California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, immediately dismissed Donald Trump’s efforts as “political play” after the president-elect blamed Trump for the devastating Los Angeles wildfires that killed at least five people Wednesday.
“People can’t even react to that,” Newsom said in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper as the two men stood in front of the burning building.
“People are literally fleeing, people have lost their lives, children have lost their schools, families have been completely torn apart, churches have been burned. This guy wanted to politicize it. You have a lot of thoughts and I know what you want to say. I won’t.”
Newsom told Cooper he was “proud” to stand next to Joe Biden as the president met with firefighting officials in Los Angeles earlier in the day.
“And he had the support of everyone in this community. “He didn’t get involved in politics and didn’t try to divide any of us.” said Newsom, who declared a state of emergency in California on Tuesday.
Newsom’s comments come after the president-elect went on a rant on his Truth Social platform earlier in the day, blaming the governor for the deadly fires that affected multiple neighborhoods and destroyed numerous structures in the Los Angeles area.
Trump later took to social media to call for Newsom’s resignation, claiming the fire was “all his fault.”
In an earlier post in which he referred to Newsom as a “newscom,” Trump claimed the governor refused to sign a “water restoration proclamation” that could have helped prevent fires that are “now burning in virtually apocalyptic fashion.”
KCRA, an NBC affiliate in Sacramento, found Trump’s claims “false” and Newsom’s office said no such document by that name exists.
Elsewhere in the post, the president-elect criticized efforts to protect delta smolt — an endangered species he called an “essentially useless fish” — for causing wildfires.
He also complained that “there is no water in the hydrants and there is no water in the fire planes.” (Officials blame “enormous demand” as water storage tanks run dry amid wildfires. California’s Department of Forestry and Fire Protection says it has “the largest private aerial firefighting fleet in the world.”)
While campaigning in California in October, Trump pledged to take care of farmers’ “water situation” by threatening to cut off disaster aid in the state.
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“We’re going to force it down his throat and say, Gavin, if you don’t do it, we’re not going to give you a penny of the fire money we’re sending for every bushfire you have.” The president-elect said this at a campaign rally at Coachella.
Former Trump White House aides told Politico’s E&E News last year that Trump “initially refused” to approve aid to California because of his “Democratic leanings” after the state’s deadly wildfires in 2018.
