President Trump wants states to have more control over disaster recovery efforts and suggested he would condition federal assistance to California after the fires on the state toughening its voter identification requirements.  

Mr. Trump traveled to western North Carolina to survey damage from Hurricane Helene and criticized FEMA’s recovery efforts while vowing to help the region rebuild. Conservatives and residents of North Carolina have complained that the federal government has left them behind and that the federal recovery efforts have been inadequate as they struggle for months to rebuild.  

A reporter asked if he would withhold funding to Los Angeles, where Mr. Trump also is traveling today, due to its sanctuary city policies.

“I want to see two things in Los Angeles: voter ID so that the people have a chance to vote, and I want to see the water be released and come down into Los Angeles and throughout the state,” he told reporters at Asheville, North Carolina, on Friday.

“In California, I have a condition. In California, we want them to have voter ID so that people have a voice because right now, the people don’t have a voice because you don’t know who’s voting, and it’s very corrupt.”

He promised to be the greatest president that California has ever seen if the state enacts voter reforms and releases the water. 

At a briefing, a reporter asked Mr. Trump if he planned to place any conditions on aid to North Carolina. He responded, “We’re going to do a lot for North Carolina.”

In an executive order that Mr. Trump signed on Monday, titled “Protecting the American People Against Invasion,” is a line that states that the attorney general and homeland security secretary “shall, to the maximum extent possible under law, evaluate and undertake any lawful actions to ensure that so-called ‘sanctuary’ jurisdictions, which seek to interfere with the lawful exercise of Federal law enforcement operations, do not receive access to Federal funds.”

The president is also scheduled to travel to Los Angeles to survey neighborhoods devastated by wildfires, which he has blamed on state leaders’ poor planning.

At Asheville,  Mr. Trump criticized FEMA for its handling of recovery efforts after Hurricane Helene.

“FEMA has really let us down. Let the country down. I don’t know if that’s Biden’s fault or whose fault it is, but we’re going to take over, and we’re going to do a good job,” he said. 

He also said the federal government will “supply the money” for the state to address hurricane recovery. Still, he added that he wants FEMA to get out of the way and let state officials take over the recovery efforts. 

“I like the concept when North Carolina gets hit, the governor takes care of it…meaning the state takes care of it,” Mr. Trump said. “To have a group of people come in from an area that don’t even know where they’re going has never worked for me, but [North Carolina] is probably one of the best examples of it not working.”

He teased that he would be “doing something on FEMA,” as he claimed that letting local officials take charge would lead to faster and cheaper disaster responses. He even went so far as to say he wants to “get rid” of FEMA.

In regard to California, Mr. Trump has repeatedly accused Governor Newsom and other officials of not making enough water available to Los Angeles to combat the raging wildfires that devastated neighborhoods around the city. He also signed an executive order titled “Putting People Over Fish” which directs the cabinet to find ways to send more water to southern California.

Conservatives say California leaders are diverting much-needed fresh water that could be used to fight the fires to other parts of the state for environmental protection purposes. Defenders of California’s water policy insist it helps agriculture in the northern part of the state.