Transcript of Adam Carolla On Fires, Failures & Urgent Need for Change | 1.18.25

The Los Angeles fires have wreaked havoc on parts of Southern California, with more than 10,000 homes destroyed in the Palisades fire, Eaton fire, and others. In this episode, Daily Wire investigative reporter, Spencer Linquis, sits down with comedian and actor Adam Carola to discuss his experiences evacuating from the Palisades fire and its devastating aftermath. I'm Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief, John Bickley with Georgia How. It's January 18th, and this is a Saturday edition of Morning Wire. The following is an interview between Daily Wire reporter, Spencer Linquist and comedian Adam Carola.

Adam, so thanks for sitting down with us to talk about these fires. There's a wide range of different topics on the policy level that we definitely like to discuss. But I think first off, I just wanted to hear a bit about your experience with the fires. I know that you evacuated and you've got a condo that you've been concerned about. If you could just walk us through what it's been like personally so far.

Tuesday morning, I was leaving the gym that's on Sunset and PCH, which is Pacific Coast Highway. And I left the gym about 10:45, 10:50 in the morning, and I walked down on this open terrace. I looked to my left and I just saw smoke at the top of Sunset, and that's exactly when the fire started. So I got my car and I came here, which is in the San Fernando Valley, which is 25 miles away to come here to work. And as I was going down PCH, I was seeing fire trucks coming in the other directions, a tier of sirens, and all that goes along with it. And then I got here, and by the end of my work day, probably about three or four o'clock, I'd heard that the fire had spread, but it still wasn't imminent danger because there was a fire three weeks earlier in Malibu as well, and we had to evacuate, but it was just not what this one was. Then at a certain point, I drove for about an hour and a half back to Malibu, not being able to use my normal route, but having to go around through Pepperdine, Los Virginus, Malibu Canyon area.

And come back backside to my condo, which is up the hill and right in the middle of Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. And then I got there and I sat down, and about 20 minutes later, my girlfriend said she got the alert on her phone and we have to clear up. Then we get back in the car and drove back here, but the power was out here. Then we had to check into a hotel. That was about a week ago, and I've just been monitoring it ever since, but found out that my actual unit or my building is only a duplex. It wasn't a big complex. It did not burn down. Everything in front of it burnt down. When you Pacific Coast Highway, when you passed Duke's, that's the area that I'm in. And you'll probably recall that everything past Duke burnt down.

Yeah. And you said that your area didn't burn down.

How long- My condo didn't burn down. The area is gone. And so I started seeing little dribs and drabs. I think when I woke up in a hotel room on Wednesday morning, I was seeing footage because all you would get is what they would give you. The restaurant beneath me was completely engulfed in flames, and much of the stuff on the other side of the street was completely gone. So I was doing the math path, which is the fire starts on the mountain, it comes down the mountain, it burns everything in its path, and then eventually it crosses PCH, if it does, burns everything there, and then it hits the water. There's nowhere else to go. But I'm in between the mountain and the water, and everything in front of me is gone. So I'm just assuming that my structure is gone as well since I'm in the path of the fire. And then it took several days past that to realize that somehow my structure was not hit.

Right after the fire broke out, there was all this coverage of the past comments from the current fire department chief about equity, about the gender balance of the fire department. I'm sure that's what was on your mind when you were thinking the condo. What is the sex of the firefighter in that area? Could you speak a little bit about those concerns, those equity concerns, the prevalence that they have in the fire department and the public response, the backlash to those comments?

Yeah, they speak freely about it. I have experience with it because I tried to be a firefighter when I was 19 and was told I wasn't black enough or Hispanic enough or female enough to be led on to the crew. So I did I have a little special place in my heart for equity because I was poor and needed a job and was willing to work. It's strange that it's discussed as much as it is. And I guess what I'm saying is the people who just want their property saved or just want their kids saved or their pets saved or their husband or their wife saved don't care about equity. And I also don't think people in 2025 America care at all. We just want the best qualified person to do the job. I think it's racist and a lot of projection when they would say... I used to said it a million times when they go, The fire department needs to resemble the community that it serves. I I just go, I don't know why. Who cares? You go to the hospital here in Los Angeles. There's a lot of Filipino nurses. It's almost all Filipino nurses.

I don't know why they're attracted to this business. Evidently, nursing is a good job, evidently becomes a Filipino family business, almost. I worked with a Filipino guy, and I said, This is Filipino. And he goes, Yeah, my mom's a nurse. And I go, Oh, really? He goes, She wanted me to be a nurse. And I'm like, Yes, okay, it's a thing. I don't care. My dad would go to the hospital. He'd get a Filipino nurse, and she would take good care of him. Don't care. He didn't care. Don't have to look like you. You go to LAX, security is 70% African-American. I don't know why it is. It's racist to think you would have an issue, and they always do it with white people like, Oh, I'm going to have an issue with this nurse that looks like this or this TSA guy looks like that. No, we don't. That's all we see all day Every day. By the way, Los Angeles, you call someone to come un clog your toilet. You're not going to get somebody who looks like you who shows up that you welcome in your home. You call a TV repair guy or an electrician or a plumber or whoever.

You're not going to get anyone that looks like you. That's LA. That's how it works. Nobody cares. Everybody whose home was destroyed is going to be rebuilt by somebody who doesn't look like them. And that'll be that.

Yeah. And that constituency, especially post-2020, DEI, Woke, generally speaking, as a broad term, that was all the rage. There was an institutional takeover. It spanned government, it spanned media, it span corporate America. Do you think that that group of people, the Palisade, Santa Monica, if we look at that almost as an interest group in and of itself, right? Do you think that'll be powerful enough for government leaders to say, you know what, we're going We're actually going to pull back on the red tape. We're going to pull back on the regulations. We're going to pull back on these overly burdensome permitting processes. Do you think that's going to be sufficient or do you think they are still going to have these policies that are going to push people out?

