GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump held an outdoor press conference at Racho Palos Verdes, California, before heading to a rally in Nevada. Standing at a podium, with the Pacific Ocean behind him, Trump criticized Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom.
Trump threatened, if re-elected in November, to withhold emergency disaster funds to the state of California — which continues to experience widespread wildfires — because he believes Newsom “is a lousy governor.”
Every voter should be made aware of this.@realDonaldTrump just admitted he will block emergency disaster funds to settle political vendettas.
Today it’s California’s wildfires.
Tomorrow it could be hurricane funding for North Carolina or flooding assistance for homeowners in… pic.twitter.com/bIg6v2lMJ1
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) September 13, 2024
Trump said of the Democratic Party: “With this group, everything is dead. The automobile industry is dead. The water coming here is dead, and Gavin Newscum [sic] is going to sign those papers. If he doesn’t sign those papers, we won’t give him money to put out all his fires. And if we don’t give him the money to put out all his fires, he’s got problems.”
[NOTE: The “papers” involve water regulations Trump wants Newsom to scuttle. The Hill reports: “The amount of water that can be pumped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is limited under federal and state regulations to protect a fish called the smelt, which has been considered endangered for more than a decade.”]
Gov. Newsom shared the clip above and responded on X: “Every voter should be made aware of this. Trump just admitted he will block emergency disaster funds to settle political vendettas.”
Newsom added: “Today it’s California’s wildfires. Tomorrow it could be hurricane funding for North Carolina or flooding assistance for homeowners in Pennsylvania. Donald Trump doesn’t care about America — he only cares about himself.”
[NOTE: The U.S. Department of Interior provides the federal staff and equipment needed to control wildfires. Under the Trump administration, the Interior Department pushed “to reduce regulations on the oil industry and open new lands and waters to drilling.”]
Trump’s first Secretary of the Interior, Ryan Zinke, stepped down after two years “in the face of ethics inquiries that he called partisan and unfounded,” according to Politico.
Trump’s second Interior Secretary, former oil and energy industry lobbyist and attorney David Bernhardt, is reportedly eyeing a return to the White House for a second Trump term.