and it just fell on deaf ears. and i do think that kamala harris was put in a nearly impossible position of having, what, 107 days to run for president, just getting this thrown in her lap, really unable to fully break from the problems of the biden administration. i think that democrats i think joe biden is trying to salvage his legacy. and i think this is this is a not not getting it, by the way, the energy change i saw i saw kamala harris in atlanta, like right after she got the nomination, the energy change among democrats was so big. >> i don't think the democratic energy would have been behind joe biden. >> and we can't forget that all these younger people, all these people that were very unenthusiastic about the race between trump and biden, suddenly showed a lot of enthusiasm. um, my my kids in their late 20s, you know, their friends, they were all very, very excited about her. so those were people we likely wouldn't have seen. vote. >> yeah. thank you all for being here this morning. thanks to you for joining us as well. i'm kasie hunt. do stay with

us. we've got major breaking news out of the west coast. cnn news central starts right now. >> breaking right now. >> apocalyptic conditions across southern california as ews battle a life threatening firestorm. >> three wildfires raging in l.a county from the hills to the valley, all of them 0% contained and spreading rapidly. neighborhoods are engulfed, homes wiped off the map, and nursing homes had to be evacuated. the state of emergency now in place for tens of thousands of residents. >> president-elect trump heads to washington, which is already part of the united states. >> so what is his next target now for international expansion and more big changes coming to meta. >> first, they fired the fact checkers. now new guidelines that people fear will make it easier to post hate speech on the platform. i'm kate baldwin with john berman and sara

sidner. this is cnn news central. >> we begin with breaking news. multiple wildfire emergencies are happening right now in los angeles county. three separate fires rapidly spreading, all of them 0% contained as life threatening winds right now fuel the fires rage this morning. firefighters rushing to save lives as officials warn the worst is yet to come. tens of thousands of people have been told to evacuate, many racing from their homes against simply apocalyptic conditions. right now, abandoned cars are being moved by bulldozers as they block smoke filled streets. many people forced to flee on foot as the flames closed. in this hour, the palisades fire is the largest fire burning at the moment, at one point said to be burning about five football fields every single

minute. this was the scene just a short time ago. >> we are burning on both sides. this is the high school to my left. the high school is burning. the football field. all the hills on temescal canyon. this is right past sunset, right past sunset drive. these are apartment buildings and homes. and again, this is the palisades charter high school. this looks to be the swimming area. seems to be fine, but right up the road i don't know if you can see that we walk right up here. fire trucks are zooming all over because the hills every side of temescal is on fire. we had to get out of the almario avenue area because i think i have some video of that, or we're trying to turn it around, but almario avenue is also now burning on both sides as embers were being pushed across the road. >> now, as you see, that. you see that gust. back there

wow. oh, there we go. >> i mean, you can see just how insanely destructive and difficult it is to deal with these particular weather conditions. and there were some terrifying moments for our cnn crews. both nick watt and natasha chen had to race to safety. we will show you more on that soon. but first, meteorologist derek van dam standing by and our stephanie elam is live for us in the pacific palisades at the moment. we're going to start with you, stephanie. i see that throughout the morning. you've been dealing with this. the fires are burning right behind you. tell me what you're experiencing. >> yeah. i have to tell you, sarah. like, you know how many wildfires we have covered here in california? in two. you know, getting here was the scariest drive i've had to make to a wildfire. since i can remember covering wildfires. because there are power lines down. it is smoky, it's dark. there are fires burning along the pacific coast highway. for

people who have not been out here, it is some of the most beautiful stretch of highway you could ever imagine. it's also treacherous with some turns, and it's right up against this rugged terrain that you find here. pacific palisades and malibu. and that is why this is so concerning. when you look at what we're seeing behind here, this fire, the palisades fire, is still raging. and on top of it, you talked about how fast it's growing. do you see these winds that we are dealing with right now that just blew that fire up that you're looking at right there? just blew it up. it was burning beforehand. but now you can hear i don't know if you guys can hear it, but it's almost like a snap, crackle, pop that is happening back there of everything popping inside of it like popcorn going off inside of that building. as this fire has exploded, the alarms have been going off for hours. we've watched another building burn down here. all of this is why tens of thousands of people are evacuated, why they want people to stay away. and when you talk about those evacuations, take a listen to these two women talking about what it was like getting out.

