Northern California has been absolutely ravaged by wildfires that have already claimed eight lives and destroyed hundreds of homes and buildings over the last two weeks. Thousands of people have been forced to evacuate their homes and yet, the President of the United States has been mostly silent about this – until today.
As usual, the president was missing in action when his constituents needed him to be a leader. Nearly two weeks into these catastrophic fires, Trump finally decided to speak up (and make us wish he hadn’t). What Trump said was an insult to all those who have been affected by these wildfires and who are suffering through this chaos and fear. Trump’s insensitive response blamed the whole thing on “bad” environmental regulations that do not allow enough water through to fight the fires. He tweeted:
California wildfires are being magnified & made so much worse by the bad environmental laws which aren’t allowing massive amount of readily available water to be properly utilized. It is being diverted into the Pacific Ocean. Must also tree clear to stop fire spreading!”
Trump is once again using inaccurate, outdated information as his comments stem from a 2015 proposal that was presented by the environmental nonprofit Tree People. The proposal suggested that Californians should collect rainwater and prevent it from going into the ocean.
Salon’s Bob Cesca called Trump out, calling Trump’s comments “gibberish” and saying that he “knows nothing” about the wildfires.
I witnessed the Santa Rosa fires up close. This is gibberish. Trump knows NOTHING. https://t.co/cqBKOD6KG7
— Bob Cesca (@bobcesca_go) August 5, 2018
As usual, we can count on the president to make an already horrible situation much worse. The people of California deserve better – they deserve a president who looks for solutions instead of people and laws he can blame.
Featured image via screen capture
