Speaker 1: And Hi, how are you welcome to the Big Podcast.
Speaker 1: It's Wednesday. Today is the eighth day of October, year
Speaker 1: of Our Lord twenty twenty five. My name is Tom Sullivan.
Speaker 1: And another busy day, no question about it. We've got
Speaker 1: the Well we we'll update you a little bit on
Speaker 1: the shutdown. Yeah, they're still shutdown, but some of the
Speaker 1: things that are going on behind the scenes are interesting.
Speaker 1: Oh and you might want to know that the President
Speaker 1: today said that he was ordering the Internal Revenue SIRERVIS
Speaker 1: the group we love the IRS, to furlough thirty seven
Speaker 1: thousand people. So I looked it up. That's about fifty percent.
Speaker 1: That will lead the IRS with thirty nine thousand, but
Speaker 1: thirty seven thousand are being furloughed, and furloughed means they're
Speaker 1: basically sent home because apparently the IRS was one of
Speaker 1: those essential government agencies and they're not that essential apparently,
Speaker 1: because he said basically telling half of them to go home.
Speaker 1: So if you're trying to do business with the IRS
Speaker 1: right now in any way, shape or form, don't count
Speaker 1: on a fast response. But about half of so, I
Speaker 1: don't know what you know the innu window was, Was
Speaker 1: that a bunch of them would be fired, but today
Speaker 1: that did not happen. He furloughed thirty seven thousand, leaving
Speaker 1: thirty nine thousand. There, we've got Katie Porter story. She's
Speaker 1: running for governor of California. She was a congresswoman from
Speaker 1: Orange County, California, and she's just I don't like her,
Speaker 1: but I'll share with you the fact that a bunch
Speaker 1: of Democrats are also and she's a Democrat, that she.
Speaker 2: Arrogant.
Speaker 1: We'll play. We'll give you an example. James Comey was
Speaker 1: indicted today in federal court and in Alexandria, Virginia, across
Speaker 1: the river from the Capitol. So we'll get into the
Speaker 1: lawyers talking about that and the LA fire, the Palisades
Speaker 1: fire that was back in January. They have made an arrest,
Speaker 1: and it fascinates me that they can find through all
Speaker 1: that rubble and all that ash, how they can go
Speaker 1: back and figure out who was the person responsible for
Speaker 1: that fire. But let's start with the shut down, because
Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer was talking about it today and so was
Speaker 1: Senator Kennedy. But the airline part of it, I don't
Speaker 1: know whether you have travel if you're on traveling our
Speaker 1: business or you're on vacation, but the airlines are a mess.
Speaker 1: Pete Mundine, who covers aviation it was talking giving a
Speaker 1: report on it earlier today.
Speaker 3: Listening well, it's important to note that the Newark Approach
Speaker 3: Control facility, which is actually in Philadelphia, has been plagued
Speaker 3: by staffing shortages for months, although it is rare that
Speaker 3: we see it make the list published by the FAA
Speaker 3: during the morning shift. You know we are not out
Speaker 3: of the woods yet when it comes to controllers calling
Speaker 3: out sick. During this government shutdown, and just yesterday we
Speaker 3: saw a huge list from the FAA of staffing shortages
Speaker 3: and places where we normally don't see staffing shortages Houston, Dallas, Indianapolis, Philadelphia, Boston, Atlanta.
Speaker 3: The problems were so bad at some major airports like
Speaker 3: Chicago O'Hare and Nashville that the FAA actually had delay
Speaker 3: flights going into those airports. There was a ground stop
Speaker 3: in place for Nashville, about a quarter of all flights
Speaker 3: delayed at Chicago O'Hare, not near as dramatic as what
Speaker 3: we saw on Monday. The control tower at Hollywood Burbank
Speaker 3: International Airport had to go completely dark because of short
Speaker 3: staffing in the control tower.
Speaker 2: They are a condition known as ATC zero.
