Peter Hamby
Appearances
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
I forget what the exact definitions of these terms are from the peak disinformation panic, but I think it's more misinformation than disinformation. Something that has a kernel of truth to it, but isn't totally true. That's what he was posting about.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
He should have also, I mean, him and his daughter really put their thumbs on the scale for Karen Bass in the 2022 race. Like the coverage, I sound like I'm like flacking for Caruso here and I promise I'm not, but like the coverage from the LA Times was,
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
news covers not just the editorials and the columns was just so i'll use the word biased they wrote one critical story of karen bass the entire campaign they wrote dozens scores on rick caruso who by the way look billionaire wants to be the mayor fair but like cover her with scrutiny As well.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
So there are questions about how much she pushed to cut the fire department's budget, which influenced, you know, according to the fire chief, the amount of overtime hours they can pay. And also within that, the amount of time they could spend clearing brush and vegetation in certain areas. There are questions about did she do enough?
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
to refill the Santianez Reservoir, which I think contained 117 million gallons of water near the Palisades. The fire hydrants that ran dry that night, there were three of them, three tanks that had a million gallons of water, and they ran dry. That seems like a lot of water, by the way. And they said, the firefighters, that would have been enough water typically for an urban fire.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
The Santa Ynez Reservoir had been empty since last February. That's 117 million gallons of water.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Yeah, no, I think that's right. And there's... Someone did a really great thread about this on Twitter X that was sent around our little friendly text chain about how... I think it was Lakshya Jain, who's a pollster on Twitter that I like. He's a Democrat, and he was just ranting about how Democrats are always bragging about... like process, you know, like we're getting things done.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Like we sent this many checks out or we have the funds allocated for all of these green charging stations for electric vehicles, but the actual charging stations haven't been built yet, you know? So it's like, we will get things done and we are in the process of getting things done rather than, you know, taking out the machete and clearing out the weeds.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
So, but this is something else I asked Katie to like, pressure test some of my assumptions when I was writing this column, because she is good at that. And she, by the way, worked for a mayor's office. So she's like... This is your wife that you're referencing? Yes, my wife, yeah. And she was like, look, it will take a while for all of these facts to come out about why the fires started.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
And by the way, for people on the left who are listening, there have been, as of the most recent press conference, I think... three arrests for possible arson. There are video clips of the fire right after it started near the Palisades on the Temescal Canyon Trail, which is a hiking trail.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Some of these fires I was watching that first overnight Tuesday, like there was one in Studio City, it was just like a house fire. Like, okay, some of this stuff could have been man-made.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
And by the way, and this is also an ecology of fear, a bunch of wildfires in 1993 that happened around Malibu and Laguna Beach were started by homeless people and quote-unquote vagrants, to use the parlance of the time. So, all the facts will come out, Katie's saying. We'll figure that out. So, you can't blame...
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
a single politician or political figure for any of this, because there's such a, you know, Byzantine politics here. Like there's different jurisdictions and whatever. And by the way, Cal fire, I think Gavin Newsom for all the criticism has been doing a pretty good job of responding to a crisis. Former mayor himself, uh,
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
He's calling for an investigation into the empty reservoir and very conspicuously copied Karen Bass on the public letter. At the bottom, it says, CC, LA Mayor Karen Bass. And so Gavin is doing his political thing where he doesn't want to throw local officials under the bus. But any of us who've worked in politics can read between the lines. Her political capital is gone. I'll explain why.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
It's not because of these various budget things or the reservoir. It's just the leadership thing. And you and I have seen this. We've been around so many dying campaigns, and we saw this with Joe Biden in the debate last summer.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Once you lose trust and credibility, especially in this era where we don't trust politicians or institutions very much at all, and in our social media era where we're grabbing whatever information suits our priors, It was gone.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
