Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
President-elect Trumpduring his first administration, he admonished Governor Gavin Newsom for his handling of repeated wildfires in the state, years before the devastating wildfires currently raging in Los Angeles.
“California Governor @GavinNewsom has done a terrible job of forest management. From the first day we met, I told him he needed to ‘clean up’ the forest floors, regardless of what his bosses, the environmentalists , they ask him. You also burn and cut fires,” the former and future president posted on X in 2019.
“Every year as the fire rages and California burns, it’s the same, then goes to the federal government for help $$$. No more. Get your act together Governor. You don’t see anywhere near the level. of burning in other states” , the thread continued.
Trump’s message to Newsom came as the Kincade Fire ravaged Sonoma County from Oct. 23 to Nov. 6, 2019.
CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES GROW IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY, FORCING THOUSANDS TO EVACUATE SOME HOMES
Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks at a news conference on Sept. 25, 2024, in Los Angeles. (Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
“We are waging a successful war against thousands of wildfires started across the state in recent weeks due to extreme weather created by climate change while Trump is waging an all-out assault on antidotes,” Newsom said in response. to Trump’s message, the Washington Post reported at the time.
About two weeks before Trump was inaugurated as the nation’s 47th president, he again took aim at Newsom’s wildfire prevention leadership in the state, blaming the L.A. County fires on Newsom and his environmental policies.
“Governor Gavin Newscum refused to sign the water restoration declaration presented to him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and melting northern snow, to flow daily in many parts of California, including areas that are currently burning in a practically apocalyptic way,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday.
“He wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called smelt by giving it less water (it didn’t work!), but he didn’t. care about the people of California. Now the ultimate price is being paid. I will demand that this incompetent governor allows the beautiful, clean, fresh water to flow to CALIFORNIA! He is to blame for this. Also, there is no water for fire hydrants, and no firefighting planes. A real disaster!”
Newsom’s communications director, Izzy Gardon, told Fox Digital in response to Trump’s Social Truth, “We’re focused on protecting lives and fighting these flames, not on politics.”
“There is no such document as the water restoration statement, this is pure fiction. The governor is focused about protecting people, not politics and making sure firefighters have all the resources they need,” Gardon added.
PALISADES FIRE: HEIDI MONTAG, SPENCER PRATT LOSE HOME; CELEBRITIES FLEE THE RITZY NEIGHBORHOOD
Former President Trump takes the stage during a campaign rally. (Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)
Trump has a long history of putting Newsom’s handling of wildfires under the microscope during his first four years in the White House, including in January 2019 when he threatened to cut off federal funding to California if the services were not reformed of forest management of the state.
“Billions of dollars are being sent to the state of California for wildfires that, with proper forest management, would never happen. Unless they get their act together, which is unlikely, I have directed FEMA not to send more money. It’s a shame. situation in lives and money!” published in X that year.
A firefighter battles a fire as it burns a structure in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
“There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly wildfires in California except that forest management is so poor. Billions of dollars are lost every year, with so many lives lost, all because of mismanagement. of the woods. or no more Fed payments!” he added in 2018 to X.
Newsom and other Democrats they have historically rejected that wildfires in the state are due to climate change and global warming.
“You don’t believe in climate change. You’re excused from that conversation,” Newsom responded to Trump in 2019, for example, after the president criticized him for his wildfire leadership.
California Republicans, however, have echoed Trump that Newsom and other state Democrats have “failed” to address forest management.
A firefighter attends to flames in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles on Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (Jill Connelly/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“The Democrats who control this state, have been at the helm of the legislature and hold every state office have not taken charge of forest management in California,” Rep. James Gallagher told Fox News in 2020. “We’ve covered forests with bushes. 10-foot high piles and dead and dying trees and it’s a little box waiting for a spark.”
California’s governor pledged in 2019 to reform California’s approach to wildfire prevention, but a 2021 NPR investigation reported that the governor overstated the efforts.
“The investigation found that Newsom overstated, by a staggering 690 percent, the number of acres treated with fuel slash and prescribed burns in the very forestry projects he said needed to be prioritized to protect the state’s most vulnerable communities Scott Rodd. he wrote of findings in 2021. “Newsom has claimed that 35 ‘priority projects’ carried out as a result of his executive order resulted in fire prevention work on 90,000 acres. But the state’s own data shows that the actual number is 11,399”.
California Governor Gavin Newsom speaks at a news conference in Los Angeles on November 13. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
The state pushed back on the report, saying its wildfire prevention efforts were hampered by the pandemic, “along with an unprecedented wildfire season that pushed our wildfire crews away already strained from the work of prevention to the work of fighting fires”.
“The notion that the Newsom administration is pulling back on the response to the wildfires, in dollars or actions, is completely inaccurate,” the governor’s office said after the investigation’s findings were released.
Since then, the Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan has achieved and begun work on 100% of its 99 key actions, and the state also hired 3,000 new firefighters at CAL FIRE since 2019.
The Palisades Fire burns during a windstorm on the west side of Los Angeles on January 7, 2025. (Reuters/Ringo Chiu)
There are currently at least four wildfires Los Angeles Countypassing through the neighborhoods of Pacific Palisades and Sylmar, as well as near Pasadena.
Newsom proposed 65 fire engines, seven helicopters, nine excavators and more than 105 specialized personnel in Los Angeles, Riverside, Orange, San Bernardino, San Diego, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties before the fire spiraled in early this week The National Guard has also been deployed in response to the fire.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“California has deployed 1400% of fire personnel and hundreds of proposed assets to combat these unprecedented fires in LA” Newsom told X this week. “Emergency officials, firefighters and first responders are all on deck overnight doing everything they can to protect lives.”
