‘Billions of dollars a year they spend on forest fires’: Donald Trump’s environmentalist rebrand reveals how little he cares about human life

handling of the L.A. wildfires have been called into question after the resurfacing of an old video in which he appears more concerned about the cost of fire management than the impact on human lives. 

For context, Trump has been saying he “is the blame” for the devastating fires. In a post on Truth Social, Trump baselessly claimed that Newsom had blocked a measure that would have increased water flow to Southern California. 

He said Newsom’s supposed refusal to sign the water restoration declaration prohibited “millions of gallons of water” from flowing into “many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way.” In that same post, Trump claimed Newsom’s blocking of the measure was “to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt,” implying that these protections to keep the fish from extinction had caused some fire hydrants to run dry in parts of LA. 

Trump discussed these topics in an interview with Joe Rogan in the lead-up to the election. However, some observers have found his tone appears to laments the cost of wildfire management more than the devastation and loss of life they incur. “In order to protect a tiny little fish, the water up north gets routed into the Pacific,” Trump claimed. He also said that “water isn’t allowed to flow down” from other areas into Southern California, and that, once elected, he “could have water for all of that land.” 

Later, Rogan described the dryness of California’s forests as “dangerous” but Trump seemed less concerned about a wildfire’s threat to human life as he was about the cost of wildfire management. “Not only dangerous,” Trump replied, “billions of dollars a year they spend on forest fires.” The president-elect has exhibited this same sentiment in his response to the L.A. wildfires, which have so far left at least 24 people dead. Calling this out, Newsom criticized Trump’s threat to withhold aid from California, proving his prioritization of saving government expenditure over containing the wildfires.

“I’ve been pretty expressive about that in the context of someone threatening our first responders in of ing the immediacy of their needs,” Newsom said. Trump’s consistent factoring-in of money in discussions of wildfires dates back to his first presidency when he criticized Newsom on social media “com[ing] to the Federal Government for $$$” amid the 2019 Kincade fires while declaring “no more.” In any case, Trump’s rhetoric about the LA wildfires — in part caused by the effects of climate change — should be taken with a grain of salt, given his past stance on global warming. 

Over the years, Trump has claimed climate change was “invented by the Chinese,” that he doesn’t know if global warming is “manmade,” and that climate concerns are driven by “global warming hoaxsters.” Naturally, given this track record, Newsom delivered a searing response that still rings true, particularly when Trump’s concerns are more about the financial cost than the human cost. “You don’t believe in climate change,” Newsom replied in 2019, “you are excused from this conversation.”