And she made the decision on Saturday, January 4th, a day after the National Weather Service issued an extreme high wind and fire threat warning to go on this delegation trip to Ghana to attend the swearing in of their new president. And so if you think about, you know, New Orleans, a cat five is heading toward you guys and
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
And the mayor's like, well, you know, I already got a trip planned to London.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
And that was the thing. Like that was the one thing, the one thing that people cared about was the economy. And when you, you know, light yourself on fire, to use a bad phrase, in that moment, why should I trust you? And like, this is the other thing too.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
If she had gone and come back as soon as possible, and that Sky News reporter saw her in the airport and said, do you have a message for the people of LA? Give a response. Act like a human. I'm really worried. My friends are worried. We're running back. I've been talking to the president and blah, blah, blah. I've been talking to officials. We're going to get through this. Go straight.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
to whatever the, you know, the fire line is just go there, be on camera, be present. I talked to somebody who's worked for a bunch of mayors in California and elsewhere when I was writing my piece. And this person made the point that like in politics, generally he called it like the horseshoe theory.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Like, you know, you're supposed to like land the horseshoe when you throw it on the little spike, like, and get it perfect every time. He's like, horseshoe theory doesn't really apply to crises. Like you, They will give the mayor, the governor, the president some latitude if they don't get it perfect. But she lost it in that moment. And that video, you can erase a previous statement.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Maybe you can fix it. You can tweak it. It's on camera for 92 full seconds. I count it. just staring stone-faced in silence after she was gone. And we found out later after she chose to leave knowing the threat. And beyond that, Tim, we had three different fire warnings this whole winter because it's been so dry this winter after the last two very wet winters. She just left. She made the choice.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
And that is... especially in the climate change era when things are burning faster and hotter. Fires are the thing out here. And yes, homelessness is incredibly important. And she has brought more homeless folks indoors. And that's been good. I see it in Venice. That's also thanks to our councilwoman, Tracy Park. But there are other things beyond homelessness in this city.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
And fires, the threat was there. She left. No one trusts her. So that's the thing. All the budget stuff, the reservoir stuff, the fire department chief fights. If you don't have any more trust, you do not get the benefit of the doubt anymore. Whereas all these other officials are kind of getting the benefit of the doubt, at least they're trying.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
And Newsom, for all his faults, and he comes off as stiff, He's doing interviews. He's signing executive orders. He's bringing in firefighters from Mexico. He's bringing firefighters from all over the state. He's talking about how to hopefully work with Donald Trump. He's pushing back on misinformation. He's there. He's out there. He's doing stuff.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
I would say he's much more of a leader of Los Angeles in this moment than Karen Bass is.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Yeah, I mean, the scale is real. I saw your pal Wendell Pierce, New Orleans slash Angeleno, I think, talk about how this is LA's Katrina. I don't necessarily know if that's the case. LA is famously stratified by race and class and geography. And there are people who are technically unaffected. It sort of felt like Katrina just swamped the entire city. You would know better than me, I guess. Yeah.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Before I empty the clip on the nerd from Shreveport, I have some dim memories of... emergency federal aid being tied to like budget negotiations or debt limits or something so that might not be new okay this is disgusting it's offensive this falls under the category of what i was saying people in los angeles want outsiders to shut the fuck up I could go a lot of directions with this.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Let's start with his home state and your home state, which I love and adore, and I'll be there in a couple weeks to see you and Tyler. Imagine if some president or congressional leader said that after a hurricane or a flood destroyed your church in your neighborhood, Mike Johnson. Imagine, Mike Johnson, what California must be like. Because I know you don't spend a lot of time out here.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Maybe you come out on the Trump jet when you're hanging out with the UFC guys. I don't know. California is more Republicans than any state in the country. California makes up a significant portion of your Republican caucus. It is...
