‘karma Is Real:’ Threats Over California Fire Aid Reshape Disaster Politics

LOS ANGELES — The most acute danger from the Los Angeles wildfires has finally let up — only to be replaced by a sense the nation has reached a turning point in responding to major disasters.

Even the most jaded political veterans profess shock at how fast the California blazes became fodder for partisan warfare and fevered conspiracy theories. Gone was the customary grace period before the finger-pointing began, not to mention the assurance of no-strings-attached assistance from the federal government.

As President-elect Donald Trump and top Republicans in Congress contemplate placing conditions on aid, California politicians from both parties are now openly begging the ruling party not to break from the long-standing precedent of apolitical assistance. Doing so, they warn, could spiral into a dangerous tit-for-tat that could one day prove just as harmful to calamity-struck red states.

“I certainly try to take the high road all the time, but I also keep receipts,” said Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, a Los Angeles Democrat whose sister-in-law lost her home in the Eaton inferno.

“I do believe in the universe, and karma is real,” she added. “You start down this road and it’s very hard to go back. It’s a cautionary tale for folks that want to politicize people’s lives and people’s tragedy.”

With at least 27 people dead and more than 12,000 structures destroyed or damaged, the concurrent Palisades and Eaton fires are poised to be the costliest in the nation’s history. But the political reaction, egged on by a social media ecosystem that runs on paranoia and outrage, has been more focused on cynical point-scoring than empathy for the tragedy.

“This business with the speaker of the House insulting the governor and the president making up little snarky names — this is not the age of Lincoln or Roosevelt or anybody else. This is a whole new ball game that is going to test the durability of our form of government,” said former California Gov. Jerry Brown.

Much like the combination of desiccated brush and hurricane-force winds, the political dynamics could not be more combustible: the nation’s most prominent Democratic bastion finding itself in desperate need of aid just as Trump, its foremost antagonist, retakes the reins of the federal government.

But there is growing unease among other blue-state Democrats that threats to condition disaster assistance will not be unique to California.

“New York Republicans will be held accountable if partisanship dictates disaster aid, setting a dangerous precedent for New York’s next natural disaster,” said Rep. Dan Goldman, a New York City Democrat.

There’s a déjà vu quality to California’s tussling and haggling with Trump over federal disaster aid. Trump’s stated reasons for resisting — his insistence that the state wasn’t properly managing its forests and a disagreement with Newsom over pumping water from Northern California to farmers in the central part of the state and down south — is exactly where the two left off before Trump lost his reelection in 2020.

At the time, Trump told Newsom there was a “deal” to be made, tying the aid to water deliveries. Newsom later explained to POLITICO he disagreed vehemently with Trump, but was at his mercy and thus indulged in more discussions.

“I had to personally call him because FEMA was not getting back,” Newsom said in one interview on the topic late last year. “And we were told the only decision that would be made on this would come from the White House directly.”

But Trump’s initial refusal wasn’t just over policy. He separately expressed a hesitation to grant aid to other blue bastions, including in the state of Washington, where he nursed a grudge against Democratic then-Gov. Jay Inslee, calling him “a snake,” and a “nasty person” for criticizing his Covid response.

“Everything,” Newsom said last year, “was a transaction against his own citizens.”

The experience led Newsom to identify shoring up disaster aid as a top priority for “Trump-proofing” his state in anticipation of the president-elect’s return to the White House.

Since the fires started, Newsom has had to navigate a thin tightrope. He criticized Trump for stoking misinformation about the fires, invited the incoming president to tour the area and called on congressional Republicans not to condition federal aid. Trump has yet to personally respond to Newsom, though a Trump official has repeatedly said he would deliver despite his feud with the governor.

Late last week, Newsom urged House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from disaster-scarred Louisiana, and Democratic leaders to provide expedited federal aid “without conditions or prolonged negotiation.”

Newsom noted natural disasters have led Americans to stand together, “setting aside politics to extend a helping hand to those in need,” just hours after he told the YouTube host Brian Tyler Cohen last week that Californians need “compassion as opposed to condemnation and divisive language that has aided and abetted nothing but mis and disinformation.” Johnson took a swipe at Newsom on social media, suggesting he was overly concerned with his own image during the disaster.

“You're the leader of a state in crisis, and you should finally start acting like it,” the speaker wrote on X.

Not all of the incoming aimed at the Golden State is in bad faith. Critics have raised legitimate questions about the state’s land use policies and follow-through on brush clearance, as well as local water infrastructure — all of which have bearing on the state’s readiness for devastating wildfire. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has been pilloried over her decision to leave the country amid dangerous wind warnings and her city’s decade-plus under-investment in the fire department. And Newsom’s flood-the-zone media approach was bound to irritate detractors who have long derided his eagerness to get in front of a camera.

