President Donald Trump is heading to hurricane-battered western North Carolina and wildfire-ravaged Los Angeles on Friday, using the first trip of his second administration to tour areas where politics has clouded the response to deadly disasters.
The Republican president has criticized former President Joe Biden for his administration's response in North Carolina, and he's showered disdain on California leaders for water policies that he falsely claimed worsened the recent blazes.
Trump is also considering overhauling the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Some of his conservative allies have proposed reducing how much the agency reimburses states for handling floods, hurricanes, tornadoes and other calamities.
The White House has asked California congressional members, including Democrats, to hold a roundtable at an airplane hangar in Santa Monica during Trump’s visit, according to a person briefed on the plans who demanded anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss them.
Any meeting could be contentious. Trump has suggested using federal disaster assistance as a bargaining chip during unrelated legislative negotiations over government borrowing, or as leverage to persuade California to change its water policies.
"Southern California and California has always been there for other regions of the country in their time of crisis, and we expect our country to be there for us," Sen. Alex Padilla, a Democrat from the state, said this week.
Trump has a history of injecting politics and falsehoods into disaster response. During his first term, he talked about limiting help for Democratic states that didn't support him, according to former administration officials. While running for president last year, he claimed without evidence that Democrats were "going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas" of the battleground state of North Carolina.
More recently, he's falsely insisted that California water policies, specifically fish conservation efforts in the northern part of the state, contributed to hydrants running dry in the Los Angeles area.
"I don’t think we should give California anything until they let the water run down," Trump said in an interview with Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity on Wednesday.
The president also suggested shifting more responsibility to individual states for managing disasters.
"I’d rather see the states take care of their own problems," he told Hannity, adding that "FEMA is getting in the way of everything."
Michael Coen, who served as chief of staff at FEMA during the Biden administration, said Trump was "misinformed" about an agency that provides critical help to states when they're overwhelmed by catastrophe.
In addition, Coen criticized the idea of attaching strings to assistance.
"You’re going to pick winners and losers on which communities are going to be supported by the federal government," he said. "I think the American people expect the federal government will be there for them on their worst day, no matter where they live."
The last time Trump was president, he visited numerous disaster zones, including the aftermaths of hurricanes and tornados. But he also often sparked controversy, like when he tossed paper towels to survivors of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.
"If you’re a disaster survivor, no matter who you voted for, it’s always good when the president comes to town," said Pete Gaynor, who headed FEMA during the first Trump administration between 2019 and 2021. "You can see him and hopefully talk to him about what you need in your community."
Laurie Carpenter, a 62-year-old retiree in Newland, North Carolina, said she's looking forward to Trump visiting because she's been disappointed by the federal response. She said there's still debris and trash strewn around her part of the state months after Hurricane Helene.
"If anybody’s going to do something about it, I think he will," Carpenter said.
Trump tapped Cameron Hamilton, a former Navy SEAL with limited experience managing natural disasters, as FEMA’s acting director. He also said that individual states should be in charge of directing response to natural disasters rather than FEMA, and that the federal government should only step in subsequently to provide funding.
Biden vowed before leaving office that the federal government would cover all the costs of responding to the wildfires around Los Angeles, which could end up being the costliest natural disasters in US history. However, that promise won't be kept unless Congress comes up with more funding.
Friday's trip could prompt some uncomfortable conversations about climate change, which Trump has played down and denied. Both Hurricane Helene and the Los Angeles wildfires were exacerbated by global warming.
In Helene’s case, a study by international climate scientists at World Weather Attribution found that climate change boosted the storm’s rainfall by 10%. In California, the state suffered a record dry fall and winter — its traditional wet season — which made the area around Los Angeles more vulnerable to blazes.
"This is just breaking our comfort zone of what is supposed to be normal," said University of Oregon researcher Amanda Stasiewicz.
After visiting North Carolina and California, Trump plans to hold a Saturday rally in Las Vegas. Advisers said he will offer details on keeping a campaign promise to exclude tips from federal taxes, while reveling in having won Nevada in an Election Day upset.
"I’m going to go to Nevada to thank them," Trump said. He was the first Republican candidate to win the state since 2004, when George W. Bush beat John Kerry.
Las Vegas’ 24-hour economy is fueled by the hospitality and service industries, where everyone from restaurant waiters to valet parkers to hotel maids relies on gratuities. However, exempting them from taxes would likely be difficult to implement and require an act of Congress to remain permanent.
