Trump and Republicans use Los Angeles fires to attack Democrats

The Los Angeles fires have also caused a political crisis. Firefighters are about to mark one week of battling the active outbreaks of blazes west and east of the city, which have already left people 24 dead and at least 23 missing. Local authorities have hinted that to relieve the emergency situation they will need the help of Donald Trump, the president-elect and a declared enemy of California, the great progressive bastion of the United States. Trump will be inaugurated as the new White House tenant next Monday, January 20. From there, he will have to guide the federal efforts for reconstruction.

Trump has already been invited by local authorities to visit the areas affected by the Palisades and Eaton fires, which have destroyed over 12,000 buildings across more than 15,000 hectares. “I asked him to come so he could see the devastation with his own eyes, to interview and hear the stories of the victims and thank the rescuers for their work, but more importantly, to see how the federal government can help heal and rebuild communities,” Kathryn Barger, the chair of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, the main administrative body of the metropolitan region, with a population of almost 10 million people, said on Sunday.

California Governor Gavin Newsom, one of the country’s leading Democrats, has expressed concern that Trump’s imminent arrival in Washington could mean a reduction in the federal aid put in place by the Biden administration. “He’s done it in Utah. He’s done it in Michigan, did it in Puerto Rico. He did it to California back before I was even governor, in 2018 […] He’s been at this for years and years and years. That’s his style,” the governor said Sunday in an interview with NBC. Newsom has also invited Trump to visit the disaster area.

Some high-profile Republican politicians have floated the idea that aid to California should be tied to conditions. “That’s my personal view. We’ll see what the consensus is,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said Monday. The legislative leader also lashed out at state and local officials, accusing them of negligence over water mismanagement, forestry oversight errors, and “all sorts of problems.” “There will be conditions attached to the money, if it’s approved,” Republican Senator John Barrasso, one of Trump’s party leaders in the upper chamber, also said in an interview.

The 2018 precedent

The episode Newsom referred to occurred in mid-2018, when California’s wildfire season destroyed nearly 800,000 hectares and left 103 people dead in different parts of the state. Last October, it was revealed that Trump had refused to approve the federal disaster declaration, a bureaucratic step necessary to allow the transfer of resources to help the victims. The then-president only changed his mind when one of his advisers convinced him to do so by showing him that in some of the affected regions, such as the wealthy Orange County, Trump had more voters than in states such as Iowa, a Republican stronghold.

That threat is looming again in the current emergency, which is on track to become one of the worst tragedies California has ever experienced. “People need help. They are desperate. People who are not insured are worried about not getting the help they need to rebuild their homes,” Barger, an independent politician who is still waiting for a response from the incoming administration, said on Monday. FEMA, the federal emergency response agency, has increased its presence in the regions of Los Angeles destroyed by the fires so that the thousands of people affected can begin their requests for help in the final eight days of the Biden administration. As of Sunday, some 26,000 people had started the process.

Trump has not publicly responded to the invitations from California. Instead, he has used social media to criticize the California governor and President Biden. “Let this serve, and be emblematic, of the gross incompetence and mismanagement of the Biden/Newscum Duo,” Trump said on Wednesday, using a habitual nickname for the Democratic governor. On Saturday, he was back on the attack. “The fires are still raging in L.A. The incompetent pols [politicians] have no idea how to put them out,” the president-elect wrote on his network, Truth Social.

The right has also fueled accusations against Democrats over responsibility for the fires. Among them was Elon Musk, who recorded a live video while speaking with two firefighters from Cal Fire, the state fire department responsible for coordinating the response. The tech magnate tries again and again to get them to claim that there was no water in the Pacific Palisades area to combat the fire, one of the falsehoods that the Republicans have pushed. “There really is no water system that’s going to keep the pace [of the amount being used],” explains one of the firefighters in disagreement with Musk, who has become a powerful advisor to Trump.

Mayor of Los Angeles in the spotlight

Karen Bass has perhaps been the local politician most affected by her response to the emergency. The mayor of Los Angeles, the first black woman to hold the post, was in Ghana when the Palisades Fire began to grow on Tuesday morning. Bass had traveled to Africa to take part in the inauguration of Ghanaian President John Mahama, despite having promised three years ago to reduce foreign travel as much as possible and focus on the city. Despite this, she was absent during the first press appearances of local authorities. Bass is also facing strong criticism for the reduction of the local fire department’s budget, an issue that has been highlighted in the midst of the crisis by her fire chief, Kristin Crowley. The mayor approved a 2025 budget of $819 million, which was $23 million less than last year.

The cuts primarily eliminated 73 vacant bureaucratic positions and reduced the $7.9 million overtime pay pool for firefighters. Pressure from the fire union, however, ultimately led to increased overtime pay, making the budget $53 million greater than 2024. Still, Crowley said in a December memo that the amount not earmarked for administrative positions represented “unprecedented operational challenges.”

Bass said Monday that she was focusing on the emergency and on the safety of Los Angeles residents in the face of the return of strong winds. Once the crisis is over, she said, there will be a detailed evaluation of the budget. “The impact of our budget really did not affect what we’ve been going through over the last few days,” she told a reporter. Meanwhile, the city continues to burn.

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