President Joe Biden said wildfires ravaging Los Angeles show climate change is real, days before President-elect Donald Trump is to take office. Trump has threatened to pull back on U.S. efforts to combat global warming.
“Climate change is real. … There is global warming, it’s real,” Biden told a crisis meeting at the White House on the fires.
“This is the most widespread, devastating fire in California’s history,” Biden said as he convened the meeting.
Trump has used the wildfires to attack Biden and California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom on social media.
The outgoing president canceled a trip to Rome to stay in Washington and coordinate the U.S. government response to the fires, which have killed at least five people.
He said the federal government would cover 100% of the costs of dealing with the disaster for the first 180 days, at Newsom’s request.
Biden said he was surging 400 federal firefighters and 30 firefighting planes and helicopters to Los Angeles, while the Pentagon will send eight large planes and 500 wildfire clearance personnel.
Meanwhile, Biden sought to debunk claims pushed by Trump that there was a water shortage that left firefighters struggling to put out the inferno.
Biden said the problem lay not with a shortage of water but with power cuts that took water pumps offline. During wildfires, utility companies can cut electricity amid fears that faulty power lines could spark more fires.
Trump’s remarks on Wednesday and Thursday came as firefighters were trying to contain the blazes that have killed five people and destroyed more than 2,000 structures.
“One of the best and most beautiful parts of the United States of America is burning down to the ground,” Trump said on his Truth Social network late Wednesday, blaming the fires on Newsom and calling on him to resign.
Trump returned to the subject Thursday morning as the blazes continued to rage. Without providing evidence, he variously accused Newsom of “incompetence” in managing the fires and of wasting water in drought-hit California.
The California governor strongly rejected Trump’s claims in an interview with CNN.
“People are literally fleeing. … This guy wanted to politicize it. I have a lot of thoughts, and I know what I want to say. I won’t,” Newsom said.
Trump accused Biden on Thursday of diverting money to “Green New Scam” climate policies instead of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Biden has repeatedly denied steering funds away from FEMA, including in October when Trump made similar accusations after hurricanes devastated the U.S. Southeast a month before the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
California has long been a target of Trump’s ire, with the most populous U.S. state long having voted for Democrats. He made some modest gains in the 2024 election.
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