Trump in Cali: 'I Think ... Everybody's Seen the Light'

The president still sees no effect of climate change
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Nov 17, 2018 4:30 PM CST
Trump Gives His Take on California Wildfires
President Donald Trump talks with from left, Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom, California Gov. Jerry Brown, Mayor of Paradise Jody Jones and FEMA Administrator Brock Long during a visit to a neighborhood destroyed by the wildfires, Saturday, Nov. 17, 2018, in Paradise, Calif.   (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

From the ashes of a mobile home and RV park, President Donald Trump said Saturday he came to the heart of California's killer wildfire to fully grasp the scale of the desolation wrought on the landscape, the AP reports. "We're going to have to work quickly. ... Hopefully this is going to be the last of these because this was a really, really bad one," says the president, standing amid the crumpled foundations of homes and twisted steel of melted cars. "I think everybody's seen the light and I don't think we'll have this again to this extent," Trump says in Paradise, the town largely destroyed by a wildfire ignited Nov. 8 that he called "this monster." With that bold and perhaps unlikely prediction, Trump pledges that improved forest management practices will diminish future risks.

The declaration evoked his initial tweeted reaction to the fire, the worst in the state's history, in which he seemed to blame local officials and threatened to take away federal funding. When asked if seeing the historic devastation, which stretched for miles and left neighborhoods destroyed and fields scorched, altered his opinion on climate change, Trump answered, "No." The president has long voiced skepticism about man's impact on the climate and has been reluctant to assign blame to a warming earth for the increase in the frequency and intensity of natural disasters. At least 71 people died across Northern California, and authorities are trying to locate more than 1,000 people, though not all are believed missing. (See what scientists are saying about the California wildfires.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X