Since the fires ignited in and around Los Angeles, many residents have returned to their neighborhoods, which are still smoldering, despite the ongoing threat of new fires and the prevailing unrest in the nation's second-largest city. For some, this marked their first opportunity to witness the extent of the devastation as the region, home to 13 million people, faces the significant challenge of recovery and rebuilding.
Fire officials are concerned over strengthening winds this week as Investigators are exploring various potential ignition sources for the large fires that have resulted in at least 16 fatalities and the destruction of thousands of homes and businesses.
The Associated Press reports that in the hilly, upscale Pacific Palisades, home to Hollywood stars like Jamie Lee Curtis and Billy Crystal, who lost houses in the fire, officials have placed the origin of the wind-whipped blaze behind a home on Piedra Morada Drive, which sits above a densely wooded arroyo.
While lightning is the most common source of fires in the U.S., according to the National Fire Protection Association, investigators were able to rule that out quickly. There were no reports of lightning in the Palisades area or the terrain around the Eaton Fire, which started in east Los Angeles County and destroyed hundreds of homes.
Prominent conservatives, including President-elect Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, have attributed the severe damage and loss of life from the multiple wildfires to the Los Angeles Fire Department's focus on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, as well as conservation efforts aimed at protecting the endangered delta smelt fish.
Trump has not expressed significant sympathy regarding the crisis; he has stated that he could manage the situation more effectively, blaming the state's Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom.
Newsom blasted Trump in an interview on NBC News’ “Meet the Press," saying, “Mis- and disinformation I don’t think advantages or aids any of us.” Regarding Trump's insults to him, Newsom said, “I’m very familiar with them. Every elected official that he disagrees with is very familiar with them.”
Newsom wrote a letter to Trump inviting him to come to his state and tour the destruction.
“The root cause is climate change,” said Julie May, senior scientist with Communities for a Better Environment, in an interview with The Sacramento Bee. May said climate change has contributed to periods of heavy rain — which causes plant life to grow — followed by extended periods of drought — which dries those plants out, turning them into perfect fire fuel, leading Southern California to its current tinderbox state.
Major weather monitoring agencies have confirmed that 2024 is the hottest year recorded in global history. Notably, four out of six agencies indicated that it marks the first full year in which Earth exceeded a warming threshold considered critical for mitigating the most severe effects of climate change.
Hugo Balta is the executive editor of the Fulcrum, and the publisher of the Latino News Network. An award-winning news veteran, the only two-term president of the National Associaton of Hispanic Journalists was recently recognized by Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism.
A view of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on June 25, 2026. President Donald Trump jolted Republicans during a fiery appearance at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, scrapping a housing bill signing ceremony and clashing behind closed doors with a party rebel who challenged him over the Iran war. Trump had been expected to sign the bipartisan housing.
Only Trump doesn’t care about housing
It was August 15, 2024. Then candidate Donald Trump stepped out of his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club’s columned clubhouse to a gaggle of reporters. He was flanked by tables of groceries and signs showing the rising cost of food. Also on one of the tables was a dollhouse, meant to represent the equally alarming rise in housing prices.
It was a speech about the economy, the single most important issue of the 2024 election cycle, full of promises that went right to the heart of Americans’ anxieties. While former President Joe Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris were contorting themselves to posture a good economy that just needed more time to recover from the pandemic, Trump was preying on voters’ very real fears of unaffordable gas, groceries, and homes. It was obviously a winning message.
In that speech, Trump promised, “We’re going to open up tracts of federal land for housing construction. We desperately need housing for people who can’t afford what’s going on now.”
As of mid-2023, there had been a housing shortage of nearly four million homes, according to the National Association of Realtors. Americans all over the country were either priced out of buying new homes due to low inventory, trapped in their existing homes by sky-high mortgage rates, or facing exorbitant rent hikes thanks to corporate investors buying up rental properties. Americans needed help, and Trump promised it.
Cut to March of 2026, when Trump reportedly told House Speaker Mike Johnson, “No one gives a sh*t about housing.”
That kind of thinking may explain why Trump this week suddenly announced he was canceling a signing ceremony for the bipartisan “21st Century ROAD to Housing Act,” a housing bill co-sponsored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Tim Scott that passed the House 358-32 and was approved in the Senate on Monday.
Trump instead demanded Congress pass the SAVE America Act, his controversial election grievance bill that doesn’t have enough Republican support to get passed in the Senate.
It’s just the latest in a line of policy self-owns where Trump has seemingly intentionally made life more difficult for Republicans hoping to keep their majority. Despite midterm elections occurring in the midst of a blistering economy and an unpopular war, they were surely hoping the housing bill would give them something — anything — to brag about when they returned home to their districts.
And very much to the contrary, Americans do give a sh*t about housing. According to a recent survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a whopping 79% say the cost of housing is extremely or very important to them. Eighty-three percent say Congress should take action on the issue — like it just did. Eighty-nine percent say the House and Senate need to work together to pass affordable housing legislation — like they just did. And 63% say they would be more likely to vote for a lawmaker if they helped pass legislation to build more affordable homes and lower housing costs — like they just did.
There aren’t many issues that unite Americans like housing does, and very few bipartisan policy wins Congress can point to, and yet, Trump is holding that bill hostage in order to get his pet project — which doesn’t even have the support of his own party — pushed through.
If you’re trying to make sense of something so nonsensical, as I’m sure many Republican lawmakers are, it’s certainly sad but not actually all that complicated. Trump said what he needed to get reelected and then promptly abandoned his promises in order to pursue his own self-interests, even if those interests are bad for Republicans and bad for voters.
That’s just the kind of guy he is.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.