President Donald Trump this morning says he has … or will … order FEMA to cut off disaster money for California.
The grammar in the Tweet makes it unclear if the cut off has already happened … or if it is a threat.
The president tweets that “
“Billions of dollars are sent to the State of California for Forrest fires that, with proper Forrest Management, would never happen.”
He continues: “Unless they get their act together, which is unlikely, I have ordered FEMA to send no more money.
“It is a disgraceful situation in lives & money!”
In the tweet … the president spells the word forest wrong.
Twice.
Someone with access to the Trump Twitter account later deleted the tweet and replaced it with one that spells forest correctly.
Twice.
The White House has not specified how California should manage its forests differently … other than his suggestion that we all buy rakes and get to work in the local mountains.
The Interior and Agriculture departments … under Trump … has failed to fund National Forest brush clearance projects in central California.
And forest management projects have ground to a halt because of the federal government shutdown that was invited by Trump.
And the shutdown may have been the impetus for the Trump threat against California this morning.
Or … it could be that California has filed 44 lawsuits against the Trump administration in the past 21 months, with major battles on health care, immigration and energy policy.
The Trump administration, meanwhile, has filed three suits against California.