‘I don’t think we should give California anything until they let water flow down,’ he said.
President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he is considering withholding federal aid to California following a series of devastating wildfires if the state doesn’t change its water policies.
In an interview with Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity, he reasserted that the state’s fish conservation efforts in Northern California are linked to problems with water availability amid the wildfires that erupted earlier this month. He also placed part of the blame on Gov. Gavin Newsom for not being able to quickly tame the fires.
“I don’t think we should give California anything until they let water flow down,” he said.
In the interview, Trump also confirmed that he will visit Los Angeles on Friday after visiting North Carolina, which was devastated by Hurricane Helene last fall. However, the president said he doesn’t know if he will meet with Newsom.
“Look, Gavin’s got one thing he can do: He can release the water that comes from the north. There is massive amounts of water, rainwater, and mountain water that comes due with the snow, comes down … as it melts. There’s so much water,” Trump said, referring to Newsom, a Democrat.
On Monday, Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to “route more water” from Northern California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to other parts of the Golden State due to the wildfires in what he said was an attempt to end “radical environmentalism” that was essentially putting fish over people.
“The recent deadly and historically destructive wildfires in Southern California underscore why the State of California needs a reliable water supply and sound vegetation management practices in order to provide water desperately needed there, and why this plan must immediately be reimplemented,” the White House said.
At a news conference a day earlier, Trump said that “Los Angeles has massive amounts of water available to it.”
“All they have to do is turn the valve,” he said.