>> it's literally apocalyptic. when we were running down, you could see palm trees just like random palm trees on fire. so i'm sure leaves are burning and falling down. >> we got in the car to go and then all the cars were abandoned, so i had nowhere to go. so i just had to get out of my car and start walking. and i've lived in malibu my whole life, and i've seen tons of fires. this is nothing i was i'm scared for my life. it was. it's terrifying. >> completely terrifying. and, you know, she mentioned those palm trees. they're beautiful. we associate them with california, but they're also flame throwers because once that top gets caught up in fire, you know how pliant palm trees are. they can just flow, throw that fire. and in these winds, those embers take off and they can land someplace else and start a fire. also worth noting that l.a. county is in a drought here. this is the driest start to the wet season on record period. we have not had enough rain. in fact, we barely have had any at

all. the fact that we are looking at january and dealing with this just shows you how dire of a situation climate change has made this. sara. >> yeah, it's really true. this is the first time, you know, you and i have covered so many of these fires, and it's the first time i've been afraid for people across l.a. county. it's not just in one area. these fires are burning all over. can you give us a sense of just what it feels like to be out there in the wind, which, as i understand it, we still have 4 or 5 hours left to go of this really intense wind that's spreading these flames. >> first of all, when i woke up this morning, it's because i heard the wind this morning last night, depending on how you look at it, the wind was actually that loud. then when i walked out of my place, i could smell the fire. that has never happened where i live. so this shows you that this is a different kind of response, waiting to come talk to you. i've been standing here. there's been a couple of gusts that blew me off my feet, so it feels like, you know, we're covering our hurricane. something else. we both have done. these winds are no joke. and when i tell you that that

wind hit that fire, the whole sky lit up with all of the orange of that fire and it's burning brighter. this is nothing to play with. this is nothing like we've seen before. you hear so many people saying that. and then you've got to keep in mind up inside those communities there tight roads, they're very narrow. it is hard to maneuver and get in and around that. you add in fire, you add in all the water from fighting the fires and it is dangerous and treacherous out here. >> stephanie, please stay safe. i know you know how to do that with you and your crew, but thank you for being out there. we're going to revisit you because i know these things change so quickly, and the possibility of that fire sparking even more fires and more buildings is really, really high at this hour. thank you so much. i appreciate you. >> kate, and are also our colleague natasha chen. she was reporting all day on the palisades fire yesterday, and as she and her crew wrapped up for the night, they then discovered that fire had essentially exploded all around them and their route out. you can see this is what they came

upon and what they were driving through. as they were getting out, they got out safely. here's how natasha described it afterward. >> we were there from about noon until about just after 6 p.m. local time, when we had finished our last live shot. and i guess what, we hadn't quite surmised was exactly how bad it had gotten south of us on pacific coast highway. and that's the way we came in to get to our spot to cover the fire. and we knew that we had heard reports that the flames jumped the highway. but i guess we had not seen with our own eyes just exactly what that meant and what that looked like for us getting out of there. so at the end of the night, you know, we're i, we pulled up to a fire truck and kind of waved at a firefighter and said, hey, where do you think is the best way for us to leave to get out of here? he kind of shook his head at us and said, well, i guess you go south. and so

that's what we did. um, pretty quickly realizing that there were flames on both sides of the highway. they were embers flying over the lanes of the highway. i spotted an emergency vehicle and decided our best bet is to just follow that car to follow right behind him as closely as possible. if he's driving, then he's probably knowing the best way out. so as we're driving behind this emergency vehicle, i'm hearing an explosion on my right. there are houses on fire right up against the road on the left. and as i mentioned, embers flying. and so at this point, i'm just holding my breath. um, and i can feel the heat from inside the car and just watching the embers fly across the windshield. so, um, not ideal in that kind of, um, you know, we get put on a lot of kind of risky assignments. and in this situation, we had to make a calculated risk for the best way to leave. and i

