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Crews Push To Contain Los Angeles Fires As Winds Slow Down; Drought Expanding Rapidly In Southern California; Speaker Removes GOP Chair Of House Intelligence Committee; Southwest Pilot Removed From Cockpit, Charged With DUI; U.S. Sues Southwest Airlines Over Flight Delays. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired January 16, 2025 - 13:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[13:33:52]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Southern California winds are finally slowing down. And that is helping firefighters working to contain L.A. County's deadly Palisades Fire and Eaton wildfires.

But it may be a short window of opportunity that they have, because there's another round of dangerous Santa Ana winds forecast for early next week that could start new fires, could reignite old ones as well.

The California National Guard has been taking aerial views of the destruction. And here in the last 24 hours, the fires have not grown and are being contained. So that is the good news there.

Right now, the Palisades Fire is 22 percent contained. The Eaton Fire is 55 percent contained.

Evacuated homeowners are frustrated because officials today said it could be at least a week before they're able to return to their homes.

But here's why officials say they really do need to wait.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTHONY MARRONE, CHIEF, LOS ANGELES COUNTY FIRE: They're shutting off the natural gas. They're cutting the electrical lines so there's nothing that you can touch and get electrocuted if it was re-energized by accident. And we're removing the health danger by getting the household hazardous materials out.

[13:35:01]

But for the ones who want to see their home that's been destroyed just for some personal closure, we still have to do those core -- the core actions that I just described.

We -- the last thing we want, as public safety and the county and city leadership, we don't want people going back to an area and getting injured.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: CNN's Veronica Miracle is there in Altadena, which is where the Eaton Fire has affected so many people.

Tell us about conditions. Tell us what folks are saying there.

VERONICA MIRACLE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Now, Brianna, the conditions are not great, even though we are more than a week out from the fire. Here in the burn zone and the mandatory evacuation center, there are crews all over there, all over the place, and there are hazards all over the place.

Of course, we have so much compassion for those who want to come back in, and we've seen a lot of people at the checkpoints who are just so frustrated and emotional because they want to get into this area.

But we want to show you also what we have been seeing over the last couple of days firsthand. Some of the dangers here. You know, they have been marking all of the buried gas lines. They're tending to all of those.

There are nails all over the place. I mean, this is just here on the sidewalk because fencing comes down, the nails fall over. But when you're walking through those areas onto the property where all of the ash is, nails all over the place.

And then you have situations like this here. This is like something we've seen on every block. Power poles that have been dismantled. They were either hanging and suspended and have now been taken down and are being tended to. But the hazard, it doesn't stop.

And then just down the block you can see there's some road closures right there. There are all of these burned and charred trees. And everywhere we go, as we are in these -- in the mandatory evacuation zone, there are crews all over the place.

Now, something that's really interesting, as we've been driving around, we've also run into people that never left or somehow snuck back in, either while the fires we're still burning or we're somehow able to get inside. And they have been living without power, without gas, without water.

And slowly, what's been happening, they've been telling me, is that they've had to leave. So a man said one of his neighbors and their 14- year-old son were living -- living -- trying to stay here in the evacuation zone. And they essentially, they just had to leave because it's just too difficult.

So when people do come back in, they're trying to make sure that this area is safe for those residents, that there's power and that they have something to come back to -- Brianna?

KEILAR: Yes, it is obviously very dangerous there.

Veronica, thank you for that.

Let's get more now on those red-flag warnings with Derek Van Dam.

Derek, cooler weather, moving into southern California over the weekend. But we're looking at next week. Tell us what you're expecting.

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, a brief reprieve now, but we get these updates from the U.S. drought monitor every Thursday morning at 8:30. We set our alarm clocks here in the CNN Weather Center.

We've watched the progress of this map change drastically over southern California. In December, there was no colors on this map. Just two weeks ago, there was only 0 percent of L.A. County under severe drought. Now, one week ago, it was at 59 percent.

