For the second time in as many months, former President Donald Trump threatened to withhold federal wildfire aid from California if he is elected for a second term.
Trump echoed the threat on Saturday during a campaign rally at Coachella Valley. The candidate, an hour into his rally, said he’d fix the state’s water issue without providing details about how he’d do it.
“We’re going to take care of your water situation, and we’ll force it down (Governor Gavin Newsom’s) throat,” Trump said. “And we’ll say, Gavin, if you don’t do it, we’re not giving any of that fire money that we send you all the time for all the forest fires that you have. It’s not hard to do.”

Trump’s previous threat on Sept. 15 sparked backlash from California’s wildland firefighting force, namely from California Professional Firefighters President Brian K. Rice.
“Trump expressed that he would play with [Californians’] lives and their homes if he doesn’t get what he wants,” Rice said in a statement posted on Twitter. “He would rather watch our state burn in the name of his political games, than to send help if he were to become president again…It is a disgrace to our great nation and to every Californian that this man has a platform to threaten our livelihoods, safety, families and our state.”
The union did not share thoughts on Trump’s second threat, as they were among a gathering of hundreds of firefighters and families in Sacramento for the 2024 California Firefighters Memorial Ceremony. The names of 36 California firefighters who died in the line of duty in 2024 were added to the memorial wall, which already includes more than 1,500 names.
Denying disaster aid to California is a tradition for Trump. The then-president initially denied a California request for aid in 2020, during what would become its most disastrous wildfire season on record.
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