Speaker 3: Remember, controllers are working without pay during this government shutdown,
Speaker 3: and I want you to listen to their union chief
Speaker 3: Nick Daniels, who says this is not part of some
Speaker 3: coordinated sickout effort that actually would be illegal. He says
Speaker 3: that controllers are trying to simply get the job done,
Speaker 3: and there is a nationwide shortage of controllers. The margins
Speaker 3: are so thin that when a couple call outs sick,
Speaker 3: it leads to these delays.
Speaker 2: Listen, well, the bills don't stop.
Speaker 4: Just because we're going to get paid a bit back
Speaker 4: eventually doesn't mean that it makes it easier on them.
Speaker 4: So air traffic controllers are going to go to their
Speaker 4: primary job, but then they'll start having to take up
Speaker 4: a second job to making sure they have a steady
Speaker 4: streaming income. And we know the American people don't want
Speaker 4: to see that, and that's why the shutdown has to
Speaker 4: end to day before it becomes to measures.
Speaker 3: Just like that, Daniel's paints it is pretty dire, and
Speaker 3: Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says this is not political, although
Speaker 3: he does underscore in a statement and at a press
Speaker 3: conference on Monday that he says, Chuck Schumer can end
Speaker 3: this shutdown. The big thing here is the controllers are
Speaker 3: getting one more paycheck, a partial paycheck, next tuesday for
Speaker 3: work they have already done before the government shutdown. We
Speaker 3: will see if things get deeper as time goes on.
Speaker 3: Only eight days in and it was thirty five days
Speaker 3: another government shutdown that some controllers calling out sick and
Speaker 3: some major areas led to the end of that shutdown
Speaker 3: in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: So there you go. The it's spreading. There's a number
Speaker 1: of controllers that are calling in sick, and like you said,
Speaker 1: next week they're getting I think it's Tuesday. They get
Speaker 1: their check for the first couple of days of the
Speaker 1: month of October, and then after that they just got
Speaker 1: to wait with everybody else. The union guy said that, well,
Speaker 1: they're going to get paid later. But here's President Trump
Speaker 1: talking about whether or not the people that are laid
Speaker 1: off are going to get their pay.
Speaker 2: It really depends on who you're talking about. But for
Speaker 2: the most part, we're going to take care of our people.
Speaker 2: There are some people that really don't deserve to be
Speaker 2: taken care of, and we'll take care of them.
Speaker 1: In a different way, So not everybody's going to be
Speaker 1: treated the same. It's what he's saying, and we don't
Speaker 1: know who he's exactly talking about. Chuck Schumer, of course,
Speaker 1: thinks that it's all the Republicans' fault. But a reporter
Speaker 1: asked him, Hey, are you being stubborn because of the
Speaker 1: fact that you're worried about losing your Senate seat from
Speaker 1: New York?
Speaker 2: Are you worried about the pressure that you're getting from
Speaker 2: your left flank? And is that part of the reason
Speaker 2: that you even get know.
Speaker 5: The bottom line is very simple. We're fighting for the
Speaker 5: American people, and it's not just one small group of
Speaker 5: American people that want this. Hits across the board. Fifty
Speaker 5: five percent of Trump voters, hardly a flank in our
Speaker 5: party want this.
Speaker 2: That's why we're doing it. We believe that's our job.
Speaker 1: Just remember, I've given this tip before if you are
Speaker 1: ever running for political office, just remember to say many
Speaker 1: times over that you're doing it for the American people.
Speaker 1: I thought it was interesting that one of the reporters
Speaker 1: in a gaggle there actually brought at upicenter basically, are
Speaker 1: you worried about AOC? Are you worried about the far
Speaker 1: left side of the party because they turned on you
Speaker 1: last time you cooperated on a debt limit or something
Speaker 1: like that, and so he's afraid that they're going to
Speaker 1: push him out of his cushy office as a senator
Speaker 1: with AOC running against him. Senator John Kennedy always has
Speaker 1: interesting observations about all of this. Well, I listened to
Speaker 1: the clip of Senator Schumer. His his relationship with the
Speaker 1: truth is very casual. The truth is that this is
Speaker 1: a political shutdown. Senator Schumer is uh, he's nervous as
Speaker 1: a pregnant nun about losing his reelection to to the
Speaker 1: to the socialist wing of his party, led by Congresswoman
Speaker 1: ocasial Court is which is in control.
