James Woods

like an inferno. Every house was on fire around us. And, you know, he got him out, and the house burned down about an hour later. He would have been in there alone. It was just... And then Robert called us and told us that that house had gone and the house below that and the house on the other side. And then at 11.49 last night, all the smoke alarms in our house alerted our phones that our...

Our house that we had just renovated for three years and had just finally moved into about three months ago, you know, all the smoke alarms are going off.

That man in the White House. who can't go a day without threatening our fundamental rights. Yes, we need to focus on Donald Trump and his abuses. We need to follow his money. We need to find out where he's laundered money. We need to find out whether or not he's engaged in conspiracy. It's important that everyone understand that the days of Donald Trump are coming to an end.

to going into the office of Attorney General every day, suing him, defending your rights, and then going home.

Let me just say to all New Yorkers and to all Americans, the allegations are baseless. The allegations are nothing more than a revenge tour. As any good attorney, I will not litigate this case in a camera. It's important that we will respond to these allegations at the appropriate time and in an appropriate way.

I'm good. You know, it ebbs and it flows. Like right now, I just got off the phone with Gary Sinise. And as you may know, Gary lost his son, Mac, a year ago, just two days ago. And yesterday on my late brother's birthday, you know, our whole neighborhood burned down. And when you compare the two, not a single person in our neighborhood was injured or died.

So you can't compare it really to the heartbreak that Gary went through. You know, it's... It's you put things in perspective when you go through these catastrophes. And, you know, I don't want to be bitter, but indeed, the gross mismanagement of. Of our administration in California is, as my beloved wife said, when I rail about their stupidity, it's not stupidity, it's willful ignorance.

In this case, I think it's willful, malicious ignorance. Karen Bass cut the fire department. allocation by $17 million a couple of months ago. My insurance company cancel my policy for no reason. And I checked with all my neighbors, every single person in the Palisades who was with this company had their policies canceled on the same day. You know, they can't insure the place.

You can't insure a place that's run by incompetent idiots. And the problem is now when they go to rebuild, we're all under what's called California Fair Plan run by the government. So the same people who are literally responsible for

This destruction in the long run and in the larger scope are not going to be the people telling us how to rebuild and make sure that we do everything to avoid climate change while they ride around in their private jets and, you know, and go to Ghana to represent L.A. for whatever the hell our mayor is representing L.A. about. I mean, honestly, you.

You don't want to be bitter, but when you see people sitting on their sidewalks who live there, you know, the five people who live around us, all of whose homes have burned down, were either born in their houses or they, you know, one of them is 94 years old. He built the house. We're the second owners of our house. You know, these people in this neighborhood.

Let me explain something about the Palisades. We have a rule up in what's called the Marquez Knowles. It's part of our CCNRs. You can't block your neighbor's view. You can't have a second story. All the houses are kind of original from 1960, and they were all built by the same designer, Earl Lachman. They're charming, mid-century little houses. I mean, that's a view from my driveway. yesterday.

Sorry. And, you know, the houses, like when we renovated our house, we brought it back to normal. We got even our doors we had redone. They have a little loose side handle. It's a little house. It's got two bedrooms and a laundry room and a den and a pool and magnificent views of You know, all the way from the Palos Verdes to, you know, we can see out to Catalina.

We have a beautiful pool that we swim every day. I mean, I've been on the road for 50 years.

No, this is from my front yard. This is from just as we were evacuating. And by the way, five minutes before that, there was nothing. And my neighbor, Robert Trinkteller, called and said, you know, there's a fire on the hillside about a half a mile away. You should come take a look at this. So I drove up to his house because we didn't want, no, that's my back deck here.

that's my back deck and by the way my i cut we had guys rappelling down the hillside because the thousand foot drop and cutting the graph the dry brush which you are required to do by law And which we do because it protects our homes and our neighbors' homes from fire. And the people below us did not. And that's the fire coming from below.

And every, you know, we'd drive around the neighborhood and Sarah would say to me, you know, look at this. I go, yeah, these people got to cut their brush. And the one that I railed against every day was the first one to go. When this fire all started, we were the, that's the house one away from us. We were literally the epicenter of the fire.

