Trump Puts Blame For Wildfires On Newsom's Shoulders

Summary

NPR Politics Podcast: Trump Puts Blame For Wildfires On Newsom's Shoulders

Release Date: January 13, 2025
Hosts: Tamara Keith, Domenico Montanaro
Guest: Kirk Siegler, NPR National Correspondent
Duration: Approximately 17 minutes

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1. Overview of the Devastating Wildfires

In this episode, NPR Politics delves into the severe wildfires that have recently ravaged the Los Angeles area. The discussion centers around the unprecedented scale of these fires, the environmental factors exacerbating them, and the ensuing political fallout, particularly President Elect Trump's rapid attribution of blame to California Governor Gavin Newsom.

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2. Current Status of the Wildfires

Timestamp: [01:28]

Kirk Siegler provides an on-the-ground update, explaining that the wildfire situation remains dire and shows no signs of abating soon. "It's not going to get any better, at least anytime soon" ([01:49]), he states, highlighting the active and unfolding nature of the disaster. Authorities continue to search through affected areas, focusing on locating any human remains, a somber reminder of the fires' lethal impact.

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3. Causes and Environmental Factors

Timestamp: [02:00]

Siegler attributes the severity of the fires to California's ongoing extreme drought, coupled with climate change-induced "climate whiplash," which results in rapid shifts between wet and dry conditions. This has led to an overaccumulation of vegetation, making the region highly susceptible to wildfires, especially when combined with strong Santa Ana winds.

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4. Political Response and Criticism

Timestamp: [08:38]

The conversation turns to the politicization of the disaster, with President Elect Trump publicly blaming Governor Newsom for the poor response and pointing fingers at other officials' incompetence. Siegel notes, "it's remarkable, but maybe not surprising and also sad that this is so politicized so quickly" ([10:18]). Domenico Montanaro adds that disaster funding has become highly politicized, contrasting the collaborative disaster response seen during Hurricane Ian under earlier administrations.

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5. Infrastructure Challenges: Power Lines and Fire Hydrants

Timestamp: [07:05]

A critical issue discussed is the failure of the water infrastructure, specifically the dry fire hydrants during the early hours of the fire. Kirk Siegler explains that aging power lines may have sparked the fires, a theory consistent with previous incidents in Hawaii and Colorado ([07:00]). Additionally, the lack of water pressure in hydrants, possibly linked to political disputes over water management in the Sacramento Delta, has hampered firefighting efforts. "They couldn't get water on the fire because there wasn't enough pressure in the hydrants" ([12:50]).

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6. Federal vs. State Response and Funding

Timestamp: [15:27]

Tamara Keith highlights President Biden's decision to provide a 100% federal match for California's recovery efforts for the first 180 days, a move within his statutory powers. She raises questions about whether President Elect Trump will attempt to retract or revise this support. Kirk Siegler draws parallels to the 2020 wildfire response in Washington State, where political disputes delayed disaster declarations, leaving affected communities in prolonged distress.

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7. Misinformation and Public Confusion

Timestamp: [14:13]

The episode addresses the rampant spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories surrounding the wildfires. Siegler shares experiences of encountering locals confused by conflicting reports from various media outlets, exacerbating the chaos on the ground. Governor Newsom's efforts to combat disinformation, such as setting up an anti-disinformation outlet, are mentioned, though Siegler remains skeptical about their efficacy amidst the highly polarized climate.

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8. Lessons and Future Implications

Timestamp: [12:37]

Siegler underscores the complexity of managing urban wildfires, especially in densely populated areas like Los Angeles, where neighborhoods are interspersed with wildlands. He emphasizes the pressing need for both proactive measures—such as brush clearance and strengthened infrastructure—and long-term strategies to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Montanaro reflects on the broader political implications, noting that disasters like these often serve as battlegrounds for partisan disputes over governance and resource allocation. He suggests that the current situation highlights the urgent need for bipartisan collaboration in disaster preparedness and climate resilience planning.

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Conclusion

The episode concludes with a reflection on the intertwined nature of environmental challenges and political dynamics. As California grapples with one of its most severe wildfire seasons, the NPR Politics Podcast emphasizes the necessity for informed public discourse, effective governance, and comprehensive climate strategies to navigate the escalating crises precipitated by climate change.

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Notable Quotes:

• Kirk Siegler [01:49]: "It's not going to get any better, at least anytime soon."
• Domenico Montanaro [06:02]: "Are there preparations that have been made sufficiently as the country and the world are going to be dealing, frankly, with climate change that's increasingly making the climate worse..."
• Kirk Siegler [07:20]: "These are not like the fires that we used to cover, even in the beginnings of our careers. These are urban wildfires."
• Tamara Keith [15:27]: "President Biden is giving a 100% match to the state for these recovery efforts in the first 180 days."
• Kirk Siegler [12:50]: "They couldn't get water on the fire because there wasn't enough pressure in the hydrants."

