Please don’t tell me Donald Trump has the best interests of America at heart, assuming he has one. He looks at the suffering in California and offers sneers instead of solace.
They didn’t vote for him out there, so it’s not his problem. That’s how this man thinks. He denies all evidence of climate change behind the series of fires that strike California each year and instead blames local officials. At this catastrophic moment, he offers schoolyard insults. Trump now calls Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, “Gavin Newscum.”
This would be considered merely juvenile except that this convicted criminal is about to become president of the United States.
And so half the country now awaits next week’s inaugural ceremonies as if anticipating Anschluss II.
The fires have now driven nearly 200,000 people from whatever might be left of their homes. More than 10,000 houses have been lost, including houses of worship. And the winds continue to howl and fire continues to destroy everything in its way.
Trump spreads blame instead of empathy, and does it with lies instead of truth. He shows there is no limit to his heartlessness by threatening to withhold federal funding. It’s not the first time for such Trumpian callousness.
At a press conference in September, Trump threatened to withhold future disaster relief money. He noted his long-running contentiousness with Gov. Newsom and declared, “We won’t give him money to put out all his fires. And if we don’t give him the money to put out his fires, he’s got problems.”
Now on his social media platform Truth Social, he says, “Let this serve, and be emblematic, of the gross incompetence and mismanagement, of the Biden/Newscum Duo. … This is what Joe Biden is leaving me.”
The federal government typically covers 75 percent of rebuilding costs after a major disaster.
Now, on Truth Social, Trump says Newsom “is the blame for this.”
He says Newsom “refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water … to flow daily into many parts of California …”
But California officials have called this “pure fiction,” claiming Newsom has never refused to sign any such document. In fact, they add, there is no such thing as a “water restoration declaration.”
When he’s not hitting Newsom, Trump goes after President Biden. He blames Biden for leaving him “no money in FEMA.” FEMA officials claim its relief fund has $27 billion in it.
Could Trump really be heartless enough to withhold disaster money from California? Some people may remember Hurricane Maria hitting Puerto Rico in September of 2017. Trump was roundly criticized when his administration delayed $20 billion in disaster aid to that battered island.
But he did stage a photo op where Trump tossed rolls of paper towels to awaiting arms. That’s about his depth of concern.
A former Baltimore Sun columnist and WJZ-TV commentator, Michael Olesker is the author of six books, including “Journeys to the Heart of Baltimore” (Johns Hopkins University Press) and “Michael Olesker’s Baltimore: If You Live Here, You’re Home” (Johns Hopkins University).
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