Who’s to blame for the California wildfires?
12:13 Share

You would have heard in the news headlines there from Eamon mention of the funeral of Jimmy Carter, former US president. Today, Joe Biden gave the eulogy. Here's a little bit more of what he had to say. In April 2021, Jill and I visited Jimmy and Rosalinda on a warm spring day down in Plains, Georgia. We wanted to see them.

Rosalind met us at the front door with her signature smile. Together, we entered a home that they had shared for almost 77 years of marriage. An unassuming Red Brig ranch home reflects their modesty more than any trappings of power. We walked into the living room where Jimmy greeted us like family. That day, just the four of us sat in the living room and shared memories that spanned almost six decades.

A deep friendship that started in 1974. I was a 31-year-old senator, and I was the first senator outside of Georgia, maybe the first senator, to endorse his candidacy for president. It was an endorsement based on what I believe is Jimmy Carter's enduring attribute. Character. Character. Character. Character.

That was Joe Biden, still the US president, just about speaking at the funeral, the state funeral of Jimmy Carter, former US president. Jeff Cooner is with me. Jeff is the host of the Cooner Report on WRKOM 680 radio in Boston, Massachusetts. Jeff, I assume kind of exhaustive coverage of this funeral happening in the States today, is there?

Yeah, it's around the clock. It's wall-to-wall coverage. And every time a former president passes away, it's huge news in the United States. And look, I wish Jimmy Carter's family very well. Frankly, to be honest, I wasn't a fan of Jimmy Carter, but that doesn't matter. He was a good, decent man, no question about it. And like I think...

Ultimately, he'll be remembered for two things. He'll be remembered for the peace deal that he helped mediate between Israel and Egypt,

which was one of the most lasting consequential peace deals in the history of the Middle East. And in terms of relevance today, the decision that he made that was ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1978 to give back or to give away the Panama Canal to the Panamanian government and to Panama, which President Trump now says he wants back.

He says the Panamanian government has broken its treaty, that China has now essentially used influence within the Panama Canal. They have two ports that they now dominate in the Panama Canal, that the Panamanian government is overcharging American ships, American vessels. It is a key, key strategic choke point. Trump says he wants it back.

He's willing to put money on the table. If the Panamanian government doesn't want, he'll then use other measures to pressure the Panamanians. What are the measures? Well, I mean, the sanctions. I think there's no question he may decide to go with sanctions. He may even threaten to use military force. I don't think he'll get to that. But the point that Trump is trying to make, and this is why he's also making a play for Greenland,

is he's sending a message to China loud and clear that the Western hemisphere does not belong to foreign powers, that we will not allow great powers and adversarial foreign hostile powers like China to meddle in our backyard.

The Monroe Doctrine is the keystone of American foreign policy. It goes back to 1823. The goal was to send every major European and foreign power, major power, out of the Western Hemisphere. China now is in a mad race for resources, along with Russia. They want the Arctic. They want the oil in the Arctic.

Greenland in particular is very rich. I mean, it's a tundra, frozen tundra, very sparsely inhabited, about 57,000 people. It's not what's above the ground that interests China, Russia, and Trump. It's what's beneath the ground. And those are rare earth minerals. China wants to lock up, have a monopoly on the world's rare earth minerals that are vital. In fact, they're indispensable to make cell phones, to make iPhones, to make iPads, to

Missiles, tanks, fighter jets. If you want a modern technological economy the way it is now in the 21st century, rare earth minerals are the oil and gold of the 21st century. Trump said he wants it and he won't allow China to take it. So but what's – Jeff, what's the end game here? Because what gets all the headlines is kind of talk of –

military intervention in Panama or buying Greenland. I mean, is this kind of art of the deal type stuff? Is this just tough talk? And what he really wants is some sort of just commercial access. Yes, you nailed it. I mean, that's classic Trump. The thing to realize about Trump, if Trump wants 50, he asks for 100.

So that's what he does. So that comment that he made, well, no, I won't take military options off the table. He's just doing that for leverage. I know this for a fact. I've spoken to people very close to his transition team. He has no desire to use military force to take over the Panama Canal, for example. And I'll tell you why. Because he's going to face a guerrilla war. And the last thing he wants is a guerrilla war in Panama.

