Milton Stumpus, a Premiere Networks and iHeart Media salesperson, lost his home in the Palisades fires. He joins today to talk about what happened to him and his wife, Julie and their home which is gone. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
All right, Leonard Skinner, it's Simple Man, and that can only mean one thing on this radio program, and that is all things self-proclaimed, Simple Man.
That means all things Bill O'Reilly, all things Bill O'Reilly.
Of course, you can find it at BillOReilly.com.
Mr. O'Reilly, glad you're with us.
What a time we have when we speak next week.
At this time, we will have a new president.
That will be President Donald J. Trump.
We have a lot to talk about.
The hearings for his nominees are moving forward.
Frankly, I don't see any of them not getting in at this particular time in spite of Democratic hostility and predictable pettiness.
We have this deal in Israel where hostages held by Hamas are expected to be released over the next 42 days.
You got the same media acting, learning nothing from the election.
The wonderful, joyful people over at that hard-hitting news show, The View, are attacking Carrie Underwood for singing America the Beautiful at the Trump inauguration.
They have yet to go after the village people or Rascal Flats.
I guess that's next.
You have President Biden and Kamala Harris very bitter trying to sabotage the incoming Trump administration.
And then we have this whole issue of wildfires in California.
Is there any preference that you have where you'd like to start?
I want to just make a couple of quick points on the wildfires.
So I've investigated it because there's a lot of he said, she said, and that drives everybody nuts.
I can't find one thing that the state of California and Gavin Newsome has done since 2018 when President Trump said to them, look, you got an ongoing problem.
You're not clearing your forests.
It's a Tinderbox out there.
It's a mess.
So that's a space of seven years.
I can't find one thing, Hannity, that the state of California has done to mitigate the threat of wildfires.
Not one.
Let me take it a step further.
There is a science.
You can go to many top-notch colleges and get a degree in forestry.
I'm sure you're pretty well aware of that.
Maybe you know, maybe you don't know.
Gavin Newsom is going to spend $100 billion on electric vehicles for green energy, but he did cut $101 million for fire prevention efforts from the budget.
And it actually gets worse than that, Bill.
And it gets frustrating.
If I were to live in California, I'd be furious.
And that is $100 billion for electric vehicles.
They're buying these $800,000 street sweepers, electric street sweepers in Los Angeles.
They cut the firefighting budget in spite of the fire chief warning that they have only half the manpower they would need for a wildfire.
And they still cut the budget, but they had the money for the street sweepers.
They're spending $650 million federal state dollars to make the LA port go green on top of everything else.
We have fire hydrants that don't work.
We had empty reservoirs.
They're not practicing the basic science of forestry, which is to clean out the brush, the kindling for such fires.
And similarly, have these controlled burns, which they used to do more regularly, and they're not doing anymore for environmental reasons.
But I wouldn't imagine the air quality is too good in in Los Angeles right now.
So with all of that, I guess you agree with me.
There isn't what they've done to mitigate any threat of any fire in California.
Well, do you want to give you one little tidbit that'll probably make your head explode?
I mean, I'll be glad to.
Do you know one of the reasons why this all happened?
And do you know that the reason that they stopped a lot of fire prevention efforts was to protect a little bush that I've never heard of before?
Did you know that?
Yeah, when you say a little bush, you don't mean a political family.
You mean a shrub.
Yeah, like a shrub.
I mean, a plant for crying out loud.
And, man, it wasn't weed.
I mean, they have no problem with weed out there.
They have plenty of money for sanctuary states and cities.
Yeah, and they got a lot of weed which is selling in the stores.
But look, when you break it down like that and you say to the people of California, are you mad?
Are you angry?
I don't know if the election were held tomorrow, Gavin Newsom against Garvey, right?
Or anybody, any Republican, I think Newsome might still win.
I think absolutely you'd win.
And I hate to tell the people in California, and I would imagine, you know, of the, what, 14,000 structures burned that many of those people are going to leave the state.
