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President-elect Donald Trump attacked Governor Gavin Newsom while catastrophic fires still raged across Los Angeles on Wednesday, going so far as to say “he is the blame for this!”
100-mile-per-hour Santa Ana wins combined with extremely dry vegetation due to a recent drought created a tinderbox that led to massive devastation around the Los Angeles metropolitan area. Fires still rage across many neighborhoods, but Trump could not resist attacking the California governor on social media and blaming him for the disaster.
“Governor Gavin Newscum refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, ending with “He is the blame for this. On top of it all, no water for fire hydrants, not firefighting planes. A true disaster!’
Trump posted on Truth Social:
Governor Gavin Newscum refused to sign the
water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way. He wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt, by giving it less water (it didn’t work!), but didn’t care about the people of California. Now the ultimate price is being paid. I will demand that this incompetent governor allow beautiful, clean, fresh water to FLOW INTO CALIFORNIA! He is the blame for this. On top of it all, no water for fire hydrants, not firefighting planes. A true disaster!
Roughly an hour later, Trump hit Newsom again, posting:
As of this moment, Gavin Newscum and his Los Angeles crew have contained exactly ZERO percent of the fire. It is burning at levels that even surpass last night. This is not Government. I can’t wait till January 20th!
And later:
NO WATER IN THE FIRE HYDRANTS, NO MONEY IN FEMA. THIS IS WHAT JOE BIDEN IS LEAVING ME. THANKS JOE!
It’s challenging to find a plausible reason to blame the government for the cause of a disaster like this, although the response to said disaster may be fair game. This disaster started roughly 24 hours before this social media post went up, and the relief efforts — much of which have been stymied by the Santa Ana winds and darkened
There will certainly be a time to diagnose where the responses went wrong and to debate policy decisions that may have hampered the response, but to make a political attack in the middle of a crisis that, we can only hope, has consumed all of Governor Newsom’s time and energy, is at best unhelpful, and at worst a distraction