter, senior columnist at townhall.com, sticking with us right here on America First.
	Thank you.
	but he still has a very up-close-and-personal view of things right now.
	So, Colonel Kurt, right before the break there, I was asking you about, you know, the dichotomy, you know, the difference between...
	Governing the way Ron DeSantis is governing in Florida, whenever they have horrific situations, obviously during hurricane season.
	And it is amazing the way he manages and uses all of the resources at his disposal to get things turned around and people taken care of, lickety-split.
	And then you've got what's happening in California right now with Gavin Newsom.
	If you put these two guys on a split screen, that's what Scott Jennings said on CNN. I mean, you would see just the polar opposite on how to deal with these emergencies.
	And you were listing a number of things that Gavin Newsom, Karen Bass, and those others could do to alleviate this, to, you know, mitigate the, you know, the damages.
	Take it from there.
	Well, look, they have no experience actually doing anything.
	And they rarely have—that's the benefit of being a liberal Democrat.
	You have no expectation from the regime media of achieving anything.
	You will never be held accountable if their economy goes bad, if crime goes up, if the quality of life goes down, or if you're a— You'll have a firestorm sweep through your city.
	You'll never be held accountable.
	So those moments when they can't escape accountability, right?
	The moments where there's no way to kind of wiggle out of the camera and put it off on somebody else, they're stuck.
	So they get back to the, you're racist, it's Donald Trump's fault for complaining, that kind of stuff.
	But eventually, You know, reality comes and bites you on the fourth point of contact.
	Now, the next question, of course, is going to be, are Californians going to change?
	Are they going to realize that they've elected a bunch of halfwit morons who would have to work their way up to being stupid?
	And the answer, of course, is no.
	Well, that's the point, Kurt.
	And that's what I've been talking about all show long.
	And I just had a left-wing caller call to take me to, why are you talking politics when my home is burning and so forth?
	Because it's not a gun problem.
	There you go, right?
	If it was a mass shooting by some trans weirdo, that would be a great time to talk about politics.
	That is so very true.
	But that's the point here.
	I'm not victim-blaming when I say this, but you're right.
	People need to realize that elections, as Barack Obama said, do have consequences.
	You elected Karen Bass.
	You elected Gavin Newsom.
	You elected all of these left-wingers who are more concerned with the ecosystems and with climate change and everything else than with actually preparing to protect persons, their lives, and their property.
	And so I want them to think about this.
	And I'm not saying anybody should have to suffer.
	At a level of this magnitude in order to figure out who to vote for the next time, but you better take stock of what you're experiencing right now, because you really do have your own selves to blame when it comes to that.
	Well, look, they are suffering, and it's a consequence of their choices.
	I'm not the problem for pointing out the obvious.
	They decided it was more important to empower people to kill babies.
	Keep Donald Trump from making women dress in handmade outfits, because if there's anybody who likes demure, heavily clothed women, it's Donald Trump.
	That's more important than, I don't know, not having criminals run rampant, not having hobos littering the street with their feces, not having fires burn down your town.
	And if you live in a place like Pacific Palisades, you don't have a lot of hobos.
	Right?
	Because the LAPD knows that, you know, I can't stop the hobos in that poor neighborhood over there, but if they're in Pacific Palisades, they're not going to be there very long.
	I mean, I live in one of those enclaves, too.
	We have a feudal system.
	We have strongholds that are defended, and everybody else is a peasant, and they're all living out there at the mercy.
	Of the biggest predator.
	And I'm not saying that's a good thing.
	It's a very comfortable life if you're living as one of the feudal overlords.
	Until I stopped being a full-time lawyer last week.
	You know, I was a lawyer.
	I mean, that is the quintessential blue demographic here in California.
	And it's a beautiful place to live.
	There's nice restaurants.
	It's very clean.
	It's beautiful.
	It's nice.
	I'm not bothered by all the social pathologies that, well, you know, the poor Democrats are bothered by.
	So, you know, my neighbors who do vote blue in many cases, although fewer than you would think, They are artificially sheltered from the consequences of their choices.
	Well, this week we've seen them become unsheltered, both literally and figuratively, from the consequences of their choices.
	We've seen this fire come through, and they never thought their political posing could hurt them.
	And it has.
	And that's just, it's not celebrating it to point that out, that it's simply a fact.
	Well, it should be pointed out too, Kurt, you know, because people are complaining that you're pointing it out and I'm pointing it out.
	We should point out that the fire chief, you talked about her a few moments ago, warned the mayor when she cut $18 million, tried to cut $23 million out of the fire department's budget.
	This current fiscal year, she ended up cutting about $17.6 million.
