Ron DeSantis lashes out at reporter saying it's 'inappropriate' to criticize Gavin Newsom for California fires

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis tore into reporters over the media's handling of the Los Angeles wildfire disaster and claimed government leaders would have gotten raked for their handling of the incident if they were Republicans.

It came after a reporter asked him if it was inappropriate to be criticizing California Gov. Gavin Newsom – who Trump derided as 'Gavin Newscum' while complaining about California water policy as fires incinerated neighborhoods around L.A.

'It's inappropriate for people in your industry to try and create division, and to try and create narratives any time these things happen,' said DeSantis, who was flanked by Republican governors at Mar-a-Lago, where they met with the president-elect.

'Now, you're not as interested in doing that because Newsom is a "D", he continued.  'If Newsom was a Republican, you guys would go try to - you would have him nailed to the wall for what they're doing over there.'

DeSantis, who challenged Trump for the Republican nomination and who was briefly floated as a potential Defense Secretary pick, said it was an unfair contrast to the Surfside building collapse or hurricanes he has contended with during his tenure.

He said other governors warned him early on that natural disasters would get 'politicized.'

'In fact, when I got elected governor, I was meeting with some of the other Republican governors, and what they would say is, hey, if you have a natural disaster, just know media is coming at you,' he said. 

Then DeSantis criticized LA Mayor Karen Bass, a Democratic former House member, for being on a diplomatic delegation to Ghana when the first began ripping across her hometown.

'It's not the same that mayor of LA if that were a Republican mayor, I could only imagine what that would do. I mean, you know, the fires are at high risk, and you try to go to Africa, or wherever she was, to go on some type of voyage, you should have been there preparing and doing that,' he said. 

'And yet, I don't see a lot of heat being directed in that thing. And so, you know, I just, I'd like to see some balance on how this is, this is done. You criticize the point. the President Elect but I think you also have to hold these other people accountable and I have not seen that.'

'You guys sitting in judgement of Donald Trump - excuse me, I think your track record of politicizing these things is very, very bad,' he said. 

The question he responded to most likely related to his host Trump, 78, who tore into Newsom over focusing on the delta smelt and other fish in a water dispute, a longtime feature of California politics where farmers and cities battle over precious water resources from the north. 

Trump claimed in his initial post that Newsom 'refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way.'

Newsom's office hit back, noting that 'there is no such document,' and calling the claim 'pure fiction.' Newsom's office did clash with Trump's White House over water use plans, as fact checkers noted.