a visionary leader for a lot of the reasons on the environment on foreign policy that are getting good discussion. he continued his public service and he believed it was only in serving in government. he was only in government 12 years. he believed you can make a big contribution and that people could be inspired to do better. inspired to do better. it is a wonderful legacy. >> jonathan alter, thank you for making time for us on a busy day for you. appreciate it. that is all in on this thursday night. "alex wagner tonight" starts right now. good evening. >> have i to i have to say this. his presidency in many ways

provoked or oversaw schism inside the democratic party which saw heted kennedy run for president in 1980. there is a lot about that moment, actually in terms of democrats trying to figure out trwhich was their true north th is applicable today. >> and unresolved in certain ways, actually. >> exactly. very much so. thank you, my friend, for a phenomenal show. >> i appreciate that. okay, there is no longer any question donald trump will re-enter the white house as a convicted felon. the president-elect is due to be sentenced tomorrow morning at 9:30 a.m. eastern for his 34 felony convictions in the new york hush money case. at which point he will go from being a felon to an officially convicted felon. in a last ditch attempt to stop that sentencing, trump had asked the supreme court to intervene in an attempt to run out the clock until trump was sworn in as president and could no longer be criminally sentenced. but just before we came on air tonight, the supreme court announced that they had decided not to intervene on trump's

behalf. in a 5-4 decision, chief justice john roberts and justice amy coney barrett sided with the three liberal justices. this decision comes just one day after we learned that justice alito spent time on the phone with donald trump this week, discussing a former alito clerk who is now up for a position in the incoming trump administration. according to nbc news, alito and trump did not discuss trump's request, which had not yet been filed. but the supreme court was not the only conservative bench to deny trump a win tonight. moments after the high extort decision tecame down, the 11th circuit court of appeals handed trump another rebuke, rejecting trump's efforts to block the release of special council jack smith's report on trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election. trump's legal team was attempting to stop the justice department from releasing that report, and it looked initially

like they might succeed after a favorable ruling from trump's favorite district judge, aileen cannon. but tonight, again, the conservative 11th circuit ruled that that report can be released and may be released as soon as this sunday. we now have two significant judicial rebukes of president-elect donald trump from two conservative federal courts. and while these legal victories do not change the fact that donald trump will be sworn in as president in 11 days, it does puncture the veil of invulnerability that has shrouded trump in the leadup to his second term and the big question is, is this a sign of what's to come? joining me now is melissa murray, law professor and former clerk prto justice sonia sotomayor, of course, the author of "the trump indictments: the historic charging documents with commentary." also tim miller, host of "the bulwark podcast." thank you for being here lwto respond to this very new and significant developments

happening within the last hour. melissa, first, let me get your thoughts on the double whammy lobbed trump's way at denials from conservative courts. how significant are they? >> they're obviously significant. the ruling from the supreme court puts in place -- cements the sentencing that is going to happen and that will make donald trump the first convicted felon to be inaugurated as president. breaking barriers all over the place here. and the other ruling is very significant. i will note the 11th circuit left judge cannon's ruling blocking the release of the report for three days after the decision on appeal, so that means we won't get the release of this until sunday as you noted. merrick garland suggested he was not going to release the mar-a-lago report because there are two additional defendants there, co-defendants of donald trump. that i think is a little interesting and concerning because it is entirely likely that when donald trump becomes

president, the doj will miss the charges. we wcould just get this over wh and have the doj dismiss those charges now. and release the report. and i think there is a lot in the report that would be very important for the american public to know. but again, these are two significant wins. i don't know if it means the courts are going to be a bulwark against donald trump indefinitely going into the future. but it is, i think, at this point a reason for americans to breathe a sigh of relief. >> i want to unpack each decision separately. but, tim, just the sort of narrative here, maybe for some people the difference between a felon and convicted felon isn't sizable. i tend to think that donald trump cares. that he's going to be entering office as a convicted felon and the overture into his inauguration day is going to involve -- he'll be appearing virtually. but a court sentencing him to punishment for being convicted on 34 felony counts, that still matters. it should matter. what do you think?

