President Donald Trump wants to see California meet two conditions in order to receive federal funding to help the Los Angeles area recover from the devastating wildfires.
What he’s saying: While speaking to the media in front of Air Force One in Asheville, North Carolina, on Friday, Trump was asked about withholding federal relief from California.
- Trump said he wants to see California adopt voter ID and for increased water flow in the state.
- “After that, I will be the greatest president that California has ever seen,” Trump said. “I want the water to come down and come down to Los Angeles and also go out to all the farmland that’s barren and dry. They have land that they say is the equivalent of the land in Iowa, which is about as good as there is anywhere on Earth. The problem is it’s artificial because they artificially stop the water from going onto the land.”
The other side: Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration responded on X to Trump’s requirements, saying, “Conditioning aid for American citizens is wrong.”
- Newsom’s office said current California law requires people to provide a form of ID in order to register to vote and said the state pumps as much water now as it could under the 2019 Trump-era biological opinions that govern how water is moved out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.