MSNBC’s Jen Psaki Rips Trump And Fox News ‘Pushing Lies’ In Blistering Wildfire Commentary

MSNBC host and former Biden White House press secretary Jen Psaki tore into President-elect Donald Trump and his allies for “pushing lies” about the California wildfires — and accused Fox News of “running with them.”

The wildfires devastating the Los Angeles area have dominated the news this week, and have turned into a political feud as well. President-elect Donald Trump has been attacking Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA) and spreading misinformation about the fires, while Democratic officials have been criticized over preparedness and the response to fires that were spurred on by high Santa Ana winds.

There has also been no shortage of conspiratorial talk on cable news.

On Sunday’s edition of MSNBC’s Inside With Jen Psaki, Psaki singled out several Fox News personalities as she decried “lies” being spread by Trump, Elon Musk, and Alex Jones —”and then right-wing media runs with them”:

PSAKI: Even as firefighters in Southern California continue working to stop the flames, hundreds of thousands of people have already been forced from their homes, neighborhoods have been reduced to ash and authorities have reported at least 16 deaths. This is already projected to be the most costly wildfire outbreak in U.S. history.

And with these fires still burning, we are facing important questions about how to mitigate and prevent disasters like this in the future. The fact is leadership will need to confront a very complicated and challenging reality moving forward.

But right now, that is not exactly what is happening. Instead, Donald Trump and his allies are injecting half-truths, misinformation, and flat out lies in some cases in order to score a version of political points, I suppose.

We saw something similar play out just this past October in the aftermath of Hurricanes Helene and Milton, when Trump repeatedly lied about FEMA spending disaster relief funds on migrants, which didn’t happen, also baselessly claiming that the Biden administration was absent and incompetent in delivering aid, despite what elected officials of both parties on the ground said. Those lies were then spread and amplified by the richest man in the world on the social media site that he owns.

So, I guess none of us should have been shocked this week when Elon Musk posted that the Los Angeles Fire Department prioritized DEI over saving lives and homes. That’s an exact quote. That appeared to be a disgusting dig at the city’s fire chief, Kristin Crowley, who has served in the department for decades, rising through the ranks to become the first female and LGBTQ fire chief in L.A.’s history.

Musk also amplified a post this week from conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Yes, that guy is still around. Alex Jones wrote that, “Los Angeles fires are part of a larger globalist plot to wage economic warfare and de-industrialize the United States before triggering total collapse.” I mean, not sure that guy’s okay.

Musk responded by to that post by writing, true. Yes, just to repeat here, that’s just the richest man in the world and the best friend of the incoming president confirming to his 200 million followers that he thinks the devastating wildfires are a part of a globalist plot.

And so now we’re back in this vicious cycle, where Trump and his new bestie push lies about a natural disaster, and then right wing media runs with them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I’ll say it out loud. They have no intention of putting out these fires.

JESSE WATTERS, FOX ANCHOR: All these people are focused on pronouns and fish you can eat and, you know, scrubbing white people from the fire department.

LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX ANCHOR: DEI, as Elon Musk said, can actually mean DIE.

MEL GIBSON, HOUSE BURNED DOWN IN L.A. WILDFIRES: In the events like this, you sort of look, well, is it on purpose?

I can make all kinds of horrible theories up in my head, conspiracy theories and everything else, but it just seemed a little convenient that there was no water and it — and that the wind conditions were right and that there are people ready and willing and able to start fires. And are they commissioned to do so or are they just acting on their own volition? I don’t know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PSAKI: That’s a conspiracy theorist playing it all out on T.V. and nobody questioning him. I mean, lives like those during a natural disaster are obviously dangerous for a whole bunch of reasons. They make response efforts more difficult, and they also distract from the very real and very complicated issues that we need to prevent them from happening again.

The climate has long been in crisis. For California, that means drier conditions and more intense fires, and there’s clear evidence that these destructive events are only becoming more and more likely. Just look at this 2022 chart from Cal Fire. The destruction from wildfires in 2020 and 2021 burned more acres than the rest of the list combined.

And if we’re going to effectively deal with that reality, we need our leaders to be talking about real concrete steps we can make to safeguard our well-being from increasingly destructive natural disasters, whether it’s through new funding changes or overhauls to water systems or new housing policies to fireproof homes.

And I realize when we talk about undertaking huge changes to protect entire cities from events like this, there are no easy answers, but it’s not an excuse to avoid hard questions. And it’s even more of a reason to ignore the loud and powerful voices out there that would rather blame this disaster on DEI.

As David Wallace-Wells writes in the New York Times, quote, Unimaginability is no fire break against the future. Refusing to imagine it is no excuse either.

Watch above via MSNBC’s Inside With Jen Psaki.