Earlier this month, California Governor Gavin Newsom publicly appealed to U.S. President Donald Trump for assistance as Los Angeles recovers from devastating wildfires and prepares to host the 2028 Olympics. However, Trump has not made the situation any easier, instead continuing to spread blatant misinformation and push widely debunked claims about California’s water management.
The controversy began when Newsom acknowledged Trump’s involvement in securing the 2028 Olympics for Los Angeles, emphasizing that it was “an opportunity for him to shine” as the city works toward rebuilding ahead of the global event.
“President Donald Trump was helpful in getting the Olympics to the United States of America — to get it down here in LA. We thank him for that. This is an opportunity for him to shine, for this country to shine, for California and this community to shine,” Newsom said earlier this month.
“That’s why we’re already organizing a Marshall plan. We already have a team looking, reimagining LA 2.0, and we’re making sure everyone’s included.”
Trump, however, has not been all that helpful.
Over the past several weeks, he has continued to spread misinformation, even going so far as to tell Sean Hannity on Fox News that he might withhold federal aid from California unless the state agrees to “let water flow down,” reiterating a false claim that Newsom and state officials are deliberately preventing water from Northern California from reaching Los Angeles, instead diverting it into the Pacific Ocean using a so-called “valve.”
“Look, Gavin’s got one thing he can do,” Trump said according to the New York Times. “He can release the water that comes from the north. There is massive amounts of water, rainwater and mountain water, that comes, too, with the snow, comes down as it melts, there’s so much water, they’re releasing it into the Pacific Ocean.”
Trump went on to insist that water from the Pacific Northwest is readily available to Los Angeles but is instead being diverted into the ocean through a supposed “valve” – which does not exist. In reality, no pipeline from the Pacific Northwest to California exists either, as such a project has long been dismissed as impractical and prohibitively expensive.
That hasn’t stopped Trump from continuing to push the claim anyway.
“Los Angeles has massive amounts of water available to it,” Trump asserted during a press conference on Tuesday. “All they have to do is turn the valve, and that’s the valve coming back from and down from the Pacific Northwest, where millions of gallons of water a week and a day, even, in many cases, pours into California, goes all through California down to Los Angeles. And they turned it off.”
Trump then went even further, declaring that he had personally intervened by deploying the “United States Military” under “emergency powers” to “turn the water on” from the Pacific Northwest.
“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. The days of putting a Fake Environmental argument, over the PEOPLE, are OVER. Enjoy the water, California!!!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
None of that is true.
The military did not intervene. There is no “valve” that can simply be “turned on,” and, most crucially, there is no pipeline linking the Pacific Northwest to California in the first place. Trump’s statements are blatant misinformation, and California wasted no time in setting the record straight.
“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 California Department of Water Resources clarified in a post on X.
Furthermore, the State of California responded with an extensive fact-check of the Trump administration’s claims, publishing a webpage titled “Hear the experts give the real facts on California water,” where experts and credible sources systematically debunked Trump’s falsehoods.
John Buse, general counsel for the Center for Biological Diversity, found Trump’s claims so baffling that he struggled to make sense of them, saying, “It’s difficult to explain what he’s talking about because nobody knows what he’s talking about. The idea of a valve and water will just flow is preposterous.”
Miles Johnson, of the Columbia Riverkeeper, dismissed Trump’s assertion outright, calling the idea that a valve could simply cut off water to California “completely far-fetched and detached from reality.”
“Scientists, water managers, state leaders, and experts throughout the state are calling out the federal administration’s ongoing misinformation campaign on water management in California,” reads the state’s website. “Fact: There is no spigot to magically make water appear at a wildfire, despite the administration’s false claims.”
While it remains unclear what Trump hopes to gain from spreading these demonstrably false statements, one thing is certain: California is pushing back.
Despite their stark differences, both sides will ultimately have to find a way to cooperate if they hope to rebuild Los Angeles in time for the 2028 Olympics.
About Kevin Harrish