Trump signals he may withhold federal aid to California over water policies

By Jack Phillips
Contributing Writer

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he is considering withholding federal aid to California following a series of devastating wildfires if the state doesn’t change its water policies. 

In an interview with Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity, he reasserted that the state’s fish conservation efforts in Northern California are linked to problems with water availability amid the wildfires that erupted earlier this month. He also placed part of the blame on Gov. Gavin Newsom for not being able to quickly tame the fires. 

“I don’t think we should give California anything until they let water flow down,” he said. 

In the interview, Trump also confirmed that he will visit Los Angeles on Friday after visiting North Carolina, which was devastated by Hurricane Helene last fall. However, the president said he doesn’t know if he will meet with Newsom. 

“Look, Gavin’s got one thing he can do: He can release the water that comes from the north. There is massive amounts of water, rainwater, and mountain water that comes due with the snow, comes down … as it melts. There’s so much water,” Trump said, referring to Newsom, a Democrat. 

On Monday, Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to “route more water” from Northern California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to other parts of the Golden State due to the wildfires in what he said was an attempt to end “radical environmentalism” that was essentially putting fish over people. 

“The recent deadly and historically destructive wildfires in Southern California underscore why the state of California needs a reliable water supply and sound vegetation management practices in order to provide water desperately needed there, and why this plan must immediately be reimplemented,” the White House said. 

At a news conference a day earlier, Trump said that “Los Angeles has massive amounts of water available to it.” 

“All they have to do is turn the valve,” he said. 

Earlier in January, Newsom wrote a letter to Trump asking him to survey the devastation caused by the Los Angeles fires firsthand and meet with first responders. In an interview with NBC News’s “Meet the Press,” the governor also disputed Trump’s assertion about the fish and water shortages in Los Angeles. 

Trump, he said, is “somehow connecting the Delta smelt to this fire, which is inexcusable because it’s inaccurate.” 

“Also, incomprehensible to anyone that understands water policy in the state,” Newsom said. 

On Jan. 10, then-President Joe Biden said at an event that local utility companies intentionally shut off the power in Los Angeles, which led to water shortages during the fires. 

“What I know from talking to the governor, that there are concerns out there that there’s also been a water shortage,” Biden said in a briefing. “The fact is the utilities, understandably, shut off power because they are worried the lines that carried energy were going to be blown down and spark additional fires. 

“When it did that, it cut off the ability to generate pumping the water. That’s what caused the lack of water in these hydrants.” 

During the Hannity interview, Trump signaled that significant changes could be coming to the Federal Emergency Management Agency because he would rather see individual states deal with their respective natural disaster responses. 

The president also said he believes FEMA, which is handling some wildfire recovery efforts, has performed poorly over the “last four years.” 

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