DRIVING THE DAY: Wildfires continued to rage across Los Angeles County on Monday night, and strong winds were forecasted through at least Wednesday. Fire crews were preparing for an extreme scenario of rapid fire growth, with winds of up to 70 mph. — The death toll from the Palisades and Eaton fires increased to at least 25 people. There are likely more victims amid the rubble. — Investigators are trying to determine whether the Eaton fire originated at an electrical transmission tower. But the causes of the fires have not been officially determined. THE BUZZ: PIVOT AND PROCEED — Democrats in Sacramento have a new rebuttal to Republicans who’ve been sharply critical of their Trump-proofing special session commencing amid the devastating wildfires: Watch us walk and chew gum. On Monday, Gov. Gavin Newsom dramatically expanded the scope of California’s special legislative session — previously set at $50 million and focused on the state’s Trump-resistance plan — to include at least $2.5 billion for wildfire response and prevention. Newsom’s special session pivot, which he unveiled with Senate President pro Tem Mike McGuire and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, comes as GOP lawmakers at the state Capitol argue the session is insensitive and divisive amid a harrowing disaster. Not that they ever supported it to begin with. But Democrats still felt the critique stung enough that they needed to inoculate it. Democrats pushed back by highlighting President-elect Donald Trump’s threats to withhold emergency aid to California or attach unprecedented strings. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson on Monday confirmed discussions between Trump and House Republicans about tying recovery funding to a debt-ceiling increase as he seized the opportunity to pin blame for the crisis on California Democratic officials. “It appears to us that state and local leaders were derelict in their duty in many respects,” Johnson told reporters on Capitol Hill, reupping the GOP’s assertion that Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass failed to prepare for the disaster. California Democrats on the Hill blasted the idea of attaching disaster funding to the debt ceiling, as our colleagues in D.C. reported. “We've always helped victims of disasters, and to leverage their pain and suffering on totally unrelated issues — that is inappropriate,” said Rep. Ted Lieu, vice chair of the Democratic Caucus. California Republicans, meanwhile, still weren’t entirely satisfied by Newsom’s move to include fire relief in the special session. Republican state Senate leader Brian Jones noted that Newsom heeded the GOP’s calls to convene a special session on fire recovery. Then, in the same statement, he called it a “politically motivated” move to so closely associate Trump resistance and fire relief. Newsom hasn’t explicitly echoed the argument from other California Democrats that Trump-proofing is all the more necessary because the incoming federal administration could hamstring LA’s recovery. And the next possible showdown is likely to center on the question of whether Democrats ultimately allow the fire money to be voted on separately. If they combine Trump-proofing and disaster relief in one bill, that could put Republicans in a tight spot — and trigger blowback that the move is a partisan gambit by Democrats. State Sen. Scott Wiener, who chairs the powerful Budget Committee, told reporters late Monday that the wildfire proposals would be added to the Senate’s original Trump-proofing bills. The senator said Republicans have created a false choice that California must prioritize LA recovery over defending itself from Trump. “Over the past few days,” Wiener said, “their own party has shown why we need to do both.” A Newsom administration official said it was up to the Legislature to decide which legislative vehicle would carry the proposal, and that using one or multiple bills was not on the Newsom team's radar when it announced the session. WHERE’S GAVIN? In Los Angeles, working with local, state and federal fire officials responding to the fires.
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