>> yeah. i think that melissa's here for the legal expertise and i'm kind of here to discuss the feels. >> that's right, sir. >> it doesn't matter in what sense and to who, right? because there is not any real ramifications for donald trump, right? he's not going to go to jail because of this. he's not going to be denied his inauguration because of this. and so the only actual ramifications are historical, like this is now will be on then record, that he will have broken this barrier as a convicted felon going into the white house and what it means to him. and my initial response to all this was i thought that, i don't tknow, sometimes donald trump likes the show, likes the circus and, like, heck, let's go do this thing, i'll go it new york for old time's sake and poke my finger in this guy's eye, but he didn't want to do that. i think he reveals this bothers him. the fact that ththey tried to g to the supreme court and he's gobeen lashing out in his sociao

media, all this, you can -- we can tell that he is upset about this. if that matters to you, you can take a little solace in it. >> well, yeah, i mean the fact is he's not coming to new york, he's getting special dispensation to appear virtually. i want to play trump's response to this. he's holding on to the fact that the court in its decision suggested that if trump doesn't like the decision, he can go through the appellate process. this is what he said a few minutes ago when he was asked about the supreme court's decision. >> well, they called for an appeal and as you know, they acknowledged what the judge said about no penalty, and no penalty. but we're going to appeal anywap psychologically because frankly it is a disgrace. i read it and i thought it was a fair decision, actually. so i'll do my little thing tomorrow, they can have fun with their political opponent. >> i'll do my little thing tomorrow. first of all, the court didn't call for an appeal. they suggested he could follow

that root, right, melissa. break down for me what you think happens now. >> the court did not call for donald trump to pursue an appeal, simply noted that many of the issues he raised in his certiorari petition could be resolved through the traditional appellate channels in new york state and traditional appeal, not an emergency appeal he's been pursuing. nor did the court say that this was a little thing. because judge merchan had indicated he was unlikely to give donald trump jail time and would be giving him an unconditional discharge. the fact remains donald trump is still going to be convicted, his conviction will stand, he will be the first felon to be inaugurated as president. and that is really happening and he basically said what tim has been saying, it is psychological for him. this is not a distinction that he enjoys, not something he wants hanging over his head, but in no way did the court minimize this. i will say, he's right to a certain degree that the court

could have said a lot more, the fact that they emphasize the unconditional discharge suggests that perhaps they itdo or at let a portion of the nine believes that the fact that this really isn't going to be an imposition on his duties in the transition period means that it is fine for this to go through. if it were actually going to be a more weighty sentence, they might make a different decision on that point. so, there is still a lot of play in the joints in this decision. but i don't think it is exactly as he characterized it. >> i want to ask you another question about how the court came to this decision, right. this comes the day after we had initial reporting from abc confirmed by nbc news that donald trump and sam alito, one of the judges on the court, had a phone conversation talking about a new hire for the trump white house. they assured the press that they did not speak about the filing that trump would make later in the ruday. but i do wonder how much the appearance of impropriety there may have factored into this vedecision, the fact that rober

and amy coney barrett sided with the three liberals on the court. do you read anything into that? >> i think it certainly is worth questioning on, you know it was an unusual situation to have tht president of the united states calling to check references on a relatively middling appointment in the department of defense. something a chief of staff might do, not the president himself, and calling the candidate's former employer, a justice of the united states, just before a certiorari bepetition is going be filed before the court. but there were no conversations. the optics of this are obviously terrible. particularly in light of the fact that we know that justice alito has been embroiled in a number of different controversies related to the perhaps s inference that he has particular ideological views or those in his household have particular ideological views. this wasn't great. and we know that the chief justice, though he wrote the immunity decision for donald trump, he cares about the court's reputation and its