It was a bright blue, beautiful sunny day with 80 mile an hour gusts. And we were moving all the furniture off the deck. And when I saw that flame, I said, let's go down, get in the car, get ready to go. Because was that Tuesday? That was just yesterday. Yeah. But those that's our house. That's our house. Yeah. That's from our deck. Yeah.

Yeah, well, yeah, but it came on our phones pretty quickly. I knew it was coming. You can't have fire and wind in an area that is overgrown with dry brush. You know, I mean, people forget that. But a couple of decades ago, there was a Malibu fire and we had another nincompoop, another Democrat running things.

And, you know, the helicopters and the planes go in with these big scoops and scoop water out of the ocean and dump them on the fires. And she said, no, no, you can't do that because the salt water will hurt the vegetation. We saw, lady, houses are burning down. People are dying. No, she wouldn't let them do it. This is what we're dealing with. And I don't want to be bitter, but you know what?

At a certain point, they need tribunals in the state. Forget recalls. They need tribunals and figure out what people are doing. Okay, everybody said, well, you know, we've been in touch with the weather report because it's always the weather. We've been in touch with the weather income. We knew there was going to be a windy season. Great, then don't go to Ghana. Stay here in L.A.

Take care of things. I'm sorry I sound bitter, but, you know... Listen, just a couple of things I want to clear up. The 94-year-old neighbor that I've been talking about who was rescued literally Eight minutes ago, I got a call from his son. They've been reunited. He flew in from Massachusetts. He got to the hospital.

They identified him and he's got him and he's got him placed in his caregiver's home. So he's safe. A hero, Robert Trinkteller, who saved him, who stayed overnight. Here's what happened in our neighborhood. All the houses are on fire on our streets. The fire trucks got up there, but there was no water because Karen Bass didn't fill the reservoirs.

So all the fire reservoirs were not... So the fire trucks were there, they couldn't pump water. Your house is on fire and they could just put it out, but they can't do it. So he put his fires out with a bucket from his pool and he just texted me and said, okay, the house is on the other side and every house across the street from you, they're all burned down. That roof of your house is intact.

I mean... I ran into the bedroom where I grabbed Sarah. I said, the roof's intact. Now, the house may be burned down inside, but it may not. See, what happened was we knew both houses were on fire because their hillsides were not in the best shape. And what happened was they... They burned at eleven forty nine last night. All of our fire alarms in our house were going off.

Oh, the hallway, the master bedroom, the living room, the den, the kitchen. And you could see the fire or the smoke progressing through the house. We were being alerted on our phones by our alarm company, you know, and this is while fire trucks are outside our house, but they couldn't pump.

And I won't say which one of us was crying. But no, seriously, I said to her, I said, look, you know, she's had all my medicine first thing, because, you know, suppose you get out there and the whole city goes down. You know, I take certain medicines. I don't take them. I got like two weeks and I'm gone. You know, I have to take Synthroid because I had

thyroid cancer years ago and my thyroid is removed and without Synthroid, you die. You know, I got to have that medicine. I can't live without that medicine. You know, so I got the medicine and then we're going out. We went to open our garage door. It's a lift up door and the wind was so strong. It buckled it. And now we can't get the cars out. And the house that was on fire. And I said,

we're up in the, we're 1,600 feet above sea level. I can't walk through smoke. I'm not a youngster anymore. What are we going to do? And I had remembered when they put in the garage door and they put in the alarm, I had asked for instructions on what to do if there was a fall. He said, here's the way you release the entire garage door. And I remembered it and I did it. We got it released.

We got one of the cars out. She said, let's take both cars. I said, no, we're going to be back. I said, Look, the people who run things around here may be woefully ignorant, but the one thing you gotta give unbelievable credit to, the Los Angeles Fire Department is one of the greatest organizations in the history of men and women who do good things for their neighbors. L.A.

F.D., the greatest, our sheriff's department, our police department. These are wonderful people in L.A. The people in charge, you know, our new our new fire department. I don't know what work she has done, but she has right on her Web page when she got elected. She's LGBTQ, which is fine. That's your choice. Not my judgment.

The first line of a bio, inclusion, diversity, equity is my main priority, while the tanks that hold the water to stop your houses from burning down have not been filled. How does that go on the priority list? Just asking. And see what you're showing right now? That's because there was no water. But hey, we got diversity. And by the way, I don't mind diversity. It's a diverse world we live in now.

