As Worst Fire in LA History Raged, Trump Saw Tragedy as a Political Opportunity

Los Angeles, the U.S.’s second largest city, is currently being consumed by the worst fires in its history. And instead of expressing solidarity and empathy, our incoming president is playing crude, juvenile political games.

On Wednesday morning, as tens of thousands of residents were being evacuated in the face of devastating fires along the coastal stretch from Santa Monica through Malibu as well as inland in the Altadena region, Donald Trump took to social media to post nonsensical attacks on “Governor Newscum” and water policies that allegedly favored endangered fish species over humans. Syntax be damned, Trump wrote that “he is the blame for this.”

Meanwhile, firefighters fought desperately to contain blazes that were being spread by hurricane force Santa Ana winds, and flames crept close to cultural landmarks such as the Getty Villa Museum.

Later on in the day, Trump inexplicably sought to pin blame on President Biden for hydrants in the fire zone running out of water, writing: “NO WATER IN THE FIRE HYDRANTS, NO MONEY IN FEMA. THIS IS WHAT JOE BIDEN IS LEAVING ME. THANKS JOE!”

To be absolutely clear, these fires have nothing to do with policies toward fish; nor does the U.S. president personally keep a daily tab on the functionality of fire hydrants in every city in the country.

If there is an easy to understand cause for these fires, it’s the fact that fierce Santa Ana winds roared through a region parched by the lack of rain this winter. In part, it was simply bad luck in a region that historically runs dry; but it is also a likely symptom of a rapidly warming planet — a product of the human-made climate crisis that Trump has repeatedly dismissed as a hoax.

Trump’s inane gambit to blame the fires on conservation efforts and Democratic politicians was, unfortunately, quite in keeping with myriad other examples of his boorish behavior. The day before, on Tuesday, the incoming U.S. leader held a press conference in which he threatened military action against Panama and Denmark, and pledged extreme economic coercion against Canada unless Canada agreed to dissolve itself and be subsumed into the United States.

None of this is normal. Twenty-first century U.S. presidents shouldn’t be bandying about such overtly expansionist military threats like mid-century European fascists. They certainly aren’t supposed to demand that a close ally simply cease to exist. Nor are they supposed to stoke political discord when a major U.S. city is facing an unprecedented disaster.

Imagine the GOP reaction if President Biden had taken to X to ridicule political figures in Florida and North Carolina in the wake of recent natural disasters. Imagine the calls for political retribution that would have followed if any other president had taken advantage of a tornado or an earthquake, a flood, a fire or a hurricane, to try to score cheap political points.

We are, alas, in an entirely new world, one that rewards Trump for his outrages rather than punishing him. In such a world, it’s tempting to simply tune out. There is, after all, only so much toxicity that the human brain can tolerate. But this is, in fact, deadly serious and thus entirely worth paying attention to.

When Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico in 2017, Trump went to political war with the island’s leaders and then turned the entire thing into an entertainment spectacle. He restricted the amount of aid to be sent Puerto Rico’s way, and visited the wrecked island only to spend his time throwing rolls of paper towels out to desperate residents and, like some sadistic circus master, watching them scramble for these bare necessities.

After wildfires devastated California in 2018, Trump went off on a tirade blaming the state for not raking its forests better, and then in 2019 threatened to cut off its federal emergency assistance. “Unless they get their act together, which is unlikely, I have ordered FEMA to send no more money. It is a disgraceful situation in lives & money!” Even worse, during Trump’s first term, aides reported that he tried to prevent federal emergency response dollars being sent to California because it was a Democratic state and he disliked its political priorities.

In 2020, in the dying days of his first term, Trump did, briefly, succeed in blocking the distribution of disaster relief funds to California. Soon afterward, however, facing political blowback, he reversed his position and allowed the aid to be sent California’s way.

Over the last few months, Trump’s team has doubled down on the notion that they will withhold all federal funds from cities and states that embrace “sanctuary” policies designed to thwart his efforts at mass deportation of immigrants. Since Los Angeles and California have such policies in place, it’s likely that, come January 20, Trump could put up roadblocks making it difficult for FEMA and other funds to flow west to provide relief in response to this vast disaster.

If Trump’s presidency promises chaos, that chaos is likely to be felt acutely in blue states that have experienced disasters and need assistance from the federal government to rebuild. There’s now a real prospect that Los Angeles’s fire victims will not only have to come to terms with the loss of their homes and businesses, but will also have to grapple with the reality of a president who has repeatedly threatened California’s disaster response funds and who believes he has the right to punish individual states whose leadership doesn’t show enough fealty to the one and only Donald J. Trump.

Regardless of one’s political affiliations, such a scenario ought to send chills down the spine of anyone who cares about this country’s future.