think, um, you know, thankfully, we got out of there and we got a real look at just the level of destruction and, um, really the fear that a lot of those residents might be feeling if they're looking at those images on the news, if they've evacuated, i can't imagine they're they're wondering if their house is is the next one on fire, if they have anything to go home to? >> thankfully, natasha and her crew, as we know, got out safely, but unbelievable what what was not there when they went in and then what they then what they had to drive by going out. >> let's get right to cnn meteorologist derek van dam to figure out when these conditions might get better. what are we seeing right now, derek john, the next few hours are absolutely critical in west l.a. >> county. and just going back to what natasha experienced and what stephanie was describing with regards to how quickly

these fires spread under these types of conditions. the palm trees that are notorious to southern california. here's one burning out of control. but look at the incredible amount of wind that's not only shaking this vehicle, but taking those embers and quickly spreading them across the road, starting and igniting additional what we call spot fires. this is the moment that the palisades fire erupted yesterday, and you can see the direction of the wind, with the smoke plume just emanating out into the open of the pacific ocean. here's what i'm concerned about. as it stands right now, the immediate threat. you're looking at west l.a. county and the palisades fire, the area that's burned is right here. you can see some of the topography. these are actually buildings, homes, residents, apartments, businesses. this is a canyon right here. and with the video i showed you just a moment ago, you can imagine the winds whipping up and over these canyons and into the valleys below, taking the embers, spreading them, and starting

additional spot fires. you can see one there. there's another one. that is how quickly and how rapidly that this will spread. so what we've got right now is this northerly component to the wind. if we start to see what's called a backing of the wind to more of a north northwest, that would put more of western l.a. county at threat. so more residential area, more densely populated areas, there is some relaxing of the winds forecast later this afternoon, but then again with santa ana winds, they will pick up overnight and into tomorrow morning. as we typically see with santa ana wind events, they peak right around the dawn hours. john. >> all right, derek, watching this very closely, as we heard in stephanie's piece there, it's the sounds that can be the most terrifying. you can hear the wind gusts. you can hear the embers popping. we'll come back to you in a little bit. derek. thank you very much, sarah. all right. >> ahead, president-elect trump says he has not ruled out using military force to take greenland and the panama canal. how did he suddenly go from

isolationist to imperialist? plus, a look at exactly what will be allowed on facebook and instagram now that the fact checkers are gone and much more ahead on those breaking wildfires in california. take a listen to this. >> just when you think you know what the fire is going to do, it swirls around and comes behind you. so it's definitely erratic. >> patients who have sensitive teeth but also want whiter teeth. they have to make a choice one versus the other. sensodyne clinical white provides two shades whiter teeth, as well as providing 24 over seven sensitivity protection. patients are going to love to see sensodyne on the shelf. >> why do nfl players choose a sleep number? smart bed. >> i like to sleep cool and i like to sleep even cooler. >> and i really like it when we both get what we want. >> introducing the new sleep number climacool smart bed. >> sleep up to 15 degrees cooler on each side. visit a sleep number store near you. >> skating for over 45 years has taken a toll on my body. >> i take qunol turmeric because it helps with healthy joints and inflammation

