Throughout his inaugural tackle, President Donald Trump criticized California’s response to the Los Angeles wildfires as he’s scheduled to go to the Golden State to survey the injury on Friday.
Trump has been vocal of his disapproval of the best way California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass have dealt with the hearth response, accusing them of “gross incompetence,” even suggesting that Newsom resign as governor.
In his first televised sit-down interview with Fox Information host Sean Hannity since returning to the White Home, Trump ripped Newsom for his management main as much as the lethal wildfires and his protection of sanctuary cities.
“If you happen to really polled the individuals, they don’t need sanctuary cities,” Trump instructed Hannity. “However Gavin Newsom does, and these radical left politicians do. I watched Gavin Newsom attempt to reply that query. He regarded like an fool. He was unable to reply.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom and President-elect Trump have clashed on numerous points, together with immigration. (Getty | AP)
Trump claimed the dearth of forest administration and Newsom’s reported refusal to permit stormwater from the north to move down freely to Southern California helped contribute to some of the harmful wildfires within the state’s historical past.
Izzy Gardon, director of communications for Newsom’s workplace, beforehand combated criticism of the governor’s wildfire dealing with in a press release to Fox Information Digital.
“The Governor is concentrated on defending individuals, not enjoying politics, and ensuring firefighters have all of the sources they want,” Gardon stated.
On Thursday, Newsom signed off on a aid package deal the place the state will spend $2.5 billion to assist with the Los Angeles wildfires restoration.
“That is about distilling a way of hopefulness,” Newsom stated throughout a information convention.
Newsom’s administration added that the state expects to be reimbursed by the federal authorities for the catastrophe aid funding.
It’s not identified if Trump plans to satisfy with Newsom throughout his go to Friday.
“We’re glad President Trump accepted the governor’s invitation to return to Los Angeles,” Newsom’s workplace instructed Fox Information Digital. “We’re glad he took our invitation to coronary heart.”
Trump’s criticism of California and Newsom’s management within the state spans years, with the president singling out forest administration, sanctuary cities, homelessness, crime and spending as contributing components to the state’s situation.
Mel Gibson calls out ‘monumental mismanagement’ of LA fires by California authorities after shedding his dwelling
Trump isn’t the one particular person ripping Newsom for what is going on in California.
Within the aftermath of the lethal Los Angeles wildfires, actor Mel Gibson, together with numerous different elite residents, accused Newsom and elected officers of mishandling the prevention and response to the catastrophe.
“As a citizen right here, Newsom and [Los Angeles Mayor Karen] Bass, they need us to belief them to reimagine town, our metropolis, and the way they suppose it needs to be. I imply, have a look at what they’ve completed up to now to this city,” Gibson stated in a earlier unique interview with Fox Information contributor Raymond Arroyo.
“You bought nothing however rampant crime, acute homelessness, excessive taxes, mismanagement of water, firefighters, defunding the division, and we’re alleged to belief them with thousands and thousands of {dollars} to form of remake the place we dwell? It’s our metropolis, it’s town of the individuals, and so they have one other plan. … There’s nonetheless individuals from the Woolsey Fireplace nonetheless residing in trailers. … When have you ever ever seen the federal government ‘construct again higher’? … On the very least, it is insensitive.”
The Palisades Fireplace ravages a neighborhood amid excessive winds within the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photograph/Ethan Swope)
The massive and deadly fires broke out within the Los Angeles space on Jan. 7, forcing tens of hundreds of residents to flee for security as their houses and companies had been destroyed.
Gibson additionally instructed Arroyo the elected officers’ mismanagement is one more reason why Individuals proceed to flee town.
Different celebrities, together with Justine Bateman, known as out Newsom and different Los Angeles officers to be faraway from workplace due to the fires.
The governor’s workplace beforehand shared a letter addressing water hydrants working out of water, stating that “whereas total water provide in Southern California isn’t a problem, water mobility within the preliminary response was a problem.”
