Trump surveys Pacific Palisades devastation: ‘It’s incredible. It’s really an incineration’
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In a somber scene lighted by an orange Los Angeles sunset, President Trump walked through the ruins of Pacific Palisades on Friday, shaking hands with firefighters and speaking to a handful of residents as he took in the devastation wrought by firestorms that swept through L.A. County this month.
Leveled properties and charred trees were visible in the background as the president walked through a neighborhood of destroyed homes. Firefighters handed him a white fire helmet with No. 47 on the front and side.
Trump said he was stunned by the devastation and vowed to partner with local officials to help victims.
“We have to work together to get this really worked out,” Trump said during a meeting with Los Angeles officials. “I don’t think you can realize how ... devastating it is until you see it. It’s incredible. It’s really an incineration.”
It was Trump’s first presidential visit to California since taking office and came after his threats to withhold federal aid to the state in exchange for a change in water management and implementing voter identification requirements.
But during a roundtable meeting with residents and officials on Friday evening, his tone was much more subdued. He declared a national emergency, pledged to waive or expedite any federal permits needed for rebuilding, and did not mention specific conditions for federal aid. He also said he would look into the possibility of waiving tariffs on building materials.
“I’m going to give you everything you want,” he told the group. “I’m going to give you more than any president would have ever given you.”
The trip to Los Angeles was part of a broader national disaster recovery tour. Earlier Friday, Trump visited North Carolina to inspect damage after Hurricane Helene ravaged the area in October.
Trump landed at Los Angeles International Airport midafternoon and after briefly speaking with Gov. Gavin Newsom on the tarmac, the president and First Lady Melania Trump embarked on their tour of the destruction in Pacific Palisades, surveying neighborhoods by helicopter and foot.
The president did not visit Altadena, where the Eaton fire carved a deadly and destructive path. The firestorms burned more than 16,000 structures, including many homes, and killed at least 28 people. Estimates of the cost have topped $250 billion.
The fire left behind thousand of charred homes and an untold amount of debris that needs to be removed.
Newsom thanked the president for making the trip to California.
“We’re going to need your support. We’re going to need your help. You were there for us during COVID — I don’t forget that — and I have all the expectations that we’ll be able to work together to get this speedy recovery,” Newsom said to Trump.
Hours earlier, during a briefing in North Carolina, Trump repeated his earlier suggestion that he would place conditions on disaster aid for California, saying that he wants voter ID requirements adopted and for the state to “release the water.” The president did not outline conditions for North Carolina to receive aid.
“If they release the water, they wouldn’t have had a problem,” Trump said of California. “If they released the water when I told them to — because I told them to do it seven years ago — if they would have done it, you wouldn’t have had the problem that you had. You ... might not have even had a fire.”
During his meeting with L.A. officials, Trump criticized California’s wildfire response, jabbing at Democrats and blaming the massive infernos that have destroyed swaths of the state in recent years on a lack of forest management and water mismanagement.
Trump announced that he would be signing an executive order to “open up the pumps and valves in the north.” The measure, details of which were not immediately available, would involve drawing more water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to supply farmlands in the Central Valley and cities in Southern California.
President Trump says he plans to issue an order to ‘open up the pumps’ and deliver more water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to California farms and cities.
California’s two main water systems that draw water from the Delta, the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project, deliver supplies to millions of acres of farmland and about 30 million people. Pumping has contributed to the ecological degradation of the Delta, where the fish species that are listed as threatened or endangered include steelhead trout, two types of Chinook salmon, longfin smelt, Delta smelt and green sturgeon.
Trump indicated he intends to seek to weaken protections for the Delta smelt, a finger-length species that has suffered major declines and is thought to be nearing extinction in the wild.
“They talk about the Delta smelt,” Trump said. “It doesn’t have to be protected. The people of California have to be protected.”
Water managers and experts have said Southern California’s cities are not short of water, pointing out that the region’s reservoirs are at record high levels following plentiful deliveries of supplies in 2023 and 2024.
Newsom has said a change in water management in Northern California would not have affected the fire response. The governor’s office said on social media that California “pumps as much water now as it could under prior Trump-era policies,” and that “there is no shortage of water in Southern California.”
Even with ample supplies in reservoirs, local water systems were pushed to their limits in places as the fires rapidly spread, driven by strong winds.
When the L.A. water system lost pressure in parts of Pacific Palisades, some fire hydrants ran dry in high-elevation areas, hindering the firefighting effort. Newsom last week ordered an investigation into the loss of water pressure to hydrants and the lack of water available from a reservoir in Pacific Palisades that was out of commission for repairs.
Trump criticized the city’s handling of the repairs to the Santa Ynez Reservoir, which has been offline for nearly a year.
“That reservoir has been empty for a long time. It shouldn’t have been empty,” he said.
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Trump’s plan to alter California water policy “demonstrates both a severe misunderstanding of water management and a blatant disregard for the needs of imperiled wildlife,” said Ashley Overhouse, water policy advisor for the environmental group Defenders of Wildlife.
“Communities like Altadena and Palisades desperately need aid, not more political posturing that ignores science,” Overhouse said.