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powering possibilities™. four weeks, get your custom formulas today at proz.com. >> all right, we do have breaking news. this is brand new video just in. remarkable footage. you can see the flames raging in the pacific palisades. this was captured by a woman on a flight approaching los angeles international airport. and we've got more breaking news. just in seconds ago, the mayor of los angeles just posted. she expects these conditions to get worse. the conditions are expected to get worse over the next several hours. we've seen remarkable footage of these fires. i hope we see much more. the situation already bad getting worse. nick watt is in

the middle of it. >> this is palisades village, the heart of pacific palisades. >> this used to be a restaurant. i don't know what that was because there's nothing left. i can't tell what that used to be, but you can feel what the problem is. it's this wind. and the wind is only going to get worse. it's the wind. flip. look at these embers, chris. look at these embers. any one of these embers could go and cause a fire somewhere else. look, we've got this. we've got another fire spot. fire up here, just around the corner. an entire apartment building was gone. it's dry vegetation. it's wind. it's a terrible combination. 30,000 plus people evacuated. we have no idea yet how many structures have been lost. but we have been up in the

hills. million dollar homes. we've seen destroyed. we're down here in the village. apartment buildings, restaurants destroyed. the question is, just how far is this fire going to go before the wind finally dies down? nick watt, pacific palisades. >> california. and our thanks to nick and his team. let's get right to doctor ariel cohen, meteorologist in charge with the national weather service in los angeles. doctor, thank you so much for being with us, the mayor of los angeles. and we're going to put as many pictures as we can so people can see the conditions in los angeles. during our conversation, the mayor of los angeles just posted that she expects these conditions to get worse. what are you expecting the next several hours? >> powerful winds, destructive winds are ongoing right now. >> we're getting observations showing 70 to 90 mile per hour winds over the mountains, continuing some of the lower elevations from the san gabriel valley all the way to the malibu coast area, getting 50 to 70 mile an hour winds that are going to

continue to carry these fires rapidly forward, creating just paths of destruction. and everyone needs to be listening very carefully to emergency notifications, evacuation orders. and when they come, you need to take action. evacuate to save your life. >> what population centers are you most concerned about at this minute? >> right now, areas from the pasadena to altadena area also westward throughout the san gabriel valley, extending across the san fernando valley, and certainly the santa monica mountain range all the way to the malibu coast are going to be most susceptible to the most destructive winds. we have multiple fires that are growing explosively under these conditions and will continue to do so. everyone needs to very calmly and very proactively be

preparing. and when the notification comes of an of an evacuation order, take it seriously. it's a life and death situation, you say calmly and deliberately, but i feel like i can hear a touch of urgency in your voice. >> this situation just how bad is it based on on what you've seen historically? >> this is one of the worst situations that we have ever seen. this is a unique and volatile combination of weather parameters that has come together with some of the most extreme, destructive, life threatening windstorms that we're getting across the area with bone dry conditions. everyone needs to be thoughtful, thinking ahead, make sure you're planning you know where to go. have multiple

ways of getting information, and i am pleading with you if you get the evacuation order coming from local law enforcement and emergency management, take it seriously and evacuate. your life will depend on it. >> again, at this point, we've said 30,000 or so evacuation orders. in effect, do you anticipate there will be more large scale evacuations ordered in the next several hours? >> these fires are spreading rapidly. they're going to continue to do so the next few hours are going to be absolutely, extremely critical for rapid fire spread and the potential for expansions of these evacuations is issued by emergency management, local law enforcement is certainly there for additional areas to be included. >> all right, doctor ariel cohen, we appreciate you being with us. i hope people are heeding your warnings if they can hear us, because i can hear it in your voice. thank you very much. saying one of the

worst series and sets of conditions he has ever seen, these fires growing explosively. kate. >> and we're going to have much more on the fires ahead. another story that we are watching keeping track of today as well. president-elect donald trump is headed to capitol hill this morning. what's going to happen as the new republican senate majority takes over? in i lay on my back frozen, thinking the darkest thoughts, and then everything changed, dana said. >> you're still you and i love you, super man. >> the christopher reeve story february 2nd on cnn. >> your best defense against erosion and cavities is strong enamel. nothing beats it. i recommend pronamel active shield because it actively shields the enamel to defend against erosion and cavities. i think that this product is a game changer for my patients. it really works like a relentless weed. >> moderate to severe ulcerative colitis symptoms can