Speaker 6: Now. We will eventually come out of this this shutdown.
Speaker 6: Here's how I think it will happen, Uh, Chuck. Senator
Speaker 6: Schumer is a is a smart man. He's been around
Speaker 6: a long time. His his uh, his first car was
Speaker 6: a chariot. Washington is all he's ever known his entire life.
Speaker 6: He knows he's on shaky ground here in terms of policy.
Speaker 6: So here's how I think it'll end. Schimber will go
Speaker 6: to six or eight of his colleagues and say Democrats,
Speaker 6: of course, and say I want you to vote to
Speaker 6: lift the shutdown. Now he'll say, I can't vote with you.
Speaker 6: I've got to appear to be tough. I may even
Speaker 6: have to criticize you. But wink, wink, nod, nod. I'm
Speaker 6: trying to make the loon wing of the party and
Speaker 6: love me, but you bail me out here. But he's
Speaker 6: got to be careful with that because he doesn't want
Speaker 6: it to look like a mutiny, because then he looks
Speaker 6: even weaker.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Senator Kennedy's making the rounds because he's got a
Speaker 1: new book out about how to test positive for stupid
Speaker 1: or something lonely and how Washington never will. So it's
Speaker 1: he thinks that it's just yet everybody in the other things.
Speaker 1: This is all about Chuck Schumer trying to protect his
Speaker 1: hide and not to lose his gushy job as the
Speaker 1: senior senator from the state of New York. However, there
Speaker 1: is a Republican who is not with the crowd of Republicans.
Speaker 1: She's going against them. Marjorie Taylor Green. This is her
Speaker 1: position on all of this.
Speaker 7: How are we supposed to say it's a Democrat's fault
Speaker 7: when we're in charge of the White House, the House,
Speaker 7: and the Senate. People don't buy that. I know people
Speaker 7: back at home absolutely are calling basically bs on it.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'll send her that book that Kennedy wrote about
Speaker 1: how not to test positive for stupid. So, yes, the
Speaker 1: Republicans have the House, to Senate and the White House.
Speaker 1: The problem is is that in the Senate you need
Speaker 1: sixty vote in order to put the government back in business.
Speaker 1: The Republicans have fifty three. They got three Democrats to
Speaker 1: vote with them a couple of days ago, brings us
Speaker 1: to fifty six. Come on, Marjorie, you know, darn well
Speaker 1: the math isn't there. You don't have sixty votes in
Speaker 1: the Senate. But that was her show. She's bucking the
Speaker 1: party a little bit. She's been doing that lately. This
Speaker 1: lady that I want to talk about next is Katie Porter.
Speaker 1: And Katie Porter, I don't know why she irritates me
Speaker 1: so much, but she just does. She is from southern California,
Speaker 1: Orange County, just south of LA and it used to
Speaker 1: be a big Republican area, but it's not so much anymore.
Speaker 1: In any case, she was elected to Congress from Orange County.
Speaker 1: She I did one or two terms and then she
Speaker 1: decided to run for Senate from California and she lost
Speaker 1: big time. It's not even close. But now she's running
Speaker 1: for governor of California and the polls show it's pretty tight.
Speaker 1: But she's right up there along with one or two
Speaker 1: others that are in the catbird seat. So she's looking
Speaker 1: pretty good for the governor's race. So she did an interview.
Speaker 1: She's going around the state of California doing interviews with
Speaker 1: the California media and a lady from CBS thirteen in
Speaker 1: Sacramento was interviewing her, and Katie Porter was upset because
Speaker 1: of the fact that this woman was asking her questions
Speaker 1: that she did not want to answer. Here's a clip
Speaker 1: of that interview.