But I care about diversity. ability first. If you got the ability, I don't give a shit. I don't care if you're four feet tall and green and have warts on your head. You know, it's great. If you can do your job, go do it, man. That's it. I don't care. I don't care what your gender is. I don't care what your sexual preference is.

I don't care what the color of your skin is, what your religion is, what your background is. If you can do the job, God bless you, and I'll vote for you. You know? I mean, you're my person.

Yeah. I mean, it's like...

OK, I have meds. I have five Emmys. I have my Golden Globe Award. I have my Oscar nominations. I have the moquette from Disney of my character Hades. Disney, when you do a character, you're a Disney hero or villain. They make two of them. Walt Disney keeps one. And the actor keeps the other. There's only two in the world. And one of mine. Wow. Yeah. Was there. See that?

See that basket of laundry and those three bags. But if indeed our house is burned down, that is every possession I have in the world.

You know, this is 2024, Kelly, Megan. We have, you know, as you know, we have these digital things where you can... Yeah, she's got some record. I'm teasing. Yes, yeah, she's got some record.

You know, actually, how dare you talk to Megan that way? Actually, she actually does write by hand, but she keeps them pretty close to the vest. So she had them... She did leave... a little thing of her grandmother's on the table. She, she thought she had it and she missed it and we couldn't go back up, you know? So it's interesting.

You find yourself saying all of a sudden, boy, you interest, you know, you have all these beautiful things that you own and you just go, but you know, where's that? The one thing I cherish is a watch that my mother gave me just before she passed away. She's like, just, something to remember her by because she knew. And, you know, I ran back in the house, actually started for that. And I got that.

So, you know, there's not much that you really need in life. Here's what I really need and what is so important. I've had hundreds of phone calls from people and texts. My doctor, hey, here's our address. Come stay at our house. My doctor's called, you know, texting me two in the morning. We know that, you know, that you got evacuated. You know, come stay at our house.

Your doctor, I mean, most people can't get their doctor on the phone. My doctor's calling me, inviting me to stay at his house. I cannot tell you the number of people I have an ex-girlfriend that I said I would never talk to again. I wrote a song about her, you know, never to speak to you again, kind of calling, hey, listen, come stay with us.

You know, my husband and I were, you know, we've got an extra bedroom. You know, you and Sarah are welcome. Just, you know, you may not answer. And I said, hey, listen, thank you so much. And, you know, you find yourself, my lovely first ex-wife called. She had lost her husband last year and she's reaching out to me. And I said, you know, you, Kathy, you lost David.

You can't compare a house to David. And by the way, I might not even have lost my house. I don't even know. At this point, you know, it's either half burned down, some burned down, smoke damage. I don't even know. It is surrounded. by every house in the neighborhood, evidently on our street burned down.

So no matter what, to go back to our beautiful, our little neighborhood, everybody knew everybody. You know, Rick Caruso built an area called the Palisades Village. It's honestly, it's like the Truman Show. We always get about it, but you know, they have a little park where the kids play. On 4th of July, we had chairs and they sit there with flags.

And I mean, you think, oh my God, this is how America used to be when it was really, really good. It's all burned to the ground. I bumped into a lady at Gelson's. She said, hi. We were chatting. She said, you know my husband. I said, who's your husband? She said, John Goodman. I said, no.

John D. John Goodman she goes yeah I don't I'm such a fan of his I love well he's a fan of yours I said really I'm kind of surprised she goes oh yeah back in the Cafe Central days and that was the song on the album remember Cafe Central and she said you were always so nice to him when you were kind of a big star and he wasn't yet I mean he's one of my favorite actors I said oh my god that's great well I know that they live on the north side of the Palisades

on the north side of Sunset. And I heard this morning that that entire north side, every house is gone. I don't know if that's true or not. And I pray to God it wasn't theirs. But I know Ben Affleck, I think, lost his. You know, you hear about it, you check it off. It's just It's hard to take whether it's yours or somebody else's. You feel the same way. You really do.

Well... Like, I don't even have to, I didn't know about that, but because Sarah has a very strong voice of her own, but I don't know. I'm sure she has purple hair. If she hasn't cut it off already. I'm sure she's a Democrat. I'm sure she's, you know, LGBT. I'm sure she's got it all going for her. I'm sure all of it.