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to whether or not they try to pass this one, as he called it big beautiful bill. or do something else. that debate is playing out as two more trump picks will be on capitol hill to meet with lawmakers today. cnn's steve contorno joins us now from west palm beach, florida. he made these comments in this wild press conference that are not on the congressional agenda. what can we expect on the hill today? >> well, donald trump is traveling to washington, d.c., to attend the funeral of president jimmy carter. >> and while he is there, he will be huddling with senate republicans to discuss their their ideas for a best path forward to get his agenda done in the first 100 days. and here's what they're going to be discussing, whether it makes sense to break down trump's agenda into one bill or two bills. and they want to pass it through a complex budgeting mechanism called reconciliation that would not require democratic votes in order for it to pass. now, the question is whether to cram all that

into one bill and try to get his border security package, his immigration policies, as well as an extension of the trump era tax cuts and new tax cuts that he has proposed on overtime, wages and tips and social security. can that all be part of one bill that also would raise the debt ceiling? so there's a lot to discuss here. and as i said, they want to try to get this done in 100 days. but they are looking for some guidance from the incoming president. and trump is waffling a bit on whether or not he wants one bill or two. take a listen to what he had to say yesterday. >> well, i like one big, beautiful bill, and i always have, i always will. but if if two is more certain, it does go a little bit quicker because you can do the immigration stuff early, but it goes through the house first. and the question is whether or not we do the two bills, the one bill. and, you know, look, i can live either way. i like the idea of the one big bill, but i can live either

way. >> now, it will be a busy day for some senate republicans because a couple of donald trump's key nominees will be meeting with them on the hill, including pete hegseth, his pick to lead the pentagon, and robert f. kennedy jr., who will lead health and human services. >> they will both be meeting with republicans on capitol hill today. sarah. >> all right. steve contorno, thank you so much for the update there from west palm beach, florida. kate. >> military coercion. that is what donald trump says he is not ruling out in order to acquire the panama canal and greenland. in a wide ranging press conference yesterday, as we were talking about, the president elect went further than he has before on this foreign policy issue. he's now started with two american allies. here's how it played out. speaking to david sanger of the new york times. >> can you assure the world that as you try to get control of these areas, you are not going to use

military or economic coercion? no. >> you're talking about panama and greenland? no. i can assure you on either of those two. but i can say this. we need them for economic security. the panama canal was built for our military. i'm not going to commit to that now. >> now, he has been talking about taking both foreign territories for years, but not going that far for sure. again, lot going on with that press conference. even beyond that, which also means it's time to bring in the fact check. and that is where we bring in cnn's daniel dale. daniel, so you have donald trump talking about that, as we've discussed. but i want to play for you some another topic that the president elect took on was talking about january 6th. once again, let's play this. >> this would be the only insurrection in history where people went in as insurrectionists

with not one gun. okay. and let me tell you, the people that you're talking about have a lot of guns in their home for hunting and for shooting and for entertainment. a lot, of lot of good reasons. but there wasn't one gun that they found daniel not true. >> kate. in addition to the knives, tasers, batons, axes, chemical sprays, baseball bats, rioters carried guns during that capitol riot. >> we've known this for years now we know it because it's been proven in court over and over again. i have an incomplete list here. ryder mark mazza brought two loaded handguns onto capitol grounds, pleaded guilty. got five years in prison. a guy reffitt was convicted for bringing a handgun to the capitol. got more than seven years. christopher alberts also had a pistol on capitol grounds. found guilty. got seven years and the list goes on. a mario mares had a gun that day. guilty. roger preacher had a gun that day. guilty. a jerod

thomas bargar had a gun that day. guilty. and a man named john banuelos has been charged for allegedly twice firing a pistol in the air. so using a gun on capitol grounds during the riot. he has pleaded not guilty. so we will likely never get a complete inventory of the guns carried by rioters that day because, as we know, most of them were able to leave before later being tracked down and arrested. but we know for a fact, again proven in court there were guns in that angry and violent crowd. >> another topic, another major foreign policy issue that the president elect will be facing and has talked a lot about is what to do about ukraine and u.s. support for ukraine. will it sustain? will it change? what will happen is a big question mark, and i'm going to play one part of that part of the press conference where he's talking about comparing u.s. support for ukraine to that of eu partners. >> i said it to president zelenskyy. europe is in for a tiny fraction of the money that

