President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House on Monday. | Evan Vucci/AP
THE BUZZ: MOOD SHIFT — Don't look to leaders of California's big liberal cities to spearhead the Trump resistance. They have bigger problems on their hands.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass spent Monday focused on the deadly wildfires that swept through the region this month, including where residents choking on ash can pick up N95 masks and forecasts showing another round of dangerous Santa Ana winds on the horizon. Bass has faced sharp criticism over her handling of the fires and likely faces a recall fight.
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, meanwhile, faces tremendous pressure to deal with the city’s fentanyl addiction and homelessness crises, as well as downtown’s sluggish recovery, after voters ousted his predecessor over a perceived lack of progress.
Across the Bay Bridge in Oakland, mayoral candidate and former Rep. Barbara Lee took a few closing swipes at President Donald Trump during an MLK Day campaign celebration. But her comments were mostly trained on a city in crisis after the recall and criminal indictment of its last mayor — and amid a steep budget deficit.
“Even with the crime rate coming out, people are feeling unsafe. And so we have to do more,” Lee told supporters who gathered in a downtown event hall. “Oakland is rising, and it will rise even further.”
The last time Trump moved into the White House, mayors of California’s major cities relished the chance to fight Trump and devoted local resources to help undocumented immigrants and others harmed by his policies.
LA Mayor Eric Garcetti declared that the city’s schools and other public places would be “places of refuge” for undocumented people. Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said that any of Trump’s efforts to attack the city’s progressive values would be “vehemently resisted.” And the late San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee pledged $1.5 million in legal resources to help immigrants facing deportation.
But on Monday, local leaders’ response to Trump was far more subdued.
San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria, who as a state lawmaker in 2017 championed efforts to protect LGBTQ+ youth from Trump’s policies, avoided talking about Trump in his State of the City speech last week. Gloria and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan — both Democrats — have similarly said little about Trump in recent weeks, and neither commented on Monday.
Lurie, who took office two weeks ago, told Playbook that voters tell him they expect a greater emphasis on local matters than on responding to the polarizing president.
“We gotta take care of business here,” Lurie said as he picked up trash in the Mission neighborhood a few days before his own inauguration. “They don’t want me thinking about national politics. I think the average San Franciscan wants me to turn San Francisco around.”
GOOD MORNING. Happy Tuesday. Thanks for waking up with Playbook.
WHERE’S GAVIN? In Los Angeles, working with emergency officials responding to the fires.
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Former Vice President Kamala Harris, joined by her husband Doug Emhoff, speaks at Fire Station No. 12 in Los Angeles County — the first to respond to the deadly Eaton Fire. | Melanie Mason/POLITICO
RETURNING HOME — Former Vice President Kamala Harris started her day watching Trump, her election nemesis, be sworn into power. She ended it in fire-devastated Altadena, which is still reeling from the damage wrought by the Eaton Fire.
“It was really important to us before we went home — and we are some of the lucky ones, our home is still standing — we wanted to come out and take a look at this extraordinary community and just let people know that we see them and that they are cared for,” Harris said at a visit to the LA County fire station that was the first to respond to the Eaton Fire nearly two weeks ago.
Joined by her husband Doug Emhoff, Harris made two stops: first to hand out free meals at a site run by World Central Kitchen and then to Fire Station No. 12. The Californian was greeted warmly, with at least one fan toting a Harris-Walz banner at the food giveaway.
Harris, whose Brentwood home was in the mandatory evacuation zone of the Palisades Fire, which raged across town, steered clear of politics during her brief remarks to the press. She focused instead on the first responders and volunteers who are working to help victims of the historically-damaging fires.
“Moments of crisis really do reveal the heroes among us,” she said, praising the firefighters and volunteers who had lost their own homes but were still working to aid their community. The Bay Area native gave a rallying cry for her adopted hometown, declaring that “Los Angeles is going to continue to be what Los Angeles is — a place that is strong and knows how to rebuild.”
Harris did not give any clues about her next plans; she did not respond to a question of whether she intends to run for governor as she returned to her motorcade. She left open the possibility of visiting areas that sustained the worst damage in the Palisades Fire, but added “what we don’t want to do is in any way interfere with the work that needs to be done in those areas.” — Melanie Mason
IMMIGRATION
State Attorney General Rob Bonta. | Jeff Chiu/AP
CONSTITUTIONAL CHALLENGE— California Attorney General Rob Bonta said he will sue Trump over an executive order signed Monday that would end the right to citizenship by birth for the children of undocumented immigrants.