There's my prediction, too.
But I bet if there was an election and Kamala Harris was on the ballot to replace Gavin, and I think they're two peas in a pod, I think she'd win.
Yeah.
So then you classify the situation as hopeless, and you say, look, the primary reason of any government, local, state, or federal, is to protect the citizens.
But the progressives don't see it that way.
They think that their primary reason is to virtue signal and to have all kinds of theoretical programs where they spend money, most of which doesn't do any good at all, and you leave the citizens exposed to danger and horror.
And that's what it is.
So, you know, we have 50 states and Americans can live in any state they want.
But if I'm in California, I'm packing my bags.
And we got a similar situation in New York and you used to live here and now you live in Florida.
Why aren't you packing your bags out of New York?
I've asked you this question and you heard the state of the state address by Kathy Hockel yesterday.
She's not going to lift a finger to fix the state of New York.
Why do you stay?
Because I got family stuff here.
It's called JetBlue, Bill.
You get on JetBlue.
There are more flights to Florida from New York than you could ever shake a stick at.
Look, I don't have four days to fly from Miami to New York on JetBlue, and that's how long it takes.
That's the worst airline in the world.
Whatever you can take Delta, you can take America.
And every airline out there flies from New York to Florida.
Let me tell you something, Hanny.
I'd rather go on a pogo stick than fly jet.
They have TVs.
You take a 9 o'clock flight, and you get to watch me in the process.
I always watch you.
So now let's go to the Heg Seth situation.
So I don't know him.
I left Fox when I guess he was coming, but I've never met him really face to face.
And I was surprised that Trump nominated him.
The main reason I was surprised was he doesn't have any administrative experience, and the Pentagon's the biggest corporation in the world.
So if I'm a senator sitting there, that's in the uppermost of my mind.
Okay, can this guy run the Pentagon so it doesn't descend into chaos?
And he would have to convince me of that if I were a senator.
But that's not what the hearings are all about.
The hearings weren't about that at all.
It was all partisanship and on both sides.
And that's not helping out.
So I wanted to hear what Hagseth had to say about how he would reorganize the Defense Department, what he would say isn't allowed any longer.
And you would think that the woke stuff would go flying right out the window, because I think most Americans would back that.
All right.
That's what I wanted to hear.
But you didn't hear it.
You heard all of this stuff that are designed to smear him and hurt him and hurt his family from the Democrats and from the Republicans.
You heard, none of it matters.
If Trump wants him, he's good.
And I don't think that's healthy for the country.
I think that we should be starting to see.
Why would you ever, having done this for as long as we both have done this, why would you expect anything other than what was unfolding yesterday?
I would have liked to have heard about how we would invest in the technology, maybe using artificial intelligence to assist us in really creating an iron dome to protect the entire country, considering the level of sophistication of the weaponry that is already out there in the world.
They didn't bring any of that up.
No, and that's why Trump and people have forgotten this, formed the Space Force.
So you remember before he left in his first term, he allotted money for the Defense Department for the Space Force.
That disappeared.
Okay?
Nobody even remembers that.
But that was designed to do just what you said.
Now, does Pete Hagseth know that?
What I'm trying to I do I I can tell you because I've had long conversations with him, and the main focus of our conversations has been the gap of vulnerability, as I mentioned, the next generation of warfare.
We have talked about DEI and our recruitment levels are way down.
Those have been the main topics of discussion.
And he also has other people behind him, people that most people don't know have been appointed.
I believe the number two, you probably know him, Steve Feinberg, who ran multi-billionaire.
He ran a company, Cerberus.
He's a blue-collar billionaire.
He drives like an old pickup truck.
And I've known him for many, many years, and he was on the Civilian Intelligence Board and has top security clearance.
And if you want somebody involved in advanced technology in the military and procurement, that's your guy.
Well, it's good to hear.
But I didn't know any of that, and the American people didn't know any of that.
And we didn't get any of that from the Senate.
