• The Palisades and Eaton fires that began Tuesday in and around Los Angeles have become some of the most destructive — and likely most expensive — wildfires in American history. City and county officials say more than 9,000 structures have been damaged or destroyed so far. And as the fires have spread, so too has a ton of disinformation online, some of it been fanned by President-elect Donald Trump. Scott Waldman, a White House reporter focused on climate change at Politico’s E&E News, helps us debunk some of Trump’s wild claims.
• Later in the show, North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs talks about the case to block her re-election to the state’s highest court.
• And in headlines: Elon Musk suggests cutting $2 trillion from the federal budget might not be possible, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Trump’s last-ditch request to halt his criminal sentencing Friday, and a new report says that the death toll in Gaza has been gravely underreported.

• Check out Scott’s work – https://x.com/scottpwaldman?lang=en
• Support victims of the fire – votesaveamerica.com/relief
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TRANSCRIPT

Jane Coaston: It’s Friday, January 10th. I’m Jane Coaston and this is What a Day, the show that is proudly based in the beautiful city of Los Angeles, California. And dang it, that’s the way it’s staying. [music break] On today’s show, it’s Trump’s sentencing day, and a new report says that the death toll in Gaza has been gravely underreported. Let’s get into it. The Palisades and Eaton fires that began on Tuesday have become some of the most destructive and likely most expensive wildfires in American history. As of our recording time on Thursday evening, more than 9000 structures have been damaged or destroyed between the two, and the fires are still raging. And because of the Santa Ana winds, fires have ignited in other parts of Los Angeles County, including dense places in and around the city like Burbank and Hollywood, where our studio is located and where I live. Altogether, tens of thousands of people have been under evacuation orders as fires have hit nearly 30,000 acres of land. And like anyone would in the midst of a giant, terrifying crisis in which you can see flames jutting out just a few miles away from where your house is. I spent a lot of yesterday checking news online, which was a mistake because alongside some legitimate information, I saw a lot of bullshit. Well, blame and bullshit. Like that the fires were caused by diversity, equity, and inclusion policies because this would have never happened if more white cis men were involved or something. Or that, as Trump said on Truth Social, this is all Governor Gavin Newsom’s fault for not opening a pipeline from northern California into Southern California that doesn’t exist. Or a viral claim that LA mayor Karen Bass transferred millions of dollars reserved for fighting fires to either unhoused people, if you’re right wing or to the LAPD, if you’re a left wing, neither are true. At a time when good information is so critical to other people like me. Stay in our actual homes or pack our go bags and get out of the city. There is not nearly enough factual information and way too much, well, bullshit. So to debunk some of these claims and talk about the politics of these fires. I spoke with Scott Waldman. He’s a White House reporter focused on climate change at Politico’s E&E News. We’ll link to his reporting in our show notes. Scott, welcome to What a Day. 

Scott Waldman: Thanks for having me. 

Jane Coaston: Now, as someone who is currently in West Hollywood in Los Angeles, it would be so helpful if you could just debunk some of the claims we’ve been hearing from the right. Let’s start with this claim that Trump keeps making that Governor Newsom is keeping water from flowing from northern California into southern California. What is he talking about? 

Scott Waldman: Uh. Well, that’s not true. [laughter] And he’s talking about something he’s sort of harped on for years, um which is basically blocking the river from flowing to the sea, from the Sacramento Delta there um to protect this fish called the smelt. It’s an endangered species, um but that mostly would benefit agriculture interests further north. That would have nothing to do with the reservoirs needed to uh you know fuel the water supply that’s being used to fight these fires right now. 

Jane Coaston: And what about the idea that FEMA is out of money? Trump also keeps saying that Biden is leaving him no money in FEMA. 

Scott Waldman: FEMA is fully funded until the end of the fiscal year, which for the government is September 30th. Now, there could be challenges challenges to that if we have a really bad hurricane season. But of course, that doesn’t start until the summer. So that’s quite a while away. Um. But for right now, FEMA is fully funded and ready to handle this. This the consequences of these fires. Um. If there’s additional money needed, Congress can step in and appropriate money for the long term recovery. So it’s not true that Biden is leaving Trump essentially an empty treasure chest of FEMA funding. 

