President Donald Trump has listed two specific conditions that must be met before California receives any federal aid in the wake of the Los Angeles County wildfires.
Trump along with the first lady visited Asheville, North Carolina, on Thursday to assess the damage from Hurricane Helene and will then visit to California on Friday to assess the damage from the wildfires.
Speaking to reporters at the Asheville airport, Trump said he has two conditions for California before they can expect aid from the federal government.
“I want to see two things in Los Angeles; voter I.D so that the people have a chance to vote, and I wanna see the water released and come down into Loas Angeles, and throughout the state,” Trump told reporters, “Those are the two things, after that I will the greatest president that California has ever seen. I want the water to come down, and come down to Los Angeles, and also go out to all the farmland that’s barren and dry.”
The president noted the land in California has been likened to the fertile ground of Iowa, but suggested water has been withheld from the area, adding to its dry conditions.
“You know, they have land that they say is the equivalent of the land in Iowa, which is about as good as there is anywhere on Earth. The problem is its artificial because they artificially stop the water from going on to the land,” he said.
Trump reiterated he wants voter I.D. in California and proof of citizenship before a person can vote. California currently allows voting in the presidential election without the use of any identification, a security measure banned by California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) in September 2024.
“So, I want two things, I want voter I.D. for the people of California, they all want it,” Trump said, “Right now, you don’t have voter I.D., people wanna have voter identification, you wanna have proof of citizenship, ideally you have one-day voting. But I just want voter I.D. as a start, and I want the water to be released, and they’re gonna get a lot of help from the U.S.”
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As The Washington Post reported, “experts say solving the drought-stricken state’s water scarcity isn’t so simple.” Tom Holyoke, a Western water politics expert at California State University at Fresno, told the WaPo, “The president is injecting himself into a difficult, complex situation that people have been working on for” years.