Uh, but you know, listen, when you care about your neighbors and we all took care of each other, um, A person like this to me is something you scrape off your shoe on a curb. I don't really, I don't even pay attention, you know, when people are telling me, well, here it is climate change, you know, it's like, okay, great. Some guy's telling me about climate change.

He was sitting in his mother's basement at a seventh grade education. I went to MIT and I know a little bit about, you know, people who are getting grants and how they'll be willing to say anything they need to say to keep those grants. I know all about this stuff. By the way, you want it in climate change? Get out of your private jets. There's a start. Do more of that.

Just try that first of all, you know. Stop lecturing us. This is not time to give people like this person whose name I have conveniently already forgotten forever. It's not time to think about them. It's time to think about the brave men and women who are fighting this fire, this view you're seeing right now.

the neighbors who've reached out and helped each other, the people who are cheering that we will now have a president who will address these things and who will not be subsidizing clowns like Gavin Newsom any longer. I think there are enough Democrats whose homes are burning who might wanna start thinking about the people they're voting for.

I mean, you vote for this stuff and then you wonder why it happens.

Everything. I mean, just everything. Look, when I was at MIT, we used to say certain things are blatantly obvious to the most casual observer. And it's really simple. We're going to invade a beach in a war. But our guys aren't going to have guns. They're going to have sticks because, you know, we don't believe in guns.

And they're not going to have protection because, you know, we believe that the almighty Zuthras are a protector and all this horseshit that people come up with. They're all going to get slaughtered on the beach. Or you're going to give them the best weaponry, the best protection, the best intelligence, and you're going to go in, you're going to wipe out the enemy. It's really simple. We have...

a multi-pronged enemy in fire zones in California. We are high desert, high and low desert, both in California. We have ferocious scent and winds. They've been here for millions of years. They were not created by climate change. They've been here forever. They happen at the same time every year. It's called weather. We have an inversion layer, the way the

the way that LA is a big bowl with the smog that lays on top of it, cold air lays on top of, lies on top of the marine layer that comes under. I know which, we evacuated yesterday, for example, in the direction opposite that everybody else was doing. Because living where we lived, I knew that the wind always came off above the three palm trees across the street. It came this way.

If we looked at that video again, I bet you'll see the flames are blowing from my point of view, right to left. And sure enough, all the black smoke was down there and all the white smoke was up there because the planes had come and dropped it, pretty much put it out. And now the winds were blowing the flames where the material was, all the tinder.

Look, a flame doesn't know whether a movie star lives in a mansion in the Pacific Palisades or just some good, hardworking, decent person living there. God forbid it's a homeless person living in another tent. Everybody's a little homeless in their home. A flame doesn't know the difference. It's just flame and fuel. It's flame and tinder. That's all it is.

So we looked and I said, everybody's going that way. They're going to jam up the streets where the people are trying to get those children out of the elementary school. We're not going to contribute to that, sir. We're going to drive up that way because the smoke is white. And that means that the planes have put a lot of that fire out. And sure enough, they had.

where the fire was, because I knew it had burned out because I could see the way it was blowing. And I was familiar with the weather patterns. It's predictable. So what does that tell us as scientific people? If it's predictable every year, then what do we do? Well, let's check and make sure that the water is available.

Let's check and make sure that everybody obeys the law and cuts the brush on their hillside. We cut our brush. Our house either survived or was the last to go on our side of the street. as well as Robert Trinkteller, who did the same with his. The people who didn't, many of them, Sadly, well, I'll get to it. Well, okay, you don't have to because now your house burned down.

I'm not blaming them, but you know, there are certain ways to protect it. Now, at a certain point, the fire just comes and nothing you can do, okay? But if you are busy worrying about diversity and not worrying about filling the reservoirs, if you're not training people properly, if you're not doing clear cutting, oh, you know, we can't cut down the trees.

There was a fire in Washington State several years ago The place was just another liberal shithole. And I'm sorry, but, you know, the way it's run, not the people. Actually, my cousin lives there. And, you know, everything was on fire and what were you going to do? And it was horrific. And then there was the border to Canada, and that whole area, there was no fire.

How did the fire know to stop at the borderline? Because the Canadians up there, before Trudeau, knew how to manage the forest up there. They knew how to do what are called clear cuts. You cut a whole area of all the trees down so the fires can't jump, and the firefighters can get in and dig, you know, and do all the stuff they do.

