Earlier this month, California Governor Gavin Newsom publicly appealed to United States President Donald Trump for assistance in helping Los Angeles recover from the devastating wildfires as the city gears up to host the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. However, Trump has not made things easy, continuing to spread misinformation about the situation.
In the past, Newsom had commended Trump for his efforts in securing the 2028 Olympics for Los Angeles, remarking that it was “an opportunity for him to shine” as the city works to prepare for the global event while 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 these remarks, Trump suggested in an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News that he might withhold aid from California while perpetuating misinformation.
“I don’t think we should give California anything until they let water flow down,” Trump stated during the interview.
This claim repeated an unfounded assertion that Newsom and other California officials were intentionally blocking water from Northern California from reaching Los Angeles, instead allowing it to flow into the Pacific Ocean.
“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.”
The issue with Trump’s statement is that Southern California does not rely on Northern California for its water supply. Additionally, experts have consistently clarified that the recent wildfire destruction was not caused by a lack of water in reservoirs or an inability to access it from Northern California.
Jay Lund, a professor emeritus specializing in water resources and environmental engineering at the University of California, Davis, explained that there was ample water to fight the fires. However, strong winds made it impossible to use aircraft typically deployed to control wildfires.
“There was enough water in storage in Southern California to drown the fire-affected areas in 20 feet of water, but you couldn’t get it to those places,” Lund said.
Trump also alleged that water from the Pacific Northwest — particularly Washington and Oregon — was accessible to Los Angeles but had been diverted to 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.”
These claims are entirely unfounded.
No “valve” exists to regulate water flow from the Pacific Northwest. Although there have been occasional discussions about building a pipeline from Oregon and Washington to supply water to California, such a project has been consistently dismissed as too costly due to the vast distances and challenging terrain.
Trump’s statement was so inaccurate that even experts struggled to interpret his remarks.
“It’s difficult to explain what he’s talking about because nobody knows what he’s talking about,” said John Buse, general counsel for the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group. “The idea of a valve and water will just flow is preposterous.”
Clearly, Trump’s comments are not based on reality, and they sparked outrage from many online, who offered their reaction in the comments of the story.
“There are so few working brain cells in that man’s head. His inability to see things in their entirety, illustrates his incompetence, and accentuates his inability to come to a logical and responsible conclusion,” one person wrote in the comments on MSN.
“If I had to pick the number one strength of Trump, it would be his ability to spread misinformation. He does it on a level nobody anywhere even comes close to reaching. What’s truly scary is that so many people believe it even though what he says is proven to be either a lie or wrong altogether so often,” someone else added.
“And we are surprised by this how? The guy is a pathological liar. And neither he nor his party have lived in reality for years, at least since the rise of talk radio and Fox News. The internet, which is filled with clueless idjits that other clueless idjits gravitate to for validation, has only made it worse,” another person wrote.
“And this suprizes anyone? He can’t keep a clear thought, he can’t do anything but lie, spilling out true information would make him look bad. Dear Lord he can’t even go to experts to educate himself on the topics he talks about. It is all about how he looks,” someone else added.
“Not sure if it’s because he’s dishonest or because he’s too stupid to know what the truth is,” another person quipped.
“There is absolutely nothing that Trump is better at than spreading misinformation and point-blank lying,” someone else said.
Clearly, people are not happy with Trump’s actions.