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
disgusting that you would put politics and your assumptions about other people in front of helping people here in California, including many Republicans who probably voted for Trump, who have lost their houses. Disaster aid
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
helps people uh not just in the way like imagine like hurricane helene okay like this is why i get so mad about this like helene and this fire like you know i think i know you make fun of me for my college basketball coaching tree or whatever but like those are two events that like fucked with my people like western north carolina is where my family's from and like here.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
And so, you know, there are a lot of people who don't believe in climate change that live up in those hollers in Western North Carolina and in Florida. So what? They're Americans. And for, you know, as long as we've had federal disaster aid, it doesn't, like, it's agnostic what you believe in.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Federal aid, you know, it can create jobs, you know, those firefighters and cops that you supposedly adore. Like, I'm sorry. We don't have all the answers yet. If this happened in any other state, it's just that Newsom and now Karen Bass, and I think Karen Bass deservedly in some ways, they deserve criticism. But there are a lot of Republican humans here. And I just think it's gross.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
It's a real... I don't know. I've been watching so much local news out here in LA and it's wonderful. The television coverage and brave in certain ways. Like some of these reporters, like their houses were in jeopardy while they were out covering the fires. I want to see one of my local news friends out here.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
go over to Arcadia and talk to some people whose house is burned over there in Altadena or elsewhere. And by the way, there was a fire last night, Tim, in Riverside, which is a Republican county represented by Ken Calvert.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Ask these people who lost their homes, hey, the government is saying you might not get aid to recover and rebuild your house because the Speaker of the House doesn't like Gavin Newsom. What do you think about that? I would love to see a reporter ask a person who lost their house that.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Let me say one more thing on that point. Elon Musk, one of his tweets during the fires, while babies' cribs were burning and people's lifelong memories were being incinerated, Elon Musk said, was blaming Gavin Newsom and saying there's too much, too much government regulation that prevented the clearing of brush and vegetation. So this is the thing.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
A lot of the solves that these MAGA people are calling for would require more federal money, more state money, more government intervention. The LA County and the Los Angeles fire department require we Angelenos to
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
to pay for our own brush clearing if you live in an area and you've got to keep a certain amount of footage on each side of your house clear, especially if you're up there in the hills and canyons, so that not only will it prevent things from burning, but so firefighters can move and fight them and be mobile and help put out these fires. So that isn't too much government regulation.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Yeah. The opposite thing is happening here. Like if you think about the geography of the city and all the incorporated cities within it, you know, generally not totally true, not totally true. And this needs to be stressed. But slightly more middle class to affluent neighborhoods affected.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Government isn't doing enough to help clear areas. some of these spaces and that would require more money and more regulation. And again, there are a lot of Republicans in California and there are a lot of Republicans in Los Angeles.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
And in the Valley and, you know, there's even more of them now after this last election and you go tell them that you go tell them, hey, you need to do better to like clear up all the shopper all outside of your outside of your beautiful house. And if you don't, we're going to fine you. That's what Elon Musk is asking for. Do you think Republicans want that?
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
People like federal money. People like federal money during COVID. They like the Trump checks. People in Boone, North Carolina, like the FEMA money. Like people like federal money when it suits them. People like money.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Altadena is a hub traditionally of black middle class in the city over near the San Gabriel Mountains, over here near where I live in the Palisades in Malibu. There's some wealthy people up there. The traditional flats of LA, like where I live, used to be more of a black neighborhood in Venice. You go over to South Central and East Side, more black and Latino.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Yeah, the cultural vibe shift away from a certain kind of blue state, blue city politics culturally is real, I think. I thought about this one. I thought this was silly, by the way. Eric Garcetti was thinking about running for president in 2019. And Ron DeSantis, by the way, did this against Newsom at one point a couple years ago.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
All you have to do, if you're an opponent, is send some cameras out to Skid Row and just take a video of... This is what Los Angeles looks like. And that's unfair in a lot of ways. But it's an astute political attack. And Gavin has also passed... There's just a lot of stuff out there to run against him on. And this is beyond his time as mayor and beyond his French laundry thing.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
And he's the California privilege. I saw this clip of Gavin being confronted by, I think, a Palisades resident the other day. I think a lot of people saw it. And he's like... He's not like a huggy guy. He's good in certain ways, but he doesn't like sort of uncontrolled situations, you know, which is why, you know, he went to our pal Jon Favreau. And Jon asked him real questions, good questions.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
But he like, you know, instead of going straight to the local news, he went to a place that's a little more of a safe space for him. Anyway, this woman comes up to him. Tuesday or Wednesday. What are you doing? What are you doing to help? And he's got his phone. He's got his Panerai, by the way. And he's got his shades on. He's like, I'm doing my best. I'm doing my best.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
And he's doing his best in that moment. He's saying, I'm talking to the president right now. And he gets in his black SUV. But he does reek of a kind of privilege that I think is hard in an era where People are concerned about prices and like it or not, the attacks on elites, they're potent. People hate the elites, Hamby.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Because they are, quote unquote, the flatlands, they weren't as desirable to live in and therefore are...
