California Gov. Gavin Newsom: I Have The Same Questions You’re Asking, “What Happened To The Water System?”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom blasted President-elect Donald Trump for “threatening” first responders and spreading “disinformation” about how the state manages its water supply in the wake of devastating fires north of Los Angeles during an interview Sunday morning on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

GAVIN NEWSOM: All of our reservoirs here in southern California are full.

REPORTER: One of them was actually not full – the one that serves the Palisdes [which is on fire].

NEWSOM: That’s why I asked for an investigation.pic.twitter.com/R8pZ2ruARX

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) January 12, 2025

JACOB SOBOROFF, NBC NEWS: You’ve also called for an independent investigation into the issues around water supply that we’ve seen. What are the questions that you’re hoping to answer?

GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM: The same ones you’re asking. Same ones that people out on the streets are asking, yelling about, “What the hell happened? What happened to the water system?” Was it – and, by the way, was it just overwhelm? That you had so much that was used? We drew it down. Was it pipes? Was it electricity? Was it a combination of pipes, electricities, and pumps? Was that drawdown impossible because you lost seven-plus thousand structures right here anyway and every single structure we lost had a pipe that was leaking, and we would’ve lost that water pressure anyway? Did it contribute in any way to our inability to fight the fire? Or were 99 mile-an-hour winds determinative and there was really no firefight that could’ve been more meaningful? So I want – all of us want to know those answers, and I just don’t want to wait because people are asking me. I want to know those facts. I want them objectively determined, and let the chips fall where they may. This is not about finger pointing.

JACOB SOBOROFF: You say what to people who insist that these independent investigations or calls for them, are you passing the blame onto other people?

GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM: I’m not – how could it be when we’re doing an independent investigation and we just want the adjudication of the facts? As I say, it’s not about finger pointing. It’s about answering the questions you and everybody wants answered. And I think there’s a propensity to wait to answer those questions, and people want immediacy. They want response and responsiveness. And so that’s the idea.

JACOB SOBOROFF: Ultimately here, does the buck stop with you?

GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM: Well, I mean, you’re governor of California. You might as well be the mayor of California. We’re all in this together. We’re all better off when we’re all better off, and we’re all better off when we’re working together to take care of people and to make sure people are supported. We’re empathetic. And we’re here not just in the immediacy of the crisis, but we’re here after the crisis, as opposed to creating a crisis in the middle of this by trying to divide people and play political, take cheap political shots.

JACOB SOBOROFF: Do you have faith in Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass?

GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM: I have absolute faith in our community. I have faith in our leaders. I have the faith of our capacity to work together.

JACOB SOBOROFF: President-elect Trump has blamed you for this crisis. He’s called you incompetent. What’s your response?

GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM: Well, I called for him to come out, take a look for himself. We want to do it in the spirit of an open hand, not a closed fist. He’s the president-elect. I respect the office. We have a president of the United States that within 36 hours provided a major disaster declaration over a text. We had support from the President of the United States, Joe Biden, with 100% reimbursement, all the resources you could hope for, imagine, constant communication. I’d like to extend that to the president-elect. I don’t know what he’s referring to when he talks about the Delta smelt in reservoirs. The reservoirs are completely full, the state reservoirs here in Southern California. That mis- and disinformation I don’t think advantages or aids any of us. Responding to Donald Trump’s insults, we would spend another month. I’m very familiar with them. Every elected official that he disagrees with is very familiar with them.

JACOB SOBOROFF: We do know though from reporting here locally that that one reservoir that serves the Palisades was not full.

GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM: And that’s exactly what triggered my desire to get the investigation to understand what was happening with that local reservoir. That was not a state system reservoir, which the president-elect was referring to as it relates to the delta smelt and somehow connecting the delta smelt to this fire, which is inexcusable because it’s inaccurate. Also, incomprehensible to anyone that understands water policy in the state.

JACOB SOBOROFF: My understanding is that you have put a call into President-elect Trump. Has he called you back?

GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM: No, that was months ago. That was after his victory. So, I look forward to him again coming out here in the spirit of cooperation–

JACOB SOBOROFF: Well, forgive me for interrupting you, but you did invite him to come out here. Have you had any response?

GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM: No. No.

JACOB SOBOROFF: Multiple times Mr. Trump has threatened to withhold aid for California wildfires, both as president and now again as president-elect. Are you worried that he might actually do that?

GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM: Well, I mean, he’s done it in Utah. He’s done it in Michigan, did it in Puerto Rico. He did it to California back before I was even governor in 2018, until he found out folks in Orange County voted for him and then he decided to give the money. So he’s been at this for years and years and years. It transcends the states, including, by the way, Georgia he threatened similarly. So that’s his style. And we take it seriously to the extent that in the past it’s taken a little bit more time. I’ve been pretty expressive about that in the context of someone threatening our first responders in terms of supporting the immediacy of their needs or recovery of our community –

JACOB SOBOROFF: That’s what you take it as, that President-elect Trump is threatening the first responders here?

GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM: Well, I mean, it’s what he said. He said, “I’m not going to support the fire-fighting efforts. I’m not going to support the state of California as it relates to its emergency management,” he made this pretty clear during the election, “unless they do my bidding.” And, again, these are familiar terms and they’re familiar to a lot of other states, not just my state. And they’re familiar to not just me as governor but the previous governor of California, Governor Brown, that was battling with these same things. So you just work through these things, and I’m just blessed– I mean this. I’m blessed on behalf of 40 million Americans that happen to live in California that Joe Biden is president of the United States and did what he did immediately. And to the extent that we can work with the same relationship and that same spirit with Donald Trump, I hope we can.