So the main arch of this discussion for me is the Senate is now tribal.
And they're not caring about presenting evidence to the American people, good and bad.
Now, I don't think RFK Jr.
is going to be confirmed.
So the others will be.
I think Hag Seth will make it by one vote.
I'll take your bet.
All right, RFK, you're taking my bet.
I'll take the bet.
How much do you want to bet?
Well, we'll be a lavish dinner down in Palm Beach.
A lavish dinner down in Palm Beach.
Bill, I eat almost every meal at home.
I cook my own food.
But I'll make you anything that you want, your favorite meal, and I will cook it to perfection thanks to Chef IQ Sense, which I need to give you one.
All right.
I want blackened scallops, scalloped potatoes, and green.
Okay?
Done.
That's it.
Now, if I lose a bet, I can't cook anything but microwave popcorn.
So you can take it.
I'll cook either way.
How's that?
Yeah, that's all I can do.
But anyway.
Wait a minute.
Can't make you like Hannity pork ribs.
I can't make you like a delicious ribeye, bone-in tomahawk steak.
I can't make you, you know, something that would, that would, if you like fish, you know, the best salmon you've ever had in your life.
Well, you can make it if you want to, and I'll, I'll, if it's free, I'm going to eat it.
That's my if it's free, I'll eat it.
All right, I'm not, you know, wetted in.
All right, quick break more with Simple Man Bill O'Reilly, allthings O'Reilly at BillO'Reilly.com as we continue.
Hey there, I'm Mary Catherine Hammond, and I'm Carol Markowitz.
We've been in political media for a long time.
Long enough to know that it's gotten, well, a little insane.
That's why we started Normally, a podcast for people who are over the hysteria and just want clarity.
We talk about the issues that actually matter to the country without panic, without yelling, and with a healthy dose of humor.
We don't take ourselves too seriously, but we do take the truth seriously.
So if you're into common sense, sanity, and some occasional sass, you're our kind of people.
Catch new episodes of Normally every Tuesday and Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen.
All right, we continue now with All Things Simple Man.
That's all things Bill O'Reilly.
AllthingsO'Reilly at BillO'Reilly.com.
Do you think RFK Jr.
is going to get confirmed?
I do believe in the end he's going to be confirmed because I've had conversations.
Everything that you probably have read about him has been mischaracterized.
Now, for example, his boss eats McDonald's, KFC, and pizza on a regular basis, right?
He's not going to ban any of those things.
He's not going to ban soft drinks.
He's not going to ban vaccines.
He's not going to take a different position than the president on the president's stated position on abortion.
And all of that will come out in the hearings.
What he will do, he will produce non-farmer, meaning the pharmaceutical industry, scientific information to help inform the American people on what is healthy and not healthy.
Certain things will get banned, like, you know, red dye number three and things that are known to cause cancer.
But short of that, he's going to give people the choice to decide for themselves.
If you want to get a quarter pound of a cheese, fries, and a Coke every day, Bill, go at it.
Have at it.
Here's the problem.
He has said so many things that are off the wall in his past that that's all you're going to hear about in the end and the Republicans are going to be on the defensive there.
And I know for a fact that some Republican senators simply don't trust him.
So I don't think he's going to get through, but I'm looking forward to the dinner.
And you know me, I'm good for it if I lose.
I actually think Tulsi's going to have a harder time than RFK Jr.
But I think she'll get through too.
Because Tulsi Gabbard is entitled to her opinion.
And if she comes into the hearings and say, look, I've changed my opinion, and here's why, I think she'll sail through.
Pam Bonnie did pretty well today.
I could hardly watch it because of the partisanship, but she was very relaxed and presented himself very well.
Gap, very talented in that area.
She knows how to do it.
She was amazing.
All right, listen, I want you to stay on the line just for this ad I'm going to do because I'm going to get you this as a present.
It's called Chef IQ Sense.
Now, you say you only can cook microwave popcorn.
