Donald Trump vs Gavin Newsom: Misinformation ‘a distraction from the crisis’ as fires rage
As deadly wildfires continue to spread across Los Angeles, President-elect Donald Trump and Governor Gavin Newsom are locked in a bitter war of words.
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In brief:
- A devastating wildfire in Los Angeles has killed at least 24 people and forced tens of thousands to evacuate, with Donald Trump using false claims to criticise California Governor Gavin Newsom.
- The political attacks have a broader context - Trump and Newsom have an acrimonious relationship, with Newsom being seen as everything "MAGA hates".
- The spread of misinformation is leaving officials forced to debunk false claims instead of focusing on emergency response and discussions about climate change.
What’s the story?
At least 24 people have been killed, tens of thousands of people forced to flee their homes and entire communities burnt to the ground as wildfires continue to burn across Los Angeles.
So you’d think America’s leaders would focus on containing the current firestorm before starting a political one.
But Donald Trump is pointing fingers at California’s leaders, particularly California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newson, who Trump often refers to as Gavin ‘Newscum’.
The President-elect posted on Truth Social: “Fire has been spreading rapidly for 3 days — ZERO CONTAINMENT. Nobody has ever seen such failed numbers before! Gross incompetence by Gavin Newscum and Karen Bass.”
“Gavin Newscum should resign. This is all his fault!!!” He added, in another post.
Some of the criticism of the response from California has been valid, while some is now at the centre of a misinformation row.
One of the things that Trump accused Gavin Newson of was refusing to sign a Water Restoration Declaration that would have seen millions more gallons of water available to put out the fires.
But fact-checkers at the BBC have said the declaration he mentions doesn’t exist. “Obviously Newsom hasn't signed it because they don't know what it is,” Emily Maitlis says.
Another of Trump’s claims is that Newsom is responsible for a lack of water in the area because he opposed Trump’s efforts in 2020 to redirect water from Northern to southern California on the grounds of wanting to “protect an essentially worthless fish".
It is true that Newsom did oppose the measure citing the need to protect "highly imperilled fish species close to extinction" and ultimately the measure was blocked by California's attorney general.
But, Jeffrey Mount, senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California's Water Policy Center, said that while the amount of water moved from northern to southern California was reduced, “it has no bearing on the current availability of water for fire-fighting."
Newson said Trump’s claims that protecting the endangered fish, called Delta Smelt, is the reason for the challenging conditions California is facing is “delusional”.
“It's a consistent mantra from Trump going back years and years and years, and it's reinforced over and over and over within the right wing. And so it's become gospel, and it's so profoundly ignorant, and yet he absolutely believes it,” the Governor responded on Pod Saves America.
“It's not an ignorance on his part, it's an indelible misinformation that he's manifested a falsehood.”
What's The News Agents take?
It’s no surprise that when a disaster as devastating as this one takes place, people look for what went wrong, and who is to blame.
“There isn't going to be a disaster of this scale in any country where there aren't going to be really searching questions asked about local, state, federal authorities,” Lewis Goodall says.
But Trump’s attacks on Newsom have “political context,” he adds.
“Trump and Newsom have a particularly acrimonious relationship. Trump often targets Newsom. He calls him ‘Newscum’ all of the time.”
Newsom is a prominent Democrat, and likely would be a contender for the 2028 Democratic nomination.
“He's everything that Maga hates,” Emily explains. “He's suave, he's good looking, he’s polished, liberal, he’s ‘California’”.
Emily says a lot has been leveled at Newsom more widely and more politically, in terms of “mismanagement” of California, even before the fires took place, with people leaving the state due to crisis in housing and crimes.
“But some of this stuff has just come from the same conspiracy pot, the Elon-fueled conspiracy pot, that we have seen so much of in the last three months,” she says.
The big problem this presents, Lewis and Emily agree, is that when misinformation spreads in a crisis, time can be wasted trying to clear up falsehoods, rather than clearing up the primary mess.
“How much of a distraction does it become in terms of the actual dealing with the day to day reality of the crisis itself?,” Lewis asks.
“If you have to stop whatever you're doing on an emergency level to start explaining about disinformation, that is not actually going to get water to people's houses any more quickly,” Emily adds.
Furthermore, when people are asking about what information can be trusted - and what is plain lies, they are distracted from asking the questions that matter.
“The incredible thing about this is that right now, people should be turning to Trump and saying; ‘You're the man that doesn't want electric cars. You're the man that doesn't believe in carbon as a negative. You're the man that should be taking climate change seriously’”.
“But that conversation has been pushed down the running order. Because right now, all they're doing is defending their record. They're not leveling these charges at Trump.
“And so for now, the Trump-ites have got away with this. They don't have to actually address the biggest question in the room, which is; ‘Well, do you still not believe in climate change when all this is happening?’”