Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis engaged in verbal combat with a legacy media reporter after he was asked if he thought President-elect Donald Trump was “politicizing” the vastly destructive wildfires near Los Angeles by blaming the situation on Democratic leaders like Gov. Gavin Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass.
“Is it appropriate for a president-elect or a president to be criticizing…” a reporter could be heard asking DeSantis, who cut off her question.
“Is it appropriate for people in your industry to try to create division and to try to create narratives anytime these things happen?” DeSantis, who, along with dozens of other GOP governors, met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday, shot back. “Now, you’re not as interested in doing that because Newsom is a D. If Newsom was a Republican, you guys would go try to, you would have him nailed to the wall for what they’re doing over there.
“And I know we’ve dealt with it. We just assume in Florida, anytime something happens, it’s going to be politicized by the media. So you guys sitting in judgment of Donald Trump, I mean, excuse me, I think your track record of politicizing these things is very, very bad,” he continued.
“But Trump said Newsom should resign and that the wildfires are all his fault. So do you agree with those comments?” the reporter pushed.
“I’ve had — I remember when we had the Surfside Tower collapse. I had people from the Washington Post trying to blame me for it immediately without having any facts or anything. Oh, he didn’t declare a state of emergency. First of all, state of emergency doesn’t mean you can’t respond,” DeSantis said. “It’s all that.”
“Biden didn’t,” the report claimed.
“Well, but what I’m telling you is you guys are trying to make an issue of it. When I have watched from this seat, in fact, when I got elected governor, I was meeting with some of the other Republican governors and what they would say is, ‘Hey, if you have a natural disaster, just know media’s coming at you,’” the Florida governor continued.
“They’re going to do it. It’s not the same. That mayor of LA, if that were a Republican mayor, I can only imagine what that would do,” he said. “I mean, you know, the fires are at high risk, and you try to go to Africa or wherever she was to go on some type of voyage. You should have been there preparing and doing that. And yet I don’t see a lot of heat being directed in that thing.
“And so, you know, I just, I’d like to see some balance on how this is, this is done. You could criticize the president-elect, but I think you also have to hold these other people accountable. And I have not seen that,” DeSantis concluded.
As wildfires continue to devastate Los Angeles County, forcing residents to flee for safety, a resurfaced video of Trump discussing California’s fire management policies has gone viral.
The clip, from a three-month-old appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, features Trump’s sharp criticism of California’s environmental policies and inadequate forest maintenance. With three major wildfires raging and no containment in sight, Trump’s comments are now being reconsidered in the context of the ongoing crisis.
In the podcast, Trump addressed California’s failure to build water reservoirs and manage its forests, which he claimed were crucial in preventing catastrophic wildfires.
“They said, ‘We have no water,’” Trump told Rogan. “I said, do you have a drought? ‘No, we don’t have a drought.’ I said, why do you have no water? ‘Because the water isn’t allowed to flow down.’ It’s got a natural flow from Canada all the way up north, more water than they could ever use. And in order to protect a tiny little fish, the water up north gets routed into the Pacific Ocean. Millions and millions of gallons of water gets poured.”
