As deadly wildfires burn across southern California, President-elect Donald Trump has spent the week attacking Democratic officials and continuing his pattern of spreading misinformation about natural disasters.
“I think Gavin is largely incompetent, and I think the mayor is largely incompetent, and they’re probably both stone-cold incompetent,” Trump said Thursday night while hosting the Republican governor in Mar-a-Lago, Florida.
Since the fires broke out, Trump has pointed fingers at Governor Gavin Newsom and President Joe Biden, spreading false claims about it. California water policy and federal aid.
For example, Trump blamed Biden for falsely saying the Federal Emergency Management Agency “didn’t have the money” to help California, despite Congress recently approving $29 billion in additional disaster aid.
The president-elect also pushed for exaggerated claims, accusing Newsom of refusing to sign a “water restoration declaration,” saying he diverted water resources to protect smelt in the endangered Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
“He wanted to protect a basically worthless fish called the catfish by giving us less water (it didn’t work!), but he didn’t care about the people of California,” Trump said on the Truth Social.
While there are regulations limiting the amount of water pumped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to protect the species, the governor’s office said there is no such declaration, calling the allegation “pure fiction.”
Biden and other emergency officials have also rejected Trump’s claims that the fire was fueled by strong winds and extremely dry conditions and that the initial water shortage was caused by power outages to prevent further fires.
However, Trump has long pushed these claims, suggesting while on the campaign trail that he would withhold support from California if Newsom did not reinstate Trump’s policies.
“The water coming in here is dead. And Gavin Newsom is going to sign those papers, and if he doesn’t sign those papers, we’re not going to give him money to put out all the fires, and we’re not going to give him money to put out the fires. He’s got problems,” Trump said in September in Los Angeles. at the press conference held at the golf course.
After a closed-door meeting with Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Trump continued to criticize Newsom’s handling of the pandemic while insisting the two would eventually have to work together.
“So what happened is a tragedy, and the governor didn’t do a good job,” Trump told ABC News senior congressional correspondent Rachel Scott.
“Having said that, I got along well with him, when he was governor, we worked very well together, and we were going to work together,” Trump said. “I think we will be the ones who have to rebuild.”
President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with Republican governors at Mar-a-Lago on Jan. 9, 2025, in Palm Beach, Florida.
Evan Vucci/AP
The destruction of the Palisades fire is seen early in the morning in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, January 10, 2025.
John Locher/AP
This isn’t the first time Trump has gone after emergency officials in the wake of disasters. When hurricanes wreaked havoc on parts of Georgia and North Carolina last year, Trump quickly shifted his campaign schedule to focus on those areas.
During these visits, Trump repeatedly spread misinformation about FEMA’s responseWrongly blaming federal officials in the Biden administration.
“They were hit hard by a hurricane, especially parts of North Carolina and Georgia. But North Carolina was really hit. I’ll tell you what, those people should never have voted Democrat because they withheld support,” Trump said. in an October interview.
Local and federal officials Trump warned When they tried to rebuild the areas where his politically motivated rhetoric could cause damage; however, the president-elect often refused to back down.
While visiting Asheville, North Carolina, Trump declined to report violence against FEMA workers after being asked about threats against workers.
“I think you have to let people know how it is,” he said. “If they were doing a great job, I think we should say that, too, because I think they should be rewarded. But if they’re not — that means if they’re doing a poor job, shouldn’t we say?”
As he attacked his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump further politicized the events, arranging a hurricane visit with Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, whom he had previously criticized for not giving in to Trump’s demands. 2020 elections.
In the battleground state of Georgia, Trump’s tone changed: “Your governor is doing a fantastic job, I can tell you that, and we’re all with them and everybody.”
Donald Trump listens to a question while visiting Chez What Furniture Store damaged by Hurricane Helene on September 30, 2024 in Valdosta, Georgia.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Now, in his transition, Trump has used his social media platform to share unfiltered thoughts, often responding to disasters with short, quick statements, sometimes with misleading context, before revealing all the information.
For example, hours after a driver plowed into a crowd on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Trump he answered online saying, “The criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in our country,” implying the suspect was an immigrant who crossed into the United States illegally.
suspicious, Shamsud-Din Jabbarhe was actually a US Army veteran who was born in the US and lived in Houston.
Even in office, Trump has faced backlash for sometimes selling inappropriate information.
For example, when Alabama declared that it was in the path of Hurricane Dorian in 2019, the weather The service has issued a public service announcement refuting Trump’s claims. Then later that year, when senators failed to provide disaster aid to hurricane victims in Puerto Rico, Trump blamed local leaders for spreading false claims about the aid already provided.
“The people of Puerto Rico are GREAT, but the politicians are either incompetent or corrupt,” Trump tweeted at the time.
Despite that pattern, Republican governors still came to Trump’s defense Thursday night, praising his leadership skills as a president during disasters.
“You can criticize the president-elect, but I think you have to hold those other people accountable as well,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told reporters at Mar-a-Lago.
“I worked well with Biden during the natural disasters, but I work well Donald Trumpso I’m very confident that as a state that knows we’re dealing with these, the Trump administration will be very strong and will be there for the people, regardless of party,” he added.
