And welcome on in. It has been just a very news-driven morning this morning, and it does continue. One of the things that I do want to, because there's other news that is going on outside of Iran, and I want to welcome on into the program Rich McHugh, investigative correspondent with NewsNation. Rich, always great to have you on. Thanks for having me. We all know the Palisades fire. We talked about that a lot. Just so you know, Rich, I'm from Los Angeles, so I reported on this quite a bit. So let's talk about, you know, it's been roughly a year since all of these fires happened. And now we're finding out just how bad it was inside California and some of the mistakes that were made that led to a lot more damage being done in Southern California. You've been interviewing a guy by the name of Scott Pike. He's a 23-year veteran of the Los Angeles Fire Department. He is now giving some testimony as far as the missteps that happened during the fighting of these fires. And so talk about your conversations with Scott Pike and the warnings at the time that he had given that were essentially ignored. Sure thing. So as you as you said, I've been covering this since the beginning. and I've been interviewing the attorney who represents over 3,000 Palisades families suing the state for negligence, essentially. He deposed L.A. Fire Department firefighters in December, and the city put a confidentiality, for lack of a better word, block on them. And the question was why. Well, I think now we're understanding why. One of those firefighters, I think was Scott Pike. I did not interview him, but I was given the deposition, the video deposition that he was interviewed in December. And it's thoroughly damaging. It's brutally honest. And it's thoroughly damaging to the narrative that has been out there that this was essentially a wind-driven event, that this was, there was an arsonist, that the state is not at fault, that the city is not at fault. You know, this firefighter, probably a great risk to his career and to his, you know, his personal safety, I would say, came forward and said, look, I was one of the last firefighters in that burn scar when there was an initial fire. There was an initial fire on New Year's Eve, which was seven days, a week before the Palisades fire. It's called the Lockman fire. He said, I was in there. Our orders were to pull up the hoses. And as we were pulling up the hoses from putting out the fire from the night before, I noticed that essentially there were hot spots. They called them smokers, that there was smoke coming out of the ground and embers that when he kicked over, he said they were still crackling. And when he poured a little bit of water on them, they sighed, telling him this was still hot. And he recommended to his authorities that they, you know, essentially change mission for the day and not pull up the hoses, that they put this out. And essentially he says he was ignored. And now he says, you know, a year later, he's like, it sits heavy with me because I know that we left that hillside, you know, that area, right where the Palisades fire started, six days later, they left embers still sitting there. And, you know, there's been separate scientists by the defense that they brought in who triangulated exactly where the fire started. And it appears that the Palisades fire started something like within 200 yards of where this firefighter is talking and saying he was spotting these embers. And there's also independent video from hikers up there that have shown that area was smoking, not to mention drone video, which showed thermal imaging that shows that the whole area was bright red on camera, which signified that it was not put out, that the mop-up was not completely done. And now this damages the city and the state because they've always said, like, we did our job and it wasn't our state. Gavin Newsom was always saying this is not a responsibility. We pre-deployed all these trucks down to Southern California and to the area. Well, he didn't pre-deploy any trucks to the Palisades, which, you know, if you had this massive fire six days before a wind event, you'd think that you would, number one. and the city did not pre-deploy any trucks up there. So it's just pointing to, I don't think this is going to end very well for either side. You know, I think the Palisades victims are going to win on this one. Well, this was, I mean, so Scott Pike, firefighter, says this fire is not dead. There's still embers here. We cannot leave this here. And then ultimately it explodes into what became the Palisades fire, claiming the lives of 12 people and destroyed nearly 7,000 homes. So I can imagine why this firefighter that was ignored by his peers, I can understand why this must sit heavy with him. The L.A. Fire Department adamantly said that it was completely put out. But it sounds like, I don't know, look, I'm clearly not a firefighter, but you can tell when embers are hot. I mean, you can just tell. I mean, I've been around enough of enough fires to know these things. Do we know, did they at the very least go and check out where firefighter Pike was saying that there were embers? Did they at least check it out or no? I don't believe that they did. It sounds like he was the last guy in that area. Wow. And