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.