Jane Coaston: Why do you think these kinds of disasters have become ripe for politicized conspiracy theorizing? I mean, it seems wild like literally, you know, I left my home last night to get away from the smoke from a fire that was further north. And as I’m doing that, as I’m in the car on my way out, I am seeing on my phone people basically blaming this on DEI or saying that people are setting fires or then you see kind of left leaning conspiracy theorists being like, oh this is because they took all the money from the firefighters and gave it to the cops. Like nobody’s giving me any actual information and everybody’s just making shit up. Why? 

Scott Waldman: This is like the age we live in. This is increasing with social media, obviously, and Trump is like he is with a lot of things. Just an accelerant on this on this fire. I may have misused that phrase. 

Jane Coaston: It’s okay. 

Scott Waldman: But Trump has has fanned these flames going back to Hurricane Helene and the way it impacted North Carolina in particular, it’s a very easy way to attack your political opponents after any sort of natural disaster. There’s always angry people who feel, you know, short shrift, like they’ve been sort of ripped off by the government or not fully protected or not helped in the right way by the government. So it’s an easy way to attack political opponents and blame them for what’s happening. But, of course, the truth is way more nuanced here. We’ll see. The fires are still ongoing. You know how much blame the politicians in in California deserve for this. But for right now, we don’t know uh exactly what they could have done in terms of water resources, because this is a climate fueled fire. This is something that you know some of the first responders here have said there’s nothing you can really do about it. It’s so intense. It’s moving so fast thanks to the Santa Ana winds. And it whipped up so quickly in so many different spots that there’s really you have to almost stand back in some areas and let it burn rather than uh try to get in there and fight it because you just end up wasting water essentially, and your limited resources fighting against something that can’t even be controlled at some points. 

Jane Coaston: Biden did say that the federal government will cover 100% of the cost of the fires for 180 days. But Trump will oversee the distribution of that aid. Could he reverse that order? And what happens if he were to deny California disaster relief, as he’s threatened to do because he hates Gavin Newsom? 

Scott Waldman: Well, he already has done it in his first term. He’s delayed aid. He didn’t actually totally withhold it. But I reported earlier this summer, two Trump White House aides told me this on the record, that Trump was delaying aid uh for a different wildfire back in 2018 around Orange County and only changed his mind after he saw voter registration data. So he’s promising to do this again to Newsom with sort of this excuse about these water rights. But really, it’s a way for him to punish his political enemies. You know, he views California as a Democrat controlled state and he seems willing to use the federal government to go after it. 

Jane Coaston: But could he reverse Biden’s order about covering the cost for 180 days or condition it on lawmakers here doing what he wants with regard to, say, um migrant detention? 

Scott Waldman: He could absolutely and there’s and you know, what mechanism is there to block him in Congress? Well, if he doesn’t have the votes there to go against him, um it he might he could still block it. I think it’s it’s worth noting, too, though, that members of Congress in the Senate, in the House, both know, you know, you might have some of the most conservative members like Senator Rick Scott from Florida. He knows that if you politicize aid uh in response to aid that what’s going to happen to Florida, which needs aid every year after hurricane season. So I think lawmakers, even though they may make a lot of noise right now, they may be more hesitant to uh jump into the fray and actually try to, you know, cut off aid to California. They may make a lot of noise right now, but we’ll see when the if there’s a vote that comes down to appropriating more aid if it’s needed. Um. We’ll we’ll see how they act in that time. 

Jane Coaston: Now, we don’t know the full scale of the damage because right now you can’t really go to some of the places that have been hardest hit. But it’s fair to say it’s going to be huge and it’s going to be very, very, very expensive. And it’s just the latest in the series of catastrophic natural disasters that have hit the country. What kind of strain does this put on our infrastructure and federal and state dollars? 