While Newsom did not join Trump on his tour in the Palisades, the two men shook hands and expressed a desire to work to rebuild the areas decimated by fire. Newsom, whom Trump refers to as “Newscum,” is a staunch critic of Trump who convened a special session ahead of the president’s second term to “Trump-proof” California’s state laws.
Three days after fires ravaged Los Angeles, the Democratic governor extended Trump an invitation to L.A. to survey the damage.
“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. “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.”
California Sens. Adam B. Schiff and Alex Padilla, who were among a group of lawmakers who invited the president to tour Los Angeles, said in a joint statement Friday night that they were grateful to Trump for traveling to see the historic fire damage. The Democratic lawmakers also expressed hope that Trump would eschew one-sided political rhetoric.
Trump said, “We are watching fires still tragically burn from weeks ago without even a token of defense” in Los Angeles — a remark that drew pushback from some California leaders.
“While his continued comments threatening conditions on federal aid and to eliminate FEMA [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] are deeply concerning, we remain hopeful this visit moves the President and Congress closer to focus on relief over partisanship,” they wrote.
“Let us be clear — leveraging disaster aid as a bargaining chip runs in stark contrast to how both Democrats and Republicans have responded to natural disasters for decades. Natural disasters don’t discriminate between blue states or red states. And Americans should be able to count on our support to recover and rebuild in the wake of these tragedies, no matter what state they call home.”
Politics and the 2024 election appeared to be on Trump’s mind as he toured North Carolina. At a disaster briefing, he speculated on the role hurricane damage in the battleground state played in his election.
“One of the reasons we won so convincingly was our promise to get North Carolina fixed up,” he said.
In Los Angeles County, 65% of residents voted for his Democratic opponent, then-Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump said he would ask Congress for more money for North Carolina reconstruction and expressed disappointment in FEMA‘s handling of the crisis.
“FEMA turned out to be a disaster,” he said. “I think we’re going to recommend that FEMA go away. ... The states should fix this.”
President Trump has issued a directive calling for ‘putting people over fish’ in California water policy. State officials say it could prove harmful for water supplies and fish.
In his inaugural address Monday, Trump brought up the wildfires, saying they were burning “without even a token of defense.”
“They’re raging through the houses and communities, even affecting some of the wealthiest and most powerful individuals in our country — some of whom are sitting here right now,” he added. “They don’t have a home any longer. That’s interesting.”
Some California Republicans who narrowly won U.S. House seats last year have criticized the politicization of disaster relief.
“Providing relief in the aftermath of a natural disaster isn’t a red or blue issue — it’s a life-or-death issue,” Republican Rep. Young Kim, who represents a fire-prone area of Orange County, said on X.
When fire hydrants ran dry, the L.A. Department of Water and Power struggled to get water where needed. The utility’s operations chief explains the decisions as the fire spread.
Rep. Judy Chu, a Democrat who represents Pasadena and is one of several California members of Congress who attended a Friday fire recovery briefing with Trump, said she was appreciative that the president traveled to Los Angeles to see the destruction. But she suggested he should visit not just the affluent coastal Pacific Palisades area but the historically Black communities of Pasadena and Altadena in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, which were ravaged by the Eaton fire.
“I just want to make sure that you remember the people in Altadena and Pasadena, and that you can come there and see how terrible the devastation has been there so that they can get the help that they need,” Chu told Trump.
Trump responded that he knows the Altadena area was “really devastated.”
“This took place during the life of another president, not me, but I’m going to be the president that’s going to help you fix it,” he responded.
Pasadena Mayor Victor Gordo told NBC 4 that he was disappointed Trump wasn’t visiting the Eaton fire burn area.
“I would imagine it’s hard to watch,” Gordo said of residents seeing Trump visit the Palisades. “You know these are people who are looking for this assistance, and again, who are looking for leadership from the highest office in the land. And people who are hurt deeply, but you know, the important thing is that they be told directly ... that the resources are going to be there.”
Pacific Palisades resident Dave Harvilicz, 50, drove to Brooktree Road and West Sunset Boulevard on Friday afternoon to catch a glimpse of Trump’s motorcade. The intersection, blocked off by military Humvees and local police, was roughly a mile from what remains of Harvilicz’s home on Mt. Holyoke Avenue — one of hundreds razed by the Palisades fire.
“We just wanted to thank him for coming and bringing attention [to the fires],” Harvilicz said. “We also agree with him that federal aid should be conditioned on having fair elections in California and in Los Angeles.”
Harvilicz said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gave him an 18-month estimate just to clear the debris from his home. He said he hoped Trump could speed up the recovery process.
L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and Trump sparred during the roundtable over how quickly the community can begin rebuilding. Trump asserted that residents should be allowed back on their properties immediately, but Bass pushed back — saying there was still hazardous waste that needed to be cleared from many of the sites. She has emphasized that getting residents home quickly is a top priority.
“The important thing is for people to be safe,” Bass said.
Times staff writers Hailey Branson-Potts, Sandra McDonald, Richard Winton and Seema Mehta contributed to this report.
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