Los Angeles Fires Rage; Blue Origin Launch Delayed

Published Jan 13, 2025, 10:35 AM

On today's podcast:

1) Los Angeles Fires Rage as High Winds Set to Return This Week

2) Trudeau Says Canada Tariffs Ready If Trump Starts Trade War

3) Bezos’ Blue Origin Delays Debut Mission of New Glenn Rocket

Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.

Good morning, I'm Nathan Hager and I'm Karen Moscow. Here are the stories we're following today.

Karen, we begin with the latest on the wildfires in Los Angeles. The death toll is now up to at least twenty four and more than twelve thousand buildings have been turned to ash in the Pacific Palisades and Delta Dina regions. Over the weekend, firefighters got a brief break from the punishing Santa Ana wins that have spread these flames across nearly thirty eight thousand acres, but another round of wind gusts is in the forecast this week. Here's Los Angeles County Fire Chief Robert Luna.

The fires may be closer to being over.

You hear that from our fire chiefs if it goes that way, But we do have this pending weather event.

We are not going to de escalate the number of.

People that we have out ree Fire Chief Robert Luna. The National Weather Service has issued its most severe alert, a particularly Dangerous situation warning from Malibu, the San Fernando Valley, and much of Ventura County. More than seven point seven million people in southern California are facing critical fire weather conditions today.

Well, Nathan, this disaster is on track to be the costliest in US history. ACU Weather has raised its estimate for total economic losses to between two hundred and fifty and two hundred and seventy five billion dollars. FEMA Administrator Deana Criswell says things will need to change when it comes to rebuilding.

We have a lot of science and technology out there that shows ways that we can make these homes stronger and more resistant against these fires. That's really where we need to focus our efforts as we move into the rebuilding phase.

And as FEMA's Dan Chriswell, who appeared on CBS's Face the Nation, California Governor Gavin Newsom has issued in executive order suspending some environmental and regulatory hurdles to speed up the rebuilding process. He and other local officials have faced heavy criticism for their response, but newsommetals NBC's Meet the Press they're up to the challenge.

We have fourteen thousand people work in the line right now. We double the nation on guard. We have sixteen hundred and eighty they're helping on logistic side. I was just with folks from Mexico. Seventy three folks will be relieving some of our hand crews. We've got nine states that are now providing under this EMACS system support. So we've got the resources.

And you can hear meet the press and face the nation every Sunday on Bloomberg Radio.

It's turned out of politics Karen. Justin Trudeau says Canada is ready to respond with counter tariffs if the US imposes tariffs on Canadian products. The outgoing Canadian Prime minister said his government is not looking for a trade fight, but we'll have to retaliate if the US tariffs Canadian products.

We are the number one export partner of about thirty five different US states, and anything that thickens the border between US ends up costing American citizens and American jobs. That's not what President Trump got elected to do. I know he got elected to try and make life easier for all Americans, to support American workers. These are things that are going to hurt them.

Justin Trudeau those comments on MSNBC. Canada buys more US made goods than many other country.

Meanwhile, Nathan Jamie Diamond is speaking out about tariffs in an interview with CBS News Sunday morning that JP Morgan CEO says they can help the US.

To me Tariff's early way. Every tool properly used that can help get some posicians resolved, unfair competition, NAS security issues. Like any tool, if it's misused, you can do damage too, And.

JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Diamond says he has not spoken with President elect Donald Trump about tariffs Well Karen.

President elect Trump's cabinet choices will begin facing Senate confirmation hearings this week. On Thursday, Treasury Secretary nominee Scott Bessett answers questions we get more from Bloomberg's Doug Prisner.

Bessett is founder and leader of the macro hedge fund Key Square Group. If he's confirmed, Bessant will immediately resign, and a document released by the Office of Government Ethics indicates Key Square would be wound down at the end of March. Bessid will also divest underlying assets to avoid conflicts of interest. He's disclosed assets worth at least five hundred and twenty one million dollars. Some of Besson's potential conflicts will take longer to resolve he's invested at the least a quarter million dollars in three funds that allow him to withdraw no more than twenty five percent of its holdings each quarter.

In New York.

I'm Doug Prisner, Bloomberg Radio.

All right, Doug, thank you well. Vice President de Like jd Vance is dialing back on his running mates, promised to part in. All protesters involved in the US capital riot on January sixth, twenty twenty one.

If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn't be pardoned. And there's a little bit of a gray area there, but we're very much committed to seeing the equal administration of law. And there are a lot of people, we think in the wake of January the sixth, who were prosecuted unfairly. We need to rectify that.

And Vice President de Like vancevan the comments on Fox News Sunday. You can catch the program Sunday afternoons on Bloomberg Radio. Ok.

