Trump Falsely Claims FEMA Out of Funds Amid California Wildfires

President-elect Donald Trump made a series of false claims about federal disaster funding and California‘s wildfire crisis during a press conference at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, on January 7, 2025. Trump asserted that President Joe Biden had left “NO MONEY IN FEMA” to address the ongoing wildfires in Los Angeles County, a claim that has been debunked by FEMA officials.

FEMA confirmed to CNN that the Disaster Relief Fund currently holds approximately $27 billion, replenished by a bill signed by Biden in December 2024. “Thanks to Congress’s recent passage of a disaster supplemental, FEMA has the funding and resources needed to respond to the needs of California,” the agency stated in an email.

Trump also blamed California Governor Gavin Newsom for the wildfire crisis, falsely claiming that Newsom refused to sign a “water restoration declaration” that would have allowed more water to flow into fire-affected areas. Experts on California water policy, including Jeffrey Mount of the Public Policy Institute of California, confirmed that no such declaration exists. “There was no ‘water restoration declaration’ for him to sign,” Mount said.

Trump further alleged that Newsom prioritized protecting the Delta smelt, a fish species, over the needs of Californians, leading to water shortages for firefighting efforts. However, experts dismissed this claim as baseless. “There is no connection between environmental protection in northern California and low-flow fire hydrants in Pacific Palisades,” said Brent Haddad, an environmental studies professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Firefighting aircraft were deployed over Los Angeles County on Wednesday, despite Trump’s claim that there were “not firefighting planes.” While some hydrants in the Pacific Palisades area experienced low water pressure due to infrastructure constraints, other parts of the county had sufficient water supply.

The wildfires, fueled by high winds and dry brushland, have caused significant damage in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. Trump’s claims about water shortages and FEMA funding have been widely criticized as inaccurate and misleading.