as he was going out, he was saying, hey, boss, like we should get up there and put this out or reactivate these hoses. And they didn't do that. They ignored him. and he said like look the the the attitude at the time was like you know people have been on overtime for days and we're all tired and this is the mission let's just complete the mission and get on out of here and um well and it looks like after after the lafd decided okay so we're going to walk away from this california state parks took over the the burn site and they would patrol it for days But I mean, I don't know what California state parks is or if they know what, you know, hot embers are that could spark another fire. But I mean, clearly the state of California, I mean, these lawsuits, does it look like, at least to you, just from a correspondent standpoint, does it look like the state of California is going to be, you know, paying some restitution to these folks? I think so. I mean, having been watching this from and reporting on it, it's almost like this testimony, you know, from my perspective, feels like game over for the state and the city. the state you know which has california state parks it is it is in their own laws that they are supposed to if the fire occurs on their land and it's deemed to be a threat to people it is their responsibility to close the close the park they did not do that and their people were supposed to be in that park monitoring it and one of the testimonies that just came out was a guy named John Oda from State Parks and he admitted that he was there the first day but he never returned after that and it's just one of a series of things revelations that when you put this all together um you know from my perspective as a reporter this this initial fire happened they didn't put it out completely they were supposed to be monitoring it in the days after it they did not they were not up there the hikers smelled and saw smoke documented it drone video saw that there were the hillside was still hot and then by the time this wind starts kicking up five and six days later it no wonder that something kicks back up and starts this massive fire. And they're trying to blame it on, you know, 100-mile-an-hour winds. Well, no, the conditions were set in the days leading up to this because they didn't put it out. So all it needed was a little wind to kick up. And Rich McHugh joining us, investigative correspondent for NewsNation. So talk about, because I know people in California, as I said, I'm from there, and there's a lot of, and I just don't know conservatives. I mean, I know folks that are Democrats, but there's not a lot of people that are happy with Gavin Newsom right now. Are people blaming the governor for this? Oh, yeah. I mean, they're saying, look, he's inept at managing things like this, and for him to be out there, you know, Recently, he was down in South America talking about how California is a model for climate change. And it's sort of laughable given the situation that is, you know, look, 7,000, nearly 7,000 homes were wiped and 12 people lost their lives. Like, this is a massive disaster that could have been prevented. I think people are aware of that in Los Angeles. Like they're connecting the dots. They're smart. People are smart and they can see that this did not need to happen. And the details and the testimony now are coming out to show that this fire could have been prevented. And all this lip service for the past year is exactly that. And I think they're outraged by it. Well, and you said, you know, Gavin Newsom flying around the world, talking about California being the poster state for climate change or whatever it was. You said it was laughable. I was laughing at the time you said that it was laughable. Real quickly, we've only got like a minute left, but there was a story that I covered a while ago, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass facing backlash because the L.A. Times reported that her office directed the watering down of that after action report regarding the 2025 Palisades fire. I mean, I think clearly, whether it's Gavin Newsom or Karen Bass, whether they're willing to admit it in public or not, I think that they know that they are under scrutiny. Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, I don't have independent confirmation of the watering down of that report, but I've spoken to enough people and, you know, heard the testimony of these people that they were essentially instructed to, you know, change the recorded history. or like soften it. And, you know, it's just when there's something like this happens, such a big, you know, catastrophe, people are going to be held liable. And I think the people who we all know should be held liable are doing everything in their power not to be held liable. And that includes, you know, softening language around these reports. Like why the need to change any of the wording in an after-action report? You shouldn't even have any authority to change anything. It should be done by the firefighters or the people that were on the ground or the independent investigation team. So everything else is just performance art, at this point, in my opinion. Yeah, and Rich, as you know, the firefighter that actually did the report was