Onetime Trump “true believer” Stephanie Grisham, former press secretary to each Donald and Melania, famously told a nationwide TV viewers throughout final summer season’s Democratic Nationwide Conference that she is aware of firsthand that the president “has no empathy, no morals and no constancy to the reality.”
She recalled the recommendation Trump gave her for serving as his spokesperson: “It doesn’t matter what you say, Stephanie — say it sufficient and folks will consider you.”
Now add to these traits Trump’s long-established refusal to see himself as a president for all People, notably those that didn’t vote for him, and Trump’s conduct towards Los Angeles in its time of want this month was as predictable because the city infernos that erupted when a once-in-a-generation occasion — hurricane-force Santa Ana winds assembly drought-parched panorama — turned sparks and embers into incendiary gadgets, and houses into simply extra kindling.
Opinion Columnist
Jackie Calmes
Jackie Calmes brings a crucial eye to the nationwide political scene. She has many years of expertise masking the White Home and Congress.
In an unprecedented act, Trump has been demanding situations on federal catastrophe help for California, whilst he explicitly seeks none from the largely purple states which might be rebuilding their lives, properties, companies and infrastructure after final fall’s hurricanes within the southeastern United States. Throughout his largely well mannered go to to L.A. final week, Trump didn’t repeat these calls for to Californians’ faces. Maybe the state can hope he’s modified. However that’s by no means been a great wager.
From the fires’ begin, the know-it-all Trump has peddled his preposterous declare that if the states’ Democratic leaders — led by Gov. Gavin “Newscum,” in his phrases — would simply activate some valve in Northern California, they’d “permit stunning, clear, recent water to FLOW” to the rescue, as he posted on his social media web site on Jan. 8. Even in his inaugural handle, he lied, claiming the wildfires have been burning “with out even a token of protection” — as firefighters from so far as Canada and Mexico risked their lives by way of 24- and 48-hour shifts.
Trump remains to be spreading such disinformation regardless of numerous fact-based assurances {that a} valve in Northern California wasn’t the difficulty when the conflagration started on Jan. 7.
As a result of, you realize, say it sufficient and folks will consider you.
Close to midnight on Monday, Trump let loose essentially the most ludicrous model of the lie: “America Navy simply entered the Nice State of California and beneath Emergency Powers, TURNED ON THE WATER flowing abundantly from the Pacific Northwest, and past. The times of placing a Pretend Environmental argument, over the PEOPLE, are OVER. Benefit from the water, California!!!”
The following day the president’s new spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt, opened her first-ever White Home briefing by repeating it, praising the boss as a result of “the water was turned on” in California. That motion, Leavitt stated, was due to Trump’s “stress marketing campaign … on state and native officers there who clearly lack all frequent sense.”
Besides that motion didn’t occur. Take it from Trump-friendly Fox Information, whose Pentagon correspondent Jennifer Griffin tweeted simply earlier than Leavitt’s briefing: “US protection officers inform me they didn’t ship troops to ‘activate the water’ in California, regardless of President Trump’s claims in a single day.” Griffin was confirming the same message from the California Division of Water Assets.
Trump’s lies and misinformation are unhealthy sufficient when People are reeling from pure disasters; then-candidate Trump dissembled as properly final fall in deceptive hurricane victims from Florida to southwest Virginia concerning the Biden administration’s emergency response. However what’s actually outrageous is Trump’s repeated politicization of federal catastrophe help, particularly when blue California is the struggling state.
It’s a truism of politics: If any problem transcends partisanship, it’s catastrophe help. In any case, federal help goes largely to victims, to not state or native leaders. A few of these victims voted for Trump. As if that ought to matter: Solely a politician with “no empathy, no morals” would situation catastrophe help to a state that didn’t vote for him.
It’s clear that Trump is taking part in politics. His projection is all the time a inform. In North Carolina on Friday earlier than flying to L.A., Trump falsely complained that, beneath Biden, federal assist had been too sluggish in attending to that hurricane-ravaged state “for political causes” — as a result of North Carolina didn’t vote for Biden in 2020. To a reporter’s query, he stated he wouldn’t put situations on help to North Carolina (which voted for him in 2016, 2020 and 2024). He instantly added, “In California I’ve a situation.” Two, the truth is: A state voter ID regulation. And, after all, “launch the water.”
“After that,” said the ever-transactional president, “I would be the best president that California has ever seen.”
(Apparently Trump has dropped his concept of additionally conditioning help on Congress extending the federal debt restrict. Opposition from far-right Republicans made that ploy a nonstarter.)
Trump’s willingness to use catastrophe help for political factors shouldn’t be shocking. Throughout his first time period he slowed help over a number of years to Democratic-friendly Puerto Rico, which was all however destroyed by hurricanes, whilst his administration sped it to purple states Florida, Missouri and Texas, in line with an investigation by the then-inspector basic of Housing and City Growth. And he resisted aid to California after the 2018 wildfires till an advisor confirmed him that ravaged Orange County had extra Trump voters than all of Iowa.
Earlier than the 2024 election, Newsom called that 2018 expertise “a glimpse into the longer term if we elect” Trump. The longer term is right here.