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
I'm with you on that. By the way, I will say Gavin has been tested at the national level. There were wildfires in California in 2019, and he dealt with Trump. He had a line in the White House, line in the White House during COVID. Somehow was able to work with the president despite their verbal jousting.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
I don't know if they respect each other, but they are larger than life political figures at this point. And so you asked me to point out the criticisms of Gavin. The upside are really smart guy, reads a lot, cares about policy. Governs one of the biggest economies in the world. Has really, I think, for all the dart throwing at him on Twitter, responded to this pretty well.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
unaffected in a way that you know having shitty air quality out there because like the ashes on my house don't look like fine dust like you would think like ash coming down like a volcano or something it looks like the soot in your fireplace like the end of a fire that you've been burning all night at christmas time or something there's like black and brown chunks
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
He expanded Cal Fire's budget. We have a literal army in this state. I think it's the biggest in the world of firefighters and firefighting vehicles, aerial and otherwise. He can also bro out. We need Democrats who can fucking bro out. And he's got a podcast with Marshawn Lynch. They talk about football. I'm not sure he's going to talk about... I forgot he's a competitor. Yeah.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
I don't know if he can talk about Jaden Daniels running the option and stuff, but I think he'd be better than Tim Walls not knowing what a punt is on Madden.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
company retreats at the dural club to get into his good graces that could be fun i don't know what what do you think about the uh about social media leaders getting up in trump's butt let me stand up for my company real quick and my boss evan uh evan and bobby founders and ceo of snapchat have already donated and distributed five million dollars to the fires in los angeles this is an la company oh i thought you're gonna say to the inaugural no but no um
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
To his credit, Evan has been very consistent about our values and our terms of service over the years. And we have been proactive also about challenges on our platform with fentanyl, for example. We're out there saying we have this issue and we're fighting it.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
We've helped, I think, message that and brought down... Not brought down, we're not taking credit for it, but fentanyl deaths from press pills have plateaued in this country and we have been part of that campaign. Also, like... We fact check our ads at Snapchat. Donald Trump was removed from the platform back in 2020.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Snap has been pretty consistent about our values around politics and news and content, etc. Let me say this. I think, first of all, Mark Zuckerberg does not look like a St. Bart's DJ. Mark Zuckerberg looks like a guy. He looks like a DJ at the University of Illinois, Champaign, wanting to be a DJ.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Yeah, yeah. He wants to be like John Summit, and he never will be. By the way, there's also something you see in Elon and a lot of these tech people who are posturing. Your interview with Jason Kalkanis was amusing in this sense. I picked up on his body language. some people are who they always were, you know?
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
And like, there's that, there's a great video of Mark Zuckerberg, like at a UFC fight where he's like nervous and he's like getting ready to go out with like the fighters. And he like, he thinks someone's about to high five him and he like reaches his hand out and they weren't. And he like takes his hand back in. And it's like, everyone go look up this video. He's a nerd who wants to be cool.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
That's it. Maybe the social network movie actually nailed it. Too flattering, possibly. The Zuckerberg thing is so... I'm really surprised by just how transparent... It is like usually large corporations make these subtle pivots and they couch it in certain language. Like Jamie Dimon has done this a little bit with like JP Morgan and like their commitment to like DEI.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Like around my neighborhood and not in every neighborhood. It just depends where it falls. And that stuff is very, very much unhealthy. So, yeah, I mean, I think it's it's devastating. The flip side of all this is we all know people who are affected. The other thing that happens in Los Angeles and. By the way, this is the source of the property tax revolt back in the 70s.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Like he just subtly changes language over the years, you know, while remaining committed to it notionally and building a diverse and equitable workforce. Zuckerberg is just like firing all the diversity people. Like we're going back to quote civic content after downranking civic content. Like we aren't going to fact check this and like we're going to do community notes.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
And then he goes on Joe Rogan to announce it and goes to Mar-a-Lago to hang out with Donald Trump. Again, I mentioned this with Mike Johnson, but like that was the first thing I thought about with Mike Johnson when he was on the Trump plane going to the UFC fight with like, Dana White and all these other dudes. He's like, oh, this is cool.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
I get to hang out with the guys that didn't want to pick me a gym class to be on the basketball team. It is very transparent. I think it's larger than just Facebook, though. There is just something in the culture. And then this gets to Trump's victory, like up and down the ballot. Not a mandate necessarily, but kind of. Unlike last time, it was a fluke when he won in 2017 or whatever, like 2016.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
This time, the Republican victory was robust, Tim. And people are making changes accordingly. Whether we like it or not. But the Facebook thing is just, I'm aghast with just how bluntly transparent and political it is. Nakedly political. And, you know, we're going to have to fucking deal with this guy for a long time. He's our age.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Like, when President AOC comes in, like, what's he going to be dressing like then?