we're in now. whether you like that situation or not, europe is much more affected than the united states. we have a thing called the ocean in between us, right? why are we in for billions and billions of dollars more money than europe? >> what's the latest on this? >> trump has said this over and over that the u.s. has provided vastly more aid to ukraine during the war than europe has. it is not true. in fact, the opposite is the case. according to one well-known tracker, the kiel institute. in germany, it is europe, the eu and individual countries that has provided significantly more committed aid. 250 billion for the for europe to 123 billion for the u.s. in terms of allocated aid, meaning aid that's been delivered or basically close to it. it is 129 billion for europe to 91 billion for the u.s. and kate, this was not the only false claim that trump made about europe in this press conference. he said they don't take anything from us in terms of trade. well, the u.s.

exported $368 billion in goods to the eu last year, he said. the u.s. has a 350 billion trade deficit with the eu, a significant exaggeration. it was actually 209 billion. and he said they don't take our farm products well. according to the u.s. government, the eu is the fifth largest export market for u.s. agricultural products. >> it's good to see the facts and good to see you. thank you so much, daniel. john. thank you. >> all right. the breaking news out of los angeles. an official at the national weather service just told us that the next several hours are critical. one of the worst situations he has ever seen. >> kobe believed in himself at the youngest possible age. >> it's one of the most remarkable stories in sports history. i don't want to be remembered as just a basketball player. >> kobe premieres january 25th on cnn. >> you know what's brilliant? boring. think about it. boring makes vacations happen. early retirements possible, and

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mandatory evacuation, we saw tens of thousands of people fleeing their homes even as early as yesterday, when officials warned that these conditions could get worse. we saw some of those cars stranded on the roads as people were just desperate to flee the area. and you can definitely see why the palisades fire burning at five football fields a minute now, almost at 3000 acres. now, this is just one of two other fires that have also erupted overnight as those dangerous winds are just not letting up and are continuing to spread the fire. >> maribel, you and your team stay safe. thank you so much for being there. keep us posted on developments. >> kate, joining us right now is the president of the los angeles city council, marqueece harris-dawson. he's also serving as acting mayor of the city right now as the mayor is traveling back to l.a. thank you so much for being here. people are waking

up to seeing just utter destruction. how bad is this? >> uh, it's as bad as we've ever seen with regard to fires. >> certainly here in the city of los angeles, but certainly in southern california as well. unfortunately, global warming and lots of other factors has made it so that we have big fires every year. having three big fires at once. uh, in a situation where we can't even use aircraft to dump water on the fires is unprecedented. 1400 firefighters out on the street and literally tens of thousands of other city workers, whether they're working on power poles, directing traffic, cleaning up debris off of roads so folks can come and go and evacuate where necessary. uh, this is just an unprecedented mobilization that we are fortunately prepared for, but we have not yet seen. >> and some of what we're hearing from people as they're evacuating is just the terror of just how fast things change. we know how fast the winds are

blowing these embers and how fast these fires are traveling. do you have any sense of of injuries? has anyone have there been any fatalities? >> you know, there there are. >> look, it's it's been night. so our ability to investigate is is limited. but we have do not have a reported fatality. we have one serious injury of a firefighter that we know of. uh, again, obviously when morning comes we'll be able to look more and we'll see more. but folks have done really well. uh, the, the first responders have done really well protecting themselves and protecting people and property. they've done several rescues. we're rescuing people out of swimming pools and out of garages and lots of other places while there was still daylight yesterday. again, we'll see what the morning brings. but so far, with regard to injury and loss of life, we've done well and that would be wonderful if, if, if it stays that way. >> um, do you have a handle? and it may be the same answer,

