By New York Post (Politics) | Created at 2025-01-10 02:13:01 | Updated at 2025-01-10 08:24:02
6 hours ago
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden repeatedly told speakers to “fire away!” during a White House briefing on the still raging Los Angeles wildfires before blaming local power companies for fire hydrants running dry — an allegation that was quickly rebuffed by one of the comapnies.
Biden, 82, shocked attendees by his choice of words on Thursday given the gravity of devestation caused by the dueling infernos and later applauded California Gov. Gavin Newsom who President-elect Donald Trump blamed for the hydrants running out of water.
“Madam vice president, I know you’re directly affected, so you fire away!” Biden told Vice President Kamala Harris, a California native, who shot a surprised look at the president as he sat next to her at the Roosevelt Room’s board table.
“No pun intended,” he added in response to Harris’ stunned expression.
Yet, moments later, Biden repeated the same eyebrow-raising directive, telling US Forest Service Chief Randy Moore, “Chief, why don’t you fire away?” as multiple fires continued to tear through 30,000 acres across Los Angeles, killing at least five people.
The ill-advised wordplay came one day after Biden was blasted for saying “the good news is I’m a great-grandfather as of today” during a visit to a Santa Monica fire station, which critics said was insensitive to the plight of thousands of residents who fled their homes.
The gaffe-prone president also defended Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, both Democrats, during his Thursday remarks while blaming power utility companies for fire hydrant water outages that left firefighters helpless as thousands of homes bruned to the ground.
The commander in chief suggested that power companies shut off power to prevent explosions and additional fires but in doing so, cut off power needed to pump water out of a hydrant.
“What I know from talking to the governor [is] that there are concerns out there that there’s also been a water shortage. The fact is, the utilities understandably shut off power because they’re worried the lines that carry energy were going to be blown down and spark additional fires,” Biden said.
“There’s a direct correlation between the utility company and the ability to pump water out of a hydrant. And so it allows for a lot of uninformed people to make assertions or concerns or accusations about the local officials not caring or not working,” he claimed.
The president said that “the vast majority of the circumstances where the water resource has been diminished is because of the utility company not being able to maintain the electric transmission, because they’re getting knocked down or shutting down so they don’t cause more fires.”
Southern Cal Edison and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power supply electricty to the neighborhoods ravished by fires.
But a spokesperson for Southern Cal Edison — which supplies electricty to the neighborhoods ravished by the blazes — said she could not corroborate the president’s claim that the company caused fire hydrants to run dry.
“We have had no issues from local water agencies or firefighting agencies in our service area,” Kathleen Dunleavy said, noting that she listened to Biden’s remarks and checked with the companies’ teams in the field.
“We coordinate with water districts and fire agencies, and if any issue arises with water service, they are prioritized to remain in service.”
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which also provides electricity to the area, previously reported that all three of the 1 million-gallon water tanks that supply hydrants in Pacific Palisades were empty by 3 a.m. Wednesday.
Asked about Biden’s remarks blaming utilities for cutting power to pumps, a spokesperson for the electricty provider told The Post that in fact “the tremendous demand for water in the Palisades, which was four times as much as our normal demand in the area, lowered the water pressure.”
The president also implicated the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection at one point while blaming the utility companies.
“But the Cal Fire— when it did that, it cut off the ability to generate pumping in the water. That’s what caused the lack of water… Cal Fire is bringing in generators to get these pumps up and working again, so that there’s no longer a shortage of water coming out of these hydrants.”
Cal Fire did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
Biden’s swipe at “uninformed” critics of local officials likely was a veiled rebuke of Trump, who earlier Thursday called on Newsom to resign over the lack of water to fight the fires.
Trump claimed the Democratic governor chose to protect an endangered fish species instead of sending badly needed water to Southern California.
The president-elect said Newsom blocked a federal order that would have diverted more water from Northern California, a wetter climate, to the Golden State’s parched regions “including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way.”
Biden attempted to rewrite the water-supply issue as one caused by electric supply while patting Newsom and Bass on the back.
“I’m quite frankly proud of the job the local officials in California are doing,” Biden said.
“I’ve spent a lot of time with governor and mayor of Los Angeles and others. You know, they’re doing everything that we ask them and beyond.”
The outgoing president also noted that his son Hunter Biden, 54, lives in Santa Monica, but he did not say whether the first son’s rented house was destroyed in the catastrophe.
He also announced that the federal government would be deploying additional firefighting helicopters and planes, and attributed the disaster to the impacts of climate change, countering Trump’s assertion that the region’s hillside was not properly maintained, creating a tinderbox of dry brush.
“There is global warming. It does change weather patterns,” Biden said.
The president said that reconstruction costs would be a “big, big big number” and that “anybody gives you a number now, they have no idea what the hell they’re talking about.”
