Last Friday, following weeks of wildfires in Southern California, Donald Trump visited California, met with Gavin Newsom, took a tour of fire damage, and engaged in a contentious public townhall with LA Mayor Karen Bass, wherein the president seemed to become something of a pinch-mayor.

But there was no rancor between Newsom and Trump.

In their tarmac presser, Trump thanked Newsom for meeting him as he landed in California, the two expressed solidarity over the fires in brief remarks, and following the trip – it appeared as though there might be a bit reprieve in Trump’s continual war with Newsom.

In an Air Force One gaggle after the trip, Trump said he “decided to be nice” and then followed up by telling reporters, “It was nice he came to the plane… and in the end, we have the same goal. We want to take that catastrophe and make it as good as possible. We disagree on some things….I actually always got along with him well until fairly recently.”

Here’s audio:

So far, so good, putting politics aside, right?

Well, kind of wrong.

Via Trump’s official White House X account, he posted this video today.

“The First Lady and I are in California to express our great love for the people of California. I'm going to give you everything you want. I'm going to be the President that's going to help you fix it.” –President Trump pic.twitter.com/RkkiY1xrmz

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 27, 2025

Now there are a few notable and very political things about it that hint where Trump is going on this.

First, Newsom’s absence in any of the shots is glaring, but predictable.

Second, notice how Trump includes town hall comments from folks who are repeating Trump’s favorite complaints against Newsom and praising Donald Trump.

In the video (ostensibly apolitical), a town hall participant says: “I just want to thank you for bringing sanity to California water and fire policy. There’s no place that needs a revolution in common sense quite like California.”

Another town hall participant says: “We should not have to rely on buckets to put out a fire.”

Another participant to Trump in the video: “You were talking about the need to better manage our forests and wildlands to prevent this from happening again, and you were so right about that.”

Another: “I wanted to thank you for your loyal support to our military, our police officers, and especially our firefighters.”

Watch the video yourself. The entire thing is an ode to Donald Trump, against the backdrop of tragic fires, with the politics of Trump’s beef against California’s wildfire issues, front-and-center.

Then Trump does something else.

Instead of suggesting that he might withhold aid from California unless conditions are met (as he floated prior to the visit), he went into savior of California mode.

“I’m going to give you everything you want. I’m going to give you more money than any president would have ever given you. Most presidents wouldn’t be here, number one. They certainly wouldn’t be here after three days. I’m going to come back, I’m going to come back as much as you need. But I’m going to be the president that’s going to help you fix it.”

Finally, note the optics of the salute from firefighters to (presumably) Trump as he says “I’m going to be the president that’s going to help you fix it.”

If you don’t think it’s a political ad at first watch, replay it again, and you’ll see Trump is doing something very smart.

He can’t engage in a back-and-forth fight with Newsom, at this point, without it looking petty.

But he certainly can try to supplant Newsom as the defacto governor of California, and try to swoop in and take credit for recovery.

And of course, with the vast federal backing he brings, he can do things Newsom simply can’t. And he probably will. And he’ll make sure all Californians know about it.

Of course, Newsom is no fool.

He gets exactly what Trump is trying to do here, and he knows that he’ll have to kiss the ring a bit to get what his state needs. That’s both the morally right thing for his constituents and the politically smart thing to do for his future.

Watch Newsom’s only tweet on X about Trump’s visit and contrast it with Trump’s. Newsom posts a deferential video towards the prez. Trump’s was a reverential video about himself.

Welcome to California, President @realDonaldTrump. Looking forward to working together to deliver aid and ensure a fast recovery for Los Angeles. pic.twitter.com/doGCTJPSop

— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) January 24, 2025

And all this is weighing on Newsom’s future calculations, as CNN’s Edward Isaac-Dovere writes in this great account wherein the Newsom team is very aware that, as an outgoing governor, his response to the fires will be the final memory voters have of him.

Isaac-Dovere:

Some have praised how much he’s been carrying out the response in public through interviews with flames behind him. Others are infuriated by how many fire hydrants were without water and other mismanagement in the run-up to the catastrophe, saying he should be addressing that, or least showing more empathy for the losses and doing fewer of those TV interviews – especially with liberal hosts.

“He’s got to push back on the misinformation without doubling down on the conflict. And ultimately, he has to deliver for the people of California – and that’s what he’s going to be measured by,” one Newsom adviser told CNN. “There’s not a playbook for this.”

Watching what’s happening at home and trying to sort through the dynamics in Washington, several California politicians say that this back-and-forth is proving a microcosm for American politics in the second Trump era.

In the end, California residents just want help. That’s what matters far more than anything.

But once everything has settled, they’ll start thinking more about who gave them help, and Trump seems to be aiming for that moment.

