Politicians quibbling as LA burns: Gavin Newsom’s latest beef with Trump | US politics

Gavin Newsom, California’s Democratic governor, appeared briefly to put his long-running feud with Donald Trump to one side on Friday, when he invited the president-elect to Los Angeles to survey devastation from the wildfires and meet with first responders, firefighters and the “Americans” affected.

“In the spirit of this great country, we must not politicize human tragedy or spread disinformation from the sidelines,” Newsom wrote in a letter to Trump on Friday. “Hundreds of thousands of Americans – displaced from their homes and fearful for the future – deserve to see all of us working in their best interests to ensure a fast recovery and rebuild.”

The détente lasted less than 24 hours. By Saturday, Newsom, who is in contention to become the Democratic party leader in time for 2028, had returned to a more familiar, oppositional stance.

In an interview with Pod Save America, he rejected Trump’s claim that water is being withheld from southern California to save an endangered fish, the delta smelt, calling the president-elect’s messaging on the issue “delusional” and part of a “consistent mantra from Trump going back years and years, and it’s reinforced over and over within the right wing … and it’s profoundly ignorant ”.

Newsom said Californians’ fears that Trump could try to withhold federal relief funds was reasonable, notwithstanding the governor’s outreach a day earlier; Newsom said Saturday evening Trump had yet to return his call about wildfire response.

“He’s done it in the past, not just here in California,” Newsom told the podcasters, pointing to Tump’s prior actions in Puerto Rico, Utah, Connecticut and Georgia. “The rhetoric is very familiar, it’s increasingly acute, and obviously we all have reason to be concerned about it.”

The politicization of the Los Angeles fires could be showing signs of intensifying. To opposing political factions, the ruin of parts of Los Angeles offers an inviting but deadly tableau on which to lay out their contrary agendas.

To Democrats, the intensity with which the fires took hold, propelled by the late-season Santa Ana winds, is evidence of climate change that some Republicans deny as a political hoax. To some Republicans, including Trump, the fires are evidence of mismanagement under Democrats’ racial- and gender-equity drives.

Even before the extent of the devastation became clear last week, Trump had assailed Newsom as “Newscum”, and called on the governor to resign.

Addressing the governor in a post on his Truth Social website, Trump said: “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 should resign. This is all his fault!!!”

Trump blamed Newsom for refusing to sign a water-restoration declaration “that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way”.

On the Republican sidelines, Warren Davidson, an Ohio representative, called on Friday for federal disaster relief to be withheld from California unless the state reforms its forestry management practices.

The feud between the two political leaders over environmental issues has been percolating since at least 2018, after wildfires devastated Malibu and Paradise, when Trump accused Newsom and Democratic state leaders of “gross mismanagement” of forests by failing to make firebreaks or clear flammable undergrowth.

At the time, Newsom defended California’s wildfire-prevention efforts while criticizing the federal government for not doing enough to help protect the state. “You don’t believe in climate change. You are excused from this conversation,” Newsom told Trump in a post on X.

That dispute was revived earlier last year when Trump appeared to confuse the former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown with the former governor Jerry Brown, saying he’d nearly crashed in a helicopter while assessing wildfire damage with (governor) Brown.

A spokesperson for Newsom, who had been on the flight, said there had been no issues, no emergency landing and no disparaging conversation about Kamala Harris, as Trump had claimed.

Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign spokesperson, later responded that “the president has a lot of amazing stories from his life”.

The ties, and potential fissures, run deeper than politics. Newsom was married to Kimberly Guilfoyle from 2001 to 2006. Guilfoyle subsequently dated Trump’s eldest son, Don Jr, and was recently appointed US ambassador to Greece after leading a fundraising division of Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign.

The chafing between the two looks set to continue, although, according to Politico, an unnamed Trump official downplayed the idea that he would withhold aid to the state.

Joe Biden has already approved a disaster declaration for the southern California fires, committing the federal government to covering all of the fire management and debris removal costs for six months.

“We are with you,” Biden pledged. “We are not going anywhere.”

Newsom thanked Biden – his fellow Democrat – for having “approved our major disaster declaration”. According to Politico, in his letter to Trump, Newsom wrote Biden’s action had been “a strong indication of the partnership California needs and appreciates with any federal administration”.

“However,” Newsom added, “the threat to lives and property remains acute.”

Late Friday, Trump announced on Truth Social that he had appointed Ed Russo – who describes himself as a “dirt-kisser tree hugger” and has described Trump as an “environmental hero” – to an environmental advisory group.

Trump wrote in the post: “Together, we will achieve American Energy DOMINANCE, rebuild our Economy, and DRILL, BABY, DRILL.”

That comes as Newsom has moved in lock step with the California state legislature and the outgoing Biden administration to thwart Trump’s “America first” energy agenda before Trump’s inauguration in 10 days.

Newsom has said California’s legislative efforts are precautionary in nature and he would approach the return president with an “open hand, not a closed fist”.

But Trump made future disaster funds to California an issue during his 2024 campaign when, in September, he demanded Newsom reform water policy to divert more water to California’s farmers if he wanted the flow of federal funds to continue.

“If he doesn’t sign those papers, we won’t give him money to put out all his fires,” Trump said.