So what he just wants to do is he wants to rattle cages. He wants to use this as leverage to get the Panamanians to essentially sell those ports to any other country in the world except China and to reduce fees on American ships.

and he's probably going to get it. And he'll probably throw in a couple of economic carrots to induce it. As for Greenland, he's not going to invade Greenland. What he wants is probably what's called a defense-free association, a compact agreement. We have that with Pacific Island nations, a deal in which America will provide a military protectorate across Greenland, assume all the security obligations to protect that island,

and then get into a revenue-sharing deal, say, with rare earth minerals or anything that they drill underneath the ground. So it's financial. And, Kieran, trust me on this. Take this to the bank.

If the prime minister of Greenland says no, and he came out and said we will never, ever be part of the United States or have a deal with the United States, Trump is going to offer $57 billion, $1 million per every person living in Greenland.

And he says, here it is. I'll make all of you instant millionaires if you're willing to have this defense compact free association agreement. And I think that $57 billion will seal the deal. What about then what's happening now?

Actually, sorry, before I ask you about Gavin Newsom, just on what we've just been talking about, Jeff, I mean, to what extent do Trump's supporters, kind of voters who are not paying kind of close attention every day, day in, day out to what's going on in Washington,

do they know what the end game is? You know, when they see Donald Trump talking about kind of, I'm not taking military intervention off the table, like, are there those in the kind of the so-called flyover states who are thinking, whoa, whoa, hold on a minute. I voted for this guy because I wanted no more foreign wars. Yeah.

Yeah, they realize it's Trump art of the deal. Nobody thinks he's going to do it. They think that's just Trump. They like it. He talks tough. He likes to ratchet up the pressure. But they realize in the end, you go for zero. He goes for 100. He wants 50.

That's what Trump does all the time. There will be no military intervention in Greenland. There will be no intervention in the Panama Canal. No, but what you're seeing is something, Kieran, that his supporters like myself do support, which is the Trump doctrine. And in particular, Greenland is key to this. The Panama Canal is very important. We want America to be genuinely economic self-sufficient.

and to become genuinely economic independent from China. And to do that, we want these supply chains, whether it's transistors, computer chips, iPhones, iPads, especially military missile technology.

where you need these rare earth minerals and that China, like graphite, cobalt, lithium, China already has 70% of the world's supply. Afghanistan has a huge deposit. It's why the Chinese are there and they cut a hundred year deal with the Taliban. We've got to get that in Greenland.

China wants it. Russia wants it. We have to beat them to the punch because without it, we'll be permanently dependent on China. And that's one thing we don't want to see happen.

Listen, before I let you go then, tell us about California. So we've been talking about it on this show, just in the context of evacuation orders and chatting to kind of reporters on the ground and some Irish people caught up in that part of the world. What's happening with the politics of this? I see that the governor, Gavin Newsom, the governor of California and Donald Trump having goes at each other.

Yeah, they are. Well, they go back many years. They don't like each other. Look, to be perfectly frank, Karen, what you're watching now is not just Southern California go up in smoke. It is Gavin Newsom's national political aspirations. He really could have been the next Democratic presidential nominee. He has bungled this. He is invisible. He's hardly seen. More importantly, people in California now are blaming him for these out-of-control raging wildfires.

that are turning, we're talking West Hollywood, Sunset Boulevard, Malibu, Beverly Hills, Pasadena. These are some of the most beautiful, iconic areas of America, and they're being burnt to the ground. And they're being burnt to the ground for multiple reasons, but the big one is that Gavin Newsom, beholden to the radical environmentalists,

issued an order years ago that all of this fresh, clean water, millions of gallons of fresh water that they have in Northern California, from all the rains, all the snow melting, that it be flushed into the ocean and not be diverted to Southern California. Why? To protect a tiny fish species that he says was going extinct, the Delta smelt.

So, literally, Southern California is burning. People are dying. Businesses and shopping malls, schools, churches, homes are being turned to ash to protect the fish.

And the people of Southern California are livid. The fire hydrants, there's no water. Garden hoses for residents to just try to douse the flames on their homes, there's no water. And it's all because of Gavin Newsom's gross incompetence. He played with fire for years, literally, and now he's...

burned. Well, if people are wondering, the Delta smelt is an endangered, slender bodied smelt. It's about five to seven centimetres long and part of the Osmeridae family. So there you go if you're wondering what Geoff's talking about. Geoff, listen, we'll talk to you at the same time next week. Thank you. Geoff Cooner, host of the Cooner Report on WKR AM680 Radio, Boston, Massachusetts. The Hard Shoulder with Ciarán Cudahy with the MG Hybrid and Electric range. Weekdays from 4 on Newstalk.