so angry that he said, I want my name taken off the report. This is not even close to what actually happened. Rich McHugh, investigative correspondent with NewsNation, thank you very much for joining us on Super Talk. You always have great information and we'll look forward to talking to you again soon. Is it 819 on Supertalk 997 WTN? I want to play some real quick audio from Pete Hegseth, some audio from his news conference regarding what is going on in Iran. This is the Secretary of War talking about the fake news, talking about how this could turn into another. I'm going to air quote this another endless forever war. This is what Pete Hegseth said. To the media outlets and political left screaming, endless wars, stop. This is not Iraq. This is not endless. I was there for both. Our generation knows better, and so does this president. He called the last 20 years of nation-building wars dumb. And he's right. This is the opposite. This operation is a clear, devastating, decisive mission. Destroy the missile threat, destroy the Navy, no nukes. Israel has clear missions as well, for which we are grateful. Capable partners, as we've said since the beginning, capable partners are good partners. Unlike so many of our traditional allies who wring their hands and clutch their pearls, hemming and hawing about the use of force. america yep that is secretary of war pete hegseth uh the other thing that he said i'm sorry the other thing that he said is that uh this is not a regime change war uh let me play just a couple of other soundbites i've not heard these because i was on the air so jones if you want to have a little fun with audio from secretary of war pete hegseth uh here's more about um you know not only what he's saying about Iran, but also a warning to the rest of the world. It took the 47th president, a fighter who always puts America first, to finally draw the line after 47 years of Iranian belligerence. He reminded the world, as he has time and time again, being an American means something unbreakable. If you kill Americans, if you threaten Americans anywhere on earth, we will hunt you down without apology and without hesitation, and we will kill you. So one of the things, and I will say, and I've been honest with this for, I mean, weeks now, and that is that I have some reservations about what we're doing in Iran. I just do. That doesn't mean that I'm a Democrat or anything. I've just, we don't know how this whole thing is going to end. And so we'll have to ultimately wait and see what happens. I do like, though, what Pete Hegseth is saying. and and i don't think that we should be apologetic about what we're doing i i if we're going to do it let's go all in if we're going to do it let's make sure that we completely annihilate iran's military let's make sure that we make sure that they don't have any uh you know real military or nuclear capabilities and by the way as uh you know we've been saying a couple of different times this morning okay so the fact that iran decided that it would be a good day to bomb you know the likes of, you know, Qatar and Doha and United Arab Emirates, you know, it doesn't make any sense why they're doing this. They're just lashing out. And so as Congressman Scott Deja Arley said, can you imagine if these people had actually a nuclear weapon? So the way that, Joan, the way that Iran is actually responding to this actually, in a way, justifies what the Trump administration is doing. You know what word we'll never hear about this particular conflict? What's that? Quagmire. No, I don't think so. Because it's not going to, it's going to have a definitive beginning and a decisive end. It'll be over. Yeah. And here's the thing. And this is going to be, this is going to be on the Trump administration. And they are saying we, this is going to be a four to five week mission. That's what it's going to be. And after that, we are gone. It is up to Iran to figure out what's next. Here's more from Pete Hegseth. Turns out the regime who chanted death to America and death to Israel was gifted death from America and death from Israel. I actually love that quote. Yeah, me too. He said a lot of things there that during this press conference that I thought it just it reflects President Trump's view of how this should go, which is not like anything else we've seen before. We're not going to be in these. They call them endless wars. It's not going to be the mission is defined. And once it's over, it's over. And here's the deal. As a guy who has some serious reservations about all of this, I like what I hearing They making me feel better there To me anyway they are justifying what they did And that appreciated Here more from Pete Hegseth This is not a so regime change war But the regime sure did change And the world is better off for it. So it sounds like Pete Hegseth and, of course, Donald Trump replaced some audio earlier from last night, both justifying going into Iran and doing what we're doing. Again, as I said before, Iran's response really does also justify what we are doing. Do I still have reservations? Absolutely. Do we know how this whole thing is going to end? No, no, we don't. As I said before, this could be this could be the greatest thing that Donald Trump ever did, or it could be the worst thing Donald Trump ever does. We'll just have to wait and see how the whole thing plays out. Get to the boot-in-the-butt part. Come on. 838, Nashville's Morning News. Supertalk 99. Are we doing this now? He's got the helicopters. Is this what you're going to do? You warmonger. Sam is warmongering today. Pro-war producer. Pro-war producer. There's nothing worse than a pro-war producer. I am pro-American soldiers. Thank you very much. Wait, turn it up right here. That's the best part right there. Do you remember, I remember driving, I was in L.A. when all this was going on. I remember driving down the 101 freeway and hearing this song for the first time. Holy crap. Chills. