'Hope he has a massive stroke': Critics pounce on Trump mocking California amid fires
President-elect Donald Trump's decision to attack California Gov. Gavin Newsom while his state is suffering from catastrophic wildfires has drawn the ire of many online critics.
In the wake of a Wednesday Truth Social post, in which Trump labeled the California governor "Newscum" and blamed him personally for the fires, many critics expressed fury, but not surprise, that the president-elect would use a horrific tragedy to lob attacks at his political rivals.
"I hope he has a massive stroke," raged the anonymous X account that goes by the name of Spiro's Ghost. "He is a deeply sick man."
"Whatever the crisis Trump can be relied on to say and do the wrong thing," wrote former Republican political strategist Mark Salter. "Unfailingly."
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National security journalist Kevin Baron, meanwhile, marveled that Trump took time in his rant about the fires to insult the smelt, a fish that the president-elect deemed as "worthless."
Over on BlueSky, Naval War College professor David Burbach slammed Trump for his ignorance about the causes of the fires.
"This is insanity," he wrote. "Increased pumping of water through the aqueduct to Central Valley farms and LA urban lawns would have done absolutely nothing for the dry chaparral mountainsides. Is the Trump admin going to pay to install lawn sprinklers up and down the San Gabriels???"
Former TV meteorologist Brad Carl took a whack at Americans who think that taunting states undergoing natural disasters was a desirable trait in a president.
"I just can't believe that half of America wanted a guy like this at the top to treat fellow Americans like this (ones especially dealing with ongoing, horrific disasters in this way)," he wrote.
And journalist Jon Schwarz expressed astonishment that conservatives' reactions to the massive fires was to triple down on climate change denial.
"I used to think that when global warming truly began to bite, deniers would face reality and we could act," he wrote. "Now I think it's more likely it will lead to a kind of fascism that will respond to global warming by, like, executing everyone who says global warming is real."
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