President Donald Trump said California officials could have stopped the LA wildfires by turning on a water tap, releasing gallons as the city burned.
Trump, 78, told a news conference on Tuesday that “Los Angeles has enormous amounts of water at its disposal” and “all they have to do is turn on the tap.”
“Think of a sink, but multiply it by many thousands of times its size, it’s huge,” he said.
“And you turn it back towards Los Angeles. Why don’t they do it? They have a death wish, they’re stupid, or there’s something else going on that we don’t understand.
‘They throw the water in the Pacific Ocean, these people are crazy. So we’re going to issue an executive order demanding that they immediately move that water through California.”
California Governor Gavin Newsom disputed the claims, telling DailyMail.com in a statement that “Trump is neither aware of how water is stored in California nor is he deliberately misleading the public.”
Trump said the “valve” diverts water from the Pacific Northwest, where “millions of gallons of water per week and per day even flow into California in many cases (and) flow all the way through California to Los Angeles.”
It’s unclear which “valve” Trump is referring to, but one of the executive actions he ordered staff on his first day on the job to find ways to divert more water from Northern California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to the rest of the state.
President Donald Trump has blamed California officials for “creating an inferno” that recently leveled large parts of Los Angeles by simply not turning on a water tap.

California Governor Gavin Newsom (pictured in LA on January 8) has disputed claims that water mismanagement was a factor in the widespread destruction caused by the fires
The order is titled Putting People Over Fish: Stopping Radical Environmentalism to Provide Water to Southern California.
Meanwhile, the Santa Ynez Reservoir in the Palisades was closed for cover repairs as the worst of the wildfires broke out in the wealthy neighborhood, according to the LA times.
This meant the 117-gallon water storage complex had already been out of use for almost a year when the fires started.
Trump added that LA’s fire hydrants “had no water” and that “40 percent of the hydrants were dry” when the wildfires broke out on January 7.
The president also had contact with California state authorities during his first term, claiming they were placing limits on the amount of water his administration could move south to protect the Delta smelt fish, which live close to the reservoir.
In the more recent “Meet the Press” interview, Newsom called any connection between the fish and the fire “inexcusable because it is inaccurate.”
His office also hit Trump directly back at X, saying California’s water supplies are now at the same levels they were under his pre-2020 policies.
“The only thing that is suspect is Trump’s facts,” Newsom’s office said. “California is now pumping as much water as it could under previous Trump-era policies. And there is no shortage of water in Southern California.”
“Moving more water from Northern California would not have affected the fire response,” Newsom’s spokesperson told DailyMail.com in a statement.
“The water operations in the Delta have nothing to do with local firefighting in Los Angeles.
“Trump is either unaware of how water is stored in California or is deliberately misleading the public.
“There is no imaginary tap that will magically make water appear on a forest fire, despite what Trump claims.”
Newsom also wrote a letter to the California Department of Water and Power on Jan. 10 asking it to investigate the response, including any water supply issues.
“Although water supplies from local fire hydrants are not designed to extinguish wildfires over large areas, the loss of hydrant supplies has likely hampered efforts to protect some homes and evacuation corridors,” he wrote in the letter.

His office also hit back directly at Trump on

Newsom also wrote a letter to the California Department of Water and Power on Jan. 10 asking it to investigate the response, including any water supply issues.
“We need answers to how that happened.”
It comes as the Palisades Fire continues to rage through the ritzy, star-studded enclave of LA, while the Eaton Fire still burns in Altadena. New fires have also broken out in Riverside and San Diego.
Trump, who also criticized the response to the fires in his inaugural address, has said he will travel to Los Angeles on Friday during his first week in office.
He previously said he had not been there before because he “thought it would be better if I went as president.”
Los Angeles residents have also attacked the city’s mayor, Karen Bass, for being in Ghana when the fires broke out, despite ample warnings from meteorologists that the upcoming weather forecast was a recipe for disaster.
Meanwhile, police have arrested two people for allegedly setting fires during the massacre, including Ruben Montes, 29, who was being held on arson charges in Irwindale, about 15 miles from Altadena, where the deadly Eaton Fire continues to rage.
Mexican national Juan Manuel Sierra-Leyva was taken into custody after he was reportedly caught on video walking with a yellow blowtorch before being confronted by residents of Calabasas, west of Beverly Hills.

They spread so quickly that staff at a senior living center had to push dozens of residents in wheelchairs and hospital beds down the street to a parking lot in apocalyptic scenes.

Evacuations have been ordered for parts of San Diego County, while other area residents are urged to pack up and leave. (Photo: The Lilac Fire on January 21)
Although investigators have yet to determine the cause of the fires, faults in Los Angeles’ power grid increased alarmingly in the same areas where major wildfires were raging, sparking theories that the faults could also have catalyzed the crisis.
The damaged structures include dozens of multi-million dollar mega-mansions owned by celebrities such as Sir Anthony Hopkins, Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Bella Hadid and Mel Gibson.
The Palisades Fire, which has burned more than 23,400 acres to date, continues to burn, with only 68 percent of the inferno contained as of 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, according to CalFire.
In Altadena, the Eaton Fire has burned more than 14,000 acres and was 91 percent contained during the same time.
Two more recent fires — the Lilac Fire in San Diego and the Clay Fire in Riverside — have also burned dozens of acres and were only partially contained as of Wednesday morning.