WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is heading to hurricane-battered western North Carolina and wildfire-ravaged Los Angeles on Friday, utilizing the primary journey of his second administration to tour areas the place politics has clouded the response to lethal disasters.
The Republican president has criticized former President Joe Biden for his administration’s response in North Carolina, and he’s showered disdain on California leaders for water insurance policies that he falsely claimed worsened the current blazes.
Trump is also considering overhauling the Federal Emergency Administration Company. A few of his conservative allies have proposed decreasing how a lot the company reimburses states for dealing with floods, hurricanes, tornadoes and different calamities.
The White Home has requested California congressional members, together with Democrats, to carry a roundtable at an airplane hanger in Santa Monica throughout Trump’s go to, in line with an individual briefed on the plans who demanded anonymity as a result of they weren’t licensed to debate them.
Any assembly may very well be contentious. Trump has urged utilizing federal catastrophe help as a bargaining chip throughout unrelated legislative negotiations over authorities borrowing, or as leverage to influence California to alter its water insurance policies.
“Southern California and California has all the time been there for different areas of the nation of their time of disaster, and we anticipate our nation to be there for us,” Sen. Alex Padilla, a Democrat from the state, stated this week.
Trump has a historical past of injecting politics and falsehoods into catastrophe response. Throughout his first time period, he talked about limiting assist for Democratic states that didn’t help him, in line with former administration officers. Whereas working for president final yr, he claimed without evidence that Democrats have been “going out of their technique to not assist individuals in Republican areas” of the battleground state of North Carolina.
Extra not too long ago, he’s falsely insisted that California water policies, particularly fish conservation efforts within the northern a part of the state, contributed to hydrants working dry within the Los Angeles space.
“I don’t assume we should always give California something till they let the water run down,” Trump stated in an interview with Fox Information Channel’s Sean Hannity on Wednesday.
The president additionally urged shifting extra duty to particular person states for managing disasters.
“I’d reasonably see the states deal with their very own issues,” he instructed Hannity, including that “FEMA is getting in the way in which of every little thing.”
Michael Coen, who served as chief of workers at FEMA through the Biden administration, stated Trump was “misinformed” about an company that gives crucial assist to states after they’re overwhelmed by disaster.
As well as, Coen criticized the concept of attaching strings to help.
“You’re going to choose winners and losers on which communities are going to be supported by the federal authorities,” he stated. “I believe the American individuals anticipate the federal authorities can be there for them on their worst day, irrespective of the place they reside.”
The final time Trump was president, he visited quite a few catastrophe zones, together with the aftermaths of hurricanes and tornados. However he additionally usually sparked controversy, like when he tossed paper towels to survivors of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.
“When you’re a catastrophe survivor, irrespective of who you voted for, it’s all the time good when the president involves city,” stated Pete Gaynor, who headed FEMA through the first Trump administration between 2019 and 2021. “You’ll be able to see him and hopefully speak to him about what you want in your neighborhood.”
Laurie Carpenter, a 62-year-old retiree in Newland, North Carolina, stated she’s trying ahead to Trump visiting as a result of she’s been disillusioned by the federal response. She stated there’s nonetheless particles and trash strewn round her a part of the state months after Hurricane Helene.
“If anyone’s going to do one thing about it, I believe he’ll,” Carpenter stated.
Trump tapped Cameron Hamilton, a former Navy SEAL with restricted expertise managing pure disasters, as FEMA’s performing director. He additionally stated that particular person states must be in control of directing response to pure disasters reasonably than FEMA, and that the federal authorities ought to solely step in subsequently to offer funding.
Biden vowed earlier than leaving workplace that the federal authorities would cowl all the prices of responding to the wildfires round Los Angeles, which may find yourself being the costliest natural disasters in U.S. history. Nevertheless, that promise received’t be saved until Congress comes up with extra funding.
Friday’s journey may immediate some uncomfortable conversations about local weather change, which Trump has performed down and denied. Each Hurricane Helene and the Los Angeles wildfires have been exacerbated by world warming.
In Helene’s case, a examine by worldwide local weather scientists at World Climate Attribution discovered that local weather change boosted the storm’s rainfall by 10%. In California, the state suffered a record dry fall and winter — its conventional moist season — which made the realm round Los Angeles extra susceptible to blazes.
“That is simply breaking our consolation zone of what’s presupposed to be regular,” stated College of Oregon researcher Amanda Stasiewicz.
After visiting North Carolina and California, Trump plans to carry a Saturday rally in Las Vegas. Advisers stated he’ll supply particulars on maintaining a marketing campaign promise to exclude suggestions from federal taxes, whereas reveling in having won Nevada in an Election Day upset.
“I’m going to go to Nevada to thank them,” Trump stated. He was the primary Republican candidate to win the state since 2004, when George W. Bush beat John Kerry.
Las Vegas’ 24-hour financial system is fueled by the hospitality and repair industries, the place everybody from restaurant waiters to valet parkers to resort maids depends on gratuities. Nevertheless, exempting them from taxes would doubtless be troublesome to implement and require an act of Congress to stay everlasting. ____ Related Press writers Stephen Groves, Seth Borenstein and Makiya Seminera contributed to this report.