standing with the public. he just issued his year end report where he went into a whole thing about how the american public has to have faith in the courts. so, i really do think there might have been a situation here where at least two of the republican appointed justices felt that, you know, the optics were really poor here and maybe that helped tip the scale or maybe they simply saw this was a dumb petition and it was a dumb petition, and they just went with that. but i think the optics were pretty terrible and it reminds me of the census case, going back to 2019, the republicans were trying to put that citizenship question on the sentence. at oral argument, it looks like the entire republican lineup was on board to side with the trump administration and then it came out that the republican strategist cache of documents detailing how stthe republican party planned to use that census information to depress minority votership and change the representation maps around the country, all of a sudden the chief justice switched his vote, it seemed, and sided with the --

those who had been opposing the addition of the census question. it could be a situation like that. >> before we go, tim, your thoughts on the 11th circuit. aileen cannon, trump's favorite judge, you talked on your podcast "next level," part of "the bulwark" network, about the audition for the supreme court, what did you make of her getting slapped down again by the 11th circuit, which decided, yes, indeed, the special counsel's report can be released? >> i'm not sure she cares about that so much. as long as she's still in the asgood graces of donald trump a, look, she really stood out. i think the aileen cannon model is something to really be mindful of as we look into trump 2.0 as i think he can outsource a lot of the judge decisions to the conservative legal world, leonard leo and that crowd. i don't know that's going to be the case this time. i think he's going to look for more people like aileen cannon

who he thinks are going to be truly loyal to him and there were multiple times including this one, she advanced really preposterous rulings. in this case, like, there were elements of this, things she was trying to suppress that weren't even under her purview. and so, like, the notion that this random judge is going to be able to do this favor for donald trump is crazy in the first place. nice to get that overturned. i hope the attorney general does the right thing and we publicize the jack smith report and as melissa mentioned also, i think the information about the investigation into the mar-a-lago raid and the rclassified documents case. >> melissa murray, thank you for your legal expertise. tim miller, we have many more feels to discuss this evening. so please don't go too far. we have much more coming up with you ahead. up next, we're going to follow the breaking news out of los angeles, where devastating wildfires continue to wreak havoc in one of america's largest and most populist cities. we'll get the latest on the new fires that have just cropped up. that's coming up after the

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tonight, wildfires continue to ravage the city of los angeles. the two major fires, the eaton and palisades fires, are still nowhere near being contained with the palisades fire at only 6% containment and the eaton fire still at 0% containment. fire crews are battling multiple other smaller fires all across los angeles, including yet another new brush fire, this one in west hills on the far west side of the san fernando valley. that fire started just hour ago and has already grown to around 1,000 acres with 0% containment.

collectively the fires have burned an area of more than 30,000 acres. more than twice the size of manhattan and forced more than 180,000 people to evacuate. as we enter the third day of these fires, we are just starting to get a rough and i mean very rough understanding of the scope of the destruction here. officials are now estimating that more than 5,000 structures have been destroyed by the palisades fire alone. that is the fire in and around the neighborhood of pacific palisades, which is on the west side of l.a. on the east side of the city, officials say the eaton fire, which is the fire in and around the neighborhood of altadena, officials say that that fire alone has destroyed another 4,000 to 5,000 structures. now, i should say that when officials use the term structures, that could refer to anything from homes to garages or even burned cars. right now the city's manpower is still primarily focused on fighting these fires and evacuating the people in the way of the fire, so these are just preliminary counts. and officials warn that because

these counts are done via helicopter and satellite, they are not an exact science. that said, we have images and they do not look good. this is a satellite photo from before the fire. it is an aerial view of homes along the pacific coast highway in malibu. this was that same stretch of road yesterday, with home after home just completely gone. this is a satellite photo of what the neighborhood of altadena looked like before the fire and you can see it is a relatively dense neighborhood, lots of homes, lots of businesses. here is that same neighborhood last night. this is an infrared satellite image, which is why the mountains appear blue, but the orange and red you see there is fire. here's that same neighborhood but zoomed out a bit more. just an unbelievable amount of it on fire. again, all the numbers we're getting from officials about the scope of the damage are preliminary numbers and that means they are very likely to

