Former President Donald Trump on Friday threatened to withhold federal aid to fight wildfires in California if Gov. Gavin Newsom does not alter a government policy that protects an endangered species of fish.
Speaking from his golf course in Rancho Palos Verdes on Friday Trump said, "This is my favorite question of the day," when asked what he would do about California wildfires.
The former president cited environmental regulations that have redirected waters away from the interior in an effort to conserve certain species which environmentalist claim are crucial to the health of the state’s ecosystem.
Trump said he would pressure Newsom, referring to him as "Newscum," to revise the policy and added that the reason California "has no water is because Gavin Newscum didn’t want to do it."
In January of 2023, California had record levels of snowfall resulting in trillions of gallons of water saturating the drought-stricken region, yet approximately 95% of the precipitation went into the Pacific Ocean, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
Trump said that if elected he will pressure Newsom to draft new legislation that will address the state's perpetual water crisis.
"And Gavin Newscum is gonna sign those papers, and if he doesn’t sign those papers, we won’t give him money to out all his fires," Trump said. "And if we don’t give him money to put out his fires, he’s got problems. He’s a lousy governor," he added.
While Trump’s threat is unlikely to win any votes in a state that Republicans have not won since 1988, the issue of water in California has bipartisan concerns. State senators from both parties wrote letters to Newsom asking him to revise the state’s water policy to help farmers.
"When Mother Nature blesses us with rain, we need to save the water, instead of dumping it into the ocean," Assemblymember Vince Fong, R-Bakersfield, wrote in a letter to Newsom.
"With so much excess water in the system, there is no reason that exports south of the Delta cannot be increased," read another letter that state Sen. Melissa Hurtado, D-Sanger, and Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains, D-Bakersfield, addressed to Newsom.
Trump encouraged Californians to vote for him saying that he would give residents “safety, a border, and more water than almost anybody has” allowing farmers to make the most of their arid land.
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