Ask Dr. Drew
Jillian Michaels Tears Into Gavin Newsom After Losing Home In Wildfire – But Can Spencer Pratt & Trisha Paytas Save California? w/ Elaine Culotti on Palisades Wildfire Disaster – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 577
18 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What events led Jillian Michaels to criticize Gavin Newsom?
All right. First, Jillian Michaels. But after Jillian, I've got Elaine Kulati coming back in here. She's a star of Undercover Billionaire, and she's got some interesting project going on with mayors in California. She's got a lot to say about what is going on in California, as does Jillian Michaels. And while I always feel like Jillian does not lead any introduction... I will.
She's an entrepreneur, media personality, fitness expert, and she is part of my friend group in Actual Friends that she and I and Sage Steele and Dave Rubin do together. I think it comes out every Thursday. I have to check with Jillian on that. It might come out on Friday. And she is on fire lately. She has authored eight New York Times bestselling books, CEO of Empowered Media LLC.
Find out more with JillianMichaels.com. Jillian is J-I-L-L-I-A, J-I-L-L-I-A-N-S.
Chapter 2: How did Jillian Michaels' experience with wildfires shape her views on California politics?
And our next, of course, is Jillian Michaels. We'll be back with Jillian right after this.
Our laws as it pertains to substances are draconian and bizarre. The psychopaths start this. He was an alcoholic because of social media and pornography, PTSD, love addiction, fentanyl and heroin. Ridiculous. I'm a doctor. Where the hell do you think I learned that? I'm just saying, you go to treatment before you kill people. I am a clinician. I observe things about these chemicals.
Let's just deal with what's real. We used to get these calls on Loveline all the time. Educate adolescents and to prevent and to treat. If you have trouble, you can't stop and you want help stopping, I can help.
Chapter 3: What are the challenges faced by residents after wildfires in California?
I got a lot to say. I got a lot more to say.
And let me bring her in right now, the one and only Jillian Michaels.
Hey, Doc, can you see me? Ah, there I am.
I see you. I have to apologize for my voice. We were doing actual friends today.
I'll fix my hair. You go ahead.
all right fair enough so i have this i've had this cough forever now it seems like and then uh my son's household got influenza a and i'm taking tamiflu to try to hold off the influenza and i think i think this is the vestige of influenza a i've got here it's just crazy i tested negative for everything yesterday but maybe i'll test myself again
In any event, so when does our actual friends come out? Is it Thursday or Friday?
It comes out Friday, I believe. I don't think this looks any better.
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Chapter 4: How do Spencer Pratt and Trisha Paytas plan to address California's issues?
I'm sorry, Doug. I tried to pull myself together quick for you. But you do, you sound like crap. I'm so...
Thank you. I'm so sorry. Thank you. I'll be praying for you. The thing about being as well-known as you are, every version of you is still Jillian Michaels. You know what I mean? So you don't have to worry about perfect hair. No, it's Jillian Michaels. That's who we want to hear from.
I appreciate that because it's far from perfect today. That's good.
Chapter 5: What role do celebrities play in California's political landscape?
This is what happens when you're amongst friends. You can show up for their show being totally disheveled.
It's all good. So here's something I didn't realize about you. And I'm always learning more about you these days. But that you were an early, I don't want to say adopter necessarily, but you were early on to the Newsom incompetencies and the fact that fires could easily consume your home. Tell us what happened to you.
Gosh, okay. I guess I woke up, you're absolutely right, in 2018 when my house burned in the Woolsey fire. And I'll put this out there. We were well insured at the time, exceptionally lucky, lost no one, not one animal, nothing. We lived on a farm. So when I say not one animal, there were quite a few animals. Having said that,
What happened after is what woke me up to what I would literally call the corruption created by Gavin Newsom.
Chapter 6: What insights does Elaine Culotti provide about local governance?
And the bottom line is that red tape was weaponized against homeowners so that you couldn't rebuild and you would have to tap out. And after a year... of trying to get a permit just to clean up the property. If you have a mortgage, you're paying your mortgage, your insurance eventually runs out on temporary housing. I was a year into it and I didn't even have a permit to clean up the property.
So long story short, myself and many other residents tapped out and you sell the property. But I realize now so much of that is by design and we can get into it. But all of the different elements that created this disaster and have subsequently created it for people in the Palisades fire, the Eaton fire, every fire in between those fires, I strongly now believe is by design.
Well, they certainly take advantage of us when it happens. I don't know if you saw Adam Carolla's little selfie sort of video he did the night of the fire, or maybe it was the next night. He's on his selfie and he just goes, there will be no permits for a year. If you've ever dealt with building and safety and the Coastal Commission, You don't understand, there will be no building.
Unless somebody already was building and they have their permits in place, they burn down, they'll just pick back up again. Even those people took a year to get going again.
Chapter 7: How does the billionaire tax affect California's economy?
And as you said, they took the opportunity to buy properties as people tapped out for low income housing. So Palisades will now be a different kind of place, I guess. I don't know. Good for California. Well done, everybody.
Yeah.
The history of this is long, though, Doc.
Oh, I'm sorry. I'm interrupting you.
It's so long. I talked to Tom. What's the guy that's running for—help me, Caleb—the guy that's running for governor right now? He's a billionaire. His name is like Tom— No, no, no, no.
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Chapter 8: What actions can Californians take to influence their political future?
Steve is great. This guy's name is Tom. Tom starts with an S, like safer or something like that. Anyway, he is the guy that pushed through the electric car bill for California. If you remember, we have to be all electric by 2036 or something. That's his bill. And I interviewed him on the television one night. I had a television show every night during COVID, okay?
And so me and Alex Michelson, which is a reporter, what was going on. And he came on to talk about his glorious victory. And I said, okay. I said, so what is it you're actually trying to achieve here by making everybody electric? Oh, global warming, blah, blah, blah. I said, what about...
the carbon from the forest fires every year, that one of these forest fires will, no, that's not him, will undo literally everything you have attempted. A decade of electric cars is undone with one of these giant fires. So what are we doing here? Why aren't you spending that money on forestry management? Why aren't we doing fire breaks?
Why aren't we making sure that the underbrush is dealt with? We used to have armies in these hills right up behind me of firefighters that would go up every day and deal with this shit, and you would see the crisscross of the fire breaks all over the hills. And guess what? We didn't have these kinds of out-of-control fires then. But, oh, no, no, no.
There was a migratory mouse, and there were some rare plants, and that was the end of it. That was the end of it. Tom Steyer, that's him. Thank you, Tom Steyer. Oh, Oh, yes.
Okay, now I know who you're talking about. You know, this is even more diabolical. When you look at all of the factors that had to converge just so, like back in 2014, there was a bill that was passed to create, I think it was like 11 or 12 more reservoirs. Not one has been built. from the Palisades fire was empty for a year and a half for the repair of a cover that somehow never got repaired.
And the reason uphill matters is because when they have to turn off the power because of winds, it's downhill. Water will flow downhill. The hydrants were dry. We knew these fires were coming. Here's one that's even more nefarious. They knew that a fire had been lit, I think several days prior. And the firefighters wanted to go back and they were like, we don't think we put this out.
They wouldn't let them go back. And there's some policy that prevents them from bringing in certain equipment into national parks to put out the fire. Newsome vetoed bills on forestry management. Tell me, let me guess, a field mouse?
No, worse. Rare plant. Rare plant. There were some rare plants that would get trampled by the equipment. So how are those plants now, everybody?
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