President-elect Donald Trump is blaming Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) for the mass destruction caused by fires tearing through Los Angeles — an escalation in the pair’s water wars.
“One of the best and most beautiful parts of the United States of America is burning down to the ground. It’s ashes, and Gavin Newscum should resign,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “This is all his fault!!!”
As of Friday afternoon, at least 10 people are dead, and more than 30,000 acres of land have burned since the start of the wildfires on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, Trump blasted Newsom for refusing to sign the water restoration declaration — a reference to a 2020 memorandum the president-elect signed while on the campaign trail. Trump made the memorandum as an appeal to ensure that Southern Californian farmers would have greater access to water for farm use by diverting water from Northern California. The memorandum was not made to ensure water supplies to combat wildfires.
“There is no such document as the water restoration declaration — that is pure fiction,” Newsom’s press office posted on X.
But Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s incoming press secretary, posted an article from 2020 that outlined how Trump signed the order to divert water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and, in response, Newsom threatened litigation.
“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 posted on Truth Social. “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!”
However, the problem with the fire hydrants not working was not due to a lack of water but to an electrical outage preventing water from flowing to the hydrants. Officials are bringing in generators to assist with the fire hydrants. In addition, those fire hydrants weren’t designed to fight such ferocious wildfires.
Trump also posted on Thursday that Newsom should just “open up the water main” to let the water flow into Southern California “instead of having it go out into the Pacific Ocean.”
“It ought to be done right now, NO MORE EXCUSES FROM THIS INCOMPETENT GOVERNOR,” Trump posted. “IT’S ALREADY FAR TOO LATE!”
It is true that river water flows back into the Pacific Ocean. However, at this time, many of the largest reservoirs in Southern California possess historic highs in water reserves. They are not pumping into the fire hydrants due to the electrical problems.
Diamond Valley Lake, one of the largest reservoirs, is currently at 97% capacity, or 140% of its historical average.
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When it comes to Southern California’s water supply, the Delta pumps account for 30%, 20% comes from the Colorado River, and 50% comes from local supplies such as groundwater and recycling.
“There is no relationship between federal and state water management and the intensity of these fires or the ability of people to fight these fires,” Jeffrey Mount, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonpartisan think tank, told the Washington Post. “Instead, he said, lack of rain and severe winds created dangerous conditions.”
