The president of California’s professional firefighters union said this weekend that former President Trump “should be ashamed” of his threat to withhold federal aid to fight the state’s wildfires if elected.
Brian K. Rice, president of the California Professional Firefighters Union, which represents more than 35,000 firefighters, said in a statement Saturday night that “it is shocking that we have a presidential candidate who is threatening our public safety.”
“His rhetoric is dangerous, his ideas about public safety are dangerous, and his ignorant rhetoric has grown exponentially,” Rice said.
At a news conference at his Rancho Palos Verdes golf club on Friday, Trump said that under a second term, he would stop sending federal firefighting aid to California unless Gov. Gavin Newsom, whom he repeatedly called “Newscum,” enacts his policy priorities on issues like water and taxes.
The former president's threat came amid a tangent about California's water and land management policies, water allocations for farmers and protections for the delta smelt, a tiny fish that Trump says “doesn't survive anyway.”
“With this group, everything is dead,” Trump said of California’s Democratic politicians.
“The auto industry is dead, the water that comes here is dead, and Gavin ‘Newscum’ is going to sign those papers. And if he doesn’t sign those papers, we’re not going to give him money to put out all his fires. And if we don’t give him all the money to put out the fires, he’s going to be in trouble. He’s a terrible governor.”
Trump did not specify which documents he was referring to.
Newsom responded in X that Trump was revealing who he was.
“Every voter should know this. @realDonaldTrump just admitted he will block emergency disaster funding to settle political vendettas,” Newsom wrote. “Today it’s the California wildfires. Tomorrow it could be hurricane funding in North Carolina or flood assistance for homeowners in Pennsylvania. Donald Trump doesn’t care about America, he only cares about himself.”
Rice compared the comments to Trump’s 2018 visit to fire-ravaged Paradise, when, standing among the ruins, he said: “We have to take care of the soils, you know? The forest soils.”
He then referred to Finland, saying that the country focuses on “raking and cleaning. They don’t have any problems.”
On Friday, Trump compared California's forests to those in Austria, where he previously claimed people live in “forest cities” with “more explosive trees” that never catch fire because of good forest management.
“Forests are so fragile because there is no place like California,” he said. “I go to Austria and the head of government tells me, ‘We have trees that are much more flammable than those in California. We never have forest fires,’ because they maintain their forests.”
Austrian officials have previously denied Trump's claims about its forests.
“In fact, Austria is a country in the heart of Europe, where people do not live in the forest, but with the forest and in a close and sustainable relationship with the natural environment,” wrote the country’s agriculture minister, Elisabeth Koestinger, in an article published last week in London’s Independent newspaper. “To be clear: no, we do not have exploding trees in Austria.”
In recent days, wildfires have burned more than 100,000 acres in Southern California, displaced thousands of residents in mountain communities and burned dozens of homes.
“Today, thousands of firefighters are on the front lines responding to wildfires across the state, and countless Californians are in danger as they heed evacuation orders,” Rice said in her statement. “Yet former President Trump said he would gamble with their lives and their homes if he doesn’t get what he wants. He would rather watch our state burn in the name of his political games than send help if he were to become president again.”
The former president's threat, he said, is “a serious public security problem.”
“His rhetoric is dangerous, his ideas about public safety are dangerous, and his ignorant rhetoric has grown exponentially. It is a disgrace to our great nation and to all Californians that this man has a platform to threaten our livelihoods, our safety, our families, and our state.”
