California governor heads to White House to seek wildfire aid from Trump

Gavin Newsom is scheduled to meet with Donald Trump at the White House on Wednesday, as the California governor seeks federal disaster aid for the Los Angeles communities devastated by recent wildfires.

The Oval Office meeting, less than two weeks after Trump pledged to help the city rebuild during a visit to survey the damage, underscores the fine political tightrope Newsom must walk to secure desperately needed assistance for his state at a moment when his party – and many of his constituents – are demanding their leaders take a stronger stand against the new administration.

The president has repeatedly threatened to withhold federal disaster aid from the state unless its Democratic leaders change their approach to water management – a long-running gripe of Trump’s, but a change experts say would not have mitigated the scale of the devastation or improved the response.

Trump and his allies have also floated other possible conditions related to voter identification laws and immigration enforcement. Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, has expressed an openness to conditioning the aid, which Democrats have slammed as unprecedented and cruel.

Newsom is among the first high-profile Democrats to visit the White House since Trump took office. The day before his arrival, dozens of congressional Democrats joined a protest outside the treasury department in which they denounced Trump as a “dictator” and called on Democrats to grind action in the Senate to a halt.

While in Washington, Newsom will also meet with Republican and Democratic members of Congress “to help secure critical disaster aid for survivors of the Los Angeles fires”, the governor’s office said.

Newsom has become an increasingly prominent national voice among Democrats. He took up high-profile arguments with the Republican governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, was among the most prominent surrogates for Joe Biden, and campaigned for Kamala Harris during her 2024 presidential run. After Trump’s victory, Newsom called for a special legislative session to bolster the state’s legal defenses in preparation for disputes with the new administration over climate policy, immigration, LGBTQ+ rights and abortion access.

Trump in turn adopted the nickname “Newscum” for the governor, and blamed California’s Democratic leaders for the devastation from the wind-fueled blazes that killed more than 29 people and turned entire neighborhoods in the country’s most populous county to ash.

Since the fires spread last month, however, Newsom has been less vocal in his criticism of the president’s actions, even as his party grows increasingly alarmed by the Trump administration’s move to overhaul the federal government.

Newsom invited Trump to visit the damage at the same time as setting up a website to counter many of the president’s false claims about the fires.

The White House did not coordinate Trump’s visit to Los Angeles with the governor’s office. But Newsom met Trump on the tarmac, embraced him and thanked the president for coming. Since the visit, the president has been notably less critical of Newsom, even joking publicly that he was choosing not to refer to the governor by his crass nickname.

Trump’s flurry of actions have included California. Last week, Trump signed an executive order directing the army corps of engineers to open the floodgates at two dams on reservoirs in the state, a move local officials said nearly resulted in farms being flooded.

On Monday, the California state legislature approved $25m to build up the state’s legal defense against the Trump administration and another $25m to support legal services for immigrants vulnerable to the president’s crackdown.

Like all their interactions, the meeting in Washington will be closely observed for its implications for the governor’s political future. Newsom’s term ends in 2026 and he cannot seek a third term. He has long been considered a possible contender for president in 2028.