US President Donald Trump on Wednesday, January 22, floated ending federal disaster relief and leaving states to fend for themselves during emergencies in his first Oval Office interview since returning to power. With Los Angeles scorched by wildfires and the eastern United States still recovering from two devastating hurricanes, Trump falsely accused the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) of turning its back on victims.
“FEMA has not done their job for the last four years. You know, I had FEMA working really well. We had hurricanes in Florida, we had Alabama tornados,” Trump told Fox News. “But unless you have certain types of leadership, it gets in the way. And FEMA is going to be a whole big discussion very shortly because I’d rather see the states take care of their own problems.”
Trump also repeated false claims that California’s fish conservation efforts in the northern part of the state are responsible for fire hydrants running dry in urban areas. He says the blame for Los Angeles’s struggles to tame some of the deadly fires lies with Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, a political foe who has called for partnership and mutual respect as the state fights the blazes. “I don’t think we should give California anything until they let the water run down,” Trump said.
Trump’s remarks came as an explosive new wildfire erupted north of Los Angeles, forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate their homes and setting nerves jangling in an area still reeling from two deadly blazes.
Trump and Republicans in Congress have said that help for California should be conditioned on the actions of the state’s Democratic leaders, despite making no such suggestion when storms killed more than 100 people and caused destructive flooding across the US southeast.
In the interview, Trump again defended his blanket pardons for the hundreds of people who stormed the Capitol in 2021, dismissed security concerns over Chinese-owned app TikTok and discussed the possibility of cutting off federal funds to so-called “sanctuary cities” that shield undocumented migrants from federal detention requests.
Le Monde with AFP
