Onetime Trump “true believer” Stephanie Grisham, former press secretary to each Donald and Melania, famously instructed a nationwide TV viewers throughout final summer time’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 imagine you.”
Now add to these traits Trump’s long-established refusal to see himself as a president for all Individuals, 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 overlaying the White Home and Congress.
In an unprecedented act, Trump has been demanding situations on federal catastrophe support for California, at the same time as he explicitly seeks none from the principally pink states which are rebuilding their lives, properties, companies and infrastructure after final fall’s hurricanes within the southeastern United States. Throughout his principally 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 an excellent guess.
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 lovely, clear, contemporary water to FLOW” to the rescue, as he posted on his social media web site on Jan. 8. Even in his inaugural tackle, he lied, claiming the wildfires had been burning “with out even a token of protection” — as firefighters from so far as Canada and Mexico risked their lives by 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 problem when the conflagration started on Jan. 7.
As a result of, you already know, say it sufficient and folks will imagine you.
Close to midnight on Monday, Trump let unfastened probably the most ludicrous model of the lie: “America Army 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 subsequent 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 mentioned, was because of Trump’s “strain 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 similar message from the California Division of Water Sources.
Trump’s lies and misinformation are dangerous sufficient when Individuals 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 support, particularly when blue California is the struggling state.
It’s a truism of politics: If any problem transcends partisanship, it’s catastrophe support. In any case, federal help goes principally 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 support to a state that didn’t vote for him.
It’s clear that Trump is enjoying politics. His projection is at all times 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 mentioned he wouldn’t put situations on support to North Carolina (which voted for him in 2016, 2020 and 2024). He instantly added, “In California I’ve a situation.” Two, in truth: A state voter ID regulation. And, after all, “launch the water.”
“After that,” mentioned the ever-transactional president, “I would be the biggest president that California has ever seen.”
(Apparently Trump has dropped his thought of additionally conditioning support on Congress extending the federal debt restrict. Opposition from far-right Republicans made that ploy a nonstarter.)
Trump’s willingness to take advantage of catastrophe support for political factors shouldn’t be stunning. Throughout his first time period he slowed support over a number of years to Democratic-friendly Puerto Rico, which was all however destroyed by hurricanes, at the same time as his administration sped it to pink states Florida, Missouri and Texas, in line with an investigation by the then-inspector common of Housing and City Improvement. And he resisted support 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 referred to as that 2018 expertise “a glimpse into the longer term if we elect” Trump. The longer term is right here.