During the 2024 race, Trump talked about putting New York in play, and while he didn’t win the state, he vastly outperformed expectations in just about every region of the state.

California is the biggest blue state of them all, and Trump always likes big.

Newsom is aware of all this. And now he’s got to be humble enough to get the money he needs for his constituents but also know that Trump is going to try to turn this against him.

P.S. Here’s video of Trump and Newsom on the Tarmac, via LiveNOW from Fox:

[Photo from Trump’s White House Video: As noted, look at one such telling moment from the Trump video].

Ahead of a likely meeting in California today, here’s a pretty interesting exchange between CA Gov. Gavin Newsom and Donald Trump five years ago, during another episode of fires in California.

Trump was in between re-election campaign stops, giving remarks recognizing the California National Guard, when the two foes met to discuss the fires in a briefing.

Around the 45:30 mark, Newsom acknowledges California’s poor history of forestry management while respectfully disagreeing with Trump on climate change.

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“We can agree to disagree and I appreciate your frame on the politics of this, but let me just acknowledge a few things briefly…. there’s no question when you look past this decade and looking past a thousand plus years that we have not done justice on our forest management. I don’t think anyone disputes that.

…. We acknowledge our roll and responsibility to do more in that space, but one thing is fundamental. 57% of the land in this state is federal forest land. 3% is California. So we really do need that support.

…. We obviously feel very strongly that the hots are getting hotter, the dries are getting drier… something’s happened to the plumbing of the world and we come from a perspective, humbly, where the science is in and the evidence is self-evident — that climate change is real and that is exacerbating this.

So I think there is an area of at least commonality on forest management, but please respect – and I know you do – the difference of opinion out here as it relates to this fundamental issue on the issue of climate change.”

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To which Trump responds, “Sure, absolutely” and moves on.

By the way, this wasn’t the first meeting between the two.

Back in 2018, the two met (Newsom was governor-elect of California) and surveyed Northern California fire damage and Politico noted at the time it was “after trading barbs all year.”

As for this round of fires, “trading barbs” would be a fairly sanguine characterization as things seem more intense between the two, but Newsom does plan to meet with Trump when he lands in the state, although it’s unclear whether the two will do more than that.

Politico notes that Newsom is trying to cool temperatures on the dispute by saying he has “a lot of relationships in the Trump world; a lot of relationships of trust. I communicate with a lot of folks around him, folks that have his ear and influence.”

Newsom is in a tricky spot. As with other states going through natural disasters, California is in desperate need for federal help and Trump has made it quite clear current or potential future aid might depend on changing course in his preferred direction on forest management and other issues.

That’s a practically unprecedented politicization of a natural disaster from a federal perspective, and it’s forcing Newsom to openly grapple with the usual implicit political nature of disasters like this.

Considering the stakes for his state, the upcoming 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, and Californians’ hope for aid, I would expect Newsom to be diplomatic and potentially deferential in his meeting with Trump today. After all, that approach seems to work pretty well with Trump.

[Hat tip: A PBS fact-check of Trump’s claims on the fire included a link to this video. The video is an interesting bit of cultural history, too, with Newsom wearing a mask and Trump, maskless].

On a Wednesday night appearance on Sean Hannity’s Fox TV show (just two days before the two meet!), Donald Trump criticized CA Gov. Gavin Newsom and his state’s management of the wildfires, and said his upcoming host “looked like an idiot” when discussing sanctuary cities.

In case I didn’t mention, they meet tomorrow. Oh, I did.

As for the California wildfires, Trump attacked California’s water policy and forest management policies, claiming that he talked with the leaders of Finland and Austria who said “they lived in a forest” and were a “forest nation” and, thus, needed better mitigation.

“You have to clean the floors of the forests,” Trump said, claiming that California had failed to do it and that it looked like a “nuclear weapon” had gone off in the Southern California region.

“That thing [wildfires] went for four or five days. Nobody was even fighting it because they didn’t have any water, their fire departments aren’t funded properly…. I remember when Ron DeSantis and Gavin Newscum [intentional sic there] were debating on your show and Newsom’s talking like ‘everything’s great, just great, just great’.”

…. I’ve never seen anything like it. We looked so weak.”

Trump then suggested he’d make aid contingent on California water policy (would he do this for a swing state or red state?).

Here’s video, via Fox News.

A lot to unpack, but let’s talk first about Trump’s comment that he’s spoken with the leaders of Finland and Austria about their forest management.

Well, he did, in fact, discuss it with Finland’s president back in his first term – and The Washington Post had a good read in 2018 on Finland’s forest management techniques (which include controlled burns) that, nevertheless, don’t offer a super clean 1:1 with California.

