Donald Trump claimed on Monday that the army was dispatched to California in an operation to offer water to combat the wildfires. This, in fact, was the most recent lie in years of Trump’s falsehoods on water-related points—which has turned out to be a fixation for him.
“The United States Military just entered the Great State of California and, under Emergency Powers, TURNED ON THE WATER flowing abundantly from the Pacific Northwest, and beyond,” Trump wrote on Reality Social. “The days of putting a Fake Environmental argument, over the PEOPLE, are OVER. Enjoy the water, California!!!”
A couple of hours later, the California Division of Water Assets corrected the document on its X account.
“The military did not enter California. The federal government restarted federal water pumps after they were offline for maintenance for three days. State water supplies in Southern California remain plentiful,” the division mentioned.
Trump’s publish was an obvious try and deepen the false narrative he has clung to for years: That California’s wildfires are a results of water conservation insurance policies promoted by the environmental motion.
Through the newest disaster, state water officers and different scientific consultants have made clear that water provide issues haven’t truly harm ongoing firefighting operations.
“Water supply has not hindered firefighting efforts. Reservoirs in California are at or above average storage levels for this time of year, thanks in part to years of proactive water management,” an Affiliation of California Water Businesses assertion mentioned.
The episode is simply one other instance of Trump’s—typically absurd—obsession with water-related rhetoric, together with a reference to an apparently magical faucet that might clear up long-standing useful resource points.
In different discussions about California’s water administration, Trump has argued that California officers merely needed to “turn the valve” to offer “massive amounts of water” to Los Angeles. No such valve exists.
He has additionally argued that the state might use Canadian water sources like a “very large faucet” to alleviate water shortages.
“It’s somebody that doesn’t fully understand how water works and doesn’t understand the intricacies of allocating water not only between two countries but also for the environment,” Tricia Stadnyk, an environmental engineering professor on the College of Calgary, mentioned.
Conveniently however maybe not shocking, Trump’s California golf membership might financially profit from loosening environmental restrictions on water.
Whereas campaigning final yr, Trump took a break from spreading disinformation and lies concerning the Biden administration’s response to Hurricane Helene and knowledgeable the general public that the hurricane—as all hurricanes do—contained water.
“It was a vicious, it was water, the water was the worst we’d ever seen, it was a water hurricane, that’s what it was,” he mentioned.
Throughout his first time period in 2017, Trump mentioned that his administration’s response to Puerto Rico’s hurricanes was hampered by “big water.”
“This is an island. Surrounded by water. Big water. Ocean water,” he mentioned.
In 2019, Trump was extensively ridiculed for utilizing the White Home’s historic Roosevelt Room to ship a rant about bathrooms.
“We have a situation where we’re looking very strongly at sinks and showers and other elements of bathrooms where you turn the faucet on—and in areas where there’s tremendous amounts of water, where the water rushes out to sea because you could never handle it, and you don’t get any water,” he mentioned.
He went on to notice, whereas internet hosting a roundtable with small enterprise leaders, “People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once.”
On the identical occasion, Trump additionally complained about taps.
“You go into a new building or a new house or a new home and they have standards only you don’t get water. You can’t wash your hands practically, there’s so little water comes out of the faucet. And the end result is you leave the faucet on and it takes you much longer to wash your hands,” he mentioned.
A yr later, Trump nonetheless had water on his thoughts.
“So showerheads—you take a shower, the water doesn’t come out. You want to wash your hands, the water doesn’t come out. So what do you do? You just stand there longer or you take a shower longer? Because my hair—I don’t know about you, but it has to be perfect,” Trump mentioned in 2020.
“Dishwashers—you didn’t have any water, so you—the people that do the dishes—you press it, and it goes again, and you do it again and again,” he added. “So you might as well give them the water because you’ll end up using less water.”
In equally weird rants, Trump complained that laws requiring electrical batteries in boats would result in shark assaults and instructed that magnetic energy is disrupted by water.
Water doesn’t cease magnetism, identical to there aren’t any magical taps. However Trump’s nonsensical water rhetoric continues to movement on and on.
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