Speaker 2: And what I'm saying to you is that, well, to
Speaker 2: those voters, okay, so you I don't want to keep
Speaker 2: doing this, I'm gonna call it. Oh thank you. You're
Speaker 2: not gonna do the interview with them?
Speaker 8: No, not like this.
Speaker 2: I'm not not with seven follow ups to every single
Speaker 2: question you ask every other candidate has. I don't care less.
Speaker 2: I don't care.
Speaker 1: She was mad because the reporter was asking follow up
Speaker 1: questions to what she said. I guess she's used to
Speaker 1: reporters having a scripted list of questions and to hand
Speaker 1: it to her so she will know what the questions
Speaker 1: are going to be. But this reporter was doing a
Speaker 1: good job of Katie Porter said something. She did a
Speaker 1: follow up question, and Katie Porter just got mad about
Speaker 1: it and said, I'm not going to do it. I
Speaker 1: don't care. Well, listen to Si Cup and Ssie. I've
Speaker 1: known SD for a long time. She leans to the left.
Speaker 1: She tries to pretend she's on the right. She's not.
Speaker 1: She's a moderate lefty. But she was even taken back
Speaker 1: by Katie Porter.
Speaker 2: That we didn't hear was really important.
Speaker 9: The question being what are you going to do to
Speaker 9: win voters who did not vote for Democrats, who voted
Speaker 9: for Donald Trump of California's electorate. And she said I
Speaker 9: don't need them, which is saying the quiet part out loud.
Speaker 9: Maybe you don't need them, but the message should, of
Speaker 9: course not be one of entitlement and indignance. But I'm
Speaker 9: going to reach out to every voter in my state.
Speaker 9: I want to reach out to everyone because I'm running
Speaker 9: to be.
Speaker 2: Governor for every Californian.
Speaker 9: She said, I don't need them, and then got very
Speaker 9: annoyed that this great reporter was pushing back on what
Speaker 9: do you mean you don't need them? You're going to
Speaker 9: get every Democratic voter. Forty percent does not a small
Speaker 9: number of voters. That's a giant voting block, and you
Speaker 9: would need all the Democrats to come out and support you,
Speaker 9: and I don't know that she has that support.
Speaker 2: So this was a terrible, terrible interview.
Speaker 9: And it kind of goes to the entitlement that people
Speaker 9: see Democrats having. They saw democrats having it in twenty
Speaker 9: twenty four. I think a lot of people rejected that.
Speaker 9: And this is why you're seeing so many young upstarts
Speaker 9: like Zoran mom Donnie, like o Graham Plattner in Maine,
Speaker 9: like Omerfetta in Minneapolis running against longtime Democratic incumbents who
Speaker 9: are saying I'm not going anywhere. I don't care that
Speaker 9: I'm eighty, this is my job. You'd come take it
Speaker 9: from me messaging.
Speaker 10: Yes, one hundred percent. And I will also go even
Speaker 10: further to say the Democrats have a massive, massive, massive
Speaker 10: crisis in terms of messaging. I've said that for years,
Speaker 10: you know, emulating Donald Trump, which is what she just did,
Speaker 10: effectively saying, you know what, I'm going to only speak
Speaker 10: to the base. I'm not going to speak to anybody else.
Speaker 10: That may work for Donald Trump with a maggot base,
Speaker 10: it does not work in the Democratic Party.
Speaker 2: As he's absolutely right.
Speaker 10: Democrats are looking for is authenticity, and they're looking for
Speaker 10: people who are building community, and that community has to
Speaker 10: transcend just our base and include everybody who's fed up
Speaker 10: with what's going on right now.
Speaker 1: So if you missed it, what the question was was basically,
Speaker 1: forty percent of Democrats in the state of California voted
Speaker 1: for Donald Trump, and what do you say to them?
Speaker 1: And she got mad about it and refused to continue
Speaker 1: the interview, and that she was mad that the reporter
Speaker 1: was asking follow up questions. That's what a good reporter does.