I'm going to make it so even Bill O'Reilly can cook the perfect burger, steak, pork chops, ribs, fish.
It'll come out to your preferred outcome.
How do you like, for example, your meat cooked?
Do you like it medium, rare?
You like it medium?
You like it well done?
How do you like it?
Medium.
Okay.
You like it medium.
It's simple.
You just take a probe, you put it inside.
Let's say you're eating a steak.
You put it inside your steak.
All right.
Let's say you're broiling it.
Let's say you're grilling it, whatever you happen to be doing.
You put it in there.
Then you go to the ChefIQ app and you put in, okay, steak, 12 ounces, ribeye, you want it medium.
It will tell you when you should turn your steak over, Bill, and then it will tell you exactly when it's done to perfection.
Whether you're cooking chicken, pork, burgers, steak, fish, it's so easy to use.
You just insert the wireless probe in your food.
You select your desired level of doneness on the Chef IQ app.
It tells you when it is ready.
That means you will have a masterpiece.
You will be, people will actually think you're a real chef.
That's how great Chef IQ sense is.
I'm going to give you one as a gift.
How do you like that?
Oh, that's great.
Do I have to wear a little chef's hat, though, when I get it?
No, you don't.
You could, you know, you could just wear your baseball cap.
You're good.
Just go to chefiq.com.
Every meal will be a masterpiece.
This tech, I wish I thought of this.
I wish I could invest in this company.
I love it so much.
Anyway, you're going to love it.
It's very inexpensive.
ChefIQ.com today.
Working every day to remember the forgotten man.
This is the Sean Hannity Show.
You know, I still cannot get over the catastrophe, the unmitigated disaster that has been Los Angeles.
We still have a good percentage of these fires that are not contained, even at this late date.
I mean, it's hard to wrap your mind around, isn't it?
And I was looking at the coverage of what's going on out there today, and I'm like, I just, I cannot believe that the reservoir at the Santa Inez Reservoir in the Pacific Palisades was empty, and nobody seemed to care.
I can't believe that they have fire hydrants that didn't have water in them and didn't work.
And the answer: well, they're not designed for wildfires.
What are they designed for?
And what is your plan for wildfires?
I can't believe that that was the situation.
I can't believe that a lot of the science of forestry was not used to protect a little shrub, as we learned yesterday and gave you great specificity and detail, something I'd never heard of.
You know, only 17% of the Pacific Palisades buyer week after it broke out, only 17% of it is contained.
You know, we're looking at more than 40,000 acres of Southern California have been ablaze now in recent weeks.
And yeah, and now we still have more days of Santa Ana wins.
All of this is predictable.
All of this is preventable.
And, you know, out in Los Angeles, residents, they're furious, but you want to bet any amount of money that they probably would re-elect Karen Bass and Gavin Newsom tomorrow.
And they'll probably elect Kamala Harris after Gavin Newsom leaves office at the end of his second term.
Because I think the bet would be, you know, a pretty darn good bet.
And then it even gets worse out there because now we have issues involving looting where these, you know, these people are taking advantage and they're going out there, you know, targeting abandoned homes.
And you've got another problem of price gouging.
People are, for example, they're jacking up the prices of water and bare necessities.
That can't happen.
There's a very big distinction.
Nobody has to live in Los Angeles in the proximity near where the fires were in the homes that survived.
That does not need to happen.
People can move further out and get different places, in my view.
Milton Stumpus is a premier network.
iHeartRadio is our parent company of the Premier Radio Network.
He is a salesperson.
He is one of the people, you know, the 14,000, 15,000 people that lost the structure of most of them homes.
Anyway, Milton, I'm so sorry.
My heart goes out to you and your family and your friends and your neighbors and everybody that is suffering out there.
And I would argue suffering needlessly.
I think this could have all been prevented.
Yeah, Sean, I appreciate it.
My wife here is with me, Julie, and we have just been, you know, our hearts are full with all the love and support and prayers.
