California’s Gavin Newsom in DC seeking fire disaster aid. Here’s what he said about Trump
This story has been updated.
President Donald Trump “will do the right thing” and support aid for wildfire-ravaged Southern California, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday during a visit to Washington that included stops at the Capitol and later at White House to talk with Trump.
Trump has routinely mocked the governor but cooperated in times of crisis. After their meeting, Newsom said he “expressed his appreciation for the Trump administration’s collaboration.”
The governor thanked Environmental Protection Agency administration Lee Zeldin for what Newsom called the agency’s “swift action, including over 1,000 personnel on the ground focused on debris removal.
Newsom issued a statement calling the session with Trump “a very productive meeting,” though he gave no details. The White House has not commented.
Newsom spent most of his day on Capitol Hill, talking with members of both parties. He plans to return Thursday.
The governor spoke to The Bee twice during the day in separate interviews. Asked whether he was confident he would get GOP support, the governor said, “I have to reflect on the word confident a little bit more. I believe we can and will and we should. It’s just the right thing to do.”
Trump and Republican leaders are talking about attaching conditions to the aid. Among the potential conditions mentioned are stricter immigration enforcement and requiring tougher voter ID laws.
The ultimate outcome of Newsom’s sprint through Washington, the governor said, would be “directional.” He asked people here what more information they seek and how Newsom and California can support the larger budget package that would include aid to the state.
“Nothing’s going to be solved today,” Newsom said. “I believe people will do the right things.”
Day at the Capitol
Newsom met with lawmakers from both parties at Capitol. Republicans control both the House and the Senate and so far GOP leaders have not backed away from attaching conditions to any disaster aid for California.
The governor said he tried to explain how “there’s some mutuality” in the interests of different states that will some day have to seek disaster aid, too. He said people understood that ”I think there’s that spirit of bipartisanship.”
Most of those he met understood that. It’s the others he needs to get aid without strings. “To the extent that others are still waiting in the wings for direction … that’s why I’m meeting with the president,” Newsom said. “At the end of the day, it’s going to be his call.”
Republican leaders have made their desires clear. “As long as America lacks proper forest management, then we will continue to see terrible, costly tragedies like we’ve seen in California and Wyoming,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyoming, said in a Senate floor speech last month.
“With better forest management, we can lessen the damage of future fires,” he said. “We’ve seen massive mismanagement and gross incompetence by the Democrat leaders in California. That must change.”
Newsom met Wednesday with three California Democratic House members and two California Republicans, including Reps. Doug LaMalfa of Oroville and Ken Calvert of Corona.
Calvert said afterward, “When it comes to disasters we’re all working together,” but said it was not unusual for disaster aid legislation to have conditions attached.
LaMalfa, who met with Newsom for about half an hour, said, “He assured me we’re a lot closer on many of these things,” but still wanted more details on how aid money has been spent and could be spent.
In the Senate, Newsom had talks with California Democrats Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, as well as Democratic Sens. Patty Murray, of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Sens. Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico.
Newsom and Trump
Trump holds the key to any federal aid. Though the president has routinely derided the governor, referring to him as “Newscum,” the governor said he’s found Trump a willing partner in times of crisis.
He called his relationship with Trump “interesting … more interesting than most.”
Their meeting is the first time since his victory in the November election that Trump will greet a longtime political opponent who is considering his own bid for higher office at the White House.
The two men got along well in trying to help recovery efforts after previous wildfires and during the 2020 Covid crisis, Newsom said.
He recalled his first meeting Trump in 2018, when they toured damage in Paradise, California, from the Camp Fire.
“We maintained a working relationship,’’ Newsom said Wednesday. “There was sort of this underlying engagement.”
He met with Trump last month when the president toured the wildfire-damaged areas in Los Angeles and was to meet with him again later Wednesday.
Newsom said his hope is “just reinforcing a relationship with trust and communication.”
The governor has notably taken a less-combative approach to Trump than when the Los Angeles fires initially broke out last month.
He left California on Tuesday without acknowledging the Legislature’s passage of two bills that would shore up California’s legal defenses against the White House. A spokesperson said Newsom would sign them into law after he returns from Washington, D.C., later this week.
As he spoke in a Capitol basement corridor, he looked around. “What I don’t understand, the world here. We’re talking about Gaza today, Greenland yesterday.”
His purpose in Washington, Newsom said, is to cut through all that. Asked how he would define a successful trip, he said, “making sure that the American people who happen to live in the state of California have the same support that traditionally has been afforded to people living in disaster-prone and disaster-impacted areas of the country.
“Really, that’s the mindset. The rest is noise, distraction,” he said.
This story was originally published February 5, 2025 at 10:27 AM.
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