change. in the past 24 hours, the financial firm jpmorgan doubled its estimate of the total economic losses expected from these fires. the estimate is now $50 billion. but, again, these are all just early estimates. los angeles is still focused on firefighting and evacuations to begin a proper accounting of just how much damage has been done. and unfortunately property damage is just one of the things we truly do not know the full scope of yet. here was l.a. county sheriff robert luna today speaking about the official death toll from these fires, which as of last night was at 5. >> regarding any death toll information, yes, we had preliminary numbers yesterday, i got to be honest with you, as i reviewed some of those last night and this morning, i was not satisfied with some of the information we're getting and it is not the fault of our people. the people that are working under very difficult conditions

are doing their best to do what they need to do. at one point, we'll be able to do a more thorough search of these impacted areas, some of them look like a bomb was dropped in them, where we will be able to bring in canines and other things to help us hopefully not discover too many fatalities, that's our prayer. unfortunately, based on the preliminary information i've seen, at least in the both two large fires we're dealing with on each side of the county, unfortunately i think the death toll will rise. i hope i'm wrong. but i think it is going to rise. >> since sheriff luna made those remarks this morning, the official death toll has risen to 6. one of the key factors fueling all of these fires and making them so very difficult to fight is the wind speed. the national weather service warns that wind speeds are likely to increase again tonight with gusts of up to 65 miles per hour. they should die down again tomorrow morning through this weekend, but they are expected to pick back up with another

strong santa ana wind event anticipated to begin on monday. and with no forecast of rain in sight, that means the fires will remain difficult to fight. but backup is starting to arrive. yesterday, the l.a. county fire chief told reporters that l.a.'s more than 9,000 firefighters were not enough to fight this many fires all at once. today, president biden announced that the federal government will give and surge 400 federal firefighters 500 wildlife clearance personnel and 30 firefighting planes and helicopters to the region. the state is expecting hundreds of firefighters from nearby states like arizona, nevada, new mexico, utah, idaho, washington and oregon as well as from as far away as canada. as much as the damage from these fires is already horrifying, the threat of even more damage is still very much alive. joining me now is nbc news correspondent gadi schwartz who is live near the eaton fire in altadena, california.

gadi, i know you're wearing an apparatus to help you breathe. if you could tell us what the situation is there on the ground, the air quality and the containment efforts for one of the biggest fires in all of this. >> reporter: yeah, and sorry if i'm a little bit muffled, just a little while ago, we were talking fine without the masks for i little bit, we took them down and then the winds shifted and whatever we are smelling right now, we're smelling when the masks came down, was very much -- it smelled toxic. hurt the lungs and so we immediately put on our masks on, i'll have to do this with the mask. pardon me. but it is just -- >> please, gadi -- do what you need to do. go ahead, please. >> reporter: yeah, yeah. no worries. and right behind us, this is a building, you can see walls up. this is an exception here in this area of altadena, the neighborhoods down this way, most of the homes there that we

have been seeing throughout the day, they don't even have walls up. it is just the foundation. the only brick that is standing is maybe a chimney if they had a chimney. everything else is molten metal. concrete foundation, and the rest of it is ash. it has been astronomically horrific to see all of this devastation. and, you know, there is a lot of comparisons between the eaton fire, which is what we're seeing out here, you mentioned that 4,000 structures and that includes, you know, some of the houses and then the structures that they may have behind them, like a shed, and those numbers are preliminary, 4,000 earlier it was 1,000, they're saying 4,000, just by being in these neighborhoods, that is not a surprising number to us. that sounds accurate. but what i tell you is yesterday we were in the palisades, and when you compare what we're seeing out here in eaton, at the eaton fire in altadena, versus what you're seeing out there in pasadena, i'm sorry, in the