Scott Waldman: It puts tremendous strain. And again, this is the cost of climate change, which really, you know, a lot of politicians, Democrats and Republicans alike, tend to talk about climate change like it’s something we have to prepare for that’s happening in the future. You right now have climate change on your front doorstep, quite literally. Some people have lost their homes. You know, a friend texted me to say that his elderly parents’ home burned down and they had to flee, you know, with with only the clothes on their back because they lived in L.A. They’re climate refugees now. This is happening. You know, it’s like we’re all filming this or we’re watching videos of this of other people filming themselves, fleeing these kind of scenes. And then all of a sudden, those videos eventually will be us taking them of our own homes or our own our family’s homes. So we need to prepare for the infrastructure now. It’s already way past due to handle this. You know, this also includes inland flooding that puts a lot of pressure on pipes and and stuff like that in every city. So there’s a lot that needs to be done here. And, you know, a lot of politicians don’t want to get involved in it because it’s not sexy to spend money on infrastructure. 

Jane Coaston: Well, if we could make it sexy, what are the constructive conversations we need to be having right now? Because it’s not about is this climate change? Is it not climate change? It’s about like, what do we do? What should we be doing? How should we be preparing? How should we be talking about vegetation and brush? How should we be talking about building regulations? How should we be talking about how this got here? Because you can’t really do anything about 100 mile per hour winds. But it seems like there’s a lot we could be doing. 

Scott Waldman: Yeah, just look at look at L.A. It’s not totally wrong. It’s certainly not wrong to say that better forest management would help the area. Now, that doesn’t mean going and logging everywhere, but there’s been plenty of studies on this that shows forest management is part of this. Um. So controlled burns, things like that are a way to cut down on that risk. When we talk about other infrastructure threats from climate change, look at the East Coast of the United States, where sea level is hitting much harder. You look at somewhere like Norfolk, Virginia, where we have our naval fleet, you know, there’s nuclear subs going in and out of there. Well, if you’d like those to be threatened, uh you know, then don’t do anything about it when it comes to these ever increasingly worse storms. But certainly building higher seawalls to protect Norfolk and to protect our naval installation there is one way to get conservatives on board with some of these ideas. You know, there’s also a lot of waste where if you don’t prepare for something today, you spend five times on it in the future. And unfortunately, the future is not 100 years away. The future could be five, ten years away. It could be tomorrow in some of these cases, as people in L.A. are finding out the hard way. 

Jane Coaston: Scott, thank you so much for joining me. 

Scott Waldman: Thanks for having me. 

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Scott Waldman. He’s a White House reporter focused on climate change at Politico’s E&E news. We’ll link to his reporting in our shownotes. We’ll get to more of the news in a moment. But if you like the show, make sure to subscribe. Leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts. Watch us on YouTube and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. [music break]. 

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Jane Coaston: And now more news. 

[sung] Headlines. 

[clip of Elon Musk] I think I think we’ll try for two trillion. Um. I think that’s like the best case outcome. 

Jane Coaston: It sounds like billionaire Elon Musk is admitting that DOGE is all bark and no bite because on Wednesday, the tech CEO said his goal of cutting $2 trillion from the federal budget might actually be hard to do. Musk initially promised a massive cut when President elect Donald Trump tapped him to co-lead the Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE for short and tackle government spending. But in a live streamed interview on Twitter, the social media platform Musk owns, the billionaire admitted that he and his co-leader, Vivek Ramaswamy, are now shooting for just one trillion dollars in budget cuts. 

[clip of Elon Musk] If we can get proper budget deficit from two trillion to one trillion and and um kind of free up the economy to, you know, have additional growth such that the output of goods and services keeps pace with the increase in the money supply, then there will be no inflation. So that, I think, would be an epic outcome. 

