President Donald Trump on Friday once again made it clear that he wants wildfire-ravaged California to bend to his demands if residents want to see any federal disaster aid.
“I want two things: I want voter ID for the people of California. They all want it. Right now you don’t have voter ID,” Trump said Friday, as he toured parts of North Carolina still reeling from the effects of Hurricane Helene.
Trump added: “And I want the water to be released, and they’re going to get a lot of help from the U.S.”
California’s left-leaning voters and Democratic leadership are one of Trump’s favorite punching bags; he has not made any suggestion that future aid to conservative-leaning states be hinged on political demands.
Nationwide polling suggests that voter ID laws are broadly popular, but critics say they correct for a problem — ineligible people, like noncitizens, attempting to illegally vote — that is very rare, and do harm in the process. Research shows that voter ID laws disproportionately impact certain demographics who are less likely to have an acceptable ID, such as elderly and Black voters. Voter fraud also does not occur in any widespread way, numerous experts say and investigations have found.
As for California’s water supply, officials have said that volume is not the problem.
Some fire hydrants ran dry during efforts to stop the Pacific Palisades fire, but officials said that was due to the fire’s damaging effects on the system, not a lack of water to run through it. A reservoir in the area was undergoing renovations and had been taken out of service, although it is unclear how much that resource would have helped contain such a large, hot and fast-moving blaze. (Fire retardants and ground-clearing techniques can be more effective.)
The state’s water management effort is complicated, with critics on all parts of the political spectrum.
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House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and other congressional Republicans have been discussing attaching strings to wildfire aid, putting California Republicans in a difficult position.
Federal aid for natural disasters may also look far different in the future if Trump gets his way and overhauls or eliminates the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as he also suggested on Friday. That would instead leave states to organize their own emergency response to any disasters.