	And she wrote in a note December 4th, so just about one month ago.
	Without this funding, pilot compliance and readiness are jeopardized and aerial firefighting capabilities are diminished.
	The ability to prepare for, train for, and respond to large-scale emergencies, including wildfires, will be severely limited.
	She warned the mayor for crying out loud, don't cut this money out, and here we sit.
	Well, you know, I'm not going to let the lesbian fire chief off the hook.
	She decided she could still spend millions for her diversity programs instead of saying, I'm showing you how to diversity programs.
	This is all going into aerial tankers because that's more important.
	You're right about that.
	The DEI Fire Department is a big, big issue here as well, especially considering they did care more about...
	They have charts where they charted the race of every single member of the fire department, making sure that it's as balanced as they can get it.
	But look, if there's $17 million, losing $17 million is going to decrease fire readiness, and you're spending even one penny on this diversity crap, well, you've made your choice.
	The diversity crap is your priority, because you're spending that on diversity, not on actually fighting fires.
	So, I mean, look, I think there'll be a lot of bureaucratic finger-pointing with these letters.
	The fact is the whole cabal of them are incompetent.
	They didn't get it done.
	But will they be held accountable?
	Well, that's up to the voters of the city of Los Angeles, of which I am not one and never will be.
	But, you know, I think the Joker said it right.
	We all get what we deserve.
	Well, there you go.
	And that's a sad way to look at it, but in all seriousness, there are people who are suffering right now who, you know, it's funny, I was quoting some of the Hollywood celebrities earlier whose houses are in jeopardy, and they're all complaining about this, that, and the other thing about the management.
	You voted for, you support publicly these people all of the time, and now, to quote somebody else, you know, the chickens are coming home to roost, and I hate it.
	I don't want it to happen to anybody, but it's reality.
	We didn't ask for it.
	We didn't cause it.
	I'm simply pointing out what happened.
	I'm not the villain here.
	You're not the villain here.
	Donald Trump's not the villain here.
	The weather's not the villain here.
	The fact is, you live in a high-fire danger area.
	You should have had a government that took adequate steps to protect against that danger that everyone knew existed.
	That'll be the closing line today.
	Colonel Kurt Schlichter, thank you for the time, my friend.
	God bless you.
	Stay safe.
	Bob Francis for Dr. G.
	We'll be back.
	Thank you.
	I'm Seb Gorka.
	Now let's get back to the show with Bob France.
	All right.
	Thanks to Colonel Kurt.
	Great conversation with Kurt.
	He is unfiltered, and he can afford to be.
	He has had just a remarkable career, 20-plus years in the military, 30-plus years in law.
	He's retired from both now, essentially, and still writing for townhall.com.
	Make sure you subscribe and read his tremendous work, his VIP columns, especially at townhall.com.
	Okay, the rest of the show is going to be yours at 833. 333-GORCA, that's 833-334-6752.
	You may also email me if you are so inclined.
	I will read them on the radio.
	Bob at strictlyspeaking.org is the email address.
	The name of my show in Cleveland, Ohio is Strictly Speaking with Bob France.
	It airs 9 to noon each and every day Eastern.
	If you are so inclined, you can listen to it at strictlyspeaking.org.
	Let's go to...
	Ethan, who is somewhere in California right now.
	Ethan, are you in Southern California or are you near the fires?
	No, I'm in Northern California.
	Oh, Northern California.
	Okay, good.
	Yeah, the difference between Northern California and Southern California, particularly this winter, is we've had a lot of rain up here.
	It hasn't rained in Southern California since April of last year.
	So, the conditions are dry.
	Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on to make sure I understand that.
	You're saying for nine months?
	We're not getting any fires.
	I'm sorry?
	No, I just wanted to make sure I heard you right.
	You're saying, so April of last year until now, so you're talking nine months, it hasn't rained, a drop in Southern California?
	Correct.
	That's absolutely correct.
	That's a crazy number.
	That is something that I would hope that officials down there are prepared for to make sure that they are indeed, you know, hosing down brushes and deadwood and things like that.
	You know, typical forest management, ground forest management.
	But I hope that's what they do.
	Well, yeah, these fires were in the forest.
	They were in the urban area.
	Well, where did they start, though?
	That's the question I think the officials are going to have to figure out.
	You know, were they campfire-driven?
	And what caused them to, you know, obviously to go as wild and as fast as they did?
	That's the real question that I have, is what caused them and where did they start?
	Well, the fires are caused by weather patterns that are common.
	I mean, the wind speed was 100 miles per hour.
	Yeah.
	Well, yeah, they had sustained 60-plus on Tuesday.