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, very much so. And so, you know, it's interesting. So today I've been accused, Joan, you'll love this too. Yeah. So today I've been accused of being a warmonger and a pacifist. Like, how does that happen? Okay. How can I be called a warmonger and a pacifist? You're taking notes from the Trump administration. You're doing two things at once. Apparently so. There it is. So, yeah, because... It took a long time to get to that point. Yeah. One of the things I think is interesting is, so, because I'm, I'm, I, I don't know how many times, you know, it's so funny. Like, I'm, I have said, and I even said in our podcast, which, by the way, we were horrifically wrong. Oh, we're way off. You know how many times I've heard this? The podcast over the weekend. We're like, maybe, maybe nothing happens at all. And this is just saber rattling. He's not going to do anything. Famous last words. Famous last words. But, you know, I've been open about my reservations on this from the start. But I'm not going to spend four hours of my radio broadcast screaming about how, you know, Trump is a warmonger. No, you can't do that. No. We'll find out the success or failure of this mission, you know, months or even years from now. And that's the thing. Like, right now it looks like a military success, but who knows what this turns into or what this looks like a couple years from now. It just depends. Hindsight is going to be the judge of this. Like many wars. You know what I mean? So we'll have to see ultimately who takes over in Iran. But I got to tell you, I'm incredibly impressed with the the military execution of all the same can't be said for Kuwait, who shot down three of our airplanes. But, you know, by and large, I mean, what we did in Iran and they just had a map up on CNN. And this was this is a massive country and they had attacks. We attacked them in all parts of the country. Thousands of bombs. Pinpoint accuracy. They got the Ayatollah when he was at a meeting with everybody. All the big dogs. I love that part of it. I love that part of the story. Yeah, 48. So the Ayatollah and 48 of his best friends turned into rubble. Was Joan sending you savage memes over the weekend as well? No. Joan, why are you not sending me savage memes, Joan? I sent it to you. Joan sent savage memes. My wife's jaw dropped when I showed her the meme that Joan sent me. Joan didn't send me any memes. You didn't get a meme of Khomeini turned to ash? Oh, okay, this one's funny. Not ash, that was sand, baby. That was sand. Details matter. What's the difference over there anyway? Yeah, so I actually, I showed my wife too. I'm going to, there you go. So you've got a pile of ash or sand or whatever it is with Khomeini's glasses and a turban. Yeah, how did they not destroy the glasses, Joan? Yeah, well, maybe he took them off for a minute. Facts matter, Joan. Yeah. Whatever. That meme was fake news. But it was fun to look at. It was funny. Brian says, I'm bipolar. I'm not bipolar. Am I? Well, they're saying because you said you're a warmonger and a pacifist. Oh, and a pacifist? Yeah. Okay, very good. Very good. I get called a lot of things, and that's fine. Not a problem whatsoever. whatsoever. Yeah, it's gonna happen. I wore my Kilkhameney Scali cap today. Yeah, I noticed that when I walked in. I said, is that your war scali? That's my war scali. That's what I'm wearing, Joan. You missed my war scali. Oh, man. You missed it. What's it look like? It looks like a war scali. This is not hard, Joan. It's got red stripes that symbolize the blood of his enemies. Is that a gold stripe? It's a gold stripe for the golden age that we have now entered. Exactly. Keep it going, yeah. And the golden age that Iran perhaps is about to enter as well. The gray for the darkness that has been cast over our enemies. Is there sand color? I think you could call that some sand. That sand color represents the ash that is the Kamanias now? Yeah. Sure, that's exactly what it is. The war scally. The war scally. This will be forever known as the war scally. I've got to find a peace scally now. No, no, no, no. No peace scalies allowed. Okay, very good. Only war scalies. No, I want to get a peace scally too because then that'll be an excuse to buy another Scali. I'm addicted, man. Do you need an excuse at this point to buy another Scali? To my wife. Yeah. Yeah, it's becoming an issue. Is she also saying they're all the same shape for the most part? They're just different colors, and some of them are even close to similar colors? I have explained, Sam, to my wife that