but just we need to get the reporting. do you have a handle on how many homes, how many businesses, kind of, you know, starting to total up, what kind of level of destruction you're looking at by the fires? even so far, impossible to know the amount of structures that have been damaged because again, we cannot get aerial views because of the smoke and the wind. >> uh, and we can't get into the neighborhoods in many cases. i mean, firefighters are still working to put out structure fires, but we just don't have a count. my expectation is by 8:00 local time this morning, uh, we'll have a count and there'll be a press conference with the governor and the mayor and all the representatives. uh, we'll have some idea, but just no idea. on structure count. now, the fires are growing too fast and too furious. in order for us to keep track of that. >> and that's that's some of the scariest parts about it. it's unknowable at this

moment. you're literally in the middle of this explosion. >> it it is extremely terrifying. i was at the pacific palisades before nightfall. you couldn't. visibility was less than 15ft away. uh, and the wind was so strong that you couldn't fly aircrafts. and it was difficult to even operate an automobile at a very slow speed. that's absolutely terrifying. this is not to mention the heat that you're experiencing and the intermittent blasts that you hear because, you know, one tank is exploding somewhere in a neighborhood that you can't necessarily see. also, embers, uh, embers can fly up to a mile. they are incredibly buoyant. so you may be in an area that you think is not a fire area that may suddenly is absolutely unnerving and terrifying situation to be in. uh, at the same time, there are no better people in the world

that work on these kinds of emergencies than the ones who are out on the streets tonight. i know you have maribel in the field. i'm sure she's running into some of our, uh, our emergency workers who are doing incredible work, which is why we have such a low right now. as far as we know, we have no fatalities. uh, and very, very few injuries. >> yeah. and we're going to have some of the first responders and emergency workers on throughout the show. i saw that mayor karen bass tweeted early this morning, warning that conditions are expected to get worse before they get better. we've heard that from the weather service as well. the mayor is facing criticism from people in the city in l.a. that she was out of the country when the fires broke out. given that the weather service has been warning of the extreme danger of what has now happened, has been warning for days that this could be coming. and in doing so, it's putting you in the position of i'm very thankful

you're here of position of serving as acting mayor in this critical time. as she traveled back, should she have been in l.a., should the mayor have been there? >> you know, absolutely not. i mean, i think the mayor would answer that question differently. of course, she would want to want to be here. she was on a diplomatic mission and left and was already in the air by the time the reports came out, and is getting back as fast as she can. that said, she's been in constant communication with me, constant communication with the head of our fire department, police department, the county government, the state government, president biden, oddly enough, president biden actually is in southern california. he had an event that had to be canceled because of the fires. uh, this weekend. and so she, uh, mayor bass is marrying, as the young people say, in a big way. she is not physically here, but her presence is deeply felt. she is on a u.s. military aircraft, so she has full capability to communicate by telephone and internet and has been doing

so and providing leadership to all the city departments to to get us through this terrible event. >> yeah. and acting mayor, city council president marquis harris. dawson, thank you very much for coming on. good luck today. thank you so much, sarah. >> all right. as the fire danger is predicted to get worse today, overnight, it forced the evacuation of elderly residents from a senior living center in pasadena, california. the flames from one of the three major fires burning came within a block of that center. the eaton fire, as it's being called, exploded to more than 1000 acres in just six hours. dozens of elderly residents, you see there were in wheelchairs. some were in hospital beds, many wearing only the thin gowns they had on with no time to put on their shoes. >> well, it's tough, it's tough. they can't get up. they're stuck on the wheelchairs. we got to lift them up, put them in the vans and then take the wheelchairs at the same time. so you got to

get everybody out of here. >> yeah, everyone got out safely. as far as you know. >> yes. >> wow. this thing must have been moving towards you guys really quickly out here. >> yeah. oh, yeah. it's crazy out here. >> it certainly is crazy and dangerous. a worker said about 95 people had to be evacuated from that senior living center. all right. ahead, the changes meta has made, prompting fears, hate and misinformation will explode on its social media sites. and it's going to get worse. the los angeles mayor warning of unprecedented danger across l.a. county. >> i wish you could see. i don't know if you can see over here, but this hillside, it's pretty hard to see with my camera is, um, uh, burning. and it's just whipping tornado like, you know, columns and spouts. so it's the perfect storm. as they say, people understand how bad a hurricane is or how bad a tornado is. you know, you can't stop those. the