	Sustained 60-plus and then gusts of up to 100 miles an hour as well.
	There's no doubt that's a huge problem.
	We've been talking about that for three days, but I'm talking about the start.
	Was it a lightning strike?
	You know, without any rain, it's probably not likely that there was lightning, but what kinds of things are causing?
	You know, we're not in the dry season.
	We're not in the summertime when the wildfire season is typically, you know, that is an issue.
	What in the hell started it right now?
	That's what I would like to know.
	Well, Well, this winter, it's been dry in Southern California.
	Well, dryness doesn't cause fires.
	Just being dry doesn't cause fires.
	There has to be a spark.
	There has to be something that started it.
	I don't know if it's, like I said, if it's a cigarette, a campfire, a fireworks.
	Whatever it is, you know, is the pointer.
	But here's the real question, though, is, again, knowing that Southern California can go through long periods of drought, knowing that Southern California, you know, can be in jeopardy that way, why aren't all of the steps being taken that need to be taken?
	Why are they turning on fire hydrants and getting air because of reservoirs being empty instead of full?
	Why are they not using the infrastructure that could draw from the ocean as well?
	You know what I'm saying here?
	That's what I want to know.
	Why are the emergency managers not managing this emergency in any way, shape, or form?
	The firefighters in Northern California, where fire was not a danger, were going down to Southern California.
	Firefighters from Utah were going to Southern California.
	It happened.
	Heroes all.
	It happened fast.
	Heroes all.
	All those firefighters who are coming in to help are absolutely...
	You know, they do that all the time, right?
	Whenever there's wildfires that are more forested, not city or urban areas, they come from all over to do that, and they help one another.
	That's a good thing.
	But that's different.
	I'm not talking about first responders.
	I'm talking about emergency managers.
	I'm talking about empty reservoirs.
	I'm talking about infrastructure being put in place.
	Why aren't the leaders...
	Preparing for these kinds of things, knowing what you just said, that you can go months and months and months without rain in Southern California, and that everything could go up like a tinderbox if there is a spark.
	Why isn't that addressed?
	That's what I'd like to know.
	Well, it is.
	I mean, that could be local building codes.
	Why aren't there more fire codes, more fire prevention within the local building code?
	That is not necessarily...
	Well, fire prevention is different, though.
	But, Ethan, fire prevention is different than what I'm talking about.
	I'm talking about when fires happen, here's what we are prepared to do, and that is something...
	And thank you for the call.
	That is something we're not getting.
	That is something that Karen Bass has not had an answer for.
	Gavin Newsom has not had an answer for.
	The fire chief has not had an answer for.
	All we know is that they're cutting millions out of the fire department's budget and spending money on DEI. Those are problems.
	Blums. We'll be right back. Blums. We'll be right
	back. Blums.
	We'll be right back.
	Blums. We'll be right
	back. Blums. We'll
	be right back. Blums.
	We'll be right back.
	Blums. We'll be right
	back. Blums. We'll
	be right back.
	Blums. We'll be right
	back. Blums. We'll be right back.
	Now let's get back to the show with Bob France.
	All right, let's do that.
	Dr. G, 17 minutes before the top of the hour.
	Thanks again for being with us.
	We'll go right back to your phone calls at 833-334-6752.
	That's 833-33-GORCA. But I've been talking about Gavin Newsom.
	I've been talking about Karen Bass.
	I've been talking about leadership.
	What do they have to say for themselves here?
	Gavin Newsom, why is there no water in the reservoirs for the fire trucks to draw from, the hydrants to be actually pumping water as opposed to air?
	Cut 12. What is the situation with the water?
	Obviously, Palisades ran out last night in the hydrants.
	I was trying to fire fire on this block.
	They left because there was no water in the hydrant here.
	The local folks are trying to figure that out.
	I mean, just when you have a system where it's not dissimilar to what we've seen in other extraordinarily large-scale fires, whether it be pipe, electricity, or whether it just be the complete overwhelm of the system.
	I mean, those hydrants are typical for two or three fires, maybe one fire.
	You have something at this scale, but again, that's got to be determined by the local.
	Gavin Newsom, in that video, if you're not watching the show, you're just listening, just became the shrug emoji.
	You know, the shrug emoji on your phone where you kind of put your hands up and kind of like, he just literally did that in the video.
	I don't know.
	Ask the locals.
	That's what leftists do.
	Pass the buck.
	It's not my fault.
	It's somebody else's fault.
	Pass the buck.
	And you know, it's not terribly dissimilar from other places where there were really large fires.
	Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
	You run out of water in really, really large fires after you've used all of your water, putting it out or getting close to it.
