OAN Staff Abril Elfi
9:40 AM – Sunday, January 26, 2025
President Donald Trump blasted Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass on Friday, demanding she use her “emergency powers,” allowing residents to return to their homes to rebuild.
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Following his tour of the Southern California wildfire damages, Trump has called on Bass (D-Calif.) to allow residents to access their properties to clear debris and begin reconstruction.
“I just think you have to allow the people to go on their site and start the process tonight,” Trump told the Democratic mayor, who was seated next to him during a roundtable discussion that included most of the area’s congressional delegation.
“And we will,” Bass claimed, despite contradicting herself minutes later by offering a one-week timeframe for residents to be allowed to visit the charred remains of their homes. “We want people to be safe.”
Many residents were standing around, protesting their inability to go see the damage the fires have caused to their home.
“We can’t even see our homes right now!” a local woman shouted.
Trump then urged Bass to use her emergency powers to help residents, as the process of attaining proper permits could take up to “18 months.”
“I watched hundreds of people standing in front of their lots, and they’re not allowed to go in,” Trump stated.
“It’s all burned. It’s gone, it’s done. Nothing’s going to happen… The people are all over the place. They’re standing and they say… ‘We’re trying to get a permit’, and the permit is going to take them, everybody said, 18 months,” Trump continued.
“You have emergency powers, just like I do, and I’m exercising my emergency powers. You have to exercise them also,” Trump told Bass.
“I did exercise them,” she insisted. “If individuals want to clear out their property, they can.”
Trump continued stating that he will try to quickly begin rebuilding by waiving any federal permits and that he would pressure California officials to do the same.
“We’re going to essentially waive all federal permits,” Trump said. “I’m going to override the Coastal Commission, I’m not going to let them get away with their antics.”
Trump has previously criticized California Democrats for the way they have dealt with the crisis, including failing to clear parched vegetation, inadequately supplying water to the area, allowing fire hydrants to run dry, and creating a situation where many fire insurance providers pulled out of the region last year.
Trump continued to blast California officials for failing to secure fire insurance for Los Angeles residents, saying he was “not a fan” of insurers but that “you lost your insurance companies six months ago because the state wouldn’t give them what they had to have.”
“People that think like you made it so impossible,” Trump told Representative Brad Sherman (D-Calif.).
The president stated that he would be mandating that water be allowed to flow from the northern part of California to the Los Angeles area.
Governor Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) met Trump on the tarmac when he arrived in California on Friday, however, he did not go with the president to any of the meetings with the residents and firefighters.
“I’m signing an executive order to open up the pumps and valves in the north. We want to get that water pouring down here as quickly as possible to let hundreds of millions of gallons of water flow down into Southern California,” Trump said. “I tell you who does like it is the fire department… I really strongly recommended this seven years ago. And I think I’m going to just do it.”
Trump continued stating that he will be putting his first-term ambassador to Germany, Ric Grenell, in charge of federal efforts to recover from the wildfires.
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