President Donald Trump has embarked on a trip to Los Angeles County, en route to survey the massive damage from recent fires in the county.
Trump, newly sworn in this week as the nation’s 47th president, was set to get a first-hand look at the toll of the Palisades and Eaton fires, which broke out on Jan. 7 amid extreme winds in the region.
As of Friday morning, the 14,021-acre Eaton Fire was 95% contained, and the 23,448-acre Palisades Fire 77%, according to Cal Fire.
Together, they’ve claimed 28 lives — 11 in the Palisades Fire area and 17 in the Eaton area, according to the county medical examiner.
Air Force One is scheduled to touch down at LAX in the early afternoon after a trip that starts in North Carolina, which was devastated by Hurricane Helene in September.
After surveying the damage there, his flight will head to Los Angeles. By mid-afternoon, he will be touring a neighborhood in Pacific Palisades with fire officials and homeowners, according to reports.
Later, Trump will receive an emergency briefing from local leaders at all levels of government.
Participants are slated to include Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass; Ric Grenell, presidential envoy for special missions; Randy Moore, chief of the U.S. Forest Service; Kathryn Barger, Fifth District member of the county Board of Supervisors; and Ed Ring, director of water and policy for the California Policy Center.
Southern California Reps. Brad Sherman, D-Sherman Oaks, and Young Kim, R-Anaheim Hills, will be among a dozen or so congressional representatives in attendance.
It was unclear whether, if at all, Trump would visit the fire-scorched Altadena and Pasadena communities.
Despite the sheer force of nature from the disasters, early Friday, Trump blamed previous administrations for neglecting structural issues in North Carolina and California that he said led to the devastation.
“It’s been a horrible thing the way that’s been allowed to fester, and we’re going to get it fixed up,” Trump said of the hurricane’s aftermath in North Carolina before embarking on the trip early Friday morning.
Trump, according to White House pool reports, also repeated his assertion that the fires in L.A. “could have been put out if they let the water flow.”
“I think we’re going to have a very interesting time,” Trump said of his visit out west.
It’s his first trip since becoming president on Monday, though in his first term, as 45th president, he also traveled to L.A.
In L.A. County, he will find a region immersed in clean-up from some of the most destructive fires in state history, even as families continue to return to the rubble of their homes in the coastal Palisades and the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains.
Both Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff said they had been invited to attend the trip with the president but had to stay behind in Washington, D.C., because of nomination votes for Trump’s Cabinet.
But Trump, speaking to reporters on the south lawn of the White House early Friday morning, suggested he wasn’t the one to invite Schiff, according to pool reports.
This isn’t the first time Trump has come to survey a fire-ravaged California.
In 2018, Trump toured areas decimated by the Camp fire in Northern California’s Butte County, which killed 85 people and destroyed nearly 19,000 structures.
Trump then — like he is now — was extremely critical of the state’s management and threatened to withhold federal aid.
“There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor,” Trump said in a post on what was then Twitter at the time. “Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more (federal) payments!”
This time, Trump is castigating California’s water management.
In an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity this week — Trump’s first television interview since his inauguration for his second term — accused Newsom of refusing to “release the water that comes from the north.”
“I don’t think we should give California anything until they let the water run down,” Trump said.
But local leaders have urged Trump to pull back from setting conditions on federal support in the area.
Barger, at an event at a Pasadena church on Thursday, seemed hopeful that Trump would back federal support, especially after seeing the scope of the damage.
“My hope is he will see and experience what he needs to,” she said, “to understand the importance of being a partner with us to rebuild. I, for one, don’t care if he talks to me. I want him to talk to the people. Because when you talk to the families that were devastated, I would defy anybody to turn their back.”