	You ran out of water when the fires are at 0% containment.
	0% containment.
	How the hell do you justify that, Gav?
	I mean, in all seriousness, there is no explanation for it, and that's why we're talking about it.
	That's why every Los Angelino, every Californian should be saying, what have we done?
	Nobody likes to look in the mirror and say, you screwed up because you voted for the wrong person.
	Nobody likes to do that, in particular Democrats.
	You don't like to admit that, yeah, we've got the wrong people.
	I read a clip before, or a comment before.
	From some actress or another in Palisades who's complaining and saying, you know, you guys have screwed up our homes and you've screwed up our party.
	You're staying with the party.
	The same party that brought you Karen Bass and Gavin Newsom is the party that brought you all of these flames.
	And you're still sticking with the party, though, while you're complaining about the people that you voted for, the people that you chose.
	I mean, think about that one time.
	Somebody else wanted to hold Karen Bass.
	To account for all of this, the communist mayor of Los Angeles, former communist congresswoman from Los Angeles, now the mayor of Los Angeles, Superman Dean Cain.
	What should happen to Karen Bass?
	Cut eight.
	This kind of failure of leadership leads to death and destruction and things just falling apart.
	That's what took place here.
	You know, I've got to say, the firefighters, the first responders, unbelievable, heroic, incredible, and the people are such great people, and they're used to fighting these things.
	But you can't do it when all your tools are taken from you, and that's what's happened here.
	It's just absolute mismanagement.
	I am so embarrassed to see Karen Bass do that to a reporter.
	Just absolutely go quiet like she's in second grade.
	She should resign immediately.
	Karen Bass should resign immediately.
	And if she won't, let's find out how committed to this, the criticism of the leadership and the mismanagement that California and Los Angeles Democrats are.
	They should recall her.
	If she doesn't resign, recall her.
	Prove you want to hold the people who are really responsible accountable for it and recall Karen Bass.
	Okay, let's go to Los Angeles.
	Don, thanks for calling America First, Don.
	You're on the air.
	Fire away.
	Oh, Bob, great job filling in.
	Man.
	You know, we are living through an apocalypse of incompetence here.
	It's just, it's unbelievable.
	But the problem is, it's like a numbers game.
	There were 6 million, I believe, people in California voted for Trump in, I think, the 2020 election.
	I don't know what the last one was.
	But the thing is...
	We're outnumbered.
	Xavier Becerra, when he was attorney general, said there's 10 million illegals living in California.
	Because when Mr. Trump was trying to get that question put on our census, are you in the country illegally?
	Becerra was against it because he says, well, gee, we have 10 million illegals.
	I forget what he called them.
	He said, we have 10 million illegals, and they need resources, too.
	And this is before they opened the borders, and this is before, you know, well...
	Or the sanctuary city?
	Because this is their base in California.
	That's why they have majorities and supermajorities.
	If Mr. Trump, God bless him, if he can get a bunch of illegals out of California, and I'm sure this is a great fishing environment for it, we could solve so many of our problems.
	We might at least be able to get rid of the supermajority.
	We might be able to make it a purple state.
	I'd like to make it a red, white, and blue state again, but that's going to take time.
	But it can be done.
	Yeah, you know, it's a really important point, too.
	And we know, and thank you for the phone call.
	You know, having illegals here, of course, like you say, counted in the census, does exactly that.
	It leads to these majorities you're talking about.
	It gives you more congressional representation.
	Even if those individuals don't vote, more people who do vote, of course, with, you know, leftists supporting the illegal immigration sanctuary, city sanctuary, counties, and so on and so forth, do lead to those majorities.
	And this is what happens when you have an imbalanced single party rule.
	You know, you don't have a balance of power and you have single party rule and the mismanagement and the things that come along with that are what you're experiencing right now.
	So you're right about that.
	And President Trump, by the way, will he be able to get, you know, a certain number of illegal aliens out of California or out of the country?
	Obviously, Tom Homan is committed to running and starting and organizing the largest deportation in the history of the country.
	It's gonna start with the criminal aliens.
	It's going to start with the cartel members, the gang members, the terrorists, and so on and so forth.
	But eventually, and Tom Homan said this, I think it was earlier this week or late last week, he said, if you're an illegal here and you don't fall into one of those categories, don't think that you're safe.
	Don't think that we're only going for them.
	You're on the list too.
	Maybe a little further down the list, but you're on the list too, so don't get comfortable.
	And I hope that is the case so that maybe there is a little bit more of a balance in some of these overwhelmingly blue states because of illegal immigration.
	Staying in L.A., Vince, you are on...
	America First with Bob Franz sitting in for Dr. G. Go ahead, Vince.