Now we zoom in to L.A. County, and 90 percent of this highly populated area of southern California under severe drought. That's level two of four. Wow, how have things changed over the past couple of weeks.

We're running a five-inch deficit in terms of the rainfall for this water year, which, by the way, begins in October. This normally would be the second wettest month of the year.

Right now, we have relaxed the Santa Ana winds. That's good news. L.A., the city of L.A. out of the high fire danger. But of course, into the mountainous regions, we still have the strong gusts.

But now we're going to see more of an onshore component. So what this does is it takes the moisture from the Pacific Ocean and helps increase the relative humidity value.

This is critical for the firefighting efforts on the ground. Notice the browns being replaced with the shades of green. That's an increase in relative humidity. That's what we want.

But the long-term outlook not great. Dry weather remains the next seven days. No precipitable water in this forecast. No real storms moving through.

And unfortunately, the setup over the next early parts of next week looking very similar to what we experienced in the Santa Ana wind events of the past two weeks.

So this Arctic blast of air settling in -- remember, air moves from high to low pressure. So that's going to funnel the air up and over the mountains of southern California and cause at least the potential for Santa Ana winds Monday and Tuesday of next week -- Brianna?

KEILAR: We are overhearing about Santa Ana winds.

VAN DAM: Yes, agree.

KEILAR: I will tell you that.

Derek Van Dam, thank you.

[13:39:53] Shake up on Capitol Hill. Speaker Johnson kicking out the chair of the House Intel Committee. It's a move he says he was not ordered to do by President-elect Trump. We'll have the latest on what happens next ahead.

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KEILAR: Soon, House Speaker Mike Johnson will announce a new chair of the powerful House Intelligence Committee. The speaker insisting a short time ago that President-elect Trump was, quote, "not involved" in the removal of the current chair, Mike Turner of Ohio.

Johnson said that he was the one who thought it was time, quote, "to have new leadership."

CNN congressional correspondent, Lauren Fox, is with us from Capitol Hill now.

And, Lauren, members of the Intel Committee are planning to meet with Speaker Johnson about Turner. Is that right?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, there has been some fallout, and not just from Democrats who are concerned about this decision, who work on the Intelligence Committee, but also from Republicans.

I -- we talked earlier today to Dan Crenshaw, who is a member of this Intelligence Committee, a Republican. And he said, quote, "That this came out of nowhere, that there was no good explanation. And it's not obvious what Johnson has in mind for the future."

[13:45:07]

So questions and concerns. "Concerns, a lot of effort and political capital, rightsizing and fixing the committee so that it would be what it needed to be."

Now, obviously, we have a lot of questions about what particularly went into making this decision. Johnson has said repeatedly that this was only about picking chairmen in the new Congress, who he had the opportunity to select.

Now, part of that is that the speaker does have a lot of authority when it comes to selecting leaders for each of these key committees.

But there's also some Democrats who are voicing concerns about this decision because they had a really good working relationship with their House colleague, Representative Turner.

One of those is the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner. Here's what he said to me when I pressed him on whether or not he thought Trump was involved here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARK WARNER (D-VA): I don't have the foggiest idea why he was removed. I mean, maybe because he was such a stalwart supporter of Ukraine and being willing to push back against Putin.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOX: And of course, Turner was supportive of additional Ukraine aid when it came up for a House vote last April in the House of Representatives, something that a lot of hardline conservatives we're opposed to.

He also has worked very hard behind the scenes to preserve many of the Intelligence community's abilities to get information, including fighting very hard to reauthorize FISA's Section 702 -- Brianna?

KEILAR: All right. Lauren Fox, thank you for that report from Capitol Hill.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis picking the state's attorney general, Ashley Moody, to fill the Senate seat that was vacated by Marco Rubio, who is now President-elect Donald Trump's pick for secretary of state.

Moody is a former prosecutor and judge who once sued Trump for fraud. She will be joining the Senate after Rubio resigns from the chamber. And she will serve until 2026. Moody will then be able to run in a special election to fill the final two years of his term.

