The Tucker Carlson Show
Tucker Carlson and Michael Shellenberger Break Down the California Fires
Tue, 14 Jan 2025
Michael Shellenberger may be the best reporter in America. Here’s what he’s learned about the fires in Los Angeles — and about UFOs. (00:00) How Many Fires Are There? Where Did They Come From? (03:03) Are Meth Heads Lighting the Fires? (14:56) DEI Fire Departments (38:44) Leftists Blame Climate Change Yet Again (40:47) Gavin Newsom Is Too Busy Hating Trump to Fight the Fires (52:30) The Golden Age of Journalism Paid partnerships with: Eight Sleep: Get $350 off the Pod 4 Ultra at https://EightSleep.com/Tucker Policygenius: Get your free life insurance quotes today at https://Policygenius.com/Tucker PureTalk: Get 50% off first month at https://PureTalk.com/Tucker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: How Many Fires Are There and Where Did They Come From?
So I guess the first question is, thank you for doing this. Are we rolling? We're rolling. Okay. Let's roll, shall we? Good to be with you, Tucker.
Nice to see you.
As I've said to you privately, and I mean it, I think you're maybe the best reporter working. I know you don't even think of yourself as a reporter, but a gatherer of facts and an explainer of what they mean, I think you're the best. Thank you. Welcome to the Tucker Carlson Show. We bring you stories that have not been showcased anywhere else.
And they're not censored, of course, because we're not gatekeepers. We are honest brokers here to tell you what we think you need to know and do it honestly. Check out all of our content at TuckerCarlson.com. Here's the episode. So where do these fires, first of all, how many fires are there and where do they come from?
believe there's five active fires right now and these are ignition driven fires meaning that this these are all this is all shopper all or you know uh scrubland you know brush area so this isn't this is different than the sierra forests right these are not forest fires Yeah, these are not forest fires.
And that doesn't mean that you're doomed to them, but it's not the same problem that we get in the Sierras. So they're ignition-driven and they're obviously wind-driven, but there's nothing unusual. I just interviewed a climate scientist about this, or rather an environmental forest scientist about this. There's nothing unusual about this. I mean, it is somewhat unusual to get...
You have a dry period and then the Santa Ana winds in January, but it's not like that never happens. I'm working my way there. Of course. The important thing to know is that the National Weather Service put out a fire warning on January 2nd and a local weatherman actually forecasted on January 1st.
they said we're headed towards a super dangerous moment um the next day the national weather service los angeles held a briefing to underscore that point the day after that the mayor flew to ghana i mean it's crazy like you would have public press conferences yeah these were oh i mean it's absolutely public and it goes to the politicians first but it's all said publicly it's the national weather service so
So that was like literally on the first or second, the governor should have called out the National Guard. He should have called all of our neighboring states. He should have called Canada and Mexico, asked for all their backup help. They should have started circling C-130s that are especially retrofitted that can dump the fire retardant or water.
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Chapter 2: Are Homeless People Starting Fires?
Chapter 3: What Role Does DEI Play in Fire Departments?
They could be cooking fires. But starting fires to destroy things. Yeah, oh, for sure. Oh, yeah, for sure. But it's not evil or anything.
No, totally fine. Yeah, what could go wrong?
But isn't classically starting fires and torturing animals, aren't those like signs of sociopathic behavior?
Psychopathy, yeah. I mean, for sure. I mean, look, meth makes you psychopathic. It makes you psychotic. It's meth-induced psychosis. But, I mean, yeah, and all the crazy... I mean, people behave... I mean, things that people do on meth, I mean, it is like...
It's like they behave with like superhuman crazy powers, the levels of violence, the assaults, the, I mean, you just, when you interview people, particularly people in recovery that describe being on meth, I mean, they're just awake for like weeks at a time. Like it's not even clear how they get any sleep at all. So that's just, that madness has continued. And, you know, and Mayor Bass, who's the-
Fires, at least half of fires in LA County are started by homeless people. And you believe that's driven by their use of a specific drug meth.
Not totally. I mean, I think homeless people are going to often start fires for a lot of different reasons. I mean, drugs can start fires, but the meth heads are like into fire. Like it's a big part of meth culture. It's just starting things on fire. No one sees this in theological terms. It's like this. I know it's amazing.
Well, it is amazing.
Yeah. No, it's satanic.
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Chapter 4: How Do Leftists Blame Climate Change for Fires?
