President Trump will take his first trip since returning to the White House on Friday to storm-ravaged North Carolina and California, which is suffering some of the most deadly and destructive blazes in the state’s history.
The trip comes as the president has left the question of additional disaster aid for California unsettled.
Mr. Trump is expected to make his first stop in Asheville, N.C., which suffered devastating flooding from Hurricane Helene last fall. Mr. Trump then plans on traveling to the Los Angeles area, where he will observe the damage from wildfires that have killed more than two dozen people, destroyed entire neighborhoods and forced desperate evacuations.
But on the likelihood of additional federal aid for each state, Mr. Trump has struck very different tones. While he has expressed support for North Carolina, Mr. Trump has criticized California’s Democratic leaders for the disaster response and threatened to withhold federal aid if they did not make changes to unrelated environmental policies in the state.
Presidents have typically visited areas recovering from natural disasters to show personal support and assure community members of federal aid for emergency medical workers and local leaders. Mr. Trump, however, has often used natural disasters as a vehicle to unleash political grievances, threatening to withhold money from political opponents, making false statements about disaster responses by Democrats and promising support for political allies.
During Mr. Trump’s first term in office, he told aides he wanted to stop money from reaching Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, claiming that the island’s leadership was corrupt. After California suffered from wildfires in 2018, Mr. Trump said on social media that he had ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency to “send no more money” unless the state changed its approach to forest management.
Before traveling on Friday, Mr. Trump already displayed different approaches to Republican-led North Carolina and the blue state of California.
“I’m stopping in North Carolina, first up, because those people were treated very badly by Democrats,” Mr. Trump said in a taped interview with Fox News that aired on Wednesday night. “We’re going to get that thing straightened out because they’re still suffering from a hurricane from months ago.”
Mr. Trump, since the early days of the hurricane response, has made a number of accusations about the Biden administration’s response to Hurricane Helene that were debunked by the local, state and federal authorities in the disaster areas.
The false statements included claims that FEMA had spent huge sums on housing for migrants and that it had told victims of the storms they would receive only $750. The string of false claims prompted Mr. Biden to accuse Mr. Trump of spreading “outright lies.”
One FEMA employee was fired in the aftermath of Hurricane Milton after telling relief workers in Florida to pass over houses with signs supporting Mr. Trump.
In the same interview with Fox News, Mr. Trump issued broadsides against Gavin Newsom, California’s Democratic governor, for his management and threatened to withhold disaster aid for wildfires unless the state changed environmental policies that he claimed had prevented enough water from going to Southern California.
“I don’t think we should give California anything until they let water flow down,” he added.
State and fire experts have said those policies have no connection to the fires in the Los Angeles area.
During a news conference on Thursday, Mr. Newsom expressed confidence that the Trump administration would still reimburse California for the disaster-related funds. He added that he planned on being at the airport to greet Mr. Trump, even though he did not know whether he would be invited to accompany the president during his tour of the Los Angeles area.
Despite heaping criticism on California’s leaders, however, Mr. Trump appeared to extend a last-minute invitation to Senator Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California, to join him in his visit to the state, days after calling Mr. Schiff “scum” on his inauguration day.
A spokesperson for Mr. Schiff, with whom Mr. Trump has long had an acrimonious relationship, said on Thursday that the senator would not be able to make the trip because of expected Senate votes on Mr. Trump’s cabinet nominees.
“Senator Schiff greatly appreciates the president’s visit to see the devastation of these wildfires firsthand and the invitation to accompany him,” the spokesperson said in a statement, “and regrets that he’s unable to join the president in Los Angeles due to scheduled nomination votes.” The statement added that the senator would work with Mr. Trump’s team and other officials “to ensure that California gets the aid and support it needs.”
Annie Karni contributed reporting.