For example, Finland is closer to the Arctic Circle and has lots of rain and snow. California is not close to the Arctic Circle and is getting drier.

That’s worth repeating, but I won’t. Its implications are obvious.

PBS has done a good job fact-checking some of Trump’s current claims about California’s wildfires.

(And note: If you’re a conservative, you’ll probably roll your eyes at a PBS fact check. If you’re liberal, you’ll read it. If you’re somewhere in the middle and interested, you’ll click on various links, do some research, and find that answers aren’t clear. It seems conservatives are over-simplifying the problem while liberals are often beholden to special interest groups that have made it politically difficult to implement some important preventative measures. But mostly, just as in Florida, this is a nature-can’t-be-tamed-phenomenon that’s getting worse and needs a drastic overhaul).

So what’s Gavin Newsom been up to (it’s notable that Trump referred to the governor as both Newsom and his favorite insult “Newscum” during the interview).

Yesterday – as if preparing for the visit – Newsom’s office put out a statement detailing “all the actions Governor Newsom has taken in response to the Los Angeles fires,” which you can read here.

He has also called for “the critical need for partnership” with the Trump Admin and promised that “where our principles are aligned, my administration stands ready to work with the Trump-Vance Administration to deliver solutions” for Californians affected by the fires. Politico noted that this came after Trump called on “Gavin Newscum” to resign as governor, and blasted the city’s response to the disaster.

In the wake of Trump’s inaugural slam on Newsom’s response to the fires, the CA governor tweeted out this.

"Without a token of defense" pic.twitter.com/N3Wb44MOXd

— Governor Newsom Press Office (@GovPressOffice) January 20, 2025

Newsom has also announced that 5 major banks are offering mortgage relief payments for 90 days, and issued an executive order barring LA County landlords from evicting tenants housing wildfire victims.

San Francisco Chronicle has a good breakdown: “Trump’s war with California is already raging. Here are the biggest battles coming.”

And… a favorite below.

KEY READ: Washington Post’s Maeve Reston: “Newsom faces complex politics, GOP criticism over L.A. fires.” Newsom “has alternated between sparring openly with Republicans” while also moving “to the right on key measures meant to speed up the recovery, both physical and psychic.”

2028 TAKE-AWAY: It’s cynical and almost crass to talk politics at a time like this, but it’s naive to the point of irresponsibility to assume that there aren’t massive politics involved in the upcoming meeting. Republicans have turned the fires into a politically charged issue, so denying politics is impossible (and the politics of forest management etc is, well, politics). And does anyone think Trump and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott would be squabbling over hurricane relief to, say, Galveston?

Even with the wildfires as tragic backdrop, the Trump-Newsom meeting will be watched closely, as Newsom is the closest thing Dems have to a 2028 frontrunner at the moment.

So what will the meeting look like, what will be said, how will each side frame it, and most importantly, will they get things done for those who need it most? After all, that’s the best thing morally, for both sides politically, and for the United States.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order today that aims to curtail Californians’ access to controversial ultra-processed foods and investigate food dyes.

Newsom’s official statement:

“The food we eat shouldn’t make us sick with disease or lead to lifelong consequences. California has been a leader for years in creating healthy and delicious school meals, and removing harmful ingredients and chemicals from food. We’re going to work with the industry, consumers and experts to crack down on ultra-processed foods, and create a healthier future for every Californian.”

You can read more about the specifics here, which include potentially adopting higher standards for healthy school meals, recommend ways to “reduce the purchase of soda, candy, other ultra-processed foods” and provide formal recommendations to the governor’s office.

2028 TAKEAWAY:

One year ago, this would’ve been viewed as another “liberal California statement,” but ever since RFK Jr. became a rightwing icon of sorts and Donald Trump responded in kind by tapping him as head of HHS – this is now quite uncontroversial.

In fact, The Los Angeles Times titles its piece on Newsom’s move, “Newsom aims to limit unhealthy food in California, getting ahead of Trump Administration and RFK Jr.”

Though Newsom didn’t mention Kennedy, the Democratic governor of California is planting a preemptive flag around the issue and signaling his refusal to concede the terrain to the incoming Trump administration.

LA Times writers’ Julia Wick and Taryn Luna then do, indeed, note Newsom’s numerous previous efforts to junk food additives and target dyes, and no governor can credibly claim to have addressed this issue more directly.

Thus, what might have hampered Newsom among the internet influencers years ago and hurt his general election chances – well, in this case, it might actually help him. Both in a Democratic primary and general election.

By the way, if you want to read more about ultra-processed foods, check out the American Medical Association’s page, which includes compelling research studies, detailing the potential health hazards they pose.