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Charlie Kirk is the Founder and President of Turning Point USA, the largest and fastest growing conservative youth activist organization in the country with over 250,000 student members, over 150 full-time staff, and a presence on over 2,000 high school and college campuses nationwide. Charlie is also the Chairman of Students for Trump, which aims to activate one million new college voters on campuses in battleground states in the lead up to the 2020 presidential election. His social media reaches over 100 million people per month and according to Axios, he is one of the "top 10 most engaged" Twitter handles in the world. He is also the host of “The Charlie Kirk Show,” which regularly ranks among the top news shows on Apple podcast charts.
Charlie Kirk Interviews Rachel Darvish, Palisades Resident Who Confronted Gavin Newsom After Losing Everything in California Fires
Rachel Darvish, a mother and attorney from Pacific Palisades, confronted California Governor Gavin Newsom after losing her home in the devastating fires. Charlie Kirk speaks with Darvish about her dramatic encounter with the governor, the lack of water in fire hydrants, the absence of emergency response, and the scale of destruction that wiped out an entire community. As a resident of the world's fifth-largest economy, Darvish questions where California's resources went when her neighborhood needed them most. She shares the raw reality of displacement, the uncertainty facing families and children, and her growing anger at what she sees as dismissiveness from elected officials who failed to prepare for a predictable disaster.
Charlie Kirk speaks with Rachel Darvish, a mother, attorney, and Pacific Palisades resident who confronted California Governor Gavin Newsom in the aftermath of the catastrophic fires that destroyed her community. The California fires remain ongoing, and countless residents have lost everything. Darvish stands among them, having watched her daughter's school and her own home disappear in the flames.
In a powerful exchange captured on video, Darvish approached Governor Newsom at the scene of the destruction. Her questions were direct and urgent: What are you going to do for us? Why was there no water in the fire hydrants? Will it be different next time? The governor's responses, which included claims of being on the phone with the president and promises that things "have to be" different, left Darvish increasingly frustrated.
The Anger That Grows With Each Viewing
"It's so funny Charlie, every time I watch that I think I get angrier and angrier, that's the honest truth," Darvish tells Kirk. She explains that she sees herself in the footage as someone looking to the person you're supposed to turn to in times of tragedy, seeking help and guidance. Instead, she perceived dismissiveness in the governor's reaction.
While Darvish notes that someone did reach out to her after the confrontation and they are now in contact, she remains deeply concerned about whether real guidance exists. "This is a fast moving Beast," she explains. "The thing I was worried about five minutes ago changed 30 seconds later and it went back to it then it changed. There is so much going on right now. We need real guidance and I'm not sure we have it in place."
Walking Out With Nothing
Darvish describes the scale of the tragedy as having "no scale." She hasn't seen anything like it. The difficulty of leaving her home, walking out with nothing and just getting into the car, was only the beginning. What struck her most was what she didn't see during the evacuation: not a single fire truck, not a police officer. Citizens were redirecting traffic, attempting to help, but there was nowhere to go.
"It started with a lot of sadness, frustration, and it led to me wondering where was the National Guard, where were the people that were supposed to be there for us," Darvish explains. That's when she thought that if she could talk to the governor, maybe he could tell her what was really being done, that the funding and resources were coming, and she could relay that message to other residents.
The encounter with Newsom happened by coincidence. Darvish had agreed to go with a news crew to see if her home was still standing. When she asked to check on her daughter's preschool, they found the governor there. As a mother who thinks about her child every single moment of the day, and who knows other parents feel exactly the same way, the dismissiveness she perceives in the exchange disappoints her deeply.
A Failure of Preparation
When Kirk asks whether California's government did everything to prepare for this disaster given past tragedies, Darvish's response is pointed: "I don't think I need to answer that question. I think the officials have answered that question for you." She notes that every single necessary person in charge, including Governor Newsom and the mayor, have all acknowledged that they were ill-prepared. They've all said they were told or they knew or should have known, or maybe they'll do it better next time.
Darvish highlights the irony of Los Angeles having a mayor who ran on addressing homelessness holistically, only to now face "a whole new homeless situation that has a magnitude that outweighs whatever it was she was holistically trying to fix." The city went from one problem to something far worse.
"Preparation would have meant that less homes would have burned down. It would have meant that less destruction happened. It meant that less kids would have had maybe one less school to go to," Darvish states. "We know what preparation does. It doesn't fix everything but it does a lot. We know that. I don't know why our elected officials don't know that."
The Fifth Largest Economy With No Water
Kirk raises the fundamental question that haunts this disaster: California is the world's fifth largest economy, a four trillion dollar state with some of the wealthiest people on the planet living or doing business there. Yet when the fires came, there was no water, no response. This is not the first fire in the region—2018, 2020—it seems to happen every couple of years. Do these leaders actually care about their citizens?
Darvish's response cuts to the heart of the matter: "Do they care? They care enough to want the Olympics here. Do we care enough to want to have people come to our city, but we're not going to have a city for them to come to." If these kinds of failures are left unchecked, if elected officials keep letting these things go, perhaps there won't even be Olympics in a few years.
She emphasizes that even people who have a house to go home to have nothing to go home to. There is no life to be had there. "The numbers you're referring to, the fifth largest economy, oh my God, what is that good for if you don't have water in your fire hydrants? Where is that money going? It went to Ukraine today I think."
Darvish expresses hope that California can find a way to bring people back, regardless of party affiliation. "I think we need to have qualified people who respect Californians, who respect the locals, and we don't have that right now. And it speaks for itself. Just look at the fact that an entire community was wiped out in such little time and the response I got from the governor was what you saw. That's what we have to offer."
What Now? The Impossible Question
When Kirk asks about Darvish's plans, whether she intends to stay in the Palisades, she reveals that at 4:00 a.m. that very morning, she was on the phone with three other mothers trying to figure out exactly that. What are they going to do? Stay for what? Will the schools set up a school for their kids to go to? And with all the displaced residents, there will be a shortage of space locally or nearby.
"We've got a lot of problems, and like I said, I would put all of those away. I wouldn't even care about where I live or I don't know what I'm going to tell the children. The children are future as we know and we're not giving it to them. We're not giving them the future that we promise them."
Darvish closes with a simple but profound statement: "I think we can do so much better, Charlie, don't you? I know you could do so much better."
Kirk thanks Darvish for sharing her story, acknowledging the pain and tragedy she and her neighbors are experiencing, and recognizing that many who no longer have homes face an uncertain future in what should be one of the most resource-rich places on earth.
