Donald Trump lays out two demands in exchange for California wildfire aid

President Donald Trump got more specific Friday about the criteria he wants California to meet before he approves sending federal aid to the state as Los Angeles County recovers from devastating wildfires.

“Voter ID, so that the people have a chance to vote,” Trump told reporters Friday in North Carolina when asked whether he would place conditions on any federal aid. “And I want to see the water be released and come down into Los Angeles and throughout the state.”

• California fire map & tracker: Latest updates on active fires throughout the state

Though federal funds for disaster recovery have traditionally been a nonpartisan effort, Trump threatened to withhold aid from California during his first presidency. Then, after two blazes devastated the Pacific Palisades neighborhood and the town of Altadena this month, House Republicans followed Trump’s lead and began to demand the state make changes — although they said little to nothing about what the changes should be.

Trump made the comments Friday in Asheville, N.C., where he toured damage from Hurricane Helene. Republicans have not publicly floated withholding aid from that state, which voted for Trump in the past three presidential elections. He was scheduled to tour damage from the Los Angeles fires later Friday.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, has previously criticized Trump and other Republicans’ threats to withhold disaster aid to California and their efforts to politicize the devastating fires in Los Angeles. He still planned to greet Trump on the tarmac when he arrived in California.

“Conditioning aid to American citizens is wrong,” Newsom spokesperson Tara Gallegos said in a statement in response to Trump’s latest threats.

Gallegos noted that California is one of 15 states, including at least two that voted for Trump, that do not require voter identification at polls. Californians’ citizenship status and residency are checked when they register to vote. Gallegos also said California pumps as much water from the north of the state to the south as it could under previous Trump-era policies.

Trump’s demand for voter IDs will probably be cheered by the Orange County city of Huntington Beach, which has fought many of the state’s Democratic policies. The city won a victory in court late last year when a judge rejected a lawsuit brought by the state to overturn the city’s law requiring voter identification at the polls. Attorney General Rob Bonta and Secretary of State Shirley Weber are appealing the decision.

Most of California’s voting has been conducted by mail since the state made permanent the vote-by-mail policies enacted during the pandemic. San Francisco and Oakland have each enacted laws that allow noncitizens to vote in local school board elections. After two courts deemed San Francisco’s law valid, a conservative group dropped its challenge.

Republicans have long argued that voter ID requirements would help restore public confidence in the integrity of U.S. elections. After Trump’s 2020 election loss, he promoted the lie that the election was stolen. During the 2024 campaign, Trump falsely said noncitizens were voting, sometimes after being encouraged to do so by Democrats.

“Our elections are bad, and a lot of these illegal immigrants coming in, they’re trying to get them to vote,” Trump said at the Sept. 10 presidential debate.

Trump did not elaborate on why wildfire aid would be tied to an unrelated political priority.

California Republican Party Vice Chair Corrin Rankin welcomed the move.

“His call for voter ID laws and a focus on improving water management policies hits at two critical issues — election integrity and responsible resource management. These proposals spark necessary conversations about how we protect our communities, rebuild after disasters and prevent future ones, and ensure a government that’s accountable to its citizens,” Rankin said in a statement.

Trump was more specific Friday about his demands regarding California’s approach to water management, which seeks to balance the health of rivers, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and fish including salmon with farmers’ and residents’ demand for supplies diverted from waterways.

“I will demand that this incompetent governor allow beautiful, clean, fresh water to FLOW INTO CALIFORNIA!” Trump wrote on his site Truth Social after the fires broke out. “He is the blame for this.”

Trump has since said he wants to revive a 2020 order he signed to redirect more water to the Central Valley and Southern California. California successfully challenged the order in court.

On his first day back in the White House, Trump directed his administration to develop a plan to “route more water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to other parts of the state.”  

Trump has inaccurately blamed the ongoing fires on California’s water policies. Experts and state and local officials say that’s not true and that changes to the state’s water system would not have affected the fight against the fires.

“Trump is either unaware of how water is stored in California or is deliberately misleading the public,” Gallegos said. “His statements have been repeatedly fact-checked and debunked. There is no imaginary spigot to magically make water appear at a wildfire, despite what Trump claims.”

On Thursday, Newsom signed a $2.5 billion wildfire aid package into law. He referenced Trump’s politicization of aid money in his remarks: “I want to thank everybody that cleared the deck, that didn’t play politics with this. This money will be made available immediately.”

Sophia Bollag contributed to this report.

Reach Sara Libby: sara.libby@sfchronicle.com