And it really has, you know, helped keep us strong.
So thank you very much for that.
Well, I mean, it really is amazing to me.
I mean, when you discovered, when did you first hear that the reservoir was empty?
When did you first discover that fire hydrants didn't work?
You know, what did you make of, you know, the fact when you learn that out in California, they're spending an absolute fortune on electric, what do you call them, street sweepers.
Yeah.
And over $100 billion on electric vehicles in the state.
And they cut $101 million from the state firefighting budget.
They don't practice the science of forestry.
They don't do the controlled burns.
They don't clear out the brush, the kindling for these fires.
I mean, as you've learned more since all of this occurred and you lost every possession you ever had in that house, and now you've got your life upended in ways that most people can't imagine.
When you learn all of that, I would think I'd be pretty angry.
Are you guys angry?
Because I'd be pretty angry.
We're furious, Sean.
You know, we're responsible.
We've lived in this neighborhood 23 years.
And just to give you some perspective of where we live, we're on a street, a very small street on the top of the Temiscal Canyon Gateway Park, a street called Rimmer.
And we had direct line of sight to not only where the fire originated, but over the 23 years we've lived there, we've seen tons of fires like this.
And almost in every case, you know, the air assets are right on it.
There's trucks all over the place, this, that, and the other thing.
You know, we have a fire hydrator for our house.
Every single year, we religiously, and we have to, is we clear the hillside, we fen out the yuke, we deadbrush all the, you know, any other trees in and around the area.
And on top of that, you know, on top of the property taxes, which should go to support the fire department, police, of course, and keeping us safe and keeping our property safe, we have assessments for open spaces, which is sold as fire clearance and abatement and park maintenance and this, that, and the other.
I will tell you that this area behind our house, this Santa Monica Nature Conservancy, was a freaking Tinderbox.
And we saw the fire.
I started documenting it at around 10.37 a.m.
The first air asset I saw was around 12.30.
Palisades Highland, I mean, I saw all these neighborhoods burned.
I saw the Palisades Highland burn.
I saw the Melmedio area right across Temescal Canyon from us burning.
I did not see a single truck, a single firefighter the entire day until we got off our hill.
And I did see a couple of DWP trucks, though, and they control both our water and power.
They were not looking overhead at our overhead lines.
They were all stationed in and around water shutoff valve areas.
And so all of this is just maddening after hearing about no water in the, you know, no water available to the fire department.
And that's, I guess, one of the reasons why they didn't deploy.
I mean, we thought for sure we would have a fighting chance with a truck on our block and a FOSS checkline being drawn or something helping us, but we were sitting freaking ducks, Sean.
I mean, it really is remarkable.
And when did you finally make the decision you had to get out?
We, you know, luckily, my wife and I took cert training because basically the fire department that teaches us this basically said, you know what, you guys are probably with a major event, and we're thinking earthquake, right?
We're going to be alone and we're going to have to fend for ourselves.
So we, we, all, all of our neighbors on the street got together and made sure that everybody was able to get out of there with their lives.
And my wife and I were one of the last to leave our street with an older neighbor and a police car behind us at about just a little under 4 p.m.
My wife and I tried to get back into the neighborhood at 5 p.m.
And that was our last attempt because at that point, our entire neighborhood was engulfed in flames.
All right, quick break.
We'll come back.
One of the victims of the Pacific Palisades fires happens to work with our company, iHeartMedia and Premier Radio Networks, Milton Stumpus.
He lost everything as we continue.
You're on the Sean Hannity Show, a place where free speech and the First Amendment are still alive and well.
Liberalism is a failed ideology.
Get your dose of independence and liberty every weekday right here with Sean, Sean Hannity.
More with Milton Stumpus.
He works with us at iHeart and Premier Radio Networks, and he was one of the victims.
His entire home burned to the ground in the Pacific Palisades as we discussed the real impact on real people and, of course, the failure of government on every level.
Do you know where you lived in Pacific Palisades in 2019?
