News
Trump Blames Wildfires on ‘Biden/Newscum Duo’ in Multiple Attacks as Californians Lose All
Less than two weeks before his inauguration, President-elect Donald Trump took time on Wednesday to criticize—four times—California Governor Gavin Newsom, as three “wind-fueled wildfires” tore through Los Angeles and surrounding areas. The fires caused several deaths, destroyed more than one thousand buildings—including homes and businesses—and left massive devastation in their wake.
The Los Angeles Times called it “one of the most destructive firestorms to hit the region in memory.” At least 70,000 people have been evacuated, according to the latest AP report, and, as ABC News notes, more than 1.5 million are without power.
Wednesday afternoon, Trump blamed the massive destruction directly on Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom: “He is the blame for this,” Trump declared, calling him “Gavin Newscum.”
“Governor Gavin Newscum refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way,” Trump wrote on his social media website.
READ MORE: ‘Mexican America’: President of Mexico Trolls Trump With Vintage Map
Trump’s claim about refusing to sign a “water restoration declaration” was deemed false in a statement from the governor’s office.
“There is no such document as the water restoration declaration – that is pure fiction,” the governor’s office stated. “The Governor is focused on protecting people, not playing politics, and making sure firefighters have all the resources they need.”
Trump’s attacks continued, claiming Newsom “wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt, by giving it less water (it didn’t work!), but didn’t care about the people of California. Now the ultimate price is being paid. I will demand that this incompetent governor allow beautiful, clean, fresh water to FLOW INTO CALIFORNIA! He is the blame for this. On top of it all, no water for fire hydrants, not firefighting planes. A true disaster!”
Later on Wednesday, Trump appeared to delight in the wildfire disaster.
“As of this moment, Gavin Newscum and his Los Angeles crew have contained exactly ZERO percent of the fire. It is burning at levels that even surpass last night. This is not Government. I can’t wait till January 20th!”
Trump continued to blame Newsom, and added President Joe Biden to his attack.
“The fires in Los Angeles may go down, in dollar amount, as the worst in the History of our Country. In many circles, they’re doubting whether insurance companies will even have enough money to pay for this catastrophe. Let this serve, and be emblematic, of the gross incompetence and mismanagement of the Biden/Newscum Duo. January 20th cannot come fast enough!”
On Wednesday, in an all-caps rant, Trump also wrote: “No water in the fire hydrants, no money in FEMA. This is what Joe Biden is leaving me. Thanks Joe!”
The Hill reports that “Newsom and President Biden announced last month new rules to carry water to California farmers, as well as Los Angeles area residents, as a modification to the 2019 Trump-era regulation. Environmental advocates had pushed for the new rule in order to protect fish, including smelt.”
READ MORE: DOJ to Release Special Counsel’s J6 Report on Trump, His Lawyers Expected to Object: Report
On the campaign trail in September, then-candidate Trump threatened Newsom with withholding federal funds “to put out all his fires.”
Donald Trump: “Gavin Newsom is going to sign those papers and if he doesn’t sign those papers, we won’t give him money to put out all his fires.” pic.twitter.com/1unCeoTMs8
— Republican Voters Against Trump (@AccountableGOP) September 13, 2024
Former Obama spokesperson Tommy Vietor blasted Trump, saying: “Everyone in LA is terrified right now and trying to figure out what to do, where to go, and how to keep their kids safe from fire and smoke. Our president-elect’s response is to launch another stupid political attack and pretend that the governor can stop the Santa Ana Winds.”
Meanwhile, Republicans jumped on the bandwagon and began attacking California.
Far-right U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona attacked California, suggesting they are not managing water properly, while also attacking FEMA, and spreading a false, debunked claim that the federal agency “diverted, uh, well over a billion, almost two billion dollars, to illegal alien care, and not emergency management care.”
“So we’ve got a lot of a lot of uh things that we need to assess at the federal level, uh, and and I I don’t want to jump all over this too much, but don’t forget that California uh, they, they really need to do a job statewide, managing their water resources. They, the millions of acre feet of water that they just allowed to flow out to to the uh the ocean every year.”
Rep. Andy Biggs is on Newsmax responding to the LA fires by attacking California Democrats. They’re skipping right over thoughts and prayers. pic.twitter.com/wCIGjS6wJh
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 8, 2025
Independent journalist Justin Glawe, who writes the Substack newsletter “Welcome to American Doom,” noted: “If you want an idea of the capacity for empathy from the American right, Sean Hannity is kicking off his radio show right now by blaming California wildfires on Democrats and claiming Trump was right about ‘raking’ forest floors in 2018.”
President Joe Biden, who is in California, met with Governor Newsom and offered support.
“The White House said it was surging resources to the impacted areas of California, including five U.S. Forest Service air tankers, 10 federal firefighting helicopters and dozens of fire engines from the Forest Service,” The Hill adds.
“Newsom offered praise for Biden’s response to the fires, saying during Wednesday’s briefing that it was ‘impossible for me to express the level of appreciation and cooperation we’ve seen from the White House and this administration. So on behalf of all of us, Mr. President, thank you for being here.'”
Juliette Kayyem, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy school, a CNN national security analyst, and a “national leader in homeland security and crisis management,” remarked: “In all my years in and studying disaster management, I have never seen a president (elect) blame a jurisdiction WHILE the disaster was still out of control. It distracts, is cruel to first responders and victims, and could impede effective response.”
Watch the videos above or at this link.
RELATED: ‘Bananas’: Congressman Asks How Trump’s ‘Insane’ Threats Benefit Americans Economically
Enjoy this piece?
… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.
NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.
Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.
 |
Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
