When the Santa Ana winds die down and the flames are finally extinguished, leadership in California from top to bottom will face a reckoning. Recriminations about water mismanagement, budget cuts, misguided priorities, and more are already flying, but they will reach a fever pitch in the near future. The LAFD chief is in a public spat with the mayor’s office over funding cuts that left firefighters with inadequate resources, even as she faces heat for prioritizing diversity hiring during her tenure. And she has blasted Los Angeles’ department of water and power for hydrants running dry when firefighters needed them most.
With so much dysfunction that has resulted in one of the U.S.’s worst natural disasters, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) doesn’t think the state should get funding without strings attached—an opinion that’s picking up steam on the right.
During an appearance on Newsmax Monday, host Chris Salcedo asked why other states should bail out California for electing the “wrong people to run their state.”
“We shouldn’t be,” Tuberville replied. “They got 40 million people in that state and they vote in these imbeciles in office, and they continue to do it. And it’s just a very small part of them in that state that’s doing it. If you go to California, you run into a lot of Republicans, a lot of good people. And I hate it for them. But they are just overwhelmed by these inner city woke policies with the people that vote for them.”
While he’s fine with sending “some money,” Tuberville argued the state must get to work addressing water storage and carrying out fire prevention measures.
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“I don’t mind sending them some money," he said. "But unless they show that they’re going to change their ways and get back to building dams and storing water, doing the maintenance with the brush and the trees and everything that everybody else does in the country, and they refuse to do it – they don’t deserve anything, to be honest with you, unless they show us they’re going to make some changes, Chris.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson made a similar argument on Monday during an interview with CNN’s Manu Raju.
"There has been water resource mismanagement, forest management mistakes, all sorts of problems. And it does come down to leadership. And it appears to us that state and local leaders were derelict in their duty and in many respects," he said.
"So that’s something that has to be factored in. I think there should probably be conditions on that aid," he added. "That’s my personal view. We’ll see what the consensus is. I haven’t had a chance to socialize that with any of the members over the weekend, because we’ve all been very busy, but it’ll be part of the discussion for sure."
Democrats took issue with that position.
This is a Mistake. If you start this, it will never end. When Dems retake the House, they will condition aid to Florida and Texas. Disaster Aid must stay non partisan. I would fight democrats should they try and do this. The Speaker can find many other ways to hold people… https://t.co/jlnYRSWd9K
— Jared Moskowitz (@JaredEMoskowitz) January 13, 2025