Speaker 1: They don't have a script that said I know that
Speaker 1: did for Joe Biden, but no, that's not the way
Speaker 1: it works. So this lady has been coddled by friendly journalists,
Speaker 1: not that I can't call them journalists, friendly people in
Speaker 1: the media who have not pushed her on anything like
Speaker 1: this lady did at the CBS station Mary Catherine Ham,
Speaker 1: who is on the right side of the aisle. She
Speaker 1: observed all of this as well.
Speaker 2: This is so embarrassing.
Speaker 11: It is the bare minimum in politics that you should
Speaker 11: be able to analyze your own race, and that you
Speaker 11: should be able to speak to the forty percent of
Speaker 11: voters who might not otherwise agree with you. Presumably she
Speaker 11: would like to be the governor for all Californians, which
Speaker 11: includes those forty percent. She can't even countenance a follow
Speaker 11: up question on that. And I think the most telling
Speaker 11: sentence and here is she says, I've never had to
Speaker 11: do this. Ever, What kind of bubble do you live
Speaker 11: in if you have not received a follow up question?
Speaker 11: How have you been isolating yourself from every single person
Speaker 11: who might ask you something tough when it is literally
Speaker 11: your job to answer to reporters and to constituents. I
Speaker 11: would encourage everyone to ask her more and more questions
Speaker 11: because she needs so much practice at this.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to the left side of the aisle.
Speaker 1: Patrick Murphy, he's a former congressman representing the eighth district
Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania. This is a Democrat. Listen to his reaction
Speaker 1: to Katie Porter.
Speaker 12: I would say, there's millions of Repubets in California that
Speaker 12: if you're blessed enough to be the next governor, you
Speaker 12: got to lead all of the people of California, not
Speaker 12: just the Democratic Party that might help you get elected.
Speaker 12: And I think that is the problem with not just
Speaker 12: this candidate, but people in Washingt d C. They are
Speaker 12: so fixated on supporting their political party that they're putting
Speaker 12: their party over our country.
Speaker 1: Back to the right side, Cassie Smedley, she's a spokeswoman
Speaker 1: for people on the right.
Speaker 13: More broadly, it shows her true colors that she's a
Speaker 13: weak candidate, and also that she's not fit to represent
Speaker 13: the entire state of California, which includes Republicans and Democrats.
Speaker 13: But also I would note Abigail Spamberger having the same
Speaker 13: issues on the campaign trail, with local reporters asking her
Speaker 13: about boys and girls bathrooms and in girls sports, and
Speaker 13: she had a horrible answer for it. Democrats are not
Speaker 13: used to being asked just perfectly fair, reasonable questions because
Speaker 13: they're used to being coddled by the press. We need
Speaker 13: to be holding their feet to the fire. I know
Speaker 13: your show does it beautifully, but I will give a
Speaker 13: hats off to these local reporters who are also finally
Speaker 13: asking these Democrats some real questions.
Speaker 1: Again, the question that she was asked was, well, what
Speaker 1: do you say to the forty percent of Democrats that
Speaker 1: voted for Donald Trump? That seems like a legitimate question
Speaker 1: to ask, but apparently for Katie Porter. I don't know
Speaker 1: why she irritates me so much, but this might be
Speaker 1: just the latest example of it. What she would do
Speaker 1: when she was in Congress, and again, the people in
Speaker 1: her congressional district did not vote. Well, she's dropped out
Speaker 1: of that rais and ran for a senator from California,
Speaker 1: so she had a first statewide race and they did
Speaker 1: not vote for her at all. So we'll see if
Speaker 1: this has any impact. But what she would do, she
Speaker 1: was on various committees, and she was pretty clever about
Speaker 1: getting a bunch of gotcha questions lined up, and she
Speaker 1: would act so smug over whoever it was that she
Speaker 1: was asking questions because she had a gotcha questions that
Speaker 1: nobody would know the answer to, and she just thought
Speaker 1: that was so special. So, I mean, I'll go back
Speaker 1: to one of the comments about the Oh, it was
Speaker 1: Essie Cupp talking about the fact that Katie Porter acts
Speaker 1: entitled like she deserves. She's the governor that she's indignant
Speaker 1: that somebody would dare ask her to follow up question.
