Politicians quibbling as LA burns: Gavin Newsom’s latest beef with Trump
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California governor calls president-elect’s claim that water is being withheld from southern California ‘delusional’. Gavin Newsom, California’s Democratic governor, appeared briefly to put his long-running feud with Donald Trump to one side on Friday, when he invited the president-elect to Los Angeles to survey devastation from the wildfires and meet with first responders, firefighters and the “Americans” affected.
![[Three men in burned forest.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/fcfd59a807d213b224dfe1ecd25f23648045e71f/0_0_2520_1575/master/2520.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
“In the spirit of this great country, we must not politicize human tragedy or spread disinformation from the sidelines,” Newsom wrote in a letter to Trump on Friday. “Hundreds of thousands of Americans – displaced from their homes and fearful for the future – deserve to see all of us working in their best interests to ensure a fast recovery and rebuild.”.
The détente lasted less than 24 hours. By Saturday, Newsom, who is in contention to become the Democratic party leader in time for 2028, had returned to a more familiar, oppositional stance. In an interview with Pod Save America, he rejected Trump’s claim that water is being withheld from southern California to save an endangered fish, the delta smelt, calling the president-elect’s messaging on the issue “delusional” and part of a “consistent mantra from Trump going back years and years, and it’s reinforced over and over within the right wing ... and it’s profoundly ignorant ”.
