8/6/2018

CALIFORNIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TWITTER: “Californians are stunned at President Donald’s Trump’s latest tweets on the state‘s catastrophic wildfires — and his insistence that the state is burning because leaders are letting too much fresh water flow into the Pacific Ocean. Trump tweeted Monday [8-6-18] that California ‘Governor Jerry Brown must allow the Free Flow of the vast amounts of water coming from the North and foolishly being diverted into the Pacific Ocean. Can be used for fires, farming and everything else. Think of California with plenty of Water – Nice! Fast Federal govt. approvals.’ That tweet — on the heels of a Sunday [8-5-18] tweet that referenced California’s ‘bad environmental laws’ as a cause of the state’s current raging wildfires — drew an immediate reaction from veteran California GOP strategist Rob Stutzman, who responded via Twitter: ‘This is nuts’ and also ‘low water IQ.’ Stutzman has advised former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and a host of national and state GOP candidates. Trump’s comments may be referencing an unrelated dispute between Brown’s administration and California Republicans over how much of the state’s water can be diverted to Southern California farms and cities and how much must be allowed to flow naturally to benefit endangered and threatened fish species…But experts who make their living studying California’s water system reacted for the second consecutive day with a communal groan of exasperation. Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute, one of the state’s foremost experts on how the state manages its water, issued a tweet calling Trump’s latest missive ‘nuts’ after labeling the president’s initial tweet ‘gobbledygook bullsh–.’”

Annie Snider, Carla Marinucci and Jeremy B. White, “Trump wildfire tweets spark bewilderment about California water,” Politico, August 6, 2018 5:45 pm