Nine people have died in fast moving wildfires that have devastated the city of Paradise, California. And while President Donald Trump should be extending condolences and offers of assistance, he decided to threaten the state instead.
Trump is in France for a state visit to commemorate the end of World War I in 1919, and fired off this tweet Saturday morning:
There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor. Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 10, 2018
As ABC News notes, Trump approved disaster funding for California on Friday. Those funds come directly from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The grants:
“Refund as much as 75 percent of firefighting costs for departments. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development also provided $212 million to the state of California in 2017.”
This isn’t the first time Trump has complained about how California deals with wildfires. During an October 17 cabinet meeting, the president angrily declared:
“I say to the governor, or whoever is going to be the governor, of California: You better get your act together. Because California, we’re just not going to continue to pay the kind of money that we’re paying because of fires that should never be to the extent [they are].”
And in August, Trump had this to say via Twitter regarding wildfires in California:
California wildfires are being magnified & made so much worse by the bad environmental laws which aren’t allowing massive amounts of readily available water to be properly utilized. It is being diverted into the Pacific Ocean. Must also tree clear to stop fire from spreading!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 6, 2018
But the president has failed to address one of the major reasons wildfires are worse than ever before: Climate change. As Michael Mann, an atmospheric science professor at Penn State University told PBS earlier this year:
“We’re not saying that climate change is literally causing the events to occur What we can conclude with a great deal of confidence now is that climate change is making these events more extreme.”
Trump, of course, has said that climate change and global warming are hoaxes. In 2012 he posted this on social media:
Featured Image Via YouTube Screenshot
