President-elect Donald Trump blasted Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) on Wednesday for refusing to sign a declaration which Trump says would have brought millions of gallons of water to much of California, including the areas now ablaze with wildfires.
Trump ripped Newsom in a post on Truth Social as wildfires ravage parts of Los Angeles amid a treacherous Santa Ana windstorm.
He 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.
Trump then declared that Newsom prioritized the protection of a fish called the Delta smelt over the water needs of Californians.
“Now the ultimate price is being paid. I will demand that this incompetent governor allow beautiful, clean, fresh water to FLOW INTO CALIFORNIA!” Trump said.
“He is the [sic] blame for this. On top of it all, no water for fire hydrants, not firefighting planes. A true disaster!” he added.
Breitbart News Senior Editor-at-Large Joel Pollak noted in September 2024, “While the smelt issue disrupted state water policy nearly 20 years ago because of litigation in federal courts, it is true that the state has often flushed water from dams out to sea to maintain flow levels rather than providing it to farmers and other users.”
Trump has warned about California wildfire mismanagement for years, addressing the issue as recently as September and declaring that if he were elected, the state’s residents would be able to access more water.
At a press conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, Trump was asked how he would help those affected by forest fires.
Trump, noting it was his “favorite question of the day,” said the state denies water to farmers, instead prioritizing the smelt:
They send millions and millions of gallons of water out to the Pacific Ocean … the reason you have no water is because Gavin Newscum [sic] didn’t want to do it. I had it all done … all those fields that are, right now, barren — the farmers would have all the water they needed — and you could revert water up into the hills, where you have all the dead forests.
Trump said he would ensure water makes its way down to southern California if elected:
I’m going to give you more water than almost anybody has. And the farmers up north, they’re going to be able to use 100% of their land, not 1% of their land, and the water is going to come all the way down to Los Angeles. and you are going to have more water than you ever saw. … We have tremendous amounts, millions of gallons of water that’s shoved right into the Pacific Ocean, where it doesn’t make a dent. And all of that water is going to take care of California and nobody can make a bigger promise that that. You’re not going to have to do desalination plants, which a lot of people want to do, very expensive to do, but it’s better than the alternative of no water.
Trump also criticized California officials during wildfires in August 2020, declaring that the state needed to implement better brush management in its forests.
“They’re starting again in California. I said, you gotta clean your floors, you gotta clean your forests — there are many, many years of leaves and broken trees and they’re like, like, so flammable, you touch them and it goes up,” he said at the time, as Politico noted.