palisades, it unfortunately the palisades, those numbers are extremely preliminary. whatever those numbers are, they're going to be so much higher. and the type of devastation out there is just as bad as it was here. but, again, there are differences in those communities. one of the things that a lot of people have been talking about today are questions about insurance and the assistance that the white house has promised and fema has promised and the assistance of covering 100% of the fire fighting efforts for, i believe it is 90 days and possibly assistance for people that have lost everything here. the big difference between the community of altadena and in particular a couple of streets down the way here is that this isn't necessarily a largely affluent community. there are some communities here that, you know, it is one stretch was described as

nonenglish speaking migrants who lived in rented houses and they weren't sure that the renters or the people that were renting them, the property, had insurance. and so there was a fear that because they didn't speak english, they were just going to take this as a complete loss and that they would have no resources and so that is something that a lot of people here are dealing with and they're trying to figure out where to go from tonight, where to go from here going forward because so many of them have been left with just the clothing on their back and that's a cliche you hear from time to time, however it is the very shared reality for so many people that we have talked to. the fire ripped through here at about 4:00 in the morning. that's when so many people got out of their beds and they evacuated. and so many of them had no time to gather their belongings and believe. >> it is just a staggering amount of damage, obviously.

we have just but a glimpse of the iceberg in what the toll is going to be here. gadi schwartz, thank you for taking the time and doing essential on the ground reporting. please stay safe. appreciate you. joining me now is correspondent msnbc host my colleague and friend katy tur in the pacific palisades neighborhood in los angeles where she grew up. you've been talking so beautifully and i've been -- i found it really moving, talking about what this experience has been like for you standing in the ashes of your childhood memories in a lot of ways. can you just for people who haven't heard it, and even from people who have, what has it been like the last 24 hours? >> it has been really weird. it has been really -- it has been so weird, alex. when this story broke a couple of days ago, i looked at the images and thought this is going to be bad. because i grew up -- there were fires in malibu, there were

fires all over los angeles. my parents were news reporters, they had a helicopter, i grew up in the skies over brush fires and malibu fires. i just have such vivid memories of it. and they would get close to palisades and i would watch the ridgeline from my grandmother's house in the highlands, there was one in particular that threatened that ridgeline, threatened to go through the valley and get into the highlands and never did. and we always felt so lucky that it never did. and this time, this time we were not lucky at all. that fire which started in the highlands just ended up ripping through everything. and you would say to yourself, well, there is no way, even if there was a fire in the palisades, could get the homes in the hills, it wouldn't go down to the flat areas like the alphabet streets and if you look at erials of the alphabet streets, higher viewing point, which we can do from here, but it is dark we can't see now, all the streets are decimated.

they're called alphabet streets because they go a, b, c, d, e, f, g. i lived on embry. you look at the line of streets and they're just gone. and, it is so weird rolling up to it because i come -- i went first home we lived in here and i came and i just was flooded with memories. memories i haven't considered in decades, you know. memories of carving a pumpkin with my friends, memories of the first time i rode a bike, i was great at riding the bike, not great at stopping the bike, i flew off the neighbor's front lawn and off the ledge they had, i learned how to brake after that. i remember hiding from my parents because i was mad they wouldn't give me matchbox cars, they called the police and the fire department, there was an apb bulletin out, look for this small girl, i was hiding -- i was just hiding in the yard behind something, they couldn't find me. i was very stubborn kid and just seeing that and trying to come to terms with the -- the vivid