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
It's not just wealthy people in the Palisades, for instance, who are affected by this. A lot of people in Southern California – and this was true down in – I was texting about this when Trump went down to Palos Verdes during the campaign. There are a lot of middle-class people there. who bought houses in the 60s and 70s and 80s and 90s, whatever.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
And Zuckerberg tried to buy Snapchat back in the day, and Evan said, nah. And Zuckerberg has tried to copy everyone else's cool products because he doesn't have original ideas. He attacked Apple the other day. And Apple sort of has a lot of power over social media companies, but whatever. He said Apple hasn't come out with a new product in a long time.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
This is somebody with no... By the way, from a business, tech, and product perspective, but also clearly now with politics. There's no... inner core set of values. There's no guiding light. There's no point of view. Evan cares about design and art like he does. And he genuinely cares about what Snapchat is at this point, which is connecting closely with your friends.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
And we saw the value of that during the pandemic, I think. Zuckerberg has no core values about what his company should be doing when it comes to politics, when it comes to trust and safety, what kind of products it should build. It's just survive in advance. He's like a bad politician who enters a primary company And there's no message. There's no, they're there.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
He's like, I should be running for president. Why? What's the, what's the message?
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
And then, you know, he hired some of our old friends to like, you know, maybe fluff him and tell him he should run for president. But like, you have a couple of town hall meetings. Yeah. But like in leadership, in business, in politics, like,
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Having a clear and consistent point of view is the best thing possible because you can... If you believe in it to your core, all the other things kind of fall into place around it and you can be successful. But if you're always pivoting, look, he'll be successful because he built something and the time was right and like...
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
you know, there's infinite scale and he's always going to be making a shitload of money, but like, I don't know. It's just, it's just, he doesn't have any core values and that's the issue.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
And the property values have created a lot of wealth for them because it's such a desirable place to live, Southern California. And so you see people who have lost their homes who are rich and famous, some not so famous, some people that used to be famous. But then there's people who just lived in their house for many generations and their entire wealth is tied up in that.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Let me go narrow first on Soupy, then there's my holistic view on TikTok. So this clip was amazing. My Snapchat show, Good Luck America, today, we made fun of Soupy. There's some really good Soupy dunks on Twitter. My guy, Peter Twinklage...
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
He replied to Soupy and said, call me a bootlicker, but if you side with an illiterate Disney adult named Soupy over a bipartisan coalition constituting 81% of Congress, you should not be allowed to vote. Another one from a guy named-
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Here's a better one for you that I think you and I are aligned with. Some guy on Twitter, James Lippins. I don't know who you are, James, but good tweet. Honestly, one of the most skillful uses of TikTok has been to convince a generation that other governments have solely benign intentions while the U.S.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
government is literally Hitler and every single action it takes is to personally ruin the lives of Zoomers. If you are so addicted to this... which is a Chinese owned giant corporation, like young liberals and people like AOC and Jamal Bowman.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
And apparently Ed Markey, who thinks he's cool and hip because of that one primary in which he, you know, talked about the green new deal and beat a Kennedy, you know, It's just amazing. There are journalists, aforementioned journalists and writers, who have bent over backwards to defend TikTok just because they personally like it.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
There are Democrats, progressives in particular, who have been defending TikTok because they think Republicans who want to ban it are automatically bad, but also... This is where young people are gathering and getting information. The information is quite frequently dog shit, lies, news adjacent.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
And then you've got people who lost their houses and they own them and they still have to keep paying the mortgage on a house that doesn't exist. Like there's some crazy shit going on.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
It is, by the way, lots of, quote, news creators who are ripping off the reporting of actual journalists and doing commentary around it. You and I both look at TikTok. You get fun basketball highlights. You get cooking recipes, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The content is good. Yeah. In certain ways. Gay drama.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Yeah. I would never, ever look at gay drama. Ew. But like the macro view on all of this is, and by the way, shame on Ed Markey for doing what Trump wants just because he wants his young progressives in Massachusetts to reelect him. The free speech arguments that TikTok made before the Supreme Court were very dumb to begin with, I think.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
I'm not an attorney, but do you think that Samuel Alito and John Roberts and Sonia Sotomayor are going to, one, understand that, oh, creators are having their free speech rights removed or agree with that because those creators can obviously just post on Snapchat on Spotlight or Reels or YouTube Shorts or whatever. You can still stand on an apple crate in this country and scream through a bullhorn.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
