President Donald Trump is set to make his first presidential trip of his second term to Los Angeles on Friday to visit the site of the Palisades fire that devastated a vast swath of the city after he delivered harsh words about political leaders in the city and California over their handling of the unprecedented disaster that has left at least 28 people dead.
Trump will depart on Air Force One for L.A. this afternoon and is scheduled to touch down at 5:40 p.m., according to his public schedule, at Los Angeles International Airport. There, he may be greeted by a familiar face he’d rather not see as Gov. Gavin Newsom said he plans to be on the tarmac when Trump arrives. California’s leader and the president have sparred verbally in the past and Newsom was floated as a potential rival candidate for the presidency last year; most recently, Trump has slammed Newsom and others after the wildfires this month.
Trump’s visit, with First Lady Melania Trump joining him, will include an aerial tour of the damage to the city then a roundtable meeting at a Pacific Palisades firehouse. L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger are expected to meet with Trump, as are other officials, including Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman, who represents the area affected by the Palisades Fire.
On Thursday, Newsom was in the L.A. area to sign a $2.5 billion wildfire recovery bill package into law. But federal funding for the still-burning blazes — with several new fires igniting this week — is uncertain as Trump begins his second term with a deep disdain for California’s politics and leaders.
Trump spoke with reporters before departing the White House on Friday for North Carolina, saying that the Los Angeles fires “could have been put out,” but “they still haven’t for whatever reason.”
“It would be fine if they turned the water on,” Trump said later after landing in North Carolina. “I want to see the water be released and come down into Los Angeles and throughout the state.”
The president also repeated an earlier threat where he suggested withholding federal disaster relief funds to California because of his opposing views on the state’s water policies and voter ID laws; it is a frequently mentioned, contentious topic for Trump.
On Wednesday, he told Fox News host Sean Hannity that Gov. Newsom “can release the water that comes from the north” to help put out the fires and added that the U.S. government shouldn’t “give California anything” until its policy reflects this plan. He touched on his gripe with the state’s voter ID laws, too, while speaking on Fox News.
“I have a condition. In California, we want them to have voter ID so the people have a voice, because right now, the people don’t have a voice because you don’t know who’s voting, and it’s very corrupt,” he told Hannity. “If they released the water when I told them to, because I told them to do it seven years ago, if they would’ve done it, you wouldn’t have had the problem.”
Trump said that Newsom “refused to sign the water restoration declaration,” which would allow water from Northern California to flow down into Los Angeles. The plan to move water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta downstate was nixed after environmental groups opposed it because of its potential impact on endangered salmon and smelt.
Once Trump lands in L.A. he will be briefed on the situation there and tour the Pacific Palisades, which is devastated after the biggest and most destructive fire in L.A. history ripped through the area after it ignited on Jan. 7 and is today only 77 percent contained. Trump will spend just over three hours in Southern California before departing for Las Vegas; nevertheless, on Friday, he had some encouraging words for the nation’s second-largest city.
“We’re going to take care of Los Angeles,” he said.
Last week, Trump wrote in a Truth Social post that three actors who have supported him politically — Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone, and Jon Voight — would be his eyes and ears in Hollywood.
“It will again be, like The United States of America itself, The Golden Age of Hollywood!” he wrote in the post, referring to the trio as special envoys.
English (US) ·