“This is an attack on U.S. citizens who have citizenship, and it's a trampling of the U.S. Constitution all on Day One. And so we will take him to court on this one. We can sue as soon as he signs the executive order,” Bonta told Playbook in an interview.
Birthplace-based citizenship is granted to children of undocumented immigrants under the 14th Amendment, which states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”
Bonta said there is “no doubt” he has legal standing to sue, and his office will seek a national injunction to prevent the order from being enacted.
“We have standing. We will have financial impact based on people who should have access to federal funding, and programs who, under an executive order, would lose that support,” Bonta said.
BACK FROM NAPA VALLEY — Former state Sen. Bill Dodd has launched a lobbying and public affairs firm with his former chief Ezrah Chaaban. Dodd and Chaaban Strategies will advocate on the state budget, procurement and local land use issues. Dodd, a Napa Democrat, termed out of the upper house last year after 10 years in the Legislature.
A message from Amazon:
Amazon raised wages for hourly employees to an average of over $22 an hour.
This includes employees like Kathy who started out in one of Amazon's fulfillment centers in Appling, Georgia before using one of Amazon's free skills training programs to launch a career in robotics.
IT'S OFFICIAL — Trump put out an executive order on Day One to terminate California's ability to set stricter-than-federal car pollution rules. It's the moment the state has been preparing for. Read about what happens next in last night's California Climate.
TOP TALKERS
‘ROAD TO AUTOCRACY’ — Trump’s sweeping pardons for about 1,500 people who attacked the Capitol in an attempt to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election drew swift condemnation from Sen. Adam Schiff and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“History will not be rewritten,” Schiff wrote. “Not by a thousand lies or a thousand pardons. Instead, we may be witnessing something worse: the newest milestone along the road to autocracy, in which a president pardons those who do violence on his behalf and encourages others to do more of the same.”
Pelosi, who led the effort to impeach Trump over the Jan. 6 riots, criticized his clemency for hundreds who were convicted for attacking police or vandalizing the Capitol. She called his action a “betrayal of police officers who put their lives on the line to stop an attempt to subvert the peaceful transfer of power.”
Former Vice President Kamala Harris. | Rod Lamkey, Jr./AP
FINAL FLIGHT — Harris and Emhoff flew to California today to hand out food to people impacted by the fires and thank first responders, but not before making it known that she would take an all-female crew on Air Force Two.
A preflight note to the news media emphasized that it was the first time that a C-32 would be operated by an all-female crew, receiving the same kind of backlash that those who opposed Harris say contributed to her loss in November.
UGLY CRASH — A multi-car crash that included a Waymo robotaxi killed a person and a dog on Sunday night, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. A statement from Waymo says the vehicle was “in a line of stand-still traffic” when it was struck from behind.
Lurie was briefed on the incident and reaffirmed that public safety is his top priority. “Traffic safety is public safety,” he said.
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AROUND THE STATE
— Trump sued California 123 times during his first term and came up with a win rate of 31 percent in court. (CalMatters)
— An insurance crisis in Rossmoor has caused almost all home sales to be cash only since February. The crisis has made it difficult for retired residents to get reverse mortgages. (San Francisco Chronicle)
— Thousands of people waiting at the Southern border found out Monday that Trump’s administration had canceled their immigration-hearing appointments scheduled through the app CBP One. (The San Diego Union-Tribune)
— compiled by Nicole Norman
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PLAYBOOKERS
PRICEY TRADITION — Democratic Rep. Juan Vargas spent a whopping $152,000 on holiday cards this year. The lawmaker has spent more than $1 million on cards since office in 2013, as Target Book’s Rob Pyers noted. Now that’s some serious Christmas cheer. Sadly, it wasn’t enough to keep Papyrus’ brick-and-mortar locations in business.
Vargas paid The Primacy Group, a political consulting firm, for the latest batch of cards. Larry Remer, a veteran consultant, owns the firm. His daughter, Terra Lawson-Remer, was reelected to the San Diego County Board of Supervisors last year; her win kept the county under Democratic control.
SPOTTED: INAUGURATION EDITION — Among the Californians (full- or part-time) who were in Washington for Trump’s festivities: former Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy … California GOP Chair Jessica Milan Patterson … Amazon founder Jeff Bezos … Tesla CEO Elon Musk … Google CEO Sundar Pichai … Apple CEO Tim Cook … former Fox News host Steve Hilton … state Assembly Minority Leader James Gallagher … Assemblymember Joe Patterson
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