I don't know all of the technicalities of it, but you've got to know that stuff, and you've got to do that stuff. And if you're busy saying, hey, I'm the new fire chief and my main priority and this is what I'm going to dedicate myself to. Well, then who's doing the job that you are truly assigned or elected or promoted or delegated to do? Who's checking the fire hydrants?

Who's checking the reservoirs? What?

I don't know. I mean, listen... Somebody wasn't. I can tell you that. Here's all I want. Look, for 55 years, I was Cal Ripken as an actor. I showed up every single day. I missed, I think, one day when I had an injury in my eye from a stunt. A piece of wood flew in my eye. I mean, I literally never missed a day's work for 55 years. And I showed up on time. And I knew my lines.

And I did 170 movies and series and TV shows and all that stuff. And, you know, I never got an Oscar. You know, I was nominated several times. But here's what I was. I was a good old Cal Ripken guy. I showed up and did my job every single day. I had a job to do and I did it. Here's what the police chiefs, the fire chiefs department job is to do.

Stop the fires when they start and make sure the people who are putting their lives on the line, the brave, great, glorious men and women, and I'm saying this totally from the heart of the Los Angeles Fire Department, have the equipment, the training, and all of the elements they need to do their jobs well because they are putting their lives on the line to do it.

And if you don't give them that, shame on you.

I think, you know, sometimes it takes a real slap in the face. And listen, a final thing. When the Paradise fires were happening, then the Malibu fires happened. I started a website. And even the California Highway Patrol said, go to James Woods. It was Campfire's James Woods, because it was a way of saying, look, I'm not official.

And Sarah and I worked for 14 days straight, patrol 15 hours a day. They even wrote an article about it, and of all places, the New York Times. And we gave information to people. And we were a place where people would say, hey, my uncle is caught in his house. Hey, is anybody on this road? So-and-so's uncle is caught in the house.

Well, one of the things I did was Alyssa Milano had five horses, and she couldn't control them and get them all out. And I mentioned, hey, does anybody near Alyssa Milano? She has five horses. Can you guys go up and help her? And someone said, James, what's helping Alyssa Milano? And it was a conservative person.

I said, yeah, dude, she's a human being and she's got animals and she's scared and she's doing the best she can. But she's you know, she needs help. Of course, we're going to help her. And she immediately went on and said, thank you, James Woods, for helping me. And, you know, people, we sniped at each other online a million times over politics. But when push came to shove, I helped her.

She said, thank you. She helped other people. I helped. You know, that's what we need to do now. I don't have any liberal left-wing neighbors. I don't have any conservative neighbors. I have my friends and neighbors in the Pacific Palisades and my heart and my hands and my ability to help them and vice versa. We are open to each other and we are going to rebuild together.

Was Edward Snowden a traitor?

Was he a traitor at the time when he took America's secrets, released them in public, and then ran to China and became a Russian citizen?

I'd like to raise a delicate subject, but with utmost respect for your life accomplishments and the high office you hold. A poll released this morning by Politico Morning Consult found 49% of registered voters disagreeing with the statement, Joe Biden is mentally fit. Not even a majority of Democrats who responded strongly affirmed that statement.

Well, so the question I have for you, sir, if you'd let me finish, is why do you suppose such large segments of the American electorate have come to harbor such profound concerns about your cognitive fitness? Thank you. I have no idea.

It is a tactic for judges to throw a stay on something, know they can bounce it around in court for three years, maybe it'll end up the Supreme Court. During that time, we won't be able to deport any gang members because these judges have decided so.

I, James David Vance, do solemnly swear. I, James David Vance, do solemnly swear. That I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States. That I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States. Against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That I will bear true faith. That I will bear true faith. And allegiance to the same.

And allegiance to the same. That I take this obligation freely. That I take this obligation freely. Without any mental reservation. Without any mental reservation.

27.

Let me make a point about Bernie and AOC. Bernie went for president twice. He's lost twice. AOC in her kind and this guy, David Hall, they want to run against other Democrats. When Bernie ran twice as a Democrat, he lost and he lost by a lot. So maybe the Democratic Party is trying to tell you something. You lose twice, there's probably a message in there.