President Trump will take his first journey since returning to the White Home on Friday to storm-ravaged North Carolina and California, which is struggling a few of the most threatening and harmful blazes within the state’s historical past.
The journey comes because the president has left the query of extra catastrophe assist for California unsettled.
Mr. Trump is predicted to make his first cease in Asheville, N.C., which suffered devastating flooding from Hurricane Helene final fall. Mr. Trump then plans on touring to the Los Angeles space, the place he’ll observe the harm from wildfires which have killed greater than two dozen individuals, destroyed complete neighborhoods and compelled determined evacuations.
However on the probability of extra federal assist for every state, Mr. Trump has struck very completely different tones. Whereas he has expressed assist for North Carolina, Mr. Trump has criticized California’s Democratic leaders for the catastrophe response and threatened to withhold federal assist if they didn’t make adjustments to unrelated environmental insurance policies within the state.
Presidents have sometimes visited areas recovering from pure disasters to indicate private assist and guarantee group members of federal assist for emergency medical staff and native leaders. Mr. Trump, nevertheless, has usually used pure disasters as a automobile to unleash political grievances, threatening to withhold cash from political opponents, making false statements about catastrophe responses by Democrats and promising assist for political allies.
Throughout Mr. Trump’s first time period in workplace, he instructed aides he wished to cease cash from reaching Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, claiming that the island’s management was corrupt. After California suffered from wildfires in 2018, Mr. Trump mentioned on social media that he had ordered the Federal Emergency Administration Company to “ship no extra money” except the state modified its strategy to forest administration.
Earlier than touring on Friday, Mr. Trump already displayed completely different approaches to Republican-led North Carolina and the blue state of California.
“I’m stopping in North Carolina, first up, as a result of these individuals had been handled very badly by Democrats,” Mr. Trump mentioned in a taped interview with Fox Information that aired on Wednesday night time. “We’re going to get that factor straightened out as a result of they’re nonetheless affected by a hurricane from months in the past.”
Mr. Trump, because the early days of the hurricane response, has made a variety of accusations concerning the Biden administration’s response to Hurricane Helene that had been debunked by the native, state and federal authorities within the catastrophe areas.
The false statements included claims that FEMA had spent large sums on housing for migrants and that it had instructed victims of the storms they’d obtain solely $750. The string of false claims prompted Mr. Biden to accuse Mr. Trump of spreading “outright lies.”
One FEMA worker was fired within the aftermath of Hurricane Milton after telling aid staff in Florida to go over homes with indicators supporting Mr. Trump.
In the identical interview with Fox Information, Mr. Trump issued broadsides towards Gavin Newsom, California’s Democratic governor, for his administration and threatened to withhold catastrophe assist for wildfires except the state modified environmental insurance policies that he claimed had prevented sufficient water from going to Southern California.
“I don’t suppose we should always give California something till they let water circulate down,” he added.
State and hearth consultants have mentioned these insurance policies don’t have any connection to the fires within the Los Angeles space.
Throughout a information convention on Thursday, Mr. Newsom expressed confidence that the Trump administration would nonetheless reimburse California for the disaster-related funds. He added that he deliberate on being on the airport to greet Mr. Trump, though he didn’t know whether or not he could be invited to accompany the president throughout his tour of the Los Angeles space.
Regardless of heaping criticism on California’s leaders, nevertheless, Mr. Trump appeared to increase a last-minute invitation to Senator Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California, to affix him in his go to to the state, days after calling Mr. Schiff “scum” on his inauguration day.
A spokesperson for Mr. Schiff, with whom Mr. Trump has lengthy had an acrimonious relationship, mentioned on Thursday that the senator wouldn’t have the ability to make the journey due to anticipated Senate votes on Mr. Trump’s cupboard nominees.
“Senator Schiff drastically appreciates the president’s go to to see the devastation of those wildfires firsthand and the invitation to accompany him,” the spokesperson mentioned in a press release, “and regrets that he’s unable to affix the president in Los Angeles attributable to scheduled nomination votes.” The assertion added that the senator would work with Mr. Trump’s workforce and different officers “to make sure that California will get the help and assist it wants.”
Annie Karni contributed reporting.
