As California works to recover from the deadliest and most destructive wildfire season in its recorded history, President Donald Trump declared in a tweet on Wednesday that he has "ordered" the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to cut off federal funding unless the state's officials "get their act together."
Misspelling the word "forest" twice in the same tweet, Trump wrote: "Billions of dollars are sent to the State of California for Forrest [sic] fires that, with proper Forrest [sic] Management, would never happen. Unless they get their act together, which is unlikely, I have ordered FEMA to send no more money. It is a disgraceful situation in lives and money!"
Likely recognizing his spelling errors, Trump quickly deleted the tweet and re-uploaded another with the correct spelling. Here's a screengrab of the initial tweet:
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) declared that Trump's tweet "deserves a 5-star award for idiocy."
"The state owns three percent of the forests in California," Merkley noted. "No matter how many people with rakes they deploy, forests are going to burn because of longer, hotter summers due to climate chaos."
This deserves a 5-star award for idiocy. The state owns 3% of the forests in Cal. No matter how many people with rakes they deploy, forests are going to burn b/c of longer, hotter summers due to climate chaos. https://t.co/FLJrDjTpjD
— Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) January 9, 2019
Trump's latest Twitter outburst toward California came as the state's newly elected Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed an additional $105 million in spending to prevent, counter, and recover from wildfires.
"Weird how we're all told it's beyond the bounds of propriety to talk about impeaching a president who capriciously threatens to cut off disaster aid to the country's largest state immediately after its worst wildfire season in history," Simon Maloy, a senior writer at Media Matters for America, added in response to Trump's tweet.