	Yeah, sorry.
	I just wanted to make a comment.
	You know, you're not talking about the mic when you're on break.
	I can hear you guys talking.
	Yeah, when you're on hold.
	Yeah, when you're on hold.
	People on hold can hear that.
	Yeah, we realize it's not on the air.
	But on hold, you are treated to our conversations.
	Got it.
	I just wanted to make sure you knew, sir.
	Nobody was really hustling.
	Anyway, so, you know, I'm not actually happy with the Democrats myself.
	I actually vote Democrat.
	Now, I would be open to hearing other options, but right now there is no other option, not a viable one anyway.
	What makes viability?
	Well, let's say more solutions than just cutting services going into debt for handouts to the rich.
	If that's your only policy, I don't believe that helps anything.
	Well, I would agree with that, but I don't think that is the policy.
	And that's, I think, where we have our disconnect.
	Thank you for the call, Vince, and thanks again for the heads up on other things.
	But we'll talk about that.
	We'll talk about policies for the rich and so forth.
	I don't think that's what it is.
	Stick around.
	We've got one more segment to go.
	We've got one more segment to go.
	We've got one more segment to go.
	We've got one more segment to go.
	We've got one more segment to go.
	We've got one more segment to go.
	We've got one more segment to go.
	We've got one more segment to go.
	Now let's get back to the show with Bob France.
	Coming back in just to be able to head right back out.
	Final segment of the show today.
	I want to say thank you before I get to our last call or two to the crew here.
	Jeff and Alex and Eric and Paul and Gee, professionals all who have worked so hard with Dr. G through the years.
	They've got one more tomorrow with Hugh Hewitt coming in and sitting in for Dr. G kind of officially in that regard and then taking over as the Hugh Hewitt show in the afternoon starting on Monday.
	So thank you to each of those guys.
	For all of their great work.
	And thanks to you for listening, letting me sit in for these last three days and being a part of the chat.
	Obviously, it's a crazy business, and the radio wheels keep on turning as Dr. G heads into the Trump administration to deal with counterterrorism as the senior director of counterterrorism.
	So glad that he is doing that.
	I want to go back to Orange County now.
	And Joe, you're on.
	I keep wanting to say, strictly speaking, that's my local show.
	On America First, Bob Franson for Dr. G. Fire away.
	Fire away there, Joe.
	Yes.
	Well, tying in all your stuff for today, the Marxists hate the American way of life.
	That's why they've attacked our critical infrastructure in the seven key areas.
	The one with the failure to clear the brush and the rules on logging, stopping the thinning of our forests to keep them healthy.
	Going after our water supplies and our dams, our infrastructure, by either blocking new water or dismantling four dams.
	Just recently, backup power, making it illegal for backup power so there's not generators to run when they turn off the power so there's no pumps to pump the water even if they had it.
	Going after our apparatus.
	Not allowing the purchasing of the correct apparatus.
	We have two airplanes and we need 50. The development.
	Developing in these areas instead of in other areas.
	They develop in the higher risk areas because the land's cheaper.
	And then attacking the insurance.
	The way the state of California has gone after insurance companies, no wonder most of them have left.
	It's Obamacare on steroids.
	And with all that, you destroy it and you can't recover it.
	And that's their plan.
	Where have you been all show?
	Where have you been all show?
	You should have made that call in the first hour of this broadcast.
	I would have replayed it four or five times to let everybody know that is exactly what we're talking about.
	There are things that can be done to mitigate disastrous circumstances like this, and you just laid out a big litany of them, and you're exactly right.
	And nobody cares.
	And why aren't they holding the politicians that they elect accountable when they run for elections, when they run for office in these elections?
	Why don't they say, what are your plans for emergency management of a...
	All of the things that we know are natural disasters, whether it be earthquakes, mudslides, or anything else in California.
	Why aren't they asking them?
	That should be as much of a question, a policy question, as what are you going to do about taxes?
	What are you going to do about anything else that comes up in a campaign?
	Make them answer those questions, and then maybe there'll be a chance of dealing with these things better ahead of time.
	Thank you for that call, Joe, in Orange County.
	I appreciate that.
	That is going to be the last call that I'm able to take today on America First.
	Again, thank you to Dr. Gorka.
	Godspeed on your work with President Trump's administration.
	Hugh Hewitt is going to take over and fill this chair tomorrow, officially hosting for America First and then taking over with Hugh Hewitt in the afternoon on Monday.
	Thank you for listening.
	I'm Bob France.
	Again, my home base is Cleveland, Ohio.
	Follow me at strictlyspeaking.org.
	We'll see you around.

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