President-elect Donald Trump took his complaints about the wildfire disaster in California to a new level on Thursday, with a Truth Social post baselessly suggesting that Gov. Gavin Newsom was withholding water firefighters could be using to protect homes and businesses.”Governor Gavin Newscum should immediately go to Northern California and open up the water main, and let the water flow into his dry, starving, burning State, instead of having it go out into the Pacific Ocean,” Trump said. “It ought to be done right now, NO MORE EXCUSES FROM THIS INCOMPETENT GOVERNOR. IT’S ALREADY FAR TOO LATE!”Trump has repeatedly claimed that California officials are somehow blocking firefighters from accessing water — which appears to be a confused misinterpretation of long-running political battles in the state over how to allocate water between agricultural, commercial, residential and environmental use. He made similar accusations in 2018 about water being denied to firefighters during an aggressive fire season in Northern California, prompting the state fire agency to issue a statement clarifying this is not true.ALSO READ: Trump intel advisor Devin Nunes still dismisses Russian election meddling as a ‘hoax’Firefighters have struggled to maintain water pressure as they have tried to save neighborhoods like Pacific Palisades Experts say it’s because aging water infrastructure in Los Angeles is being overstressed by the sudden spike in demand, depleting tanks faster than they can be refilled.In previous fire disasters, Trump has also accused California officials of failing to properly manage forests, at one point suggesting they should have raked leaves to prevent wildfires, like Finland does — a remark that led to widespread mockery from Finns on social media.He made similar claims about the latest fire disaster, which forced a reporter on Fox News to point out that forest management was irrelevant given that the fire in Malibu began in a residential area.
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