The L.A. Department of Water and Power began replacing nearly 100-year-old power lines cutting through Topanga State Park when the project was stopped within days of starting by environmentalists.
They were outraged that the federally endangered Broughtons milk vetched plants had been trampled on during the process.
The whole purpose of the project was to improve fire safety for the Pacific Palisades area by replacing wooden poles with steel, widening fire access lanes in the area, installing wind and fire resistant power lines, all after the area was identified as having an elevated fire risk.
This project will help ensure power reliability and safety and help reduce wildfire threats, they said at the time.
It was stopped within days because of radical environmentalists.
Now, do you even know what a Broughton milk vetch is?
Because it looks to me like a weed.
John, I don't.
And I wonder how they're doing at this time in my neighborhood, right?
Because I don't see a single thing that's living.
Well, the governor cut and slashed $101 million in June from the firefighting effort budget that you guys have out there.
The mayor cut it by just millions of dollars prior to this, but they had $650 million state and federal dollars to make L.A. Port, the L.A. Port green.
They have over $1 billion that they put aside, which kind of shocked me, for electric vehicles on a state level.
And in L.A., you're paying for these green energy sweepers that street sweepers rather that cost $800,000 a piece.
Did you know any of that?
You know what?
I have because we followed that.
Thank you for bringing that up.
So I think this thing, what we've gone through in the Palisades, is going to be unprecedented in the regard as the toxins are so unbelievable because there were so many EVs there, those EV charging stations, solar panels.
And basically, it's with all the lithium-ion that has been burning like crazy.
I remember the I-15 was closed for like almost a month when one truck with EV with batteries spilled over and it took them like a month to put the fire out.
This entire neighborhood, Sean, is covered with lithium-ions that have been burning.
The ground is probably going to be having to be managed by some kind of super fund site because it is extremely toxic right now.
What are your plans?
I mean, obviously, now Gavin did say that he would try to expedite the building process, the rebuilding process for people, but I don't know there's an insurance problem out there.
What are your plans?
Are you going to stay in California?
Are you going to sell off your lot?
Are you going to rebuild?
And how long is that going to take?
What are your plans?
Our Rimmer neighbors that work together to get everybody out alive, we all kind of have formed a text thread and we're communicating.
And so far, everybody appears to want to, and we included, is rebuild.
And here's my thought on that, because you've got the 28 Olympics coming to Los Angeles.
They do not want to lose the Olympics.
You've got Rick Caruso, who, with his own money, saved his own village because he brought in his own water trucks, tanker trucks, and he had a private fire department.
And with all the other people that are literally the movers and shakers of Los Angeles, many in California and this country that have lost their homes, their kids have lost their homes and schools, et cetera, I think that there's going to be an all-hands-on-deck rebuild effort to get this thing up and running.
And you know what?
I would like to be a part of rebuilding a neighborhood that's very important to Los Angeles.
It's amazing to Los Angeles, that doesn't necessarily have million and billionaires.
Can I ask you an honest question?
Why would you bother to stay out there?
You pay the highest taxes in the entire country, and this is the type of service you get.
And this is now the biggest project you're going to take on in your adult life.
Why?
I mean, these are the reasons I got out of New York.
Right.
And I've been gone for a full year, and I'm now in my second year full-time in Florida.
I left.
I sold everything, handed my gun license back.
I deregistered to vote.
You know, I just disconnected, but you're going to, it sounds like you're going to stay.
Well, if, you know what, I'm cautiously optimistic.
If this does not change policy with forest management, with water management, including, you know, the reservoirs and not blowing up dams and all of those things and staffing protective services that will keep citizens alive and their property safe, if that doesn't happen, then, you know, like you, we just may tap out, you know, because it won't be worth it.
I'm sorry you have to go through all of any of it.
And I'm sorry for your neighbors.
I'm sorry for every victim here.
And I mean that with all my heart.
And I wish you the best.
And I'm sure you'll make the right decision for you.