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This comprehensive summary captures the key points, discussions, insights, and conclusions of the episode, providing listeners with a clear understanding of the current wildfire crisis in California and its intricate political and environmental dimensions.

Transcript

[NPR Host]

Okay. So does this sound like you you love NPR's podcasts. You wish you could get more of all your favorite shows, and you want to support NPR's mission to create a more informed public. If all that sounds appealing, then it is time to sign up for the NPR Bundle. Learn more at plus.NPR.org hi, this is.

[Jaclyn Sullivan]

Jaclyn Sullivan from Winter Park, Florida, currently in line at Blue Springs State park in Orange City, waiting to see the six so manatees that have come to the park to swim in the 72 degree natural springs during a rare Florida cold snap.

[Tamara Keith]

This podcast was recorded at 1.07pm on Monday, 13 January.

[Jaclyn Sullivan]

Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but hopefully I will have seen some manatees by then. Okay. Enjoy the show.

[Domenico Montanaro]

Aw. Manatees, I would think. Are manatees one of your favorites, Tammy?

[Tamara Keith]

They're on the list. They're not at the very top. I have no insults for manatees, so that means they're doing pretty well in the animal world.

[Domenico Montanaro]

I've kayaked with manatees. They're pretty cool.

[Tamara Keith]

Yeah. Yeah. They're slow. They're cool. Hey there. It's the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House.

[Domenico Montanaro]

I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.

[Tamara Keith]

And joining us today is NPR national correspondent Kirk Siegler. Hey, Kirk.

[Kirk Siegler]

Hey, guys.

[Tamara Keith]

The Los Angeles area has been devastated by wildfires over the past week, with the two largest ones far from fully contained. And forecasters are warning again that there are dangerous Santa Ana winds on the way. Kirk, let's start with the big picture. You have been in California covering these fires. What's the status of them now?

[Kirk Siegler]

Well, I think with your disclaimer that we play up at the top there, I think think we're safe, like it's not going to get any better, at least anytime soon. You know, it's a very active fire situation and still very active unfolding disaster. I mean, authorities are still going through in places that are safe enough to go through, combing through the area looking for, you know, not survivors at this point, but any human remains left in the fire zones. It is extraordinary, but also, I would say, not necessarily unexpected. Unfortunately, California is in another extreme drought. California is almost constantly in drought just because of its climate in particular. But the rainy season in Southern California has not shown up yet. And they're coming off of two years of extraordinarily wet conditions. Cause we're kind of in this climate whiplash seesaw back and forth of extremes that are just getting even more extreme with climate change. So you've got all this vegetation built up and then you get winds like that and you've got infrastructure there. You've got whole cities. Of course, Los Angeles is a city built out into wildlands that are prone to burn. And so it's just these conditions that are just making things very, very dangerous at the moment.

[Tamara Keith]

I'm hoping you can take us back to last week and help explain. How did these fires start? How did they get so bad?

[Kirk Siegler]

You know, the investigation into the actual cause of the fires will take months, but of course, there's already some theories, theories, if not speculation that it's possible down power lines. I mean, we've seen this story before from Hawaii to California to Colorado and winds like that. I think there will be a lot of scrutiny and focus on what was de energized in the grid. You know, they knew this extraordinary wind event was coming. Like, that's not unheard of. And it's certainly quite common for the winter in California. You get these desert winds blowing off from the Mojave. They're very dry and the humidity goes way down. But in my experience, covering wildfires, particularly in California, and you're hearing local authorities talk about this, if you cut through some of the politics that's going on, these are fires you are not going to stop. The conditions are so dangerous that it's dangerous even to put firefighters in the way. And it's actually, you know, it's very much a tragedy. But if the death toll stays relatively low, you know, that's remarkable. I mean, certainly it's very, very sad, but it possibly could have been a lot. There's thinking in the wildland fire world like, why are we trying to put out these fires that you say are, you know, neighborhoods, whole cities built out into the wildlands that are, you know, full of brush and they've done mitigation work. But, you know, we don't try to stop a hurricane, so why are we trying to stop wildfires? That's what wildlife firefighters are now increasingly saying, because these conditions are such that you're just not going to stop them, let alone even slow them. I mean, over the period of the last few days being out there, they haven't even been able until recently to attack these fires from the air.

