G
rant Cardone is fuming at California's Democratic leadership for not taking action sooner to prevent devastating wildfire damage after his Malibu home was destroyed in the flames. "You cut budgets when you should have increased them," he told Fox News Digital. "You said you were ready but you weren't. You were wrong on both counts. Hold yourselves accountable and step down." Cardone, who owns one of the last-standing homes on Carbon Beach, is echoing calls made by President-elect Trump for Gov. Gavin Newsom to resign due to "gross incompetence."

    Cardone also wants Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass to resign immediately, citing her role in the state's mismanagement of the wildfires. He has lived in the area for 35 years and has long warned that it was a tinderbox waiting to go off. Cardone believes that hundreds of billions of dollars in damage across California could have been prevented if the state had its priorities correct.

    He criticized the government's decision to spend $12 billion on high-speed rail projects, which he says could have been used to bury electrical lines and provide pressure to water hydrants. "It's a mismanagement of priorities," Cardone said. "The state of California is more interested in fringe groups' agendas than the population of California." He believes that this may be the moment when Californians finally have had enough and start voting for conservative politicians who can manage their budgets.

    Initial estimates place the damage costs at around $52 billion, potentially making this the costliest wildfire event in U.S. history. Cardone pointed out that Los Angeles budgeted $837 million for the fire department in 2023-2024, which was roughly 65% of the homeless budget of $1.3 billion. He also criticized the government's handling of homelessness, saying that half the budget went unspent.

    Cardone believes that the wildfires were not caused by climate change, but rather by mismanagement and a lack of priorities. "We have plentiful water," he said. "We're on the Pacific. They're going to try to make this out to be a climate-warming agenda... This was just mismanagement, a lack of priorities."