And you're gonna have to wait a little longer so the rest of us actually for the next space launch. Jeff Bezos's Blue o And has delayed the inaugural takeoff of its new flagship rocket to deal with an unspecified issue on the vehicle. The company says it is reviewing opportunities for the next launch attempt for the new Glen Rocket.

The Jeff Bezos backed.

Firm is trying to mount a challenge to Elon Musk's industry leading SpaceX.

Well, we do have a milestone for one of Elon Musk's other businesses. Nathan Tesla has overtaken Audi and Go global car sales for the first time. Howdy sold one point sixty seven million vehicles in twenty twenty four, down twelve percent from a year earlier. Tesla delivered almost one point eight million vehicles last year.

Train of Markets now Karen futures are lower following Friday's job related selloff on Wall Street. The drop came after the economy in December added the most jobs since March and the unemployment rate unexpectedly fell. Cameron Dawson is chief investment officer at new Edge Wealth.

It is that question of is good news good news or is good news bad news. We think at the end of the day, strong jobs are over all good for the equity market, but we have to take a hit to the valuation first to digest these higher yields. If we continue to see this labor market hold in better than expected.

New Edge Wealth's Cam Dawson notes the S and P five hundreds one and a half percent drop on Friday wiped out the indexes advance for the year.

Well, Nathan, let's turn to the economy now, and a former Federal Reserve Vice chair, Randall Quarrels, believes the Fed's independence is not going to be threatened by president like Donald Trump, and Karrels spoke with Bloomberg's Steven Engel.

Structurally, the FED can't really be affected by the president's bully pulpit. And you know, the people who are appointed of the FED generally have fairly thicked skins. So while there's certainly political pressure, there's not really political levers that someone can pull to affect their independence.

And Randall Quarrels was a Trump appointee to the FED. He served as vice chair of Supervision until twenty twenty one. Time now for look at some of the other stories making news in New York and around the world, and for that we're joined by Bloomberg's John Tucker.

John good morning, Good morning, Karen House. Republicans from New York, New Jersey and California, unhappy with a cap on state and local tax deductions, say talks on the issue with Donald Trump over the weekend were positive. Let's find out more this morning from Bloomberg's Jeff Bellinger.

Representative Nick Lolatta of New York said in an interview, Trump is willing to engage in a solution. Representative Nicole Meliatakis, another New Yorker who attended the gathering of about sixteen House Republicans with Trump at his Mari A Lago resort in Florida, posted on x that the meeting was productive. Significant expansion of the salt deduction cap is already emerging as a potential demand by some Republicans in return for their support of any larger text related package. Jeff Bullinger, Bloomberg Radio.

Hospitals across the country dealing with a wave of respiratory illnesses. The CDC says at least thirty five states are seeing high levels of flu covid RSV, even the common cold. So far this season, the flu alona sent more than sixty three thousand people to the hospital and crowns at least twenty seven hundred deaths, including eleven children. President Biden delivers a foreign policy speech today the State Department White House Press Secretary Karean John Pierre.

He has some thoughts on the future, not just of the country, but how this country moves forward as a leader.

This is one of several appearances the President has been making as he prepares to leave office. January twentieth, a Top eight and President like Donald Trump's incoming administration signals the Ukraine will be asked to lower the conscription age to strengthen its battlefield position. Michael Walls, a former Army Green Beret whom Trump tapped as his White House National Security advisor, suggested the expanded draft age would help Ukraine overcome a shortage of troops. Right now, the draft age is twenty five global news twenty four hours a day, whenever you want it. We have Bloomberg News.

Now.

I'm John Tucker, and they see he's Bloomberg. Karen.

All right, John Tucker, thank you time now for the Bloomberg Sports out Day, brought to you by Tri State Outie. Here's John stash Hour, John, Good morning, Good.

Morning, Karen. Last time there was an NFL playoff victory by Washington was nineteen years ago. The team had a different owner, they had a different name and their current quarterback was five years old or rookie qube Jadeen Daniels, who led the Commanders to twelve regular season wins, eight more than they had a year ago, led them down the field in the final minute of Tampa Bay, and they kicked a field goal on the final play from thirty seven to send Washington to the final Eightue.

The Washington come, Tony Calme, I have seen it all NBC.