[Domenico Montanaro]

I think if people could figure out a way to stop hurricanes, they would try. I mean, you know, I think that, that there's clearly something going on here in with the politics versus, you know, the reality. You know, there's very quick finger pointing that we've seen from President Elect Trump. A lot of times people will look at what he has to say and say, well, that's just politics. I do wonder if there's a question about, you know, what could have been done. Are there preparations that have been made sufficiently as the country and the world are going to be dealing, frankly, with climate change that's increasingly making the climate worse, making wildfires worse, making hurricanes worse. And you have one party that doesn't want to talk about that with Republicans and want to talk about things like hardening homes and, you know, getting rid of brush, all of these things. To some extent, there could be truth in a lot of what either side says, but there isn't a lot of bridging the gap on this right now.

[Kirk Siegler]

Right. I mean, we've actually seen throughout the Biden administration the narrative switch more to wildfires or all climate change versus during the previous Trump administration, it was, well, we need to do more brush clearing and logging, when in reality, I think the experts will tell you you need to do both. It's about both. California does have compared to the rest of the and Los Angeles in particular does have some of the most restrictive building codes and brush clearance ordinances and rules about what you can and cannot have around your homes. You're talking about Domenico. You're talking about finger pointing. There's already been some of that within City hall, even in Los Angeles, with some budget cuts to the fire department and the LA fire chief saying that we haven't had enough money to go around and enforce those codes. So that's another big thing that I think will want to be tracking in the, you know, the weeks and months to come as we figure out, well, what could have, if anything, been done to at least make this not so bad?

[Tamara Keith]

Are there lessons to be learned about, like, the specifics of this disaster?

[Kirk Siegler]

I think there were some preemptive power shutoffs, whether or not there were enough or they were in the right areas.

[Tamara Keith]

Can you just explain why cutting off the power lines, cutting off the power would potentially prevent fires in this instance?

[Kirk Siegler]

Well, when you consider that a lot of the western US and frankly the US has aging infrastructure and aging power lines in some places. We saw this in Paradise, California in 2018, when those lines are hot and active and you get winds like we saw last week, and something topples. And then these lines are built around a lot of dry brush. I would also point out Maui in Lahaina, the power lines are around overgrown brush. So as soon as that live wire hits Brush something as simple as that can start a small flame that turns into a deadly inferno. The issue is when you shut off the power, it's sort of a damned if you do, damned if you don't perspective from the utilities because they catch a lot of flak when they do shut it off, and especially if they don't do adequate warning in some people's minds, because you're then cutting off critical electricity supplies to, you know, very. To hospitals, nursing homes, emergency facilities, infrastructure. But then on the other hand, if you don't preemptively shut the power off, you could get a blaze that turns into a huge wildfire that you just can't stop. Right. These are not like the fires that we used to cover, even in the beginnings of our careers. These are urban wildfires. This is the second largest city in the US it's just really hard to imagine trying to stop something like this.

[Tamara Keith]

All right, we're going to take a quick break and we'll be back in a moment. And we're back. And we've really quickly seen this disaster become politicized. President Elect Trump blamed Governor Gavin Newsom for the poor response and called other officials incompetent. He blamed state water policy and fire prevention policy. How should we think about all of this criticism?

[Domenico Montanaro]

Well, we've come a long way since Hurricane Ian and President Biden and Ron DeSantis working together two years ago and putting what was a rivalry really aside, um, you know, DeSantis was highly critical of Biden's cultural and social policies, and Biden certainly didn't agree with DeSantis on a lot of things, but they were able to put that aside for disaster recovery when it came to the hurricane there in Florida. And we've just seen that devolve in over the last two years where disaster funding has become political. We're seeing people on Capitol Hill saying that they want to offset any disaster aid with other spending cuts. I think that the climate right now on all of that is just, it's at a fever pitch, especially with President Elect Trump about to take office. And we're not sure how this Republican House is going to function or operate or deal with things like disaster aid and disaster funding, which used to be the low hanging fruit of what they could get past.

[Tamara Keith]

Kirk, there has been a lot of focus from Trump and some of his allies on why the fire hydrants ran dry in the early hours of this fight. Do you have answers to what really went wrong?

[Kirk Siegler]

We don't. Governor Newsom has called for an investigation. There's been a lot of focus on that reservoir in Pacific Palisades run by Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. LADWP why? It was offline, but it's not clear again, that that may have stopped some of the destruction and devastation in the neighborhoods in west la. The governor is calling for the investigation. The governor was also on Meet the Press yester inviting President Elect Trump to come to California to see it for himself. I think it has been remarkable, but maybe not surprising and also sad that this is so politicized so quickly. I don't know if it has something to do also with Governor Newsom's, you know, ongoing presidential ambitions down the road. And that's why there's quick finger pointing. But I will also be interested to see some of the more local finger pointing going on at City hall and whether or not Karen Bass, the former congresswoman, who was actually out of the country at the time and then did fly back from Ghana when these fires ignited. I think there's gonna be a lot of scrutiny on her and there may be political fallout on her.

