President Trump will visit California on Monday to meet with emergency officials about the wildfires that are ravaging the state, the White House announced Saturday.
The president will be briefed on the fires in McClellan Park in Sacramento County, White House spokesman Judd Deere said in an emailed statement.
“Since mid-August, President Trump and Governor Newsom have spoken by phone and the White House and FEMA have remained in constant contact with State and local officials throughout the response to these natural disasters,” Deere said.
“The President continues to support those who are battling raging wildfires in a locally-executed, state-managed, and federally-supported emergency response.”
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Lance Georgeson of Mammoth Lakes paddleboards on Tenaya Lake on Sept. 13 in Yosemite National Park. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
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Thick smoke from multiple forest fires shrouds iconic El Capitan, right, and the walls of Yosemite Valley. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
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Benjamin Lewis takes a photo for a group of San Diego firefighters in Yosemite. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
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A deer grazes in Cook’s Meadow as thick smoke shrouds the iconic landmarks of Yosemite Valley. (Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)
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Thick smoke shrouds iconic Half Dome towering over Yosemite Valley in a view from Sentinel Bridge over the Merced River on Sept. 13. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
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Thick smoke shrouds Tenaya Lake on Sept. 13 in Yosemite National Park. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
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A Cal Fire truck passes a burned-out vehicle on Stringtown Road on Friday in Oroville, Calif. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
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Propane gas burns Friday at the ruins of a home on Zink Road in the Berry Creek area of Butte County. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
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Melted goggles lie on the ground next to the burned-out truck on Stringtown Road. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
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A crew from Trinity River Conservation Camp, a prison facility, does mop-up work on Stringtown Road on Friday, the day after a flare-up in the area. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
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Scorched cars in Brush Creek, Calif. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
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A firefighter battles the Creek fire as it threatens homes in Madera County. (Noah Berger / Associated Press)
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Flames from the Bear fire in Oroville, Calif. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
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A horse in a field in Butte County. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
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Frank Martinez, left, and Rick Wolfe with their nine dogs in Oroville, Calif. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
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A fox pauses amid burned brush in Butte County. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
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A statue is singed in Butte County. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
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Lake Oroville in Butte County. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
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Firefighters work to save a home in Butte County. (Noah Berger / Associated Press)
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A burned truck in Butte County. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
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A firefighter battles the Creek fire in Madera County. (Noah Berger / Associated Press)
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A plume rises from the Bear fire as it burns along Lake Oroville in Butte County. (Noah Berger / Associated Press)
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A table stands outside the destroyed Cressman’s General Store in Fresno County. (Noah Berger / Associated Press)
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A vehicle streaks by as Fresno County Sheriff’s Deputy Jeffery Shipman stands along California 168, with the Creek fire in the background on Sept. 6. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
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The Laguna Hotshots Crew out of the Cleveland National Forest battles the Creek fire as it approaches the Southern California Edison Big Creek Hydroelectric Plant on Sept. 6 in Big Creek, Calif. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
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Members of the Laguna Hotshots Crew walk down Huntington Lake Road to battle the Creek fire on Sept. 6. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
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A member of the Laguna Hotshots Crew is silhouetted against a background of flames. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
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The Creek fire burns along Huntington Lake Road on Sept. 6. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
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A vehicle streaks along California 168 as the Creek fire creeps closer to Shaver Lake, Calif., on Sept. 6. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
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A member of the Laguna Hotshots Crew battles the Creek fire on Sept. 6. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
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A firefighter conducts a back-burn operation along California 168 as the Creek fire approaches the Shaver Lake Marina. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
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Firefighter Ricardo Gomez sets a back burn amid the Creek fire near Shaver Lake Marina on Sept. 6. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
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A firefighter works on the back-burn operation near Shaver Lake Marina. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
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A duck swims in Shaver Lake as the Creek fire approaches on Sept. 6. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
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Firefighter Ricardo Gomez battles the Creek fire with a back burn. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
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The sky glows orange around Shaver Lake on Sept. 6. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
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A firefighter conducts a back-burn operation amid the Creek fire near Shaver Lake on Sept. 6. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
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Flames leap into the sky as fire engulfs trees near Shaver Lake. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
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The Creek fire approaches the Shaver Lake Marina on Sept. 6. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
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Firefighter Ricardo Gomez sets a back burn amid the Creek fire near Shaver Lake Marina on Sept. 6. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
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A man stands on a dock at the Shaver Lake Marina as the Creek fire approaches on Sept. 6. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
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Flames consume dry brush around Santa Barbara firefighters as they set a backfire along Oro Quincy Highway in the aftermath of the Bear fire in Oroville. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Friday that he talked on the phone with the president for nearly 30 minutes the day before about the state’s fires, emergency declarations and federal wildfire aid. The governor credited Trump for being “proactive” in his efforts to provide assistance to the state.
Newsom also insisted that California will do more to fight climate change and took the Trump administration to task for its policies that reduce environmental protections.
Trump’s visit comes nearly a month after the former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security claimed in a political ad that Trump tried to withhold disaster relief money for California’s wildfires because voters in the state opposed him politically.
“He told us to stop giving money to people whose houses had burned down from a wildfire because he was so rageful that people in the state of California didn’t support him and that politically it wasn’t a base for him,” Miles Taylor, who left the Trump administration in 2019, says in the ad.
The Department of Homeland Security oversees the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Taylor doesn’t say which wildfires he is referring to, but the group running the ad confirmed it was the Camp fire of 2018, and Trump toured the devastation in Paradise that year.
Trump had drawn criticism last week for not acknowledging the massive fires engulfing millions of acres and forcing evacuations across three western states until a tweet Friday night expressing support for the firefighters battling them.
On Thursday, with half a million Oregon residents having fled their homes, the state’s Democratic Governor, Kate Brown, said she hadn’t been able to reach the president by phone.
The visit to inspect fire damage in California Monday will come at the end of a weekend campaign swing across Nevada and Arizona, holding outdoor rallies in defiance of state officials in Nevada who blocked his initial plans to hold rallies at airports in Reno and Las Vegas.
Adding the official stop to inspect fire damage also enables the president’s campaign to avoid having to reimburse the White House for the cost of the entire trip.
Times staff writers Noah Bierman and Taryn Luna contributed to this report.
