President-elect Donald Trump will probably journey to California subsequent week to view the aftermath of the devastating wildfires within the larger Los Angeles space, he advised NBC News’ “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker in a telephone interview Saturday.
“I will likely be, most likely, on the finish of the week,” Trump stated, simply two days earlier than he is set to be inaugurated for a second time period.
“I used to be going to go, really yesterday,” the president-elect added, “however I believed it will be higher if I went as president. It’s a bit bit extra applicable, I believe.”
Trump’s deliberate journey comes after wildfires ravaged for days throughout southern California, destroying properties and companies and displacing residents.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, invited Trump to come to his state to view the destruction final week as Trump unleashed an escalating series of attacks towards Newsom, President Joe Biden and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass on social media.
On the primary main day of destruction, Trump took to TruthSocial to blast Newsom, baselessly claiming that the governor blocked a plan he proposed in his first time period to maneuver water from northern California to southern California.
“Governor Gavin Newscum refused to signal the water restoration declaration put earlier than him that may have allowed hundreds of thousands of gallons of water, from extra rain and snow soften from the North, to movement every day into many elements of California, together with the areas which can be presently burning in a nearly apocalyptic approach,” Trump wrote, utilizing an insulting nickname for Newsom.
In that submit, Trump added that Newsom “needed to guard an primarily nugatory fish called a smelt, by giving it much less water (it didn’t work!)” and “he’s the blame for this.”
In one other submit, Trump wrote, “NO WATER IN THE FIRE HYDRANTS, NO MONEY IN FEMA. THIS IS WHAT JOE BIDEN IS LEAVING ME. THANKS JOE!” showing to lean right into a false conspiracy concept concerning the Federal Emergency Management Agency that he and other Republicans spread last year within the aftermath of a number of hurricanes within the South.
In a TruthSocial submit later within the week, Trump even blamed “Gross incompetence by Gavin Newscum and Karen Bass” for the wildfire destruction.
Newsom responded to Trump last week throughout an interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that “responding to Donald Trump’s insults” would take “one other month.”
“I’m very aware of them. Every elected official that he disagrees with could be very aware of them,” he added.
Trump is “someway connecting the delta smelt to this hearth, which is inexcusable as a result of it’s inaccurate. Also, incomprehensible to anybody that understands water coverage within the state,” Newsom added.
The governor additionally stated that he believes the wildfires will be one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. historical past.
“I feel it is going to be by way of simply the prices related to it, by way of the size and scope,” Newsom stated.
Now, on the weekend earlier than his second inauguration, Trump stated he has not spoken to Newsom straight because the wildfires broke out.
Asked whether or not he deliberate to incorporate catastrophe aid for California in his checklist of priorities for Day One, Trump stated, “We’re going to, no, we’re going to [look] at it from loads of standpoints. We’re going to be demanding that the water be launched from the north into the decrease elements of California.”
The debate over releasing water from northern elements of the state to southern elements first erupted between Trump and California officers in 2020.
Then-President Trump signed a presidential memorandum that sought to divert water from northern California to farmland within the heart and the south of the state.
“[It’s] going to provide you loads of water, loads of dam, loads of all the things. You’ll have the ability to farm your land, and also you’ll have the ability to do stuff you by no means thought doable,” Trump said at an event asserting the memo in California in 2020.
At the time, Newsom and then-California Attorney General Xavier Becerra publicly denounced Trump’s plan, with Becerra calling it a “dangerous assault on our state’s crucial ecosystems and atmosphere.”
