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 can be contemplating overhauling the Federal Emergency Administration Company. A few of his conservative allies have proposed lowering 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 response to an individual briefed on the plans who demanded anonymity as a result of they weren’t approved to debate them.
Any assembly could possibly be contentious. Trump has prompt 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 always been there for other regions of the country in their time of crisis, and we expect our country to be there for us,” Sen. Alex Padilla, a Democrat from the state, mentioned this week.
AP Photograph/Ethan Swope, File
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 assist him, in response to former administration officers. Whereas working for president final yr, he claimed with out proof that Democrats had been “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas” of the battleground state of North Carolina.
Extra lately, he’s falsely insisted that California water insurance 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 think we should give California anything until they let the water run down,” Trump mentioned in an interview with Fox Information Channel’s Sean Hannity on Wednesday.
The president additionally prompt shifting extra accountability to particular person states for managing disasters.
“I’d rather see the states take care of their own problems,” he informed Hannity, including that “FEMA is getting in the way of everything.”
Michael Coen, who served as chief of employees at FEMA throughout the Biden administration, mentioned Trump was “misinformed” about an company that gives crucial assist to states once they’re overwhelmed by disaster.
As well as, Coen criticized the concept of attaching strings to help.
“You’re going to pick winners and losers on which communities are going to be supported by the federal government,” he mentioned. “I think the American people expect the federal government will be there for them on their worst day, no matter where they live.”
The final time Trump was president, he visited quite a few catastrophe zones, together with the aftermaths of hurricanes and tornados. However he additionally typically sparked controversy, like when he tossed paper towels to survivors of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.
“If you’re a disaster survivor, no matter who you voted for, it’s always good when the president comes to town,” mentioned Pete Gaynor, who headed FEMA throughout the first Trump administration between 2019 and 2021. “You can see him and hopefully talk to him about what you need in your community.”
Laurie Carpenter, a 62-year-old retiree in Newland, North Carolina, mentioned she’s wanting ahead to Trump visiting as a result of she’s been disillusioned by the federal response. She mentioned there’s nonetheless particles and trash strewn round her a part of the state months after Hurricane Helene.
“If anybody’s going to do something about it, I think he will,” Carpenter mentioned.
Trump tapped Cameron Hamilton, a former Navy SEAL with restricted expertise managing pure disasters, as FEMA’s performing director. He additionally mentioned that particular person states ought to be in control of directing response to pure disasters quite 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 might find yourself being the costliest pure disasters in U.S. historical past. Nonetheless, that promise gained’t be stored until Congress comes up with extra funding.
Friday’s journey might immediate some uncomfortable conversations about local weather change, which Trump has performed down and denied. Each Hurricane Helene and the Los Angeles wildfires had been exacerbated by international warming.
In Helene’s case, a research 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 report dry fall and winter — its conventional moist season — which made the realm round Los Angeles extra weak to blazes.
“This is just breaking our comfort zone of what is supposed to be normal,” mentioned College of Oregon researcher Amanda Stasiewicz.
After visiting North Carolina and California, Trump plans to carry a Saturday rally in Las Vegas. Advisers mentioned he’ll supply particulars on maintaining a marketing campaign promise to exclude suggestions from federal taxes, whereas reveling in having gained Nevada in an Election Day upset.
“I’m going to go to Nevada to thank them,” Trump mentioned. He was the primary Republican candidate to win the state since 2004, when George W. Bush beat John Kerry.
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Las Vegas’ 24-hour financial system is fueled by the hospitality and repair industries, the place everybody from restaurant waiters to valet parkers to lodge maids depends on gratuities. Nonetheless, 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.
