WASHINGTON (AP) — As cataclysmic wildfires rage across Los Angeles, President-elect Donald Trump has not shown much sympathy. Instead, he claims he could do a better job of managing the crisis by spouting falsehoods and blaming the state’s Democratic governor.
Trump has lashed out at the forest management policies of his old political foe, Gov. Gavin Newsom, falsely claiming that the state’s fish conservation efforts are responsible for drying up fire hydrants in urban areas. Trump referred to the governor with a derisive nickname and said he should resign.
Meanwhile, more than 180,000 people have been issued evacuation orders and the fires have consumed more than 116 square kilometers. A fire that devastated the Pacific Palisades neighborhood became the most destructive fire in Los Angeles history.
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Trump vs. Newsom: Round 2 was to be expected — the liberal Democrat has long been one of Trump’s biggest opponents. But the Western fires are also a sign of something much more serious than a political feud or a fight over fish. The wildfire season is getting longer thanks to increasing drought and heat caused by climate change.
Trump refuses to acknowledge the dangers to the environment, instead blaming increasing natural disasters on his political opponents or on acts of God. He has promised to drill for more oil and cut back on renewable energy.
On Thursday, Trump said on social media that Newsom should “open up the water” — an overly simplistic solution to a complex problem. “NO MORE EXCUSES FROM THIS INCOMPETENT GOVERNOR,” Trump said, adding, “IT IS ALREADY WAY TOO LATE!”
Standing on the street in a scorched neighborhood as a house burned behind him, Newsom responded to the criticism when asked by CNN.
“People are literally fleeing. People have lost their lives. Children lost their schools. Families completely torn apart. Churches have been burned down and this guy wants to politicize it,” Newsom said. “I have a lot of thoughts and I know what I want to say, but I don’t do it.”
In a post on his Truth Social media network, Trump attempted to link dry hydrants to criticism of the state’s approach to balancing water distribution to farms and cities with the need to protect endangered species, including the Delta smelt, to protect. Trump has sided with farmers over environmentalists in a long-running dispute over California’s scarce water resources. But that debate has nothing to do with the issue of fire hydrants in Los Angeles, which is driven by intense demand for a municipal system not designed to fight such fires.
About 40% of Los Angeles’s city water comes from state-controlled projects connected to Northern California, and the state has restricted water deliveries this year. But the reservoirs in Southern California that help feed these canals are at above-average levels for this time of year.
About 20% of the city’s hydrants went dry as crews battled the blazes, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said. Firefighters in Southern California are used to the strong Santa Ana winds that blow in the fall and winter, but the hurricane storms earlier this week caught them by surprise. Winds grounded firefighting planes that should have made critical water drops, putting pressure on the hydrant system.
“This is unlike anything I’ve seen in my 25 years in the fire service,” Los Angeles Fire Chief Adam VanGerpen told CBS This Morning.
Janisse Quiñones, head of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said the severity of the fire caused demand for water to be four times greater than “we have ever seen in the system.”
Fire hydrants are designed for fighting fires in one or two homes at a time, not hundreds, Quiñones said, and refilling the tanks also requires asking firefighters to pause firefighting efforts.
President Joe Biden, who was in California for an environmental event that was ultimately canceled as fires raged, appeared with Newsom at a Santa Monica firehouse on Wednesday and quickly issued a major disaster declaration for California, immediately releasing some federal funds.
But any additional federal response will be overseen by Trump, who has a history of withholding or delaying federal aid to punish his political enemies.
In September, Trump threatened at a press conference at his Los Angeles golf course: “We’re not giving him money to put out all his fires. And if we don’t give him the money to put out his fires, he’s in trouble.”
Trump’s support in California has increased in recent years, which could further embolden him in his battle with Democratic leaders there. In 2024, he improved his vote share in Los Angeles and surrounding fire-affected areas by 4.68 percentage points. And while he still lost the state overall, his overall margin grew by 4 points compared to the 2020 election.
Regarding the impact of the fires on Californians, Trump said areas in Beverly Hills and around it were “decimated” and that he had “a lot of friends living in those houses.” He described the losses as a potential blow to state finances.
“The largest houses, some of the most valuable houses in the world, have just been destroyed. I don’t even know. “If you’re talking about a tax base, if those people leave, you’re going to lose half of your California tax base,” Trump said.
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Associated Press writer Maya Sweedler contributed to this report.
