Gov. Gavin Newsom Confronted by CA Wildfire Victim, Demands to Talk to the President | TMZ Live - video Dailymotion

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CA Gov. Gavin Newsom tried to use President Biden as a shield when a distraught wildfire victim confronted him Thursday -- but his efforts kinda blew up in his face.

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00:00LA is still just struggling with everything that's going on.

00:06There are so many thousands of people displaced, homes lost, worldly possessions gone.

00:13People don't know where to live, where to go, where their kids are going to go to school.

00:17It is a mess here.

00:19And now people are rightfully demanding some answers.

00:23They're angry.

00:24There are a lot of people who are angry.

00:25And one person who is extremely angry got to put her concerns directly to Governor Gavin

00:33Newsom as he was leaving, as I guess he'd been touring some of the damage in Pacific

00:38Palisades and was walking to his vehicle when she ran up to him and fired off a series of

00:45questions.

00:46Now, you're going to see here, Governor Newsom tries to, how do I say this?

00:52How do I say it nicely?

00:53Diffuse the situation?

00:54I guess he was trying to diffuse, really, he didn't want to talk to her.

00:57He was trying to get out of the conversation.

01:00He wanted to get into his SUV without dealing with this woman.

01:05But it didn't happen.

01:06That was my daughter's school, Governor.

01:07Please tell me what you're going to do.

01:08I'm not going to hurt him.

01:09I promise.

01:10I'm literally talking to the president right now to specifically answer the question of

01:16what we can do for you and your daughter.

01:18Can I hear it?

01:19Can I hear your call?

01:20Because I don't believe it.

01:21I'm sorry.

01:22I'm sorry.

01:23There's literally, I've tried five times.

01:24That's why I'm walking around to make the call.

01:25Why is the president not taking your call?

01:26Because it's not going through.

01:27Why?

01:28So I have to get self-service.

01:29So let's get it.

01:30Let's get it.

01:31I want to be here when you call the president.

01:32I appreciate it.

01:33I'm doing that right now.

01:34And to immediately get reimbursements, individual assistance, and to help you, I'm devastated

01:35for you.

01:36I'm so sorry.

01:37Do you know there's water dripping over there, Governor?

01:38There's water coming out there.

01:39You can use it.

01:40I appreciate it.

01:41I'm going to make the call to address this.

01:42I'm sorry.

01:43I'm sorry.

01:44I'm sorry.

01:45I'm sorry.

01:46I'm sorry.

01:48I'm sorry.

01:49I'm sorry.

01:50I'm sorry.

01:51There's water coming out there.

01:52You can use it.

01:53I appreciate it.

01:54I'm going to make the call to address everything I can right now, including making sure people

01:55are safe.

01:56I'd like to make sure you do.

01:57Can I have an opportunity to at least tell people you're doing what you're saying you're

02:00doing?

02:03Could somebody have a contact?

02:04Can I have your contact information?

02:05I would love to.

02:06Yes, she might be right there.

02:07First of all, she was really aggressive with him.

02:10She's a lawyer, by the way.

02:12Yeah, she's a lawyer.

02:13He was on television before, so she is making her presence known everywhere.

02:19But in terms of what Newsom did, you know, the first thing he said was, I'm on the phone

02:24with the president.

02:25And then it pivoted to, well, I'm trying to get on the phone, and I don't have cell service,

02:31and once I do, then I'll get him on the phone.

02:34It just looked like he was trying to avoid the conversation.

02:40And it's an uncomfortable one.

02:41So on the other side of it, I would say some of the things that she was saying, like there's

02:45water dripping over there, we could use that.

02:47I mean, that wasn't the issue.

02:49That's not the issue at all.

02:52He's not alone in all of this.

02:54Our mayor, Karen Bass, is taking a lot of heat for not just the reaction to the fire

03:02and the leadership, but also things that preceded it, which include recommended budget cuts

03:09that could have shut down, I believe it was 16 stations.

03:15It was like a $48 million cut that was recommended.

03:18And remember, I mean, all cities are struggling.

03:20L.A. is struggling.

03:22She has to balance the budget.

03:24And one of the ways she was doing it was to cut expenditures in the fire department.

03:30And now people are looking at that saying, what is going on?

03:34On top of that, now we find out that there's a big reservoir in the west side that had

03:41millions and millions, could have had millions of gallons of water.

03:44But it had been shut down for a regularly scheduled maintenance.

03:47So it was empty and dry.

03:49It's interesting, right?

03:51Reservoirs need maintenance sometimes, and they're going to be empty when it's in maintenance.

03:55Typically, this is our wettest season of the year here in Southern California.

03:58They do the best they can.

04:00And sometimes weather events happen.

04:01I'm not justifying Mayor Bass, especially in her difficulty articulating even what the

04:06plan is.

04:07But to pin on her budget cuts, for example, we can always prevent these things by paying

04:14gobs and gobs more taxes and have everything up to date.

04:17But that's not the way it works.

04:18They're budget, difficult budgetary cuts.

04:20It's not like she cut all this money from the fire prevention and therefore pocketed

04:26it in the pockets of millionaires.

04:28She did that in order to preserve spending on schools.

04:30Yeah, but that's what we don't know, Jason.

04:33What we don't know is what was preserved at what expense.

04:37But just the knee-jerk reaction to just say she cut it, therefore she's to blame is, A,

04:42silly from a scientific point of view.

04:44These fires were not going to be prevented by more water.

04:46And number two, no.

04:48No.

04:49I'm sorry.

04:50It was not going to be prevented by more water.

04:52And firefighters themselves have said, and I know they wanted and needed to have better

04:58water pressure, but that wasn't going to make the difference of what happened late

05:02Tuesday night.

05:03No.

05:04We would have had a massive fire.

05:05The issue is it's a firefight with a knife.

05:09It's like...

05:10Well, but they couldn't fight it at all with 100-mile-an-hour winds.

05:13They have to back up for their own lives, for their own safety.

05:16Right.

05:17But the winds did die down, and they were still having...

05:19They did.

05:20We literally had somebody in LA who had his wife go to the store to get bottled water

05:28to throw it on their neighbor's fire because they couldn't get any water from the hydrant.

05:33I want to just take a moment.

05:34We need to be fair to Governor Newsom.

05:38After we saw that video, that exchange, we called his office to get some response about

05:43was there going to be any action taken.

05:47And the governor said that...

05:48The governor's office said that he actually did get on the phone.

05:52There was a video call with President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

05:56And Karen Bass.

05:57And that the president had committed the government to covering recovery costs for the first 180

06:05days.

06:06And that 100 percent...

06:07Normally, it's 75 percent.

06:09They got the president to go to 100 percent.

06:12Right.

06:13Which is a win.

06:14My name is Ahmad.

06:15I'm actually in Los Angeles myself.

06:18I definitely don't believe that Governor Newsom was on the phone with the president like he

06:23said he was.

06:24He was just trying to avoid her.

06:26He didn't want to have anything to do with her.

06:28The response he gave was politically correct.

06:30Anytime there's a situation like this, anytime there's a natural disaster, they're always

06:34saying that they're doing the best that they can in situations like this.

06:37But at the same time, it was kind of giving Karen, she's not the only person that this

06:41is affecting.

06:42And she was really bold.

06:43And it was not like he was going to be able to fix it on the spot.

06:46Well, the way you just said it is the prevailing view in our newsroom.

06:50That is exactly what everybody in the newsroom said.

06:52He was trying to dodge her, but man, she was a lot.

06:55A lot.

Gov. Gavin Newsom Confronted by CA Wildfire Victim, Demands to Talk to the President | TMZ Live

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