President Donald Trump went off the rails when asked about California wildfires during his first full day in office. He claims city officials are diverting "limitless" water to the ocean through a "massive valve."
    • DrFistington@lemmy.world
      2·
      54 minutes ago

      Seriously, everyone who speaks to him should just ask about president musk. Trump will fucking stroke out.

  • ryannathans@aussie.zone
    13·
    13 hours ago

    This follows on from previous posts https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/fact-checking-misinformation-about-the-los-angeles-wildfires-and-california-water-policy

    Trump, in a Jan. 8 Truth Social post, blamed Newsom’s management for the water issues, and said Newsom had refused to allow “beautiful, clean, fresh water to flow into California.”

    “Governor Gavin (Newsom) 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 said. “He 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.”

    Trump’s posts seemed to blame the water constraints on statewide water management plans that capture rain and snow as it flows from Northern California. But experts said those plans would not have affected the fire response.

    Southern California has plenty of water stored, said Mark Gold, the water scarcity solutions director at the Natural Resources Defense Council and a Southern California Metropolitan Water District board member.

  • return2ozma@lemmy.worldOP
    1112·
    19 hours ago

    He claimed Los Angeles limits residents to just 38 gallons of water a day, and referred to some mythical “valve” that could bring limitless water to L.A., but that officials instead diverted to the ocean.

    “They have a valve, think of a sink but multiply it by many thousands of times the size of it, it’s massive. And you turn it back toward Los Angeles. Why aren’t they doing it? They either have a death wish, they’re stupid or there’s something else going on that we don’t understand,” Trump said.

    • Rhaedas@fedia.io
      125·
      19 hours ago

      or there’s something else going on that we I don’t understand," Trump said.

      He was so close to realization.

    • minnow@lemmy.world
      18·
      17 hours ago

      They either have a death wish, they’re stupid or there’s something else

      You know what they say. Everything that comes out of their mouths is either a confession or projection!

    • Mac@mander.xyzEnglish
      10·
      15 hours ago

      Maybe hes thinking of the fact that ~80% of California’s water goes to irrigation for crops instead of to communities.

      • Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works
        81·
        13 hours ago

        Tbf, the crops come to our communities. We love our fresh California produce. It sparks joy.

        And the Palisades had enough water to drink and fill pools and grow landscape plants, and several people were hosing down their homes (a few died with hose in hand because the fire was way too strong for that and they should have evacuated but a lot of the rest of us made stupid decisions in the moment that just didn’t turn out as deadly.) but the real problem was that wind. They couldn’t do airdrops, the conflagration was too powerful. There was a problem with the hydrants, but honestly even if they’d been fully functioning it’s not clear if much more could have been saved. Altadena had plenty of water too, with working hydrants, but that maelstrom of fire was just crazy, man.

    • HeyJoe@lemmy.world
      10·
      17 hours ago

      Stupid does apply here, just not in the way he thinks it does. Also, who is “they”? Is he just referring to liberals?

      • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        1·
        4 hours ago

        Also, who is “they”? Is he just referring to liberals?

        A lot of people are about to have a crash course on how fascism works…

      • ramble81@lemm.ee
        11·
        14 hours ago

        I hate “they”. Whenever someone at work says “they” I immediately ask “who?” and don’t get off of it until they actually name a person. Does wonders for stopping the random boogeyman.

  • Cyrus Draegur@lemm.eeEnglish
    491·
    17 hours ago

    this is America.

    a zombie state that doesn’t realize it’s already dead.

    and nobody is willing to do what must be done to stop it.

      • Sterile_Technique@lemmy.worldEnglish
        11·
        14 hours ago

        Naw, playing it off as that fucker having a limited mental capacity takes away from the culpability of his actions. Hanlon’s razor absolutely does NOT apply to global leaders: the only assumption we can make is that everything he does is calculated and the effects of which are 100% intentional.

        People with mental retardation might do something harmful because their DNA dealt them a shitty hand and their mind isn’t equipped to self-correct in a socially acceptable way.

        When Trump does something harmful, it’s because he wants to cause harm, cuz he’s an evil sack of shit.

  • spike4379@lemmy.world
    310·
    11 hours ago

    This guys a massive regard. Sad that I moved to lemmy because mods on reddit were oversensitive but the same thing is here lmao

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
      4·
      7 hours ago

      Don’t worry. I hear Trump is transferring funds to unimportant things like the Center for Disease Control and WIC in order to start his new Federal Forest Raking Program.

    • TommySoda@lemmy.world
      172·
      13 hours ago

      Alright, then how about you go rake the leaves of the national forest and parks behind my house? You got this. Should be pretty easy from what you’re saying.

    • Rooskie91@discuss.online
      128·
      18 hours ago

      What do you get out of this? Are you some kind of abused dog that accepts negative attention likes its positive attention because it’s never received positive attention? Go to therapy, please, for yourself if no one else.

      • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
        161·
        18 hours ago

        He’s alluding to a previous comment during Trump’s first term during earlier California wildfires about how Finland raked their forests.

        https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46256296

        Citing a conversation with his Finnish counterpart, Mr Trump said they spend “a lot of time on raking and cleaning”.

        But President Sauli Niinisto told a Finnish daily he could not remember talking about raking when the two met.

        Firefighters in California are currently battling the deadliest blaze in the state’s history.

        Surveying the damage on Saturday, Mr Trump revisited his claim that poor forest management was to blame.

        “You look at other countries where they do it differently, and it’s a whole different story,” he said.

        “I was with the president of Finland, and he said: ‘We have a much different [sic]…, we’re a forest nation.’ And they spent a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things, and they don’t have any problem,” he added.