President Donald Trump told reporters Friday at a press briefing in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, that he would make sure the state had access to more water if he was elected.
Asked by a reporter what he would do to help people affected by forest fires in the state, Trump pivoted to talk about California’s water management policies.
“This is my favorite question of the day,” he said, before launching into an extensive monologue about how the state denies water to farms because of environmental policies that prioritize fish species like the Delta smelt.
While the smelt issue disrupted state water policy nearly 20 years ago because of litigation in federal courts, it is true that the state has often flushed water from dams out to sea to maintain flow levels rather than providing it to farmers and other users.
It is also true that Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has made almost no progress in building water storage facilities; the last reservoir built by the state was completed nearly half a century ago. Breitbart News reported last year that enough water had fallen on the state that winter to supply California’s needs for 10 years, had it been stored.
Water is restricted, Trump said, “in order to protect a certain little tiny fish called the smelt. They send millions and millions of gallons of water out to the Pacific Ocean … the reason you have no water is because Gavin Newscum [sic] didn’t want to do it. I had it all done … all those fields that are, right now, barren — the farmers would have all the water they needed — and you could revert water up into the hills, where you have all the dead forests.”
It was not clear what Newsom had declined to do, though Trump may have been referring to a memorandum he signed as president in 2018 to streamline approval processes for water infrastructure projects. The state has not seized the opportunity to build any.
Trump went on to say that he would withhold money for firefighting from California if Newsom did not agree to changes in water policy — a statement that triggered Newsom into responding on X (formerly Twitter):
(Trump never denied Newsom emergency funds during disasters in his four years as president, despite frequent arguments with California — though he did withhold $1 billion in federal funds for the state’s high-speed rail project after Newsom canceled part of the plan.)
Trump touched on forest mismanagement — a familiar topic of controversy with Newsom — before returning to water:
Vote for me, California … I’m going to give you more water than almost anybody has. And the farmers up north, they’re going to be able to use 100% of their land, not 1% of their land, and the water is going to come all the way down to Los Angeles. and you are going to have more water than you ever saw. … We have tremendous amounts, millions of gallons of water that’s shoved right into the Pacific Ocean, where it doesn’t make a dent. And all of that water is going to take care of California and nobody can make a bigger promise that that. You’re not going to have to do desalination plants, which a lot of people want to do, very expensive to do, but it’s better than the alternative of no water. So, California — vote for Trump, and you’re going to have water, and you’re going to have growth, and you’re going to have prosperity, and all those people that are leaving are going to really come back.
Trump added that Rancho Palos Verdes, where heavy rainfall over the last two years has caused catastrophic residential landslides, might not want more water, but he quipped that they would find a way to bypass the peninsula.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.