Want to get away? You know that ticket, right? Southwest executives might want to. We're going to explain why.

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[13:51:45]

KEILAR: Two pretty rough headlines for Southwest Airlines today. First, it's being sued over flight delays by the government. And one of its pilots was pulled out of a cockpit by police and charged with driving under the influence just moments before taking off, routes he was supposed to take off.

Let's start with Pete Muntean on this.

The pilot, I mean, oh, my god.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: The rule is eight hours bottle to throttle. Everyone knows that in aviation. It's kind of the royal and the ancient. It is carved in stone for pilots when it comes to drinking and flying.

Not really the first time something like this has happened. But the question now is how this pilot was able to make it all the way to the cockpit before being arrested.

Police have now charged 52-year-old David Alsup with driving under the influence. Sources tell me he's a Baltimore-based captain for Southwest Airlines, has been with the company for 18 years. Southwest now says he has been removed from duty.

This all happened after flight 3772 boarded at Savannah-Hilton Head International Airport early yesterday morning. Passengers say police escorted Alsup off the flight while it was still at the gate.

And I want you to listen now to what one passenger told CNN affiliate, WTOP.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT NEWMERCH, AIRLINE PASSENGER: We saw a cop walk in and he went into the cockpit. He walked back out of the plane, came back a couple of minutes later, and the pilot left with him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MUNTEAN: We've reached out to Alsup for comment. Court records show that Alsup's bail is now set at $3,500. The flight ultimately departed to Chicago Midway about four hours late.

And Southwest says in a statement that it's "sorry to customers who had their travel plans disrupted, and there is nothing more important to the airline than the safety of its employees and customers."

The rules here are clear for pilots, no drinking within eight hours of flying. Also, they must have a blood alcohol content of 0.04 or less. Most pilots really consider that the bare minimum, since airline pilots face random alcohol and drug testing.

The FAA does nab a handful of commercial pilots each year, though, for violations. In fact, it kind of peaked back in 2019.

KEILAR: That is wild. At least they didn't take off. That's all I can say.

MUNTEAN: That is the good news.

KEILAR: That is the good news.

(LAUGHTER)

KEILAR: There is some good news here.

But there's also some more bad news, which is that there's a lawsuit. Tell us about it.

MUNTEAN: This is -- this is a lawsuit from the Department of Transportation. Outgoing Secretary Pete Buttigieg has been really hard on the airlines here.

And now. The Department of Transportation is suing Southwest Airlines for essentially overpromising and under-delivering on two specific routes. A flight between Midway and Chicago and Oakland on the west coast in California, and then also a specific route between BWI and Cleveland.

Those flights, over a five month period in 2022, were chronically delayed at least 50 percent of the time. So now South Air -- now the Department of transportation is seeking about $37,000 for each violation that Southwest Airlines made here. They call this essentially a chronic overscheduling. So essentially,

something that the airline cannot deliver. So the total here could be in the millions of dollars.

The court papers were just filed yesterday, and we're still trying to figure out exactly what the full total here would be.

But it's essentially a big slap on the wrist during a year that Southwest had a ton of cancellations. They canceled about 16,000 flights during their meltdown at the end of 2022.

[13:55:09]

KEILAR: I should start suing myself for overbooking --

(LAUGHTER)

KEILAR: -- then I might -- that actually might --

MUNTEAN: That way you don't get late.

KEILAR: That might be the thing --

(LAUGHTER)

KEILAR: -- that would keep me on time.

MUNTEAN: That's right.

KEILAR: Huh?

MUNTEAN: Ha.

KEILAR: All right, Pete Muntean giving me ideas, bringing us the news. Thank you so much.

MUNTEAN: Any time.

KEILAR: Really appreciate it.

And ahead, the latest on the Mideast ceasefire agreement. Israel's cabinet moving ahead with a critical vote on the deal tomorrow. It's a sign that whatever issues holding things up have been resolved, at least for now. We'll have that next.

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