“That’s the reason @CAGovernor Newsom has ordered a full, unbiased assessment of LADWP. This can’t occur once more,” the publish learn.
California GOP leaders name for accountability after state can’t account for $24B spent on homeless disaster
Previous to the Los Angeles wildfire disaster, California management had been being scrutinized for not with the ability to clarify what occurred to $24 billion meant to curb the homelessness problem.
California GOP leaders are calling for extra accountability after the state auditor discovered that regardless of roughly $24 billion spent on homeless and housing packages in the course of the 2018-2023 fiscal years, the issue didn’t enhance in lots of cities.
The report additionally uncovered that the California Interagency Council on Homelessness (Cal ICH), which is answerable for coordinating businesses and allocating sources for homelessness packages, stopped monitoring whether or not the packages had been working in 2021.
Gov. Gavin Newsom; individuals at a homeless encampment in California (Getty Pictures)
The audit discovered it additionally failed to gather and consider end result knowledge for these packages as a result of lack of a constant technique.
California Meeting Republican Chief James Gallagher laid the blame on the Newsom administration.
“That is customary Gavin Newsom – make a splashy announcement, waste a bunch of taxpayer cash, and fully fail to ship,” Gallagher stated in a press release to Fox Information Digital.
“Californians are uninterested in the homeless disaster, and so they’re much more uninterested in Gavin’s excuses. We’d like outcomes – interval, full cease.”
Regardless of the audit’s findings, Cal ICH stated it has made enhancements in knowledge assortment after AB 977 took impact on Jan. 1, 2023.
In a earlier assertion, Newsom’s workplace stated, “The State of California’s doing greater than ever. We’ll proceed to do extra. However this might be my last phrases on this: If we do not see demonstrable outcomes, I am going to begin to redirect cash. I am not concerned with established order any longer. And that may begin in January with the January funds. We have been offering the assist to native authorities that embraces these efforts and focuses on a way of urgency — and we will double down. If native authorities isn’t , we’ll redirect the cash to components of the state, cities and counties which might be.”
Biden admin sends billions to California’s over-budget, behind-schedule ‘practice to nowhere’
Including to the listing of missteps made by California management: the decades-delayed and over-budget “practice to nowhere.”
California Republicans have reported that the state’s long-awaited high-speed rail community is almost $100 billion over funds and many years delayed.
Former Republican California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who left workplace in early 2011, first launched the high-speed rail system venture, and his Democrat successor, Gov. Jerry Brown, continued the venture.
Shortly after taking workplace in 2019, Newsom acknowledged in his first State of the State tackle that he would scale the venture down from its unique formidable plan, saying it would cost too much and take too lengthy to remain the course.
Months later, the Trump administration penned a scathing letter to California, informing the state that it was rescinding the multibillion-dollar grant awarded for the venture below the Obama administration.
BIDEN ADMIN SENDS BILLIONS TO CALIFORNIA’S OVER-BUDGET, BEHIND-SCHEDULE ‘TRAIN TO NOWHERE’
Ongoing building of the California bullet practice venture is proven in Corcoran, left, and Hanford. (Getty Pictures)
Nevertheless, in June 2021, the Biden administration stated it could reverse the choice and restore the funding. The Biden administration then sent California greater than $3 billion in federal taxpayer funds in 2023.
In December 2024, a number of outstanding California Democrats known as on the U.S. Division of Transportation to approve a grant utility for $536 million in federal funds to maneuver ahead with the venture.
If authorized, the federal funds might be boosted by $134 million in state cash from California’s “cap & commerce” program, based on the Sacramento Bee.
The venture was initially deliberate as a $33 billion venture consisting of 1,955 miles of railway connecting San Francisco to Los Angeles. Since then, the price has ballooned to $113 billion and the venture’s scope has been dramatically scaled right down to a 171-mile railway connecting Bakersfield, Fresno and Merced that is not anticipated to be operational till 2030.
