Question

Joe Biden is in Los Angeles. Local TV is reporting they cannot fly their helicopters to report on the fire while he is in town. This is a problem because we are not getting information about the fires and potential evacuations. Very surprised Joe’s staff has not lifted restrictions!

Answer 1

This is a widely spread false claim. Although temporary flight restrictions were put in place to keep aircraft from flying too close to the president (as is common practice), life savings flights were able to bypass this restriction. This is so long as they coordinated with air traffic control before their flight. This information comes from an archived NOTAM issued by the agency for Biden's January 8 departure. This was found on the AFP fact check site aimed at debunking this very claim: https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.36TF3F4

Answer 2

This claim is false. First off your source is Blue Sky a social media site where anyone can post claims that could be true or false. According to Reuters, a site known to be fair,"Aircraft fighting the Los Angeles wildfires were temporarily grounded Tuesday night into Wednesday morning due to high winds, but were allowed to fly on Wednesday during President Joe Biden’s visit to the city, contrary to online posts saying the Biden administration “closed” the air space for a day hampering firefighters." The flights were down due to the wind not Biden. According to, USA Today, "Biden was scheduled to visit California for a White House event commemorating the creation of two new national monuments on Jan. 7, as USA TODAY reported, but the blazes devastating the Los Angeles area prompted Biden to instead attend a briefing on the fires alongside California Gov. Gavin Newsom." USA Today cited its reports in its article showing that President Biden did in fact not go to the monuments but a briefing instead. 

https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/temporary-grounding-la-firefighting-aircraft-due-wind-not-biden-visit-2025-01-10/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2025/01/10/biden-visit-california-wildfire-flights-fact-check/77597779007/

Comments

I think this response is really excellent. You provide sources great sources and did a great job integrating a quote into the response. I like how you called out how they got their claim from an irreputable news source.