Newsom hits back at Trump wildfire comments, says Biden did not 'play politics'
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Wednesday went after President-elect Trump for recent comments he made about ongoing wildfires in the Los Angeles area.
“People are literally fleeing,” Newsom told CNN’s Anderson Cooper in an interview that aired on his show Wednesday. “People have lost their lives. Kids lost their schools, families completely torn asunder, churches burned down.”
“This guy wanted to politicize it,” he added, talking about Trump. “I have a lot of thoughts, and I know what I wanna say. I won't. I stood next to a President of the United States of America today, and I was proud to be with Joe Biden, and he had the backs of every single person in this community, he didn’t play politics.”
Biden visited Los Angeles, alongside the California governor, earlier Wednesday to receive a briefing and pledged his support for relief efforts. He also cancelled his Thursday trip to Rome as the fires rage on.
Earlier in the day, Newsom received criticism from Trump over the massive wildfires currently blazing throughout the Los Angeles area, with the president-elect saying that the California governor should have signed a declaration to pump additional water through the Golden State to avert the situation.
“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 Wednesday morning on Truth Social.
The quantity of water available to be pumped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta faces restriction due to federal and state regulations to protect a fish called the smelt, in spite of Trump’s first administration stating in 2019 that pumping more water to supply farms won’t endanger the fish, according to reporting from Cal Matters at the time.
“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,” Trump added in the Truth Social post.
“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,” he continued. “On top of it all, no water for fire hydrants, not firefighting planes. A true disaster!”
The Hill has reached out to the Trump transition team for comment.