[Domenico Montanaro]

Yeah. Republicans love to hold out California as everything that is wrong with how to govern. Right. And Democrats will often point to California as being at the tip of the spear of how to govern properly. And, you know, so when you have a wildfire or a disaster, it's very easy for Trump and Republicans to be able to point the fingers at Democratic govern. And then especially when you have that local infighting about who could have done what when, it's certainly going to add fuel to their criticisms, certainly nationally, this idea about the water hydrants, you know, running dry, I mean, the reporting that we've seen is that there was very high demand and there would be almost no city in the world that could have dealt with putting out fires in almost every neighborhood over such a long stretch. But again, when it comes to this local governance of managing emergencies like this versus planning in a very big way over the next 10, 50 hundred years for climate change is where the real tension is going to be.

[Tamara Keith]

Yeah. And I think, Kirk, one thing that you said before, that this was an urban wildfire, it was not out in the wildlands. It was hundreds of house fires simultaneously happening.

[Kirk Siegler]

And in some cases, the houses themselves create the fuel for the fire that we see in these tragedies. We have to remember also California, Southern California in particular, is entering another extreme drought period. So, you know, the water availability is just not there en masse. I was in particular interested in Republicans, Trump included, pointing out or trying to tie the Water situation and the availability of water in the hydrants to an ongoing political that's mostly unrelated over an endangered species way up in the Sacramento Delta that has limited water deliveries to the south to farms and to cities in Southern California. Somehow Trump was trying to say that this was related to why they couldn't get, you know, water on the fire. Well, they couldn't get water on the fire because there wasn't enough pressure in the hydrants. But also you just couldn't safely fly over the fire to drop water on it at the time with those wins.

[Tamara Keith]

But so that gets at something that I think we should talk about, because there's misinformation, conspiracy theories, blaming people's ideology. And that has now become a day one response to natural disasters, at least on social media. And I'm wondering if that complicates things for people on the ground, certainly makes.

[Kirk Siegler]

It harder to report on and definitely if you're living in it and having to evacuate. I can't tell you how many times in the last few days, you know, people have approached me in evacuation centers or, you know, even sometimes within the fire zone. Well, like, do you know what's going on? Because I don't really understand, you know, I'm hearing five different things from five different outlets and I don't know what to believe. You know, for his part, Governor Newsom did set up some sort of, you know, anti disinformation outlet. I don't know that that's going to go anywhere, but it is a favorite on, you know, even that could be politicized. It's a favorite on the left. Right, to talk about disinformation. So it just feels even more chaotic and I think it be a product of the sort of moment we're in in America right now.

[Domenico Montanaro]

Yeah, well, regardless of the, you know, local politics, the misinformation, the national politics on this are notable. But there's a really big important function that the federal government plays, which is just basically giving out money for recovery. And that's a big piece here. And President Biden, we know, has approved a major disaster declaration in California. He's making federal funding available for those affected in La Tam. Is that gonna extend into Trump's term or is he talking about potentially clawing that back?

[Tamara Keith]

Yeah, it's a remarkable thing, actually. President Biden is giving a 100% match to the state for these recovery efforts in the first 180 days. And I actually asked the FEMA director about this. He has at the time, he had about 10 days left and he was guaranteeing this 100% coverage for 180 days. And she said that President Biden is within his powers to do this under statute. And so he's doing it. I think there is a question about whether President Trump will try to find a way to claw it back, but also there's a question of whether he would even want to. He has not vocalized that. So I think, although I was asking about it, it may be a little bit premature to know the answer.

[Kirk Siegler]

We could see this as a guys, as a portent potentially into what's to come. If we look back to 2020, a story that I covered a lot then. President Trump held up a presidential disaster declaration in Washington State over wildfires that were destructive and had burned in farm country there over an apparent political dispute with Governor Jay Inslee of Washington State that was held up for months and that held up recovery and the rebuilding efforts of very struggling, economically, towns in counties in Washington state that were deep red. So it was actually quite an ongoing situation to watch. Eventually there was a declaration declared, but I can't help but watch some of this and the politicking going on around this and the 100% kind of unprecedented reimbursement to California in the late days of the Biden administration. He can't, I can't help but wonder, like, what's going to happen with President Elect Trump? All right.

[Tamara Keith]

Well, we're going to leave it there for today. Kirk, thank you so much for bringing your reporting to the pod.

[Kirk Siegler]

You're welcome.

[Tamara Keith]

I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House.

[Domenico Montanaro]

And I'm Domenico Muntzener, our senior political editor and correspondent.

[Tamara Keith]

And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics podcast.