And I wrote about this for Puck and it's, you know, I wrote about Karen Bass, obviously, and we'll talk about that, but there's just so much I've learned living out here, like the political fights around real estate and insurance and zoning and coastal commissions and, They get really, really intense and personal and angry because property here is everything and it always has been.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
But two, the First Amendment argument that they presented is that TikTok as a private company has a right to control editorially what's on its platform. And I think it was Alito, who I don't like, but Alito shot back like... Okay, cool, but that's China. That's not a U.S. company, right? Like, why are you making this argument? I think there is a libertarian argument to be made.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Yeah, let George answer that. But according to my reading of the transcripts of the Supreme Court hearings, the justices were not open to the idea that China deserves to have editorial control over its company because it's not a U.S. company. And we've had Friendster, we've had Vine, we've had MySpace, Tumblr withered, Facebook sort of became irrelevant. Platforms come and go, they die, whatever.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
These people need to realize that this company is not unambiguously good. It is crazy the amount of subtle... propaganda on this platform, beginning with their own corporate propaganda. When their CEO testified before Congress last year, before the House, and I think also the Senate, you know, there were some dumb members of Congress who like didn't get the tech.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
But most of the questions were actually pretty probing and good. And the popular media coverage of it was tough hearing for TikTok. If you went on TikTok after that hearing, it was nothing but like Dear Leader, the CEO, we love you. TikTok is great. Even Redbook, there's reports out there that they're also downranking and removing content that's deemed offensive.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
It's just really gross the way people just like the app and therefore think there are no national security concerns. They can't
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
influence public opinion united states they already are based on that one tweet i just read you i thought that was really great but also it's like one thing i'm interested in tim is trump obviously he's filed a amicus brief because he wants to stay what's your prediction where does this land yeah we got five days trump comes in on the 20th the day after there's some discussion that elon's talking about purchasing it by dance was by dance was back on that but what do you think how do you think trump plays it they want to ban tiktok and trump
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Doesn't. And he told Charlie Kirk, I will never ban TikTok. I think my prediction is there might be a window where it's not available on the app stores, but Trump will find some sort of like U.S. buyer for it. But I'm not sure. The other thing, by the way, I should say this. This can punctuate this conversation just to bring it back to Soupy.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
and her brain soup it's not fascist that congress passed a law to ban an app that might be hoovering up data not just on you this is what tiktok does they get data on tim but also data on the people in your contact book okay like there's a lot of data collection going on but i think the influence campaign stuff is worse you know it'd be really fascist tim what's that
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
something Trump could do, which is this. Trump could become president the day after the ban and tell Pam Bondi, his new attorney general, just not to enforce the law. That can happen. That would be fucking fascist. That would be a president of the United States telling his justice department not... That'd be freedom for Sufi. Freedom for Sufi, but that's actual fascism.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
A president telling, just ignoring a law that was passed and signed by a previous president without any sort of process to unwind it. So I think we're actually in the middle ground. I think we are coming up on a ban on January 19th. TikTok is saying it's not for sale, or ByteDance is saying it's not for sale. And I think Ryan Broderick, who's a good tech writer, pointed this out.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
And it always has been when it comes to rich white people taking water and golf clubs and redlining. It's just property and real estate in Los Angeles defines its politics.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
They don't need us. They want us. They want our data. But TikTok doesn't make money from advertising. It's an e-commerce platform, and it's available in most other countries, except for China. China.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Well, last time this was an issue in 2020. By the way, I think he could have actually banned it then. Now it's much more enmeshed in our culture. I should mention, according to Pew, more young people use Snapchat than TikTok, by the way.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Okay, fine. But I talked to Lindsey Graham in 2020 around that moment. And he was like, I saved TikTok. I was like, what are you talking about, Lindsey? He goes, well, so my niece called me and she was like, Lindsey, I heard they're going to ban TikTok. And so I called Trump and I was like, we got to get a solution to this. So Lindsey Graham took credit for saving it last time.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
I've been on a huge Fontaines DC kick. Not just their last album, but I'm a super fan of them now. I've been listening to them over and over, all their albums. I've been listening to a lot of Fontaines lately. How about you? What's getting you through watching this from afar? What are you going to be listening to on Monday, Tim, when Trump is sworn in?
