Earlier this month, California Governor Gavin Newsom publicly reached out to United States President Donald Trump, seeking support to help Los Angeles recover from the devastating wildfires as the city gears up to host the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. But Trump isn’t making it easy, continuing to spread verifiably false information about the situation.
Newsom had previously commended Trump for his involvement in securing the 2028 Olympics for Los Angeles, saying that it was “an opportunity for him to shine” as the city works toward hosting the global event and recovering from the wildfires.
“President Donald Trump was helpful in getting the Olympics to the United States of America — to get it down here in LA. We thank him for that. This is an opportunity for him to shine, for this country to shine, for California and this community to shine,” Newsom said earlier this month.
“That’s why we’re already organizing a Marshall plan. We already have a team looking, reimagining LA 2.0, and we’re making sure everyone’s included.”
Despite Newsom’s remarks, Trump has continued to spew misinformation and make incorrect statements, even going as far as to tell Sean Hannity on Fox News that he might consider withholding aid from California until the state decides to “let water flow down,” echoing a false claim that that Newsom and other California officials were intentionally blocking water from Northern California from reaching Los Angeles.
“Look, Gavin’s got one thing he can do,” Trump said according to the New York Times. “He can release the water that comes from the north. There is massive amounts of water, rainwater and mountain water, that comes, too, with the snow, comes down as it melts, there’s so much water, they’re releasing it into the Pacific Ocean.”
Trump went on to claim that water from the Pacific Northwest was available to Los Angeles but had been rerouted into the Pacific Ocean through a supposed “valve.”
“Los Angeles has massive amounts of water available to it,” Trump said during a press conference on Tuesday. “All they have to do is turn the valve, and that’s the valve coming back from and down from the Pacific Northwest, where millions of gallons of water a week and a day, even, in many cases, pours into California, goes all through California down to Los Angeles. And they turned it off.”
This led Trump to claim a victory when he claimed that he used the “United States Military” and “emergency powers” and “turned the water on.”
“The United States Military just entered the Great State of California and, under Emergency Powers, TURNED ON THE WATER flowing abundantly from the Pacific Northwest, and beyond. The days of putting a Fake Environmental argument, over the PEOPLE, are OVER. Enjoy the water, California!!!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
This assertion is a complete lie, according to the California Department of Water Resources.
“The military did not enter California. The federal government restarted federal water pumps after they were offline for maintenance for three days. State water supplies in Southern California remain plentiful,” the California Department of Water Resources said in a post on X.
Additionally, the State of California issued a lengthy fact-check of the Trump administration this week, refuting Trump’s claim that there is a “valve” to simply turn water on and off.
“Scientists, water managers, state leaders, and experts throughout the state are calling out the federal administration’s ongoing misinformation campaign on water management in California,” the state’s website reads. “… There is no spigot to magically make water appear at a wildfire, despite the administration’s false claims.”
Clearly, Trump seems to have been caught in a lie, and California called him out.