Total, if the venture is accomplished in 2030, it can have taken a decade longer than anticipated whereas costing $80 billion extra and being 91% smaller than initially deliberate. Due to its repeated shortfalls, the venture has been dubbed by critics because the “practice to nowhere.”
Newsom’s workplace didn’t instantly present a response.
Proposition 36 overwhelmingly passes in California, reversing some Soros-backed soft-on-crime insurance policies
Through the presidential election, Trump went after his opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris, on the decades-old felony justice coverage crippling California.
Harris was not really concerned with pushing Prop 47 and didn’t take a stance on the difficulty all through the marketing campaign.
The poll measure overwhelmingly handed within the deep-blue state and rolled again a few of California’s most controversial soft-on-crime insurance policies.
Proposition 36, the Homelessness, Drug Habit and Theft Discount Act, sought to undo parts of Proposition 47 by rising penalties for some crimes, together with classifying the possession of fentanyl as a felony.
Enterprise and police in California (Getty Pictures)
When Proposition 47 handed in 2014, it downgraded most thefts from felonies to misdemeanors if the quantity stolen was below $950, “until the defendant had prior convictions of homicide, rape, sure intercourse offenses, or sure gun crimes.”
Proposition 47 additionally reclassified some felony drug offenses as misdemeanors.
The initiative has been blamed by legislation enforcement officers and companies for the rise in theft and smash-and-grabs that plagued California within the years because the COVID-19 pandemic.
Newsom remained against the hassle, saying it “takes us again to the Eighties, mass incarceration.”
He additionally touted that California’s $950 threshold is the “tenth lowest, that means harder than states like Texas ($2,500) or Alabama ($1,500) or Mississippi ($1,000).” His workplace famous that “Prop 47 didn’t change that threshold and neither did Prop 36.”
California unemployment fraud scandal grows to $11 billion, with one other $20 billion below scrutiny
California Labor Secretary Julie Su tried to place the blame on Trump’s first administration for “failing to supply steering to foil subtle unemployment schemes” after state officers reported that not less than $11.4 billion in unemployment advantages paid in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic concerned fraud.
Officers added that one other $20 billion in potential losses was additionally being investigated.
In January 2021, Su stated that of the $114 billion the state paid in unemployment claims in the course of the coronavirus pandemic, 10%, or $11.4 billion, concerned fraud and one other 17% was below investigation.
CALIFORNIA UNEMPLOYMENT FRAUD SCANDAL GROWS TO $11 BILLION, WITH ANOTHER $20 BILLION UNDER SCRUTINY
Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks throughout a press convention in Fontana, Calif., on Feb. 17, 2022. (Watchara Phomicinda/MediaNews Group/Press-Enterprise by way of Getty Pictures)
“There isn’t any sugarcoating the fact,” Su stated in a earlier press convention. “California has not had adequate safety measures in place to stop this stage of fraud, and criminals took benefit of the scenario.”
Almost all the fraudulent claims had been paid by means of the federally supported Pandemic Unemployment Help program. This system was authorized by Congress to supply unemployment help to those that often wouldn’t be eligible, equivalent to unbiased contractors.
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Officers added that this system’s broad eligibility necessities made it a straightforward goal for criminals, together with from Russia and Nigeria. In December, 21,000 prisoners scored greater than $400 million from the state, together with 100 prisoners on dying row.
“It needs to be no shock that EDD was overwhelmed, similar to the remainder of the nation’s unemployment businesses,” Su stated. “As thousands and thousands of Californians utilized for assist, worldwide and nationwide felony rings had been at work behind the scenes working relentlessly to steal unemployment advantages utilizing subtle strategies of identification theft.”
The governor’s workplace didn’t instantly present a response.
Fox Information Digital’s Bradford Betz, Stephanie Giang-Paunon, Morgan Phillips, Thomas Catenacci, Jamie Joseph and Charlie Creitz contributed to this report.
Stepheny Worth is author for Fox Information Digital and Fox Enterprise. Story suggestions and concepts will be despatched to stepheny.worth@fox.com
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