Liberals melted down Wednesday when President-elect Donald Trump posted a statement to Truth Social placing the blame for the out-of-control wildfires in California on Gov. Gavin Newsom's failure to sign the water restoration declaration put before him. Quite a few people have tried to lay responsibility for the wildfires on Trump. David Axelrod pointed to an AP story to suggest that Trump calling climate change a hoax and scrapping plans to battle it contributed to the fires. The Bulwark's Sam Stein also chimed in, saying "it dawns on you that Trump, set to take office in 13 days, has threatened publicly to cut wildfire aid to the state." Yes, he has, if they don't step up and take some action to prevent these sorts of wildfires.
As we reported Wednesday, a reporter for Politico actually wrote that "Republicans are seizing on the catastrophic wildfires" and that Trump and Elon Musk had "unleashed" on California Democrats. Juliette Kayyem, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, a CNN national security analyst, and Atlantic contributor, read the Politico piece (or at least the headline) and was aghast that Trump was blaming Newsom during the fires.
In all my years in and studying disaster management, I have never seen a president (elect) blame a jurisdiction WHILE the disaster was still out of control. It distracts, is cruel to first responders and victims, and could impede effective response. https://t.co/S0q9iEXBDt
— Juliette Kayyem (@juliettekayyem) January 8, 2025
How is it cruel to the first responders, who don't have water in their fire hydrants, and victims, who themselves are laying into Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass for not doing something sooner to avoid this catastrophe? It's cruel to the victims to leave them so helpless with no preparedness.
Maybe if the so-called "disaster management" experts weren’t too busy pushing a political agenda, they’d focus on real solutions
— MAG🔫1775🇺🇸 (@Mar50cC5O) January 9, 2025
It’s amazing how bad you reporters have TDS. See, Trump told Gavin about the dumping water into the sea being a disaster when Trump was President & talked about it still. Trump will be prez soon and can STILL talk about Gavin’s failure
— SeldenGADawgs (@SeldenGADawgs) January 9, 2025
Total mismanagement by the State and Californians need to stop voting for these inept fools.
— Kelly☘️ (@Asecretary) January 8, 2025
Needless to say, nothing is more distracting, cruel to first responders and victims, and an impediment to effective disaster response than the prioritization of style over substance when it comes to disaster management, much like you are doing right now.
— Skeptical Stoic (@StoicSkeptical) January 9, 2025
The local and state Democrats who run the show there are the REASON the disaster is out of control, Jules! Don't attempt to deflect blame by trying to pin this on a guy who's been out of office for 4 years and hasn't even been sworn in yet.
— AdamInHTownTX (@AdamInHTownTX) January 9, 2025
It's their fault, though.
— Richard DeCamp (@richdecamp) January 8, 2025
This is really what you're upset about right now?
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) January 9, 2025
Remarkable.
You know what’s most cruel to first responders and victims? Doing nothing to stop this from happening repeatedly, year after year, even when given ample opportunity and funding to do so…
— Verseus Greekus ™ (@VerseusGreekus) January 9, 2025
Get over it. He’s not wrong. Every problem they have had in fighting these fires outside of the winds can be tracked directly back to mismanagement by the government of the State of California. First responders get nothing but love, it’s liberal elites that deserve condemnation.
— Belinda (@Cobeekat) January 9, 2025
This you? pic.twitter.com/b9UBMlE57S
— Brittany Rae (@legitbrittFLA) January 9, 2025
Nice.
Meanwhile, the people in charge who have created the situation that has allowed this to be such a disaster and one that cannot be stopped or put out BEFORE it got this bad are not on your petty radar, at all. Speaks volumes about you.
— Luce Wood (@wood_luce) January 9, 2025
How is Trump putting out a statement impeding an effective response? It seems more likely that having no water to fight the fires is impeding an effective response. And Trump's not to blame for that.
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