I need different colors for different outfits. You need diversity, equity, and inclusion of your Scali cap collection. Well, I have to have inclusion that my scally cap has to match my clothes. Anyway, what else is going on? Did you see Joe Biden make an appearance over the weekend? What is he doing? Nobody really knows. I don't even think if you asked him, he would be able to tell you what he's doing. He hasn't aged well. I mean, he just he's he's still you know what? I don't know if he sounds any worse than he did when he left office, but he certainly didn't sound any better. Well, I DM do the clip on on X. He is on a, I don't even know what you would call this. Would you call this a campaign trail event? Anyway, he said the day he left office, the economy was the strongest in the world. And that the border were the lowest than the day that he entered in office. This is Joe Biden over the weekend. The day I left office, border crossing the United States were lower than the day that I entered an office inherited from Trump. What about the four years in between then, you dolt? I mean, good. Wait, did people applaud? Let me. He is. I won't say it. That's just a fact. What won't he say? That he's effective? his messaging has been clear people stopped coming to the southern border because of him it's secure people understand what our policies are he didn't need the bipartisan border bill on the day he left office I handed Trump the strongest economy in the world that's not hyperbole that's a fact it's not hyperbole but it is pretty silly yeah Yeah, I don't know what he's doing out. Like, nobody, does anybody, Joan, is anybody pining to see or hear from Joe Biden? I have not heard that anybody's pining to see him. But here's what I think is the good news out of all of this. That now that they only rolling him out every once in a while he only getting those amphetamines that prop him up every once in a while You think that good for him Joan Well it better that they not doing it every single day because they had to before I don't know. Now it's just every once in a while. I just don't, I just... My favorite Biden is messed up Biden. Messed up? Messed up. Mine is weekends at Bernie Biden. Oh. When they have to carry him around everywhere. Unlike you two, I have no favorite Biden, And only worst favorite Bidens. Least favorite, I guess that's what I want to say. Is that what you want to say? Do you know what? I wish I was bipolar. The other side of me would be smarter and able to speak more clearly. Would that happen? Would the other side of you be a savant and the other side of you be, you know, on the shorter bus? I don't know. I've never really thought about what it would be like to be a savant. You know, I'm a short bus kind of guy, as a matter of fact. But you know what? I'm not as bad as Joe Biden. No. So there you go. He I think that after this big speech, I think he was kind of grateful that Iran got bombed. So people didn't remember and roast him. You know what? You can trace not to belabor the point, but you can trace Iran's aggression to Joe Biden. 100 percent. And his unwillingness to enforce the sanctions of Donald Trump. I mean, we could go on and on about that. That funded October 7th. That funded October 7th. The Iranian military trained Hamas, and they went into Israel and killed 1,200-plus. All of this can be traced right back to Joe Biden. And Barack Obama. And Barack Obama. Pallets of cash. Pallets of cash. What was it, 1.7 billion? Is that what it was? I think it was around there. It was a lot of money. Do you remember when the Iranians boarded one of our ships and took all the guys hostage for a period of time? I was baffled by how that happened. I was baffled by that too. It wasn't long after that that the pallets of cash started flowing to Iran. Thank you, Barack Obama. You know, it would take about half a mile, if I were captain of a ship, half a mile to take out an Iranian ship. You know what I mean? Well, I don't think that's something that you'll ever have to worry about again because it looks like all of those boats have been sunk. They're down at the bottom of the bottom of the ocean. They lost the game of battleship. They sure did. Boy, and that was a pretty, pretty quick game, too. You know what I mean? Like, if you think about we're talking, I don't know if it was on the air or off the air, but how even if you have like me, if you have reservations about all this, you cannot. You cannot dismiss the the military might of the United States. And I think that's probably maybe primarily one of the reasons why China and Russia are not, you know, really jumping in with any effective military action because they know that what they're seeing from the United States is like, holy crap. Well, I think the reservations, too, aren't about the military operation that took place this weekend. It's what happens in two weeks, three weeks, six months, a year. Are we still embroiled in this conflict or is it going to be the four week campaign that Hegseth says it's going to be? That's exactly right. By the way, Ice-T says, Chris, you are a dog-faced pony soldier, messed up Biden. When you say Biden is messed up, do you mean like he's messed up with a lisp or do you mean like he's on meth? I meant crystal