Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) claimed on NBC's “Meet the Press” on Sunday that President-elect Donald Trump is politicizing the Southern California wildfires.
Reporter Jacob Soboroff: “President-elect Trump blames you for this crisis. He calls you incompetent. What is your response?
Newsom said, “Well, I called on him to come out and look at himself. We want to do it with an open-handed spirit, not a clenched fist. He's the next president.'' We have a President of the United States who declared a major disaster in less than 36 hours. We've had the support of Redemption, all the resources you could hope for, and continued communication. And I want to pass that on to the next president. When he talks about delta smelt in the reservoir, I don't know what he's referring to. Well, the state reservoir here in Southern California is completely full. I don't think misinformation and disinformation like this is of any benefit or help to us. I think it will take another month to respond to Donald Trump's insults. He knows them well. All the elected officials he disagrees with know them well.”
He continued, “That was not the state system reservoir that the president-elect was referring to as it relates to the Delta and somehow connected the fires to smelt in the Delta. That is inaccurate and , which is inexcusable because it is incomprehensible to anyone who understands U.S. water policy.'' “
When asked about President Trump's aid withholding, Newsom said, “He did it in Utah. He did it in Michigan, he did it in Puerto Rico. He did it in California in 2018, before I became governor. But then he found out that people in Orange County were voting for him, and then he decided to donate. So he's been working on this for years and years and it goes beyond the state. And by the way, that includes Georgia, which he threatened as well. That's his style. We take this issue so seriously that it took us a little longer in the past. , we've expressed this quite a bit in the context of someone threatening emergency responders in terms of immediately responding to their needs and helping communities recover.”
Soboroff asked, “Are you taking it that President-elect Trump is threatening the first responders here?”
Newsom said, “I mean, that's what he said. He said, I'm not going to support firefighting. I'm not going to support the state in emergency management in California. “No, but unless California does my bidding, he made this clear during the campaign.”
Follow Pam Key on X @pamkeyNEN