Speaker 1: So we'll keep an eye on Katie Porter and see
Speaker 1: how she does, hopefully not well. James Comy, former FBI director,
Speaker 1: indicted today federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. Elliott Williams, who
Speaker 1: is a lawyer at this observation about the case against
Speaker 1: James Comy.
Speaker 14: Yeah, even if the motions aren't filed, and we may
Speaker 14: get a sense as to what motions Comy is thinking
Speaker 14: about filing, the first one would be one to dismiss
Speaker 14: the indictment for in effect singling Jim Comy out. And
Speaker 14: the biggest evidence they will point to are probably the
Speaker 14: president's own statements himself. The President has made any number
Speaker 14: of statements on social media calling Jim Comey a crooked cop.
Speaker 14: There's the social media post we talked about on air
Speaker 14: several times, directing or at least mentioning Pam Vondi, the
Speaker 14: Attorney General by name, saying that we have to act
Speaker 14: now to bring prosecutions like those against Jim Comey to happen.
Speaker 14: Those are the kinds of things a defendant could easily
Speaker 14: point to as saying that he was singled out for
Speaker 14: prosecution in a way that was vindictive or malicious or
Speaker 14: out side the bounds of the law.
Speaker 2: Expect that right away.
Speaker 14: Now, Jim Coman can also just look at the substance
Speaker 14: of his indictment as well and say, look, this is
Speaker 14: just so thin, your honor, this ought to be thrown out.
Speaker 14: So he has a number of ways, and I think
Speaker 14: we can expect to will see them.
Speaker 1: This case is being filed in and will be heard
Speaker 1: in the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria, right across the
Speaker 1: river from the Capitol, and the prosecutor in this was
Speaker 1: the acting US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia,
Speaker 1: said you got a lot of pressure from the White
Speaker 1: House to prosecute James Comy, and he said, basically, I
Speaker 1: don't think we have a case. So he was being
Speaker 1: pressured to base he was going to be fired, so
Speaker 1: he resigned and Trump then said, well, I fired him.
Speaker 1: And he hired a lady who is one of his
Speaker 1: lawyers from some of his business dealings. Her specialty is
Speaker 1: insurance law, dealing with insurance companies. She's never prosecuted anybody,
Speaker 1: so this is brand new to her. Tom Dupree, former
Speaker 1: federal prosecutor, also takes a look at this case.
Speaker 15: One of the things that judges often do in these
Speaker 15: arraignements is basically set a trial scheduled up to and
Speaker 15: including an actual date that trial could begin, and look,
Speaker 15: I think this judge is fairly typical for the Eastern
Speaker 15: District of Virginia, which is a jurisdiction that is known
Speaker 15: for its rocket docket for moving cases along very quickly,
Speaker 15: very efficiently. This is not a particularly complex case, at
Speaker 15: least as far as criminal cases go, So wudn't surprise
Speaker 15: me at all to see the judge basically saying, look.
Speaker 2: Here we are, we're beginning today. Here's what the schedule
Speaker 2: is going to look like.
Speaker 5: Let's get it.
Speaker 1: On one more. Lawyer Andy McCarthy, who is a Fox
Speaker 1: News contributor on all things legal, he took a look
Speaker 1: at this case and he's not impressed.
Speaker 8: I don't believe they have a case based on what
Speaker 8: we've seen in the indictment and what we know from
Speaker 8: the public reporting. Now we're going to find out. You know,
Speaker 8: the arraignment was apparently unexceptional and unremarkable. That's usually the
Speaker 8: case the only thing that really happens is a plea
Speaker 8: get centered. But now the real work begins. The judge
Speaker 8: will set a schedule for the filing of motions. I
Speaker 8: expect that Comby's team is going to make motions, particularly
Speaker 8: about selective prosecution and that sort of thing, and the
Speaker 8: judge will have to rule on that. And if the
Speaker 8: case doesn't get thrown out prior to a trial date,
Speaker 8: we'll have a trial.