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jack smith's final report. smith had been planning to release two volumes, one on the investigation into trump's mishandling of classified documents, another on the investigation into trump's and trump and election interference. yesterday, judge aileen cannon, a judge that donald trump appointed, stopped that in its tracks. cnn's katelyn polantz has much more. it's blocked for now at least. what happens now, caitlin? >> well, kate, judge aileen cannon in florida overseeing the classified documents case. she's essentially handed off the decision on whether this report sees the light of day to the appeals court, the federal appeals court that oversees florida and other states around there. we're going to wait and see this week exactly what that appeals court wants to do. is it going to allow the release of this report by the justice department? the plan, though, kate, was that this report was basically done. and it was it's held by the justice department. the attorney general could have released it

as early as friday. but what judge aileen cannon said yesterday was stop everything and let the appeals court figure this out. and then once they decide three days later is when that report could be released. that means there could be further appeals. and of course, you know, there's only 12 days left in this administration until, joe, until donald trump is the president, someone who clearly doesn't want this report out there. so all of this is really coming down to the wire. do we see this report from the justice department about those two criminal cases into donald trump? two things to watch for, though, today, is that there's going to be a filing from the justice department. we know that by 10 a.m. we're watching not just for that filing to come in, but how the circuit court of appeals responds to the justice department, how quickly, if they want arguments, what they decide. some of the arguments we've heard so far from donald trump and his codefendant side, is that the special counsel's

office doesn't have any authority over this to release it. and his co-defendants, they would be hurt unfairly if it was made public. kate. >> yeah. so that plus three days could really matter. is what you're laying out here with just days to go. caitlin, thank you so much. let's see what comes today. sara. all right. >> all right. in addition to ending fact checking and changing the way media moderates content, the company has also now updated its hateful conduct policy. as a result, users can now use offensive terms targeting women and the lgbtq community without consequence. cnn business writer clare duffy is here. what kind of language are we talking about here? because frankly, there's already a lot of, you know, nasty language. >> yes. >> so they updated this policy. >> they removed prohibition on things like referring to women as household objects or property, removing prohibitions on referring to transgender and non-binary individuals as it previously. those are the kinds of comments that would have been subject to removal on the platform. now i

guess it's fair game. they also added a number of things to the policy, and i want to pull up one example here for you. the company now allows allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation. and it says given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality. so some pretty striking changes to this policy. >> i mean, how does this sort of connect to what we heard yesterday around this sort of larger moderation policy, where they're saying we're no longer going to have fact checkers, we're going to let the community do it. yeah. >> the company had hinted that it was going to roll back some of its content moderation policies around certain topics, like immigration and gender. they want to allow more political discourse. the company's top policy exec said on fox news yesterday that meta wants it so that if you can say something on the floor of congress, you can say it on its platform. so we're getting a sense from this policy change of just what exactly they mean by that and how quickly they moved to make this change,

which has been lauded by conservatives, including trump. but something i heard from online safety experts yesterday that i think is relevant is like free expression. for whom? because maybe if you're somebody who wants to make these kinds of comments, you feel freer to do that on meta's platforms now. but if you are, say, a woman or a transgender individual, you might actually feel less free speaking up on the platforms because you might be targeted with this kind of ugly language. >> the fact that they can sort of call women property. i mean, how long is it before they do that with black folks? like, that's the trend. and but it is. the supreme court has said hate speech is free speech. so we're seeing sort of a big change here as the political climate also changes. >> and i should say, too meta did say it will continue to enforce its targeted bullying policy. so if you're doing this to a specific person over and over again, that will be a violation. but these general comments won't. >> interesting. clare duffy, thank you so much. a new hour of cnn news central starts right now.