Jane Coaston: Epic. Come on, dude, you’re like 55. Come on. Experts have said that Musk’s initial goal to cut $2 trillion in federal spending is nowhere near realistic. Never mind that DOGE won’t have any power over the national budget anyway, because remember, it’s a non-governmental entity. The Gaza Health Ministry said on Thursday that the Palestinian death toll in the war torn enclave has surpassed 46,000 people. Officials say that more than half of the dead are women and children. Israel and Hamas are reportedly moving closer to a cease fire deal that would bring an end to the war that has spanned 15 months. The proposal that’s currently on the table includes a fighting pause for six to eight weeks while Israel releases Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Israeli hostages. The deal would also require Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza, aid that has been blocked from the region for months. But Hamas officials say they aren’t sure which of the Israeli hostages are still alive amid the heavy fighting in the region. The Israeli military said it found one hostage dead earlier this week in southern Gaza. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday that both sides are, quote, “very close to an agreement.” Blinken and his fellow diplomats hope to reach a deal before President elect Donald Trump assumes office. A federal judge in Kentucky struck down the Biden administration’s Title nine rules that expanded protections for LGBTQ+ students. U.S. District Judge Danny Reeves ruled Thursday the protections overstep the president’s authority. Reeves said the legislation was, quote, “fatally tainted with legal shortcomings.” 26 Republican states had already paused the protections after a slew of legal challenges. Donald Trump also previously vowed to end the rules on, quote, “Day one.” Title nine is a 1972 law that prohibits discrimination based on sex and education. The protections last year were expanded to also prevent discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation. But as civil rights activists called it a step forward, conservatives were angered, arguing the rules could be misused to protect trans athletes and girls sports because that would be terrible to them. The clock is ticking as the countdown to TikTok’s possible ban in the US gets closer. The Supreme Court is weighing arguments Friday over whether to delay or overturn the federal law that would force TikTok to be removed from U.S. app stores by January 19th unless its China based parent company, Bytedance, cuts ties with the app. The legislation was passed by bipartisan majorities in Congress and signed into law by President Biden in April. The Biden administration argued, quote, “No one could seriously dispute that China’s control of TikTok through Bytedance represents a grave threat to national security.” But Trump, who previously supported a TikTok ban, seems to have changed his tune. In a filing last month, Trump asked the Supreme Court to pause the deadline so he can reach a, quote, “negotiated resolution to save the app.” Bytedance, which is headquartered in Beijing, denies it’s a national security risk. TikTok CEO Shou Chew addressed those concerns before Congress in 2023 and said that 60% of the company is owned by global investors. 

[clip of Shou Chew] Bytedance has five board members. Three of them are American. Now, TikTok itself is not available in mainland China. 

Jane Coaston: Bytedance argues the law violates the free speech of the 170 million Americans it claims use TikTok every month. TikTok says it will shut down the site in the U.S. by the January 19th deadline unless the Supreme Court rules in its favor. 

[clip of President elect Donald Trump] So I read it and I thought it was a fair decision, actually. So I’ll do my little thing tomorrow. They can have fun with their political opponent. 

Jane Coaston: And last but not least, after many attempts to postpone, President elect Donald Trump is set to be sentenced in his hush money case. It comes after a divided Supreme Court on Thursday rejected Trump’s last ditch request to block the proceedings in a 5-4 decision. In May, a jury of his peers found Trump guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection with hush money paid to a porn actress during the 2016 election. Justice Juan Merchan, who presided over the trial, has previously said he doesn’t plan on sentencing Trump to jail time. But the sentencing will enshrine Trump as the first former president or president elect with a criminal conviction. And that’s the news. [music break] One more thing. Meet North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs. She’s a Democrat who won her bid for reelection back in November. She defeated her Republican challenger, Jefferson Griffin, by a slim margin, less than a thousand votes. The state’s election board was set to certify her win today, but the entire process has been postponed because Griffin has filed a federal lawsuit alleging that he lost because of mass voter fraud. Sound familiar? Griffin claims that 60,000 ballots in the race must be thrown out without providing any real evidence. The matter was supposed to be decided in a federal court, but a Trump appointed federal judge sent the case to North Carolina’s Supreme Court. You know the one that Riggs is currently serving on, the high court’s conservative super majority voted to block officials from certifying Rigg’s win, while they considered Griffin’s claims. The state’s elections board has asked the federal appeals court to send the case back to federal court. If the federal appeals court sides with Griffin, the state Supreme Court could kick Riggs off the court and the decision could open the door for any elected official or political candidate to challenge the results of an election they lost. Sore losers rule the day? I guess. So to talk about the broader implications of this case. I called up Justice Riggs herself. Here’s our conversation. Justice Riggs, welcome to What a Day. 