Speaker 1: So what happened was the judge of the rocket docket
Speaker 1: reputation was held because the judge said, let's do this
Speaker 1: and do it quickly. So he as there's a hearing
Speaker 1: coming up in November, another one in December. They'll be short,
Speaker 1: short and sweet, and at that point is expected that
Speaker 1: Comby's lawyers will ask for dismissal. But he already set
Speaker 1: the date for trial. If there is a trial, it
Speaker 1: will be January fifth, And that is unheard of in
Speaker 1: these kinds of cases. Usually takes months and months for
Speaker 1: these things to come to trial. But Kobe wanted this
Speaker 1: to be heard and heard quickly. So the case is
Speaker 1: going to be if it does go to trial, it
Speaker 1: will be January fifth. For that mark mark your calendars
Speaker 1: down in Los Angeles today, the Palisades fire now six
Speaker 1: eight hundred homes. People's lives just I don't want to
Speaker 1: say they were ruined, but I've always thought about fire
Speaker 1: being one of the worst disasters that you can experience
Speaker 1: because all of your possessions. It's not like some bad
Speaker 1: guy broke into your home and stole your laptop, computer.
Speaker 1: This is everything that you own is ash, including family heirlooms, photographs,
Speaker 1: things that are that you can't replace. All of that
Speaker 1: is gone, plus a lot of businesses in the Palisades
Speaker 1: area that we're all so burned to the ground. Well,
Speaker 1: they have made an arrest, and I'm just fascinated by
Speaker 1: these fire investigators how they can sip through ash and
Speaker 1: find evidence so that they can locate the arsonist. And
Speaker 1: that's exactly what they did. Bill is Salee, who is
Speaker 1: the US Attorney board that part of southern California, announce
Speaker 1: the arrest today.
Speaker 16: I'm Bill Saley, the acting United States Attorney for the
Speaker 16: Central District of California. Today we are announcing the arrest
Speaker 16: of twenty nine year old Jonathan Rindernecked for igniting a
Speaker 16: fire that ultimately burned down the Palisades earlier this year,
Speaker 16: killing twelve people, destroying more than sixty eight hundred structures,
Speaker 16: both homes and businesses, and damaging over one thousand more buildings.
Speaker 16: The complaint, unsealed today, charges the defendant with destruction of
Speaker 16: property by means of fire, a felony that carries a
Speaker 16: mandatory minimum five year federal prison sentence and is punishable
Speaker 16: by up to twenty years in federal prison. The defendant
Speaker 16: was arrested yesterday on a federal criminal complaint near his
Speaker 16: Florida residence, and he's expected to make his initial appearance
Speaker 16: today in the federal court in Orlando, Florida. I stress
Speaker 16: that the complaint contains allegations, and every defendant is presumed
Speaker 16: innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. The
Speaker 16: allegations in the affidavit are supported by digital evidence, including
Speaker 16: the defendant's chatchpt prompt of a dystopian painting showing in
Speaker 16: part a burning forest and a crowd fleeing from it.
Speaker 16: The allegations that's from his chat GPT. That's an image
Speaker 16: he produced a few months before the fire started. It
Speaker 16: shows the city being burned there. The allegations are further
Speaker 16: supported by the defendant and cell phone, his false statements
Speaker 16: to law enforcement, and his behavior during the Lachman fire,
Speaker 16: which defendant is charged with maliciously starting shortly after midnight
Speaker 16: on New Year's Day of this year, and which eventually
Speaker 16: became the Palisades Fire. Late last New Year's Eve, Rinderneck
Speaker 16: returned to Pacific Palisades after working the evening shift as
Speaker 16: an Uber driver. Two of his passengers told law enforcement
Speaker 16: that he appeared agitated and angry that night. After dropping
Speaker 16: off a passenger in Pacific Palisades, Rinderneck parked his car
Speaker 16: and tried and failed to contact a former friend. He
Speaker 16: exited the car, walked up a nearby trail, took iPhone
Speaker 16: videos at a nearby hilltop, and listened to a rap
Speaker 16: song whose music video including objects being lit on fire.
