Newsom Urges Trump To Accept Invite To Tour Damage From Wildfires: ‘Respect’ Our ‘Pleas’

U.S. News

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Saturday called on President-elect Donald Trump to accept his invitation to visit Los Angeles as wildfires continue to wreak havoc on the city.

“He’s an incoming American president,” said Newsom, who invited Trump to visit California on Friday, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.

“I would expect any leader of the free world, the most powerful person in the United States of America, to respect the pleas of 40 million Americans that happen to live in the state of California … to be here for the American people at a time of emergency and a time of recovery.”

In his letter to Trump, Newsom invited the president-elect to “see the devastation firsthand” in a visit where he could thank first responders who are “putting their lives on the line” amid the fires, which have killed at least 16 people and burned over 12,000 structures with about 57,000 others still at risk.

Earlier in the week, the governor dismissed Trump’s efforts to “play politics” after the president-elect took to his Truth Social platform to blame him for the fires.

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Trump — who has called on Newsom to resign — has claimed that the governor refused to sign a “water restoration declaration,” blamed efforts to protect an “essentially worthless fish” species for the fires and complained that there’s “no water for fire hydrants, not firefighting planes” (officials have blamed “tremendous demand” for water storage tanks running dry).

The governor, in an interview with Fox’s Los Angeles affiliate KTTV, renewed his request for Trump as he pointed to residents whose lives have been “completely torn apart” by the fires.

“It’s with an open hand, not a closed fist and I’m not interested in politicizing an event like this,” Newsom told Fox 11′s Elex Michaelson.

“I don’t like the venality of it, I don’t like the inhumanity of that, I would like people to focus on a collaboration between the executive in Washington, D.C. and in the state of California to help rebuild a community that’s been completely ravaged.”

Newsom, when asked if the two have talked about the fires, said they haven’t discussed the topic and he reached out to the president-elect again on Saturday.

He didn’t directly answer whether Trump had returned his call before turning to talk of his “intention” behind the invitation.

HuffPost has reached out to Trump’s team for comment.

Newsom, after remarking on President Joe Biden’s response to the wildfires, told Michaelson that he’s “not interested in the theater of political consternation.”

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“That’s what he’s interested in and I think it’s pretty shameful, personally,” said Newsom of Trump. “But it shouldn’t extend beyond this, I want to turn the page. I think everyone does.”

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