PORTLAND, Ore. — Washington, Oregon, and California are battling historic wildfires, as millions of acres burn up and down the west coast.
KGW's Galen Ettlin spoke one-on-one with Chuck Todd, moderator of NBC's Meet the Press, to get national perspective on the disasters.
GALEN ETTLIN: When you look at the wildfires here in the west and the federal response to them, what's on your radar and what are you concerned about?
CHUCK TODD: It feels like a lack of urgency from the federal government. And I know that on paper, we've heard from the governor of Oregon in particular that they are getting what they need, but let's be realistic. It doesn't seem to have captured the attention—and part of it is the virus -- and the reelection campaign is clearly dominating the administration's mind as well—but if you want to be frank, as somebody who has seen how things mobilize when we have hurricanes in the south or the east—and whether it's politically motivated, whether it's geographically motivated, whatever reason—there is a sense or feeling of lack of urgency when it comes to the federal government's attention—particularly the Trump administration's attention—to this crisis out west.
GALEN ETTLIN: The wildfires here in Oregon, Washington, and California have brought climate change to the forefront. How do you see that issue playing out in this election?
CHUCK TODD: We have it in our latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, which we'll be debuting on Sunday [at 7:30 a.m. PT on Meet the Press]. What's interesting is the gulf on handling and confronting climate change—when you ask that between the two candidates Biden and Trump—has continued to grow as the summer has gone on. And this is what we're watching politically: as more folks experience the impact of extreme weather, whether it's the onslaught of tropical storms and hurricanes coming from the Atlantic—we're running out of names, there are so many there—to what we're seeing with these wildfires out west, it's just dryer air than we had before, wildfire season longer than before. I do think as more Americans experience the negatives of the extremes, it is becoming more of a voting issue to more and more folks. And on this score, this is where there is a night-and-day difference between the two candidates. The president does not even accept that the climate changing is having an impact on these wildfires. He's starting to become alone even among members of his own party.
GALEN ETTLIN: During a roundtable earlier this week, the President responded to the issue of rising temperatures by saying, "It will start getting cooler. You just watch." How does that statement compare to how other Republicans feel on Capitol Hill?
CHUCK TODD: It also brought up a memory to me of what he thought about the virus, right? 'When it gets hotter, it's going to go away...' I do think you're seeing on Capitol Hill a realization that this is going to become a bigger and bigger burden on the federal government. Here's the reality. I was talking with one lawmaker who said at some point, the federal government is going to have to be the backstop on all of these extreme weather events because insurance companies at some point are going to stop covering it. They're at some point going to run out of money, and that's the big fear. Insurance companies are being stretched to the limits right now when it comes to the pandemic, coupled with what's happening with wildfires, coupled with what's happening with these hurricanes. And that's going to force the hand of the federal government, because insurance companies who have have a lot of dough and a lot of lobbyists, I think they're the ones that are going to pound congress, particularly those on the republican side of the aisle who they've been friendly with for years. I think they're going to be the driver here to force more federal intervention.
Meet the Press with Chuck Todd will air Sunday morning, Sept. 20, at 7:30 on KGW after KGW News at Sunrise. Author Bob Woodward will be a guest, discussing his new book 'Fear: Trump in the White House.'