The Worst = Trump and Musk

 

The Worst Doing Their Usual, Appalling, Worst

It would be nice to think that, just once, Donald Trump and Elon Musk could show some humanity, decency, and good taste. It would have been nice if they expressed their horror at the fires, and offered to help in a meaningful way.

Instead, they used the occasion to score points and push buttons. Trump immediately blamed Democrats, called California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, a juvenile name and said he should resign; and Musk, as usual, pushed out claims he read on his own platform without really understanding them — or ever acknowledging the obligations that come with wielding a huge megaphone.  

For example, the assertions that California had cut its firefighting budget. It is true that, one month before the fires broke out, the Los Angeles fire chief said that budget cuts were “hampering the department’s ability to respond to emergencies.” (The city budget did decrease by $17.6 million, or 2 percent, between the 2023-24 and the 2024-25 fiscal years — although huge, one-time purchases weren’t factored in). Meanwhile, the state fire budget has nearly doubled since 2019, as has the number of firefighters. 

Here and there, more accurate and thoughtful accounts could certainly be found. For example, Juliette Kayyem, a former US Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary, observed in a radio interview: 

No city is built for a municipal water system to deliver assistance during what’s essentially a wildland fire. … The best way to fight a wildland fire is by using helicopters and dropping water on it. We don’t have that capacity now because of the winds and because you’re in populated areas. So they’re essentially doing hand-to-hand combat.

Referring to rumors that there was no water, she explained,

This has nothing to do with the supply of water. It has to do with the pressure in the system. Everyone was grabbing it at the same time. … There wasn’t enough pressure to deliver that water to hilly areas like the Pacific Palisades, which is essentially sort of a cliff area over the ocean.  

Kayyem also tweeted in response to Trump’s blaming Newsom and falsely claiming he had failed to sign a water restoration declaration: 

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.