Some Democrats privately complained that Newsom may have made himself vulnerable to attacks by using a political email list and by going on the partisan Democratic Pod Save America podcast to address the fires.

But Newsom is also contending with an enduring California exceptionalism, in which the state occupies outsized real estate in the nation’s collective consciousness.

“California has always been a target,” Brown said, recalling Look magazine headlines from the 1960s declaring the California dream over. “California has a certain exotic quality and will always attract unusual attention. This is not going to happen in Kansas.”

The threats hovering over California are nonetheless sending a chill down the spine of leaders in other Democrat-dominated states.

“Blue States need to have a plan B because there is not a guarantee that this president will provide disaster relief based on what’s in the best interest of the country and our people versus what’s in the best interest of his own political interest. And we’re already seeing him play footsie with that in California,” said Becky Carroll, a political strategist who has advised Democrats in Illinois and across the country, including former Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration.

“I think most Americans would have confidence in any president stepping in in a moment of crisis. And that’s just not a guarantee under this incoming administration,” she added.

The seedlings of disaster politicization have cropped up elsewhere in the country, and even before the era of Trump and his norms-breaking influence.

In 2013, House Republicans balked at approving aid to address the damage wreaked by Hurricane Sandy on mid-Atlantic states such as New York and New Jersey, prompting a furious rebuke from then-GOP Rep. Peter King. The relief package ultimately passed after a delay, but nearly 180 Republicans voted against the bill, citing concerns about the country’s national debt.

After Hurricane Maria tore through Puerto Rico in 2017, causing nearly 3,000 deaths, the Trump administration slowed down billions of dollars in aid approved by Congress to the island. Russell Vought, a key figure in setting up extra hurdles to release the funds, is poised to return to run the Office of Management and Budget if the Senate confirms him.

And federal emergency workers themselves were at the heart of the polarized discourse after Hurricane Helene caused devastating flooding in western North Carolina last fall. The disaster prompted an avalanche of conspiracy theories, including claims echoed by Trump that FEMA was intentionally withholding aid to Republicans and had exhausted its funds helping immigrants illegally cross the border.

Stoking the widespread distrust was the revelation that one FEMA employee working on outreach in Florida after last fall’s Hurricane Milton advised her team to avoid homes with pro-Trump yard signs. FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell called such actions by the employee, who was fired, “reprehensible” and a “clear violation of FEMA’s core values & principles to help people regardless of their political affiliation.”

But the chatter on the Hill about placing strings on fire assistance to California signals a whole new phase of disaster politics.

House Republicans have floated the possibility of imposing unspecified policy changes on California in exchange for aid, or linking a relief package to the always-fraught vote to raise the debt limit.

“Why wouldn’t you raise the debt limit? Because we’re going to have to anyway with the disaster relief money,” said Rep. Tom Cole, the Oklahoma Republican who chairs the Appropriations committee. “That’s not blackmail; actually, it’s quite the opposite. Democrats want to use the debt ceiling as a blackmail weapon against Trump in a tax debate. Well, I’m sorry, the needs of the people in California, to me, are a lot more important than the political imperative up here.”

Even a whisper of conditions on aid prompted a furious response from Democrats, even those in unimpacted states.

“You want to start a problem here? You start to do that. Because no one controls disasters,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat. “It happens, and we have an obligation and a responsibility to try to help rebuild communities and rebuild people's lives.”

California Republicans, who are happy to point out the governing defects of their home state run by the opposite party, have similarly called for no conditions on aid. But theirs is also a balancing act: State Senate GOP Leader Brian Jones posted on X that attaching conditions “has no place in disaster relief,” but later clarified he meant only funds directly sent to victims and that assistance routed through government entities should “have strict requirements for spending.”

Brian Dahle, a former GOP state legislator who ran for governor against Newsom in 2022, predicted that, despite the threats, California will ultimately get its wildfire aid.

“We’re going to help these people,” Dahle said. “This is all theater, in my mind. They’re going to do it.”

Ultimately, California’s prominence in the American imagination may end up being its saving grace. It is the location of two preeminent interests of Trump — Hollywood and the 2028 Olympics — both of which appeal to his showman’s impulse to prioritize spectacle and celebrity. He has already pledged that Los Angeles’ Olympics will be “the greatest games,” according to an Axios report. And the city’s deep-pocketed donors may ensure that other Republicans feel the California love as well.

“Everyone knows somebody in Los Angeles,” said Kamlager-Dove. ‘And also, all these Republicans know somebody who's written them a check who lives in Los Angeles.”

Nick Reisman, Nicholas Wu, Daniella Diaz, Sophia Cai and Shia Kapos contributed to this report.