President Trump went to Los Angeles to observe the wildfire response, and it’s astounding and wonderful.

Governors, presidents and cabinet leaders travel to big disasters to show their concern and rally the troops.  The competent ones do.  Biden and his diversity babies weren’t good at that, but in general, it’s expected.

George W. Bush understood this, and his appearance at the 9/11 rubble was his best moment as president.

A president has never sat down in a round-table meeting and pushed back against the bureaucracy to help the residents.  To Mayor Bass’s credit, she is polite and accommodating. 

But the people are willing to clean out their own debris. It doesn’t cost a lot.  You should let them do it because by the time you hire contractors, it’s going to be two years.  The people are willing to get a dumpster, and do it themselves and clean it out.  There is not that much left.  It’s all incinerated, and you know it’s just going to take a long time.  You can do some of it, but a lot of these people, I know that guy right there who’s talking, I know my people, you’ll be in that thing tonight, throwing the stuff away and your site will look perfect in 24 hours.  And that’s what he wants to do.

To me, Bass seems like she is in over her head as mayor of Los Angeles.  She wants to agree with Trump, but seems cautious and tentative as she keeps looking at her people.  Bass says that residents can get to their houses in a week, but it needs to be safe.  She doesn’t want to be blamed for anything and seems relieved that Trump is telling her what to do.

The people are all over the place, they’re standing.  You say, ‘why aren’t you going in?’  ‘We’re trying to get a permit’ and the permit is going to take, everybody said, 18 months.

And the crowd agrees with him.  The residents all have lives, and they want to get on with it.  They want to go in, see what’s left and decide what to do next. 

Trump knows property development and he knows people.  He talks the way they feel.  Trump’s active involvement will help get the job done two or three times faster than it would have taken.  Mayor Bass will aggressively use her emergency powers because she can blame Trump if anything goes wrong.

It’s an open question whether or not the voters in Los Angeles will learn anything from this.

This short video of the round-table is worth watching.