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
There was some... I saw... I hate saying this. I saw a TikTok the other night and it was a girl who grew up in Altadena, black girl. And she posted like one of those TikToks. It's like a slideshow of just pictures. And it was like pictures of her and her big family through the generations and like. the fruit tree in their yard, and just how much she loved Altadena.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
And it was set to a song by Cleo Soul, who's sort of like a British singer-songwriter chick. People might know her from Salt, S-A-U-L-T, that band.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Yeah, so she's the singer behind that. And this song, I'll send it to you when we get off here, slayed me. I lost it. This woman was posting her memories of her home and her family. These aren't just houses. They are lives. And homes, we're proud of them. And they're living organisms. And there's so much bundled up in them. And this song, accompanied with that sentiment, was extremely moving.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
So if I have feelings next time, I'll be listening to Clio Soul.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Thank you, Kim and Kath and Haya. Thank you, Addy.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
So I saw somebody, uh, reference the amount that has burned so far is like four times the size of Manhattan. Wow. So, you know, not the population, obviously, but in the context of Palisades or Altadena, like just imagine if like in Washington, like Georgetown just burned up overnight and disappeared like the neighborhood just gone, like gone, gone, gone, gone.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Like what would that mean to the rest of, of, of the city, you know? And then how, how, sorrowful would you be about all the history that was lost? Or Altadena is literally the same example. And we should mention too, it's not just structures. I was watching this sort of daily briefing this morning with all the local officials here, and there are many. The death toll is going to keep rising.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
It's not just homes. A important part of the city has been incinerated, and at least one of them, when it comes to the Palisades at least, also happens to be a hugely important power center for money, influence. political power, fundraising. Like that's what Palisades is. And we'll talk about Rick Caruso in a minute, but that's his backyard too.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Yeah, so much to unpack there. And I mentioned this book and I've been tweeting about it. Like this book, Mike Davis, Ecology of Fear is like a fantastic history of Los Angeles and the choices made to live on the edge of disaster. Like something Mark Andreessen didn't say because he's rich and can rebuild his house no matter what, you know, there's some human error, not human error.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
That's the wrong word. There's just like, you know, humans make decisions to live in places that are dangerous. And historically humans didn't live like Los Angeles was not, uh, an irrigated place until the Mexicans and the Mormons figured out how to bring water here and plant orange groves. If you read your old Oregon Trail history books and play the game, they were going to Oregon.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
They weren't coming to California because Oregon was green and you could have farmland. Here, water is scarce. Joan Didion's devil winds blow east to west, and that's been happening forever. In this very book, Mike Davis writes about the clipper ships coming up along Southern California back in the 19th century and seeing flames on the mountains. This stuff predates climate change too.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
It's a peculiar climate, the Los Angeles basin. It seesaws between rainy seasons and dry seasons. In the rainy seasons, lots of vegetation grows and then it dries out and that creates tinder for these fires. The individual blame thing is very hard in Los Angeles. In this sense, it does remind me a little bit of Katrina.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
So in Katrina, you and I both remember, we were just sort of starting out in our careers at the time. I was at CNN. The first week I worked on The Situation Room was Katrina. And it was like watching...