Speaker 16: The defendant had listened to this song and watched its
Speaker 16: music video repeatedly and the days leading up to the
Speaker 16: Lockman fire. Twelve minutes into the New year, environmental sensing
Speaker 16: platforms indicated that a fire had started. It took the
Speaker 16: defendant several tries to contact nine to one one to
Speaker 16: report the fire. He fled the scene in his car,
Speaker 16: but turned around after passing fire engines driving in the
Speaker 16: opposite direction to fight there to fight the fire. While
Speaker 16: the Lockman fire burned, the defendant walked up the same
Speaker 16: trail from earlier that night to watch the fire and firefighters,
Speaker 16: using his iPhone to take short videos of the scene.
Speaker 16: Although firefighters suppressed the blaze, the fire continued to smolder
Speaker 16: and burn underground within the root structure of the dense vegetation.
Speaker 16: So that fire started on January first, and it smoldered
Speaker 16: underground for about a week until on January seventh, heavy
Speaker 16: winds caused this underground fire to surface and spread above ground,
Speaker 16: causing what became known as the Palisades Fire, one of
Speaker 16: the most destructive wildfires in Los Angeles city history. Law
Speaker 16: enforcement got to work and by January twenty fourth had
Speaker 16: identified and interviewed the defendant. During his interview, he lied
Speaker 16: about where he was when he first saw the Lockman fire,
Speaker 16: claiming he was near the bottom of a hiking trail.
Speaker 16: Geolocation data for the nine to one calls showed that he
Speaker 16: was standing above the fire in a clearing, merely thirty
Speaker 16: feet from the blaze as it rapidly grew. As the
Speaker 16: world watched in horror, as the Palisades fire. Burned victims
Speaker 16: perished in the smoke and flames, homes where cherished family
Speaker 16: memories and belongings were turned to rubble and ash. The
Speaker 16: iconic Pacific Coast Highway along Malibu looked like a war zone.
Speaker 16: Thousands of people were forced to evacuate. The homes and
Speaker 16: businesses cannot be rebuilt. This arrest, we hope, will provide
Speaker 16: a measure of justice to all those who were impacted.
Speaker 1: So it's a little bit of digital investigative work. And
Speaker 1: just again I'm amazed by fire investigators on how they
Speaker 1: can find out where fires start, how they start, and
Speaker 1: to find the person that if there was an arsonist
Speaker 1: that set the fire. So telephones, cell towers, geo locating,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, even the guy who killed those
Speaker 1: four kids in Moscow, Idaho. You know, he had a
Speaker 1: master's in criminology and he knew to turn his phone
Speaker 1: off while he committed the murders. But it was also
Speaker 1: kind of stupid because he turned it off before he
Speaker 1: murdered them turned it back on. They used phones, they
Speaker 1: use your phone. They've got cameras everywhere, and environmentals censors
Speaker 1: determined that there was a blaze up there in the
Speaker 1: hills above the Palisades. So hats off to the Los
Speaker 1: Angeles investigators who were able to make this arrest. On
Speaker 1: Wall Street today, no, not a lot to talk about.
Speaker 1: The Dow was down one point off of its record
Speaker 1: to forty six thousand and six to oh one, SMP
Speaker 1: up thirty nine. The Nasdaq Love those Tex stocks up
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty five. The price of gold continues
Speaker 1: to be on a tear, up fifty six dollars a
Speaker 1: day to four thousand and sixty at the record. Oil
Speaker 1: up half a buck sixty two dollars and some change
Speaker 1: for a barrel of boil. Thank you for coming by today.
Speaker 1: We'll try this again tomorrow. I hope to see you there.