Real estate tycoon tells California to 'revolt and protest' Democrats who could have prevented fire disaster
Grant Cardone has built his real estate legacy from coast to coast, but the outspoken business leader is fuming at California’s Democratic leadership for not acting sooner to prevent disastrous wildfire damage after his Malibu home crumbled from the flames.
"You cut budgets when you should have increased them. You said you were ready but you weren’t. You were wrong on both counts. Hold yourselves accountable and step down," Cardone told Fox News Digital on Thursday.
"My message to California — revolt and protest. Demand that those in power are held accountable."
Cardone allegedly owns one of the last-standing homes on Carbon Beach, which recently fell victim to the five wildfires engulfing the Los Angeles area. At least five people have been killed and more than 29,000 acres remain burning as of early Thursday, according to Cal Fire.
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While Gov. Gavin Newsom has been on the ground surveying the state’s disaster response, Cardone is echoing calls made recently by President-elect Trump that Newsom should resign "immediately," citing "gross incompetence."
He told Fox Digital he wants Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass to resign as soon as possible, too.
"I've lived there 35 years in that area. And for years I've said this is a tinderbox waiting to go off… There's hundreds of billions of dollars of damage across California that could have been prevented if California actually had its priorities correct," Cardone additionally said during an appearance on "Mornings with Maria."
"This is a corrupted government that depends on the federal government under emergency situations. They make more money in emergencies than they do by just planning out their budget," he continued. "They said we had plenty of water, but didn’t have pressure. If they didn't spend $12 billion on high-speed rails going to Vegas or basically nowhere, you would have that money to, one, bury electrical and provide pressure to all the [water] hydrants."
Cardone further criticized: "It's a mismanagement of priorities. The state of California, for the last 25 years, is more interested in freak, fringe groups' agendas than they are the population of California… Maybe this is going to be it, when the people of California finally have had enough and start voting conservative, common-sense politicians or business people into government to manage their budgets."
FOX Weather has reported initial estimates place the damage costs at around $52 billion, potentially making this the costliest wildfire event in U.S. history.
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City government data also shows that for the 2023-2024 fiscal year, Los Angeles budgeted $837 million for the Los Angeles Fire Department, which was roughly 65% the size of the homeless budget of $1.3 billion. An analysis by L.A.'s city comptroller last year found that roughly half the budget for homelessness went unspent.
"Elon Musk is attempting to go to Mars, and we can't get pressure and water to hydrants? We have plentiful water. We're on the Pacific," Cardone reacted. "They're going to try to make this out to be a climate-warming agenda… This was just mismanagement, a lack of priorities, the government trying to handle fringe groups and support these weird agendas rather than the things that really concern the California people."
Fox News staff, FOX Weather’s Chris Oberholtz and FOX Business’ Breck Dumas contributed to this report.