On Jan. 7, 2025, the Palisades and Eaton fires swept through prominent historical African American architectural communities in Los Angeles County–just a mere thirteen days before Donald Trump was inaugurated as President of the United States. Even before taking office, Trump fueled media deception (as he commonly does) to incite division and spread misinformation. This time, his targets were California Governor Gavin Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristen Crowley. In his inauguration speech, he dismissed California’s fire response, stating, “…We are watching fires still tragically burn from weeks ago without even a token of defense,” blatantly disrespecting the tremendous efforts of the state and the extraordinary community support that helped alleviate the disaster.
As someone who was involved in that community support, seeing the future president diminish and belittle the efforts of firefighters, volunteers, and residents across California is incredibly disheartening and utterly disgraceful. Beyond that, Trump’s baseless attack on Governor Newsom–specifically, the claim that Newsom’s water policies were responsible for both starting and ending the fires–is wildly untrue. In fact, 57% of California’s taxpayer-funded water supply is controlled by the Resnick’s, a billionaire couple; yet Trump, also a billionaire, conveniently chose not to call out his fellow corrupt ally. Instead of holding these elites responsible, he chose to blame the governor, who has managed less than half of California’s water while maintaining the world’s fifth-largest economy. Rather than acknowledging the state’s resilience, Trump resorted to finger-pointing, something that he does far more often and far better than governing the country efficiently or effectively.
On Jan. 24, Trump visited Los Angeles, where he advocated for eliminating the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). He also pushed local officials to waive permitting requirements for residents trying to rebuild their homes. FEMA is responsible for preparing, recovering and responding to disasters while also providing financial assistance. Cutting FEMA would be an incredibly selfish and incredibly reckless move, undermining, some of the most knowledgeable disaster relief professionals who have spent decades preparing for and assisting those in crisis. Trump’s stance is not only shortsighted but its self-serving, prioritizing his own political agenda over the well being of Americans in need of help.
Trump’s push to get rid of FEMA gained traction after some of the Hurricane Helene victims in North Carolina claimed Los Angeles was receiving more money or aid than they did. Instead of Trump educating his supporters, he added fuel to the fire and threatened that fire victims would need to present a voter ID in order to receive FEMA assistance. It’s appalling to see human tragedy when people have just lost their homes. Having a president who constantly blows everything out of proportion gives people false hope for what this country will become. Trump is using his savior tactic, such as he did with TikTok and Meta, where he will shut down, sue and lie to government organizations and private businesses. Once these organizations and businesses turn in his favor, he will give them back the resources they already rightfully had as a way to make himself seem like the savior when, in reality, he was the sole reason why it would either be diminished or changed.
When discussing permits, Trump and Bass got into a heated discussion on whether permits were necessary or not. As a Los Angeles native, I think an effective form of action for rebuilding homes is using resources FEMA provides. Through their Long Term Recovery Office, the city can build a fire relief government-based office that provides jobs to fire victims and effectively approves permits for residents to safely rebuild homes. Watching these political allegations take place threatening the chance many people have of rebuilding their homes is astonishing to see. To lackly address the looters (insurance companies, billionaires, etc.) who are maliciously trying to take innocent people’s homes away is disgraceful. However, Trump continues his talk on FEMA, not the other issues of Los Angeles’ current and future issues.
If Trump were to get rid of FEMA, places like California would see a great deal of trouble trying to get federal resources; however, it wouldn’t be as great of trouble as states such as North Carolina. Since California has such a high GDP, its emergency relief fund is great enough to support a natural disaster, but not for long. However, North Carolina and states that support Trump and him getting rid of FEMA will be affected the most. The hypocrisy of being so against an organization that does not support the same state you do and possibly affects yourself is disgraceful. These are the same supporters that will try to support unity behind a president who will ruin a country for money and greed and then use religion as an excuse which is a disgusting favor within itself.
The main question people have if FEMA were to be taken away is how California would rebuild without help? If California were to solely rely on its emergency relief fund, then California residents would have to therefore pay higher taxes. The emergency relief fund is mostly on California taxpayer dollars, and once the money slowly runs out the higher the taxes will be to make up the money that has left. As of right now, we are only in the beginning stage of relief however, we are also only in the prediction stage of how Los Angeles will recover and the resources that will be provided. The best thing people can do to effectively support residents, workers and the overall community is to visit https://lacounty.gov/relief/ and have the opportunity to donate and find places to volunteer.