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
george bush but also kathleen blanco and ray nagin and you know the new orleans police department and no one wanted to take the blame you never would as a political figure or a public official i know it's funny i was talking i was talking to jeb about katrina like a decade and a half after and you know he was like my brother gets the blame ray nagin gets all the blame and there's plenty of things that both of them did wrong but he's like kathleen blanco was the worst
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Yeah. And by the way, everyone should go back and listen to that Atlantic podcast, Floodlines, which sort of... Oh, so good. So good. It was just a revisited...
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
all of that like from from a timeline perspective but told the story from the people who weren't whose voices weren't being heard in the live tv coverage you know in particular a lot of the black community but also some of the just myths that became facts very quickly you know the the looting or the gunshots and there was some of that but you know the stuff that the national media was talking about and that was 2005 that was before
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
you know, Twitter and a lot of like social media adoption, you couldn't fact check these things and they just became apocryphal. So anyway, here can't blame any single person that needs to be said. As I write in my piece, people here in Los Angeles would like the all in hosts and everyone has VC founder in their bio and Elon Musk to shut the fuck up. Okay.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Like Elon Musk came here on Sunday and like, there's this thing about Musk that you've probably, it probably grates on you too. He has accomplished a lot. This guy, he is smart. Like he deserves credit for a lot of things that he has built and companies he's built. But since like getting the political bug, he has this like, like annoying college sophomore contrarian thing going on.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
He like just Wikipedia something, then postures as an expert. So he goes and live streams on X to the Palisades, talk to these firefighters. And he's like, so you guys ran out of water, right? You didn't have enough water. Right. And the firefighters are like, well, no, we had enough water. It's just the volume of these flames. It was too much to fight with the flow that we had.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
And so like, it's nice to see these firefighters like fact-based, uh, retorts to Elon Musk who's trying to bait them and they're like not giving him anything so the other thing to keep in mind about Los Angeles is I'm in Venice I'm in the city of LA if I was a mile that way I'd be in the city of Santa Monica which is not in the city of LA if I was this direction to the West a little bit.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
So the East, I'd be in Culver City, which is its own city. West Hollywood, own city. Malibu, Pasadena, lots of incorporated cities for various reasons that I mentioned before. A lot of white people wanted to sort of protect their neighborhoods back in the day. They don't want to pay LA city taxes. They contract with Los Angeles County for various services.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
So Los Angeles County has jurisdiction over some of these areas where the fights are happening. Now, to be clear, the fire departments are coming in from all over Southern California. They're coming from all parts of LA to fight these different fires. Like, good on them. But there's the Department of Water and Power. There's public utilities, which are managed by boards.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
The county is managed by a board of supervisors. Every city has its own leadership. And then our mayor... even before Karen Bass, they don't have a lot of power compared to other cities. The power in the city rests with the city council. And so the mayor, and we saw this with Garcetti beforehand, a good mayor, like a Tom Bradley or Richard Reardon, can really set the agenda and show leadership.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
And this was what Rick Caruso was running on in 2022, because they know there's not much they can do, you know, by the stroke of a pen to fix everything. You know, the mayor has to work with the city council, you know, bring a point of view, what they want to get done. Karen Bass came in, her thing was cleaning up homelessness.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
But she built herself as a problem solver because she was a coalition builder in the state assembly in California and in Congress, and she ran the CBC. But man, I talked to a lot of people yesterday who were like Democrats, by the way. Everyone here is a Democrat, basically. That's not true. We'll get to that. But they are like, is she built for this?
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Hey, buddy, I actually want you to know the first time I used the joke about no longer being a journalist and being a content man. And now content man applies to you. I also was the first person to call you a content man. I use that as a bit at your wedding as a little toast. I said, right, I'm no longer a journalist. I'm here as a content man. Fully, fully Snapchat at that point.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
Like as a member of Congress, a lifelong member of a legislative body, it doesn't feel like she's cut out for this. And that's why Rick Caruso is suddenly driving the political conversation here and has a lane to run against her again.
The Bulwark Podcast
Peter Hamby: The Politics of a Firestorm
It's not unfair. And that's the main thing. So there are, again, every Elon Musk on the internet is Googling something and posting about it because they want to like, oh, I looked up the LA Fire Department budget and it looks like they made this cut. And the owner of the LA Times, Patrick Soon-Shiong, you know, was posting some of this stuff. And it's,