California Gov. Gavin Newsom gets the "blame" for the wildfires devastating the Los Angeles area, President-elect Donald Trump said.
At least two people were confirmed dead and 1,000 structures destroyed, according to reports which say many of the blazes are zero percent contained.
Trump wrote in a post to Truth Social on Wednesday: "As of this moment, Gavin Newscum and his Los Angeles crew have contained exactly ZERO percent of the fire. It is burning at levels that even surpass last night. This is not Government. I can’t wait till January 20th!"
Rick Caruso, who lost against Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass in the 2022 election, told Fox 11: "There’s no water in the Palisades. There’s no water coming out of the fire hydrants. This is an absolute mismanagement by the city, we’ve got a mayor that’s out of the country, and we’ve got a city that’s burning, and there’s no resources to put out fires."
As the fires were burning on Tuesday, Bass was in Ghana after being selected by Joe Biden for a delegation to attend the inauguration of new Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama.
Trump continued to post on Truth Social:
NO WATER IN THE FIRE HYDRANTS, NO MONEY IN FEMA. THIS IS WHAT JOE BIDEN IS LEAVING ME. THANKS JOE!
The fires in Los Angeles may go down, in dollar amount, as the worst in the History of our Country. In many circles, they’re doubting whether insurance companies will even have enough money to pay for this catastrophe. Let this serve, and be emblematic, of the gross incompetence and mismanagement of the Biden/Newscum Duo. January 20th cannot come fast enough!
In an earlier post, Trump wrote:Governor Gavin Newscum refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way. 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. 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, no firefighting planes. A true disaster!A 2018 video clip and tweets from 2019 showing Trump warning Newsom to "clean up" forests to prevent future fire outbreaks have resurfaced.
"There's been a lot of study going on over the last little while," Trump says in the video as he and Newsom examine the devastation caused by wildfires at the time, "and I will say I think you're gonna have—hopefully this is going to be the last of these because this was a really, really bad one. And I know that Gavin's committed, we're all committed, I'm committed to make sure that all of this is cleaned out and protected. You gotta take care of the floors. You know, the floors of the forests, very important."
"You look at other countries where you do it differently and it's a whole different story. I was with the president of Finland and he said 'We have a much different—we're a forest nation.' He called it a 'forest nation.' And they spend a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things and they don't have any problem. And when it is, it's a very small problem. So I know everybody's looking at that, to that end. And it's gonna work out," Trump said.
Trump's tweets from November of 2019:
Bass put out a post on X early Wednesday morning stating that firefighting teams in the city "continue to work overnight to protect Angelenos affected by fires in LA." She was criticized in the comments about being overseas as her city burned.
"You’re not back yet?" one person wrote. Another added, "stay gone."
"You should be on the first flight back to LA and not in Ghana. Seriously. Vote differently CA. Get this woman out of office."
Caruso added: "It looks like we’re in a third world country here. And we’ve got a lot of tough questions that we need to ask the mayor, and the city council, and our representatives, and the county representatives, why didn’t you work to mitigate this? What was your brush mitigation program?"
🚨 FLASHBACK: California donated Firefighting Equipment to Ukraine in 2022
San Francisco Fire Department and other Bay Area agencies donated equipment in August 2022 Los Angeles County Fire Department donated supplies in March 2022 Santa Barbara County fire agencies donated… — Publius (@OcrazioCornPop) January 8, 2025
FIRST FEMALE LA FIRE CHIEF PRIORITIZES DIVERSITY.pic.twitter.com/4pmKWFh7Qy
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) January 8, 2025
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