The Call Commanders won a back and forth game with the Bucks twenty three twenty. They'll not play Saturday night in Detroit the first two games of the day. Liked the games this past Saturday, one easily by the home team Buffalo be Denver thirty one to seven. The Bills are nine to zero home. They'll be home Sunday night against Baltimore. Philadelphia down Green Bay twenty two to ten. The Eagles await the winner of tonight's game. Vikings and Rams moved from Los Angeles to Phoenix. To no one's surprise, Mike Rabel and they had the new coach of the New England Patriots. He was a Pats linebacker for eight years, coach the Titans for six replaces Gered Mayo, who got just one season after Bill Belichick coached the Pats for twenty four at the guard. In an offensive explosion by the Knicks, they shot fifty eight percent, beating Milwaukee won forty to one, Zho six, Jalen Brunson forty four points. He had twenty three in the first quarter. The Nets lost a heartbreaker at Utah. Jass scored with two seconds left in overtime and won by a point. The Celtics beating New Orleans by a point in Melbourne. They're playing now opening around the Australian Open, and ten time champion Novak Djokovic lost the first set to nineteen year old American Nisshesh Basavaretti. They're now tied one set, all straight set wins for Carlos Alcarez and top seed Onick Center, as well as Coco Gone, John Starshaw or Bloomberg Sports, Can Ivern and Nathan.

Coast to Coast on Bloomberg Radio nationwide on Sirius XM, and around the world on Bloomberg dot Com and the Bloomberg Business app. This is Bloomberg Daybreak.

Good morning. I'm Nathan Hager as the wildfires continue to rage in southern California. Firefighters could struggle to catch a break from the winds that have spread the flames across an area more than two and a half times the size of Manhattan. Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Moroney says dangerous conditions are in the forecast for much of this week.

Next predicted red flag ends on Wednesday, so please rest assured that first thing Thursday, we will start talking about repopulation and evacuation order and warning areas.

And this morning we were joined by Bloomberg News senior editor Bill Ferries. Bill, good morning, I know you've been following this situation as closely as anybody. I guess the firefighters got a little bit of a break from the winds over the weekend, but it's not lasting long.

Good morning, Good morning, Nathan. That's right. Firefighters started to make some progress over the weekend. That Palisades fire is about thirteen percent contained as of Sunday evening. In La they Eton fire twenty seven percent contained. But as you were suggesting there, the conditions don't look good in the days ahead. National Weather Service has its most severe alert out there for places like Malibu, San Fernando Valley parts of Ventura County. They're warning about what they called explosive fire growth potential beginning late Monday and carrying on through Wednesday. So I think people who are out there are going to continue to be glued to those fire tracking apps. Seven and a half million people or so are facing this critical fire weather condition and they could have additional evacuations and movements. The fires have already burned forty thousand acres. More than one hundred thousand people have been had to leave their home so far, So looks like a rough start to the week, really beginning in the afternoon or evening on Monday in southern California.

Just to talk about the scope of this disaster, forty thousand structures destroyed just puts a tip to the iceberg of the kind of damage, the kind of economic loss that we could see from this.

Yeah, the area that's been burned, I mean it's already a larger area than cities like San Francisco or Pittsburgh, Boston or Miami. So that's just the area that's been burned. ACU weather Ink, which looks at, you know, disasters and the costs, they've put out an estimate of two hundred and fifty to two hundred and seventy five billion dollars in total costs that includes the damage and rebuilding and lost wages and things like that.

But that is up.

It's almost double their previous estimate of fifty to one hundred and fifty billion just a few days ago.

What does this mean for the insurance industry? How can Southern California rebuild from this kind of disaster? I mean is are we going to have to face the question about whether it's Southern California is ensurable.

It's gonna be It's gonna be just a brutal blow to the insurance industry. And remember, you know, broadly is an industry. It comes after a series of major hurricanes that hit the southeast United States last year. That's going to be a real question going forward. What happens to those rates? Does it make living in Southern California even more costly going forward? And how many years will it take to rebuild? Remember LA's hosting, you know, they're hosting the Olympics in just a few years. Typically these kind of disasters that it could take a decade or more to fully recover from this kind of a natural disaster event.

And to see the response that we've seen so far and the questions that have been raised about how this even started, what can be done to prevent this kind of thing from happening. I mean, we've seen some pretty withering criticism for some of the local leaders in that region. Got about a minute left.

Yeah, Mayor Karen Bass coming under a heavy fire for her budget cuts that hit the fire department. In the end, I think the fire department got more money this year than last year, but there's a lot of deferred maintenance. You hear union fire union leader saying that, Listen, there's a lot of trucks that are still waiting for repairs that could be out there doing some fighting. Of Course, like everything, it's getting heavily politicized. But right now, the focus is really what might be coming in the next seventy two hours for southern California and whether they can get past and whether firefighters can kind of get a stronger grip and get more of this under control.

This is Bloomberg Daybreak, your morning podcast on the stories making news from Wall Street to Washington and beyond.

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And I'm Nathan Hager. Join us again tomorrow morning for all the news you need to start your day right here on Bloomberg Daybreak