Forest fires in California: essential rains should contribute to fire fighting efforts this weekend.

Friday, more than six years later, Mr. Newsom will again welcome Mr. Trump while the president went to Los Angeles to note the consequences of the last devastating forest fires that swept California.

These new fires – in the Pacific Palisades district of Los Angeles and Altadena – recall that Mr. Newsom’s mandate as governor has been defined by disasters and crises, whether natural or caused by humans : fires, mudslides, atmospheric rivers, covid pandemic, sometimes violent demonstrations against police brutality after the murder of George Floyd.

“It is breathtaking the number of natural disasters he faces,” said Anthony Rendon, who was president of the California Assembly from 2016 to 2023. “It is something that put in parentheses – and Perhaps even defined – his time in post as governor.

But the challenge of the fires of Palisades and Eaton, both to extinguish them and to supervise the reconstruction of whole districts in the most populous county in the country, could be its greatest test so far.

And this has long -term implications for any political career that Mr. Newsom could continue at the end of his mandate in 2026 (the law prohibits him from running for a third term). He did not hide his interest in presenting himself to the presidency in 2028, and the Democrats claim that his successes and failures in the coming months will be essential to the way he will present himself – and the way in which his opponents l ‘will attack – if he presents himself.

This has already put him in a position to fight against Mr. Trump, who, as in the aftermath of the camp fire, formulated inaccurate allegations on Californian politics. (Mr. Newsom sought to repel certain false information by creating a page on his campaign website providing “California Fire Facts”.)

In an interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News on Wednesday, Trump attacked Mr. Newsom and California for their water and forest management policies which, according to him, were responsible for fires, but who, according to those responsible of the state and the fire experts, had nothing to do with Los Angeles. Angeles disaster. Trump said on Friday that one of the things he wanted to guarantee during his trip to California was “to see the water be released and descend to Los Angeles and throughout the state”. And he said he wanted to get something else: “An identification of voters so that people have the opportunity to vote. »»

Democrats have long resisted of such laws, arguing that the requirements in terms of voters can prevent the participation of black and Hispanic voters, as well as poor voters.

Adam Mendelsohn, who was a principal advisor to Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former governor who faced his own share of disasters, said the spotlights would be on the management by Mr. Newsom of the recovery after the forest fires For years.

“If I worked for him, I would consider this as an opportunity for my life,” said Mendelsohn. “These are the events that define the leaders.”

The fires asked new questions to Los Angeles and its leaders when they are preparing for what was already going to be a series of very publicized events here, including the World Cup in 2026 and the Super Bowl in 2027. Last catastrophe particularly agitated concern about the ability of Los Angeles to manage the double reconstruction task while welcoming the 2028 Olympic Games.

“Economic aspects, the Olympic Games calendar, questions related to the arrival of the new president” created a difficult dynamic for Mr. Newsom, “said Robert Hertzberg, former state senator and former president of the Assembly.

Mr. Hertzberg has drawn up a list of recent state governors. “Arnold has had millions of fires,” he said about Schwarzenegger. “Pete Wilson has had many fires. Gray Davis. But nothing like it.

The fires of the last two weeks illustrate how hot and drier and ever-drier California is at the forefront of the states struggling with climate change. As he pointed out Mr. Hertzberg, when Edmund G. Brown, Jerry Brown’s father, was governor from 1959 to 1967, California was a completely different state, with a completely different emergency rate. “The day of his inauguration, he went to play golf course,” said Hertzberg about the elder, Mr. Brown.

Mr. Newsom has been very present since the start of fires, making regular and often unexpected visits to the sites of the palisades fire, which occurred in the city of Los Angeles, and the fire of Eaton , which occurred in an area not constituted in the County Society of Los Angeles. He signed decrees intended to help fight the fire and start reconstruction. And he largely escaped from generalized criticisms from which another official, the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, was confronted with his management of fires. Ms. Bass had to resist generalized attacks and controls because she was abroad when the fires broke out.

Thursday afternoon, Mr. Newsom was in Pasadena, signing two bills providing for $ 2.5 billion in public money to support response and recovery efforts in Los Angeles.

“I just came back from Hughes’ fire,” said Newsom, referring to a new bush fire that broke out on Wednesday. He went to a desk dressed in jeans and a black parka, in front of elected officials gathered in a school in Pasadena which opened its doors on Thursday for the first time since the start of fires.

Mr. Newsom finds himself in a politically complicated situation while Mr. Trump comes to California: both a leader among the Democrats who oppose the policy of the new president, while affirming at the same time as him and Mr. Trump – Who regularly denigrates Mr. Newsom, by calling him Gavin Newscum, would work “in cooperation and in collaboration” to resolve the crisis here.

He said he thought that the Republican controlled congress and Trump would reimburse California the $ 2.5 billion he had just authorized. But at the same time, he attacked Mr. Trump for his “attack on the 14th amendment”, referring to Mr. Trump’s decree which aims to end the right of citizenship, and defended California’s efforts to finance legal actions against various Trump policies.

“None of this is personal, in any way,” Newsom told journalists. “Some people want to politicize things. This is not our approach. I have all the expectations and convictions that we will be reimbursed for these dollars. He added: “I am here in the long term to support the president where we can, to defend our values ​​where we owe it”.

Mr. Newsom declared during the press conference that he did not know if he would be invited to accompany Mr. Trump during his visit to certain parts of the State, but he said that he would go to the ‘Airport to welcome him upon arrival. The governor said that he had not spoken to Mr. Trump since he left the White House in 2020. He said he called Trump after his victory, and again when the fires have started, but that he had not had any response from the president.

In recent decades have been filled with examples in which the reputation of political leaders has increased or decreased according to the way in which they reacted to disasters.

In New York, Rudolph W. Giuliani became known as mayor of the United States for the way he directed his city after the September 11 attacks. Andrew M. Cuomo received national praise, at least at the start, as a new York governor for his daily presentations on the covid pandemic.

On the other hand, George W. Bush was ridiculed for his hesitant response after Hurricane Katrina flooded large expanses of New Orleans in 2005. And Mr. Newsom himself was ridiculed in the middle of the COVID pandemic , after advising residents to stay at home and wear masks. But was photographed without a mask assistant at a crowded birthday dinner for a political advisor at French Laundry, one of the most expensive restaurants in the country.

For Mr. Newsom and other Californian elected representatives, the coming months promise to be sown with pitfalls, at a time when Mr. Newsom is already attacked by Mr. Trump and the Republicans of the Congress.

The long -standing opponents of Mr. Newsom, who criticized the way in which the state has prepared and reacted to the fire, have already launched a new attempt to recall him; There have been at least half a dozen efforts of this type since its election, only one of which has been selected. This recall attempt, in 2021 following the French Laundry episode, failed and more than 60 % of Californians voted to keep it in power.

Gray Davis, the former governor and Lieutenant-Governor, said that he thought that Mr. Newsom had improved his reputation in Los Angeles because of the way he reacted to the fire. But he added that the final verdict on how Mr. Newsom behaved in this crisis will come in years, when the form of the coming project – rebuilding Los Angeles – will become clear.

Davis said that in Los Angeles in all his years, he did not remember anything comparable to the past two weeks.

“We have floods, fires, mudslides,” said Davis, governor from 1999 to 2003. “But I don’t think there is something worse than a forest fire that launches embers. I don’t think there is something more terrifying than the fires that Los Angeles have known in recent weeks. ”

Shawn Hubler And Zolan Kanno-Youngs contributed reports.