Allison Riggs: Thank you for having me. 

Jane Coaston: What evidence does your opponent, Republican Jefferson Griffin, have to contest 60,000 votes? Including your parents. How is he trying to justify this campaign to get you off the court? 

Allison Riggs: So he is using data that would suggest that these voters uh voter registration file so in a big electronic database doesn’t have their Social Security number or their driver’s license number. One, we know that’s not true for some of them. Um. You can imagine big databases, not always perfect in the outputs, but also um. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah. 

Allison Riggs: You know, my dad registered to vote with his military I.D. He served his country for 30 years. Military IDs don’t have driver’s licenses or Social Security numbers on them. So um ultimately, we believe that this is an issue of um there are questions of federal law that need to be um resolved and promptly, and it should be a federal court that resolves them. 

Jane Coaston: Have we ever seen anything like this before? A state Supreme Court considering whether a member of that court should be a member of that court based on what sounds like completely unverified accusations of voter fraud? 

Allison Riggs: Not to my knowledge. But I think the important thing to remember is that these voters did everything that was asked for them. They didn’t fail in any way, shape or form. They followed the rules that were in effect at the time of the election. And my opponent is trying to retroactively change the rules so he can engineer his preferred outcome. Um. We need this issue to end. This election was well run and its results confirm what we all knew. North Carolina is a purple state. Trump won the state. I kept my seat. There was a mix of Democrats and Republicans who won. North Carolina are voters are ballot splitters um and there is just no reason uh for this to persist. And in fact, calling into question the legitimacy of elections when you don’t like the outcome is incredibly damaging to our democracy and certainly to the independence of the judiciary. 

Jane Coaston: You filed a motion asking the appeals court to issue a decision by February 11th when the state Supreme Court’s term is set to begin. If your request is denied, how long could this legal battle be drawn out? 

Allison Riggs: The truth is, I don’t know the answer to that. My opponent has called into question my service right now on the court. I sign orders every single day. I am doing the job and starting on February 11th will be sitting for two weeks of oral arguments. The potential disruption for the normal functioning of our judiciary is huge. What I know is this, I am a constitutional officer. I put my hand on a Bible and swore to uphold our state and federal constitutions. I consider it part of the oath I took to make sure that our elections results are respected and that the people who are elected are serving in that role. That’s what voters want me to keep serving in this role. This isn’t about me. This is about the voter’s will. I was a civil rights attorney for a long time before I joined the bench. I’ve represented folks who have been disenfranchised. And I know that um North Carolina’s been used as testing grounds before for different tools to undermine voting strength of marginalized groups of voters writ large. And I worry for the health and functioning of our democracy across the country based on what happens here in this race. 

Jane Coaston: Justice Riggs, thank you so much for joining me. 

Allison Riggs: Thank you so much. 

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs. [music break] Before we go, to support disaster relief efforts, Vote Save America Action and Crooked ideas have set up a fundraiser to help on the ground groups, including World Central Kitchen, Los Angeles Regional Food Bank and more. With wildfires forcing over 180,000 people to evacuate and thick smoke blanketing the metro area, these groups are providing critical aid to those who need it most. You can make a donation today at VoteSaveAmerica.com/relief. That’s VoteSaveAmerica.com/relief. We’ll also put a link in the show notes. [music break] That’s all for today. I want to thank the spectacular Josie Duffy Rice for filling in for me yesterday. 

[clip of Wendy Williams] She’s an icon. She’s a legend. And she is the moment. 

Jane Coaston: If you like the show. Make sure you subscribe. Leave a review. Make sure you know where your important documents are and tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading and not just about how to prepare for disasters because buddy disasters do not care where you live or how you vote or how cute your house is, like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Jane Coaston. And stay safe, Angelenos. [music break] What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producers are Raven Yamamoto and Emily Fohr. Our producer is Michell Eloy. We had production help today from Johanna Case, Joseph Dutra, Greg Walters and Julia Claire. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison and our executive producer is Adriene Hill. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. 

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