Republicans sound eager to deny fire aid to Los Angeles

Los Angeles is still ablaze and being ravaged by a raft of unprecedented wildfires. And some Republicans see opportunities to settle scores and punish liberals by withholding crucial aid.

At a September news conference, Trump floated the possibility of denying wildfire aid to California as president unless the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, acquiesced to his policy demands. He said if Newsom doesn’t come to heel, “we won’t give him money to put out all his fires.”

“And if we don’t give him the money to put out his fires, he’s got problems,” Trump added. It was an explicit threat.

Now, with fires raging, Trump and his allies — including Elon Musk — have waged a dubious misinformation war against Newsom, peddling fact-free propaganda blaming the governor, and liberals more broadly, for the ongoing tragedy. And in the midst of this conspiratorial blame game, Republicans are embracing the prospect of withholding vital aid.

That includes far-right activist Charlie Kirk. As Media Matters noted, Kirk said Tuesday that Trump should withhold aid unless Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley — who, as the city’s first openly gay fire chief, has garnered hatred from bigots looking to blame the fires on diversity measures — is fired.

“And when California, in a couple of weeks, comes crawling back for federal assistance, Trump should say, ‘Listen, I’m not gonna give you a dime unless you fire the lesbian Kristins,’” Kirk said.

In a Fox Business interview Friday, Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio said disaster relief should be contingent on policy changes in California. “If they want the money, then there should be consequences where they have to change their policies,” he said, baselessly claiming that state officials have embraced policies that are “making the problem bad or worse.”

There’s no evidence the fires were caused or exacerbated by California’s policies. In fact, I’d argue it’s a climate-ignorant party that bows to Big Oil — such as Davidson’s Republican Party — that bears some responsibility for what we’re seeing play out in California, given the GOP’s refusal to adequately reckon with the reality of climate-related disasters.

But this baseless notion that local or statewide mismanagement is to blame is quickly becoming a pretense for Republicans to ponder denying aid to California.

On Thursday, Rep. Andy Harris told Newsmax that money for wildfire aid isn’t a priority for Republicans because “we just put more money into FEMA before we left for the Christmas holidays,” and the Maryland Republican claimed that Los Angeles “mishandled the fire department so egregiously that they ought to bear some of the burden for that rebuilding.”

In a time of crisis, Republicans are giving Americans — Los Angelenos in particular — a taste of the vengeful and overtly political behavior we can expect from the party in the years ahead.

This article was originally published on MSNBC.com

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