memories i have. the first kiss i had on the alphabet streets with a boy named johnny, we knocked teeth. vivid memories i have compared to what i'm seeing now, where just there is nothing familiar with it. i couldn't even identify -- had a hard time identifying the homes of my best friends, up the street, you know, six doors down, i couldn't figure out which one it was. it is so unfamiliar that i think there is a distance. i don't think it has totally hit me yet what happened because i don't recognize anything. it doesn't look like my home. there is some fires up above me here. we moved around a lot. we had a number of -- we lived in a number of houses here, we rented. i lived in a house below the fires, it is completely gone. and now there is hot spots, they're still worried about the hot spots because the wind is going to pick up again and there are some homes up there, just a couple of them that haven't burned. and they're worried about it, about it crossing the ridge over into the other parts of the palisades that have been able to stay safe from this, like the

riviera, and then it is brent wood and then getting to the 405 and just concerned that it could still be out of control. i will tell you, there were superscoopers up, aerial fire fighting happening all afternoon. it was such an -- and all morning, such a blessed sight, a relief because they can really -- they can impact the flames in a way that a single firefighter, even a team of firefighters cannot. there is supposed to be able to operate at night. i haven't seen them in hours, hours. i wonder what is happening. i wonder if it is maintenance, but who knows. it is weird. it is really weird. and these for me are just memories. there are so many thousands of people and gadi is right, i think the estimate is wrong, it has to be low, there are so many people coming back to this, and it is not in the memories, it is their life, the life they're living right now. and the schools are closed. not closed. they're destroyed. so even if you wanted to come back, you would have nowhere to send your kids.

the grocery store is gone. the churches, the synagogues, gone. it is just really a terribly depressing scene. it looks apocalyptic. it is unfathomable the amount of damage in this one town. >> yeah. memories so linked to place, but as you point out, this isn't the past for a lot of people, this is the present and the question of how to rebuild, when to rebuild, how to rebuild, if you can rebuild, is just not even answerable at this moment. it is, i think when big natural disasters happen, it is very rare that we have someone who can speak so keenly to the emotional weight of the moment. and it is so valuable to all of us here inside the building and out to have you there as hard as it is. it is really moving to hear you talk specifically -- >> can i -- >> please. >> i think -- listen, i think it

is good to have people who know the ies they're covering and jacob soboroff grew up here too. these communities are easy to characterize from afar, easy to say this is a neighborhood full of rich celebrities, they'll be fine. it is not just that. there are a whole lot of middle class folks who have lived here for generations. a whole lot of history here that you can't rebuild. you can't just put a shiny have near veneer on and there is real worry this is going to change, even more than it has over the past few decades. even for me, coming back here before this burned down, it had changed a lot. it was a new social strata that had taken over. and there is a worry that that's going to continue, that there will be people who, you know, lived here because they lived here for a long time who won't be able to continue living here, won't be able to have the next generation take over a home and send their kids to the lovely schools that will be rebuilt

here, the public and private schools that will be rebuilt here, and i hope that there are, you know, in new york we have zoning regulations, you can only build a certain type of home and certain type of place. you got to hope that something like that happens out here. i'm not aware of the particulars of the zoning, i would hope that down in the alphabet streets you wouldn't be able to take over multiple lots and just build these big style homes like we see in a lot of the other places in the palisades. the alphabet streets were small lots, small single family homes, and it was a beautiful place to grow up, you would ride your bike around the neighborhood, felt safe, and the streets were small, you weren't worried about traffic, you could play ball in the street. and it is something that i hope that the town comes together and says to themselves, we need to keep that, we need to preserve it, we need to not give way to -- >> something else. >> some of the other instincts, yeah. >> katy tur, my friend, i'm

sending you a virtual hug and a real hug when you get back. thank you for doing the show tonight. thank you for being there for all of us. stay safe. >> thanks for having me. still ahead, the staggering economic costs of the california wildfires as extreme weather trends towards a new normal. veteran climate journalist greg goodell joins me after the break. stay with us. greg goodell joins me after the break. stay with us ♪♪ so, this year, you can say... ♪you did it!♪