You look at the Google Maps and you look at where the Santinese Reservoir is, it's right next to like a few thousand feet from Pacific Palisades. And it's above, it's really high up. And so if you had had water coming from that, the firefighters would have had plenty of water. It would not have, they would have had the water pressure, even if you had lost some homes and had those, the water out.
So, I mean, so two major reasons.
Chapter 5: Why Is Gavin Newsom Not Taking Action on Fires?
um failures the first was the failure to aggressively respond days in advance even though they had very clear warnings the second was the reservoir was empty one reporter has reported that the that the uh the firefighters had not been warned by the los angeles department of water and power that that reservoir was empty if that's true that's just additionally scandalous but
One of the things that we think probably happened is that they had been required to build, have a cover for the clean, for the Santinese Reservoir, which is the potable water, the cover to prevent the water from being contaminated in the old days, like the 50s and 60s. You know, birds would poop in those reservoirs and they would just put a bunch of chlorine in them.
And then we decided, well, that the water was still had a lot of, you know, it still was not not particularly clean. So we wanted to be cleaner. So you just put a cover over it, which is a kind of plastic or rubber lining. it appears that there was a tear in that. They had to repair it. They should not have removed that water ever during a fire season.
If you need to make that repair, you do need to drain right before you do the repair, but you would make that drain. The people that I interviewed said, said, look, it would take days, if not a couple of weeks to repair it. It was empty for at least a year. So it was sitting there for a year.
And the person I interviewed who works as a senior executive at a different water utility in California said, if we had any of our reservoirs empty, we would be super nervous the entire time. And you would also then have backup water systems.
so it's like any catastrophe you know you just have multiple errors occurring in advance and at the moment um and then the fires and then the actual ignitions you can't completely prevent ignitions but you can significantly reduce them one would be to not allow people to camp outside all over uh los angeles uh los angeles county with
somewhere around, I think it's 40 to 60,000 homeless people in the whole county. Madness. And then the other is the electrical wires that brush up against the vegetation and create fire. With that, you want to clear the vegetation from around the wires. That's obvious. And then you can also just stop. I mean, this is a not great solution, but you could certainly do it in a pinch if you need to.
You just stop the electricity from going into those homes for some period. I mean, it's a drag. I live in the Berkeley Hills, which is also a dangerous fire zone. And when the winds are really strong, they'll just cut off power as a precaution so that to prevent an ignition.
I think the thing that – the reason I wanted to come on your show, even though I'm in the midst of a huge book deadline, is because I'm really concerned about this nihilistic discourse that there's literally nothing that could be done. I mean, that is exactly where the politicians want to go. I worry that ordinary people have that idea. The problem is – I mean, it's absurd.
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Chapter 6: What Is the Golden Age of Journalism?
Right.
I mean, what?
Yes. Right. So there's no nihilistic agency. No, that's so nihilistic. And you trace it back. I mean, the best, the most articulate advocate of that view is a Marxist named Mike Davis, who wrote this book called City of Courts. It's a crazy nihilistic book, but he he had an essay and also this chapter in that book called Let Malibu Burn. I mean, it's classic Marxism.
kind of radical left politics is classic sort of envy or sour grapes. I mean, sour grapes goes, I can't remember the parable, but basically it's like some animal wants to eat these grapes, but they're up too high. And then he says, oh, well, those grapes were sour anyway. It's a consolation for your own personal weakness and failure. That's just, you know, let Malibu burn.
I mean, you know, you have an ideology of Marxism that is based on resentment and envy. And so then you go, well, yeah, those all those rich houses should go up in flames. It's a fantasy. I mean, it's a left wing fit. I should know. I was on the radical left, like the fantasy. You hate the rich people because you because you want their wealth and you you admire them in some level.
But, you know, you can't get it. So, I mean, this is how envy works. So you end up constructing this whole political ideology. I mean this is what Marx has done. And it's infected like the citizenry. I mean it's infected the politicians. And so there's this – I think that even though it's not consciously – the politicians aren't consciously saying – Oh, let's let Malibu burn.
That is the behaviors they have taken have had that impact. So I think that what you're seeing in real time in these fires in Los Angeles, these destructive fires, is the manifestation of a nihilistic ideology. It's an emergent quality. It happens through a million small steps.
But this heavy focus on left-wing ideology, whether it's DEI or ESG or climate apocalypse or just class resentment, manifests itself in like the most spectacular, beautiful neighborhoods just being turned into ashes and cinders.
It's also on a more prosaic level a violation of like the most basic agreement there is between citizens and their government, which is I send you more than half of what I own, but you keep my house from burning down and methods from scaring my children or whatever. Like you provide public safety, fire protection.
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