meth. Crystal meth. Yeah. Okay. Amphetamines. Okay. Crystal meth amphetamines. To be able to stand up and do his spiels in public. A lot of meth. A lot of meth. By the way, did you see... Allegedly, reportedly. They didn't find it in the White House, only cocaine. No, but I firmly believe that that cocaine was Hunter's. I do. And maybe Hunter was going to give it to his dad. I don't know. Maybe he brought enough to share with the class. Do you know what was fun? I don't know if you have this, but I did this earlier. But, you know, I love when Kamala Harris said this about Iran. Don't. Right, remember that? Yes. And then we had Donald Trump from 2016. I'm going to bomb the shit out of them. It's true. I don't care. I don't care. I mean, I think it's great. Well, there's a big debate online with Trump. You know, people are playing his old clips back about no new wars, no Middle Eastern quagmires. But there's also a ton of other clips, even dating back to his campaign in 2015, where he's saying Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. So people are trying to make this frame that says Donald Trump flip-flopping, but I don't think he has. There's nothing wrong with what I would say is preventative attack where, OK, so they were, you know, Donald Trump said they were threatening us. And so he went in. Now, realize, though, the other side of that will be, yeah, but they've always threatened us. What have they ever actually done? Right. So that's the other side of it. but for me i think that we're gonna have to see if this uh turns out to be a and i'm air quoting here a forever war uh or if we are going to be done in four or five weeks we we don't know anything yet people were asking me over the weekend i know this happened to you too what do you think about all this i don't know yeah i was getting texts uh like saturday morning as everything's did you wake up to it too yeah and i was like i don't know i haven't really thought about this at all. And then I spent the majority of the weekend not paying attention to the news whatsoever and just being dad because I knew that by Sunday evening, things were going to have been reported that have been redacted. Things were going to change and the situation was going to develop very, very quickly. So I actually tried to avoid the news at all costs until Sunday evening. Let's see here. Eighty four three says that I believe the Coke was Kamala's. Could have been. Does she remind you in her jabber-jawedness, does she remind you of a cokehead? It wouldn't shock me. I wouldn't go there right away. I would just say just, you know, the wine aunt. I think that's more common, more likely. Yeah, she's just the cool wine aunt. What is that wine aunt? What are you talking about? She doesn't have any kids of her own, so she gets drunk on the weeknights. Oh, I see what you're saying. So why not do a heap of coke? Well, who's, what's a little bump between friends, you know? I wouldn't know, Chris, no. Joan, do you know what's a little bump between friends? Yeah, well, yeah, unfortunately I do, yeah. Let's go, Joan. Oh, wow. I wasn't expecting that answer. Am I the only non-drug user on the radio station right now? Listen, listen, listen, listen. You're in the news. You should know these kind of things. Thank you, Joan. It should not be a foreign concept to you. Thank you, Joan. Doing bumps among friends. Joan, do you know what a bump is? Are we still talking the same thing? Are we talking a bump of cocaine? Yes. Okay. That's what we're talking about, right? Yeah. Okay, good. I've never been on cocaine. Well, at least you know if Joan has some, she'll share. Yeah, I have some, sure. All righty. Let's see here. It is 8.54. Joan, once you come down from that bump of cocaine, what's coming up in the news at 9? Well, a fourth member of the U.S. military has now been announced to have died in the fighting in Iran. So we've got that and what the ABC News has to say about the latest on what's happening in Iran this morning. It's coming up at 9 on Supertalk 99.7 WTN. To be fair for Joan, she's working from home today, so she doesn't have Wally's Bean Machine. So the bump of cocaine is the best thing that she's got. Very helpful. It's the best that she's got. Wallysbeanmachine.com. You know what's nice about Wally's Bean... Is that their new slogan? Better than a bump. Wally's Bean Machine. Do you know what I like about Wally's Bean Machine at wallysbeanmachine.com? What's that, Dan? You know, we have all these radio stations in this building, and people that I actually have nothing in common with, I now have something to say. We do. Hey, what's your favorite Wally's Bean Machine cup of coffee? And we've all got one. Everybody does. Folks, if you care about your employees, get Wally's Bean Machine at wallysbeanmachine.com. And if your employer doesn't have a Wally's Bean Machine, I think that that's an indictment on them that they don't care about you and you should find a new job. You know what? When you're up for – this is what I would do. If you're like some highfalutin employee and you're up for like contract renegotiation, no green M&Ms in the candy box and Wally's Bean Machine in the kitchen. Wallysbeanmachine.com. Perfect. I think that's pretty good, wasn't it? Heck of a read.