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jpmorgan is currently estimating the overall economic cost of the california fires will be close to $50 billion. given the fact that the largest fires remain uncontained, a comprehensive assessment is not expected to happen anytime soon. that number is more than likely to go up, maybe by a lot. this comes as california attempts to dig itself out of an insurance crisis, one that has been caused in large part by years of wildfires made increasingly worse by the effects of climate change. just last year, california's largest home insurer, state farm, canceled tens of thousands of insurance plans across the state. nearly 70% of state policyholders in the pacific palisades were dropped from their coverage, only months ago. and now that very community has been decimated. this phenomenon is not exclusive to the golden state. in recent years, insurance companies have also been begun pulling out of hurricane-prone states including florida and

louisiana. and it is certainly possible, even likely, that this trend is going to grow, given the stark reality of climate change. joining me now is jeff goodell, veteran climate journalist and author of the best-selling book "the heat will kill you first." jeff, thank you for being here today. first of all, we haven't begun to grapple with the implications of the state farm, for example, dropping coverage for 70% of the pacific palisades. but this is the future that is upon us. and if anything is a wake-up call, do you think that the insurance company is saying you're no longer ensurable. the climate risk is just too high. is that the wake-up call the country needs? >> well, we hope so. >> do you think it is part of a larger trend? are we going to see more and more of this? >> absolutely. the risks of our -- of living in this new climate, this hotter more turbulent climate that we're living in now are not priced into insurance. the insurance risks are escalating quickly. and, you know, you were seeing

it around the country, we're seeing florida, texas, california, prices doubling, tripling, insurers pulling out and there is tremendous financial implications of this, because if you have insurers pulling out of a place and you try to go get a home mortgage, you can't get it. right? so you then have a real estate market that is driven by cash, and that changes the housing market in a very profound way. there is all these sort of domino effects of the rising insurance prices. and it all boils down to this fact that we are not looking squarely in the eye of this new climate that we have created by 150 years of burning fossil fuels. >> i just -- i wonder if this is a moment where people just decide not to rebuild or not to move back. even the people who can afford to do it would be putting themselves squarely in harm's way, whether it is wind or water or fire. you're talking about stretches of the pch on 100 -- like 100

feet of land going to the sea, these were $85 million homes that are squarely in the path of destruction. i just wonder if we're going to begin to see the real migration that is part of climate change the inevitable effects of it. >> no question this will have an impact on that. i think the people build houses for all kinds of reasons. and everybody is different. some people can afford to build $85 million house and then have it burn down every six years or something. there -- >> as futile as that may seem. >> there are other people who one time they have -- they experience a fire like this and they lose everything and they're gone because they can't afford to rebuild, they can't afford to take these kinds of risks. hopefully we'll think differently, there will be different planning about the fire officials call the wildland urban interface, you have buildings and high risk areas. but ultimately, you know this is going to be a kind of personal decision for a lot of people.

and, you know, i think that it is inevitable that these -- that our changed climate is going to change where and how we live. >> it would necessitate also cities changing basic infrastructure, right? having an urban water supply system in an area that is now one where massive wildfires can rip through means changing the way you deliver water. >> totally. >> power lines, which often start these fires, are going to have to be buried. does this not prompt a wholesale evaluation of how these areas are run. >> we talk about clean energy and reducing co2 emissions which is really important, an equally important part or more important part of that is the adaptation side. building cities that are more resilient. one of the reasons that there was a shortage of water interest this fire is because power went out in the water pumps, because of the fire. if you had water pumps on

microgrids and things like that, they weren't so vulnerable to power going out, then you would have better water supply. with things like sea level rise, building in different ways with more natural buffers and things from rising seas. you know, there is a whole bunch of ways that we need to rethink how we build our cities and how we live our lives because the sort of blunt truth of it is is that we have built our world for a climate that no longer exists. >> yeah, we're in a different stage entirely. well, this is, you know, a devastating moment, but from it hopefully we will learn some lessons to make ourselves more resilient in the future that awaits us or is on our doorstep, i guess. jeff goodell, great to have you here. great to have your perspective. thank you for joining me tonight. >> thank you for having me. still to come, as we get ready for trump 2.0, democrats are grappling once again with a very familiar question, how seriously should they take the things that donald trump says? we're going to get some wisdom on that from the great tim miller just ahead. that from thm miller just ahead.

