Trump warned Newsom repeatedly over wildfires, water use for years

As wildfires ravage Los Angeles County, claiming iconic landmarks and private homes alike, President-elect Donald Trump is calling on Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., to resign over his unwillingness to address water management to handle wildfires, something Trump says he has urged him to do for years.

The myriad fires have burned at least 25,000 acres as of press time and led to multiple deaths. At least three distinct fires remain active and uncontained. Los Angeles Democratic Mayor Karen Bass has faced criticism for traveling to Ghana before the blaze began. Her latest public address also saw her appear to flub emergency advice when reading from a script and telling affected locals to “visit URL.”

"One of the best and most beautiful parts of the United States of America is burning down to the ground. It’s ashes, and Gavin Newscum [sic] should resign. This is all his fault!!!" Trump posted on Truth Social.

Newsom, for his part, accused Trump of exploiting the disaster for political gain, saying “[p]eople are literally fleeing. Kids have lost their schools. Communities have lost their churches. Families have lost their homes. Some have even lost their lives. And the President-Elect’s response is to politicize it.”

The cause of these specific blazes remains under investigation. But the wildfires this week are far from Trump’s only mention of the state’s water management and fire mitigation measures. Indeed, he has warned Newsom to change course for the better part of a decade.

Trump warned Newsom about wildfires years ago

In 2018, Trump warned that California was wasting water that could be used to fight wildfires as the state contended with more than a dozen blazes, NPR reported at the time.

In 2019, Trump raised the issue publicly as Newsom sought federal aid to address an unrelated fire, saying “[t]he Governor of California, [Gavin Newsom], has done a terrible job of forest management.”

“I told him from the first day we met that he must ‘clean’ his forest floors regardless of what his bosses, the environmentalists, DEMAND of him. Must also do burns and cut fire stoppers.....” he added. “Every year, as the fire’s rage & California burns, it is the same thing-and then he comes to the Federal Government for $$$ help. No more. Get your act together Governor. You don’t see close to the level of burn in other states.”

At the time, Newsom retorted that Trump was “excused from this conversation” because he didn’t believe in climate change.

The first Trump administration proposed water management regulations that would have seen water pumped from Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to supply local farms, but ran into opposition from the state.

Trump has his own plan

His 2019 warning was far from a one-off. Indeed, Trump campaigned in Los Angeles County in September 2024 and addressed the state’s water management issues in the wake of a landslide.

“So one thing I'm going to do for California… I'm going to give you safety, I'm going to give you a great border, and I'm going to give you more water than almost anybody has,” he said at the time. “So you're going to have water in California at a level that you've never seen before. The farmers are going to do great. Those fields are going to be all green instead of 1% green.”

Specifically, Trump recalled an exchange in which he noticed dry fields in the region and asked if there was a drought, to which he was told that the “water is cut off upstate” to “protect a certain little tiny fish called the smelt.” Consequently, he asserted, the state pours millions of gallons of water into the ocean and it never reaches the state’s southern areas.

At the time, he linked the policies to both the wildfires and water usage limits in the state and blamed Newsom for not addressing the matter. Trump added that the state had a “very large faucet” and said “if they turned it back, all of that water would come right down here and right into Los Angeles, they wouldn't have to have people not use more than 30 gallons, and 32 gallons, they want to do that, you know they're trying to do.”

“And you'd stop many of these horrible fires that are costing billions and billions of dollars by the federal government, etc,” he insisted.

Democrats blame climate change

Many Democrats, for their part, have insisted the problem is the result of climate change rather than forest and water management restrictions. But such assertions have at least one high-profile evacuee and now-former resident of the area crying foul.

“Climate change is real, not ‘a hoax.’ Donald Trump must treat this like the existential crisis it is,” wrote Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in a post that included an image of the wildfires.

Some evacuees, however, such as actor James Woods, have contended that climate change merely offers Democrats in charge a “vapid excuse for their shameful failures.”

Palisades evacuee Brian Claypool, speaking on Fox News, asserted that the area was not short of resources either, and that local leaders’ policies were to blame.

“These winds were predicted,” he told the outlet. “Don't believe Karen Bass when she says that an airplane with water could have saved lives in the Palisades. It's pipes. It's proper water. It's not diverting water for fish in California instead of saving human lives.”

Elon Musk, for his part, asserted that the wildfires were primarily due to “Nonsensical overregulation that prevented creating fire breaks and doing brush clearing” and “bad governance at the state and local level that resulted in a shortage of water.”

Moving forward

Trump often boasted that he and Newsom had a strong relationship during his first term prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, though that relationship has soured to some degree. Trump’s call for Newsom’s resignation, moreover, is unlikely to improve things and the governor’s term will not expire until early 2027. 

Trump himself will not be in a position to assist with disaster relief until he takes office on Jan. 20, though the confirmation of his myriad appointees over environmental fields will likely take longer. He has named former Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.