Multimillionaire entrepreneur and Shark tank star Kevin O’Leary predicts that California Governor Gavin Newsom will try to shake off responsibility for the unimaginably destructive fires ravaging Los Angeles. But O’Leary won’t allow that.
‘You can’t blame all of this on climate change. That’s what Newsom will try to do,” O’Leary told the Daily Mail in an exclusive interview, expecting the green energy-obsessed Democrat to look for an excuse to justify the state’s inability to prevent this catastrophe.
Instead, O’Leary says there’s only one thing to blame: “It’s just bad management.” [Newsom’s] on behalf of.’
At least six people have been killed and dozens injured in Southern California as five fires rage across the region. The LA County sheriff says he expects the death toll to rise.
“This is a horrific outcome, loss of life, loss of everything else, loss of property,” O’Leary added.
The estimated economic costs of the ongoing disasters already reach $50 billion, meaning these wildfires are on track to become the most financially destructive in American history.
According to O’Leary, much of the destruction was preventable.
O’Leary says there is only one person to blame: “It’s just bad management.” [Newsom’s] on behalf of.’ (Photo: Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and California Governor Gavin Newsom in the Pacific Palisades on January 8)
Multimillionaire entrepreneur and “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary predicts Newsom will try to shake off responsibility for the unimaginably devastating fires ravaging Los Angeles. But O’Leary won’t allow that.
“It’s just bad forest management,” he said, “you have to keep the dry forest under control, otherwise it’s only a matter of time before nature does its normal fire, clears everything away and starts again.”
Investigations by California-based media outlets have repeatedly criticized Newsom for failing to deliver on his promises to clear dry brush, which forestry experts say reduces the risk of wildfires.
In a 2021 investigation, the governor was accused of inflating by as much as 690 percent the amount of land he said his administration had treated with firefighting methods.
“You either have to burn it down, as many other jurisdictions around the world occasionally do in a controlled fire, or the fire controls you, which happens all the time in California and destroys a lot of property and even worse lives.” O’Leary told the Mail.
O’Leary’s scathing review of Newsom echoes some of the criticism newly elected President Donald Trump has leveled at the Democrat, who has focused on the failure of the water system used by the LA Fire Department.
“Governor Gavin Newscum refused to sign the water recovery declaration presented to him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water from excess rain and snowmelt from the north to flow daily to many parts of California, including areas currently in be on fire. Trump wrote on Truth Social Wednesday.
‘Moreover, no water for fire hydrants, no fire-fighting planes. A real disaster!’
Newsom’s communications director, Izzy Gardon, denied Trump’s allegations, calling them “pure fiction.”
But when it comes to accountability, Newsom has largely thrown up his hands.
O’Leary’s scathing review of Newsom echoes some of the criticism newly elected President Donald Trump has leveled at the Democrat.
When questioned Wednesday night about fire hydrants in the city drying up when fire crews tried to use them, Newsom said, “Look, the locals are trying to figure that out. Those hydrants are normally for two or three fires, maybe one fire, not something of this magnitude… but again, that’s up to the locals.”
For O’Leary, this response simply isn’t enough.
‘If [Newsom] worked in the private sector, I would have fired him a long time ago,” said the Montreal-born entrepreneur.
‘He would never make it. He would have been fired anywhere. Every job he had. That man couldn’t run a corner store, a bodega. He’s terrible.’
He called out Newsom for boosting the use of electric cars in his quest for net-zero carbon emissions by 2045, while neglecting traditional infrastructure.
Now those electric vehicles and their owners are being caught up in the destruction.
“The lithium batteries caught fire, and you can’t put out a lithium battery,” O’Leary said in response to video of abandoned Telsas left along evacuation routes after drivers had to flee for their lives.
Overall, O’Leary says Newsom’s leadership is crippling the state:
“Gavin Newsom, I’ve been saying for two years, is a walking disaster for that state… Sooner or later people will say, ‘He’s made it unbearable.’ Taxes are the highest in the country. The service is the lowest. And then there are those fires.’
“Newsom is bringing California to its knees, and slowly but surely people are leaving for all kinds of different reasons, and certainly the business community left a long time ago,” he said.