today, all of america's living presidents were seated together in the washington national cathedral paying tribute to former president jimmy carter in a rare somber show of unity. it was a stark contrast to donald trump's news conference on tuesday, when he announced his desire to take control of the panama canal and annex canada and buy greenland, a danish territory. as absurd as all of those

proposals may be, denmark is taking trump's comments seriously. a frank conversation about trump's remarks rather than assuming he isn't serious will likely be the only way to stave off a crisis. joining me once again is tim miller, host of "the bulwark podcast." thank you for being here. i want to get your thoughts on the right way to talk about or not talk about trump's cockamamie hack a doo plans which may be real in his forth coming information. is it entertain it like denmark or like tony blinken says, it is not a good one it not going to happen, we shouldn't waste time talking about it. >> yeah, at some level i'm sympathetic to tony after watching those last two segments with katy and jeff and talking about the damage in california and now i have to talk about invading greenland. it is hard to take it seriously at some level. >> for the record, that's what

trump is talking about with great passion and fervor in the middle of this crisis, it should be noted. >> that's a good point. so, look, these are the two ways in which i think it is politically meaningful, besides the point and laugh, and sometimes it is important to point and laugh. there are real geopolitical issues here at stake. if you look at panama, panama doesn't have a standing army. there is a reason they didn't have one, they had a military coup a couple of decades ago. panama might have to reconsider their whole, you know, governing strategy. how they secure their country, what their relationship is with us, how solid their alliance is with us. same thing if you have denmark, look, these scandinavian countries have to worry about russia and incursions from russia. this is why we're bringing in sweden and others to nato right now. so, there are real geopolitical implications. it might be a joke, might end up being something he stops talking about next week, who knows. if you're in denmark or panama, you have to take it seriously. if you're in america, do you

have to take it seriously? probably not. if i was the democrats, my advice to them going forward is twofold, one, focus on the things that trump does that actually hurts people, that's the number one plank, but there are opportunities to reach people, reach lower info voters with some of the silly stuff, they should choose their spots and do it. like the reality is that donald trump did much better with people who don't watch news shows. and democrats did better with people who do watch news shows. you know what kind of information trickles down to people who don't watch news shows, dumb stuff like invading greenland. so it is easy to dismiss it and say you shouldn't talk about it, but if there are ways to demonstrate donald trump's weakness and failure to people who don't watch news shows by engaging in the silly stuff, strategically, it is okay to do. >> i mean, trump literally says jump and congressional republicans say how high. dusty johnson, a congressman, introduced a bill this morning that would authorize trump to purchase the panama canal.

it is a joke until it is now something you need to debate on the floor of the house and there is your opportunity, is it not, tim, for democrats to shine a light and say this is the absurdity he's focused on as one of the biggest cities of america is burning. >> sure. i thought this was an america first movement. >> exactly. >> i think this is -- think is the narrative that has to come into place, which is, like, ostensibly this election was about grocery prices, people suffering from inflation. let me tell you, none of the plans donald trump has put forth have done anything to deal with that. obviously invading greenland and panama is not going to do that. mass deportations is going to be inflationary. huge extending tax cuts for rich people is going to be inflationary. they offered no plans for dealing with costs and dealing with the things that stensibly justified his win in the eyes of some of the voters. i think that it is okay for the democrats to sometimes say, hey, look, this is what he's promised

you, and this is what he's doing instead. >> tim miller, thank you for joining me. hanging in from both ends of the program. you're the best. we'll be right back. the program. you're the best. we'll be right back.

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that is our show for tonight. "way too early" with ali vitali is coming up next. came back this morning and gone. just absolute. the further you go up, it is just an