During an interview aired on Wednesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “AC360,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) stated that local authorities are trying to figure out the situation with water and that President-Elect Donald Trump “wanted to politicize” the disaster, adding, “I have a lot of thoughts, and I know what I want to say. I won’t.”
Host Anderson Cooper asked, “What is the situation with the water? Obviously, in the Palisades, it ran out last night…I was talking to the firefighter on this block, they left because there was no water in the hydrant here.”
Newsom answered, “The local folks are trying to figure that out. When you have a system that is not dissimilar to what we’ve seen in other extraordinarily large-scale fires, whether it be pipe electricity or whether it just be the complete overwhelm of the system, those hydrants are typical for two or three fires, maybe one fire, you have something at this scale. But, again, that’s going to be determined by the local authorities.”
Newsom further stated that water is being brought in from other areas and there are aerial assets up.
Later, Cooper asked about the criticism Newsom has gotten from President-Elect Trump and Newsom said, “[O]ne can’t even respond to it. It’s — people are literally fleeing, people have lost their lives, kids lost their schools, families completely torn asunder, churches burned down. And this guy wanted to politicize it. I have a lot of thoughts, and I know what I want to say. I won’t. I stood next to the president of the United States of America today, and I was proud to be with Joe Biden and he had the backs of every single person in this community. And he didn’t play politics, didn’t try to divide any of us.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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