I think that in conjunction with Trump and Elon Musk and Vivek Ramiswami, that whole cadre of people is going to turn it. Same way, they were all nuts with COVID, and that turned around. They're all nuts with BLM and that turned around. There were nuts with the pronouns and all that crap that tacked to the right or towards sanity or whatever direction sanity is. So, yeah, I do think it will We'll have a a renaissance with that. They do say whatever direction California goes, so goes the nation. And some of that is true with fashion and design and arts and things like that. But I think it'll be more Trump and more Musk that are banging that drum because most people think that regulation and red tape is invisible It's really invisible to most people. They don't really see it. I talked to a guy years ago, and he was an Uber driver. He used to sell private jets. And he said, half the cost of every private jet is just lawyers, lawsuits, and regulations. Most people just go, That jet's $10 million. But what if that person knew that was really just a $5 million jet with $5 million worth of red tape and lawyers tacked onto it.

You know what I mean? They would change their mind. And so it's invisible, and most people don't get it, and they don't understand it. My background is in construction and building, and I worked in LA my whole life. So I had a front row seat to really bad regulatory systems and lots of overreach and too much intervention by the government early. And I've complained about it my entire radio career, but no one else cared because they just didn't come from that world, so they didn't really experience it. But I think now they're getting a little bit of a front row seat to it. And so I hope globally, it is impactful.

And then just last question in a couple of minutes more that we have, could you just tell us a story of... You said your background is in construction. You tried to have your background being firefighting, right? You tried to go into firefighting as a career. Could you tell us a story of your attempt to get into firefighting and what exactly occurred there?

Yeah. So I was a jock football player, just dude, hung out in a weight room, played football, and it was like a physical guy when I was in high school and getting out of high school. And the economy was real bad. It was early '80s, and there was no jobs to be found. And I didn't know anybody who had any business or anything. I was really adrift financially. I graduated high school barely. I wasn't going to college. I didn't have any gainful employment, and I just didn't really have anywhere to go or anything to do. I honestly should have just joined the army. And I was just living in my dad's garage in North Hollywood, and my step Mom wanted me out of the house, and I was just going to a job. I was going to supermarkets and putting in applications, going on a construction site, asking if they need to labor jobs. No one was hiring. But I had always heard about fireman. And I was strong and I was in good shape, and I didn't care. But I'd go into a burning building. I didn't really think that. I didn't have a lot of regard for myself.

So I walked. I didn't even have a car or anything, but I walked to the North Hollywood Fire Station. And it was the one across the street from the park in my neighborhood. And I just wandered in. I just went, Hey, who's in charge here? And I go, Hey, could I fill out an application to be a fireman? And the guy went like, Yeah, go ahead, fill it out, but don't expect I got the phone to ring for a while. And I was like, why wouldn't you call? He was like, we're hiring women, we're hiring Black, we're hiring Hispanic. This is a long time ago, too. Is it early '80s? It's early '80s. And I go, okay, but I could just fill this out and give it to you, right? He's like, yeah, but we're not calling. I don't expect anything. I was like, all right, well, I walked here, so I don't care. I don't have a job. My time is not worth anything. So I was just like, fill it out, hand it in, and I leave. I ended up getting a job as a laborer on a construction site, literally just digging ditches.

And I did that. Then I worked my way up to Carpenter. And then I worked my way up to doing earthquake rehab work for the city, which actually paid a little bit because it was a city job. It pays like 18 or 19 bucks an hour. Now we're getting into the mid-early '80s. Sorry, later '80s. It's been years. I've forgotten all about it. I'm I drive a truck. I have my tools. I'm a Carpenter at this point. And then at some point, I go out to lunch with my dad, and he's got an envelope with him. He sets it across the table, and I go, well, what's this? He goes, I don't know. I got a letter to the house from you, made out to you. This is Tuesday. I haven't lived in that house in six years, seven years. It's been a year since I moved out. I moved to an apartment. I work now. I got my own life. I said, What is this? Open up. It's a fire department. You have a test date. This Saturday, Hollywood High. Come and take your test to be a fireman. Now, you have to keep in mind, 18 or 19 to 25, 26, that is a lifetime.

So I go, All right. So My feeling was I was a carpenter at that point. I drove a truck, had my tools, had a profession, had a skill. But I was like, Hey, man, I've been waiting six years for this day. I'm taking the test. Who knows? It's a Saturday at Hollywood High. Beautiful day, sun shining outside of Hollywood High. Just waiting in line. It's a line of 150 people trying to go into some bungalow and take their written test. I'm just standing there and look at my paper from six years ago. And there's a woman behind me woman of color and diminutive, like Paul Abdul's size. And I'm like, I can't get over it. I'm like, When did you... So I turned to her and I was like, When did you sign up? I signed up six years When did you sign them? She goes, Wednesday. And I was like, oh, damn. And that's when I learned, oh, that's what we're dealing with. Now, you by no means wanted this person coming into your She didn't look like she could lift her arms if she put a bracelet on. But that's who's coming to save you because no waiting.

And that's when I realized, oh, the system. Not good. He wasn't lying. No.

Well, great. Thank you very much. Appreciate you taking the time and telling us your story and your thoughts.

I'd say thanks for having me, but good to have you. Good to have you in my studio.

Yeah. No, I appreciate it.

Sure. My pleasure.

That was DailyWire's Spencer Lincuist interviewing comedian Adam Carola, and this has been a weekend edition of MorningWire.