President Joe Biden said Friday he’s “praying” the incoming Trump administration will continue to aid California’s wildfire response, warning that the state faces a lengthy recovery even after it gets the devastating fires under control.
“We’ve done really well on it, and I’m praying they continue to focus,” Biden told reporters during a briefing on the federal government’s emergency efforts. “We’re briefing the opposition — not the opposition, the incoming administration — on what they’re going to have to do.”
While Biden’s team has briefed the Trump transition team on the wildfire response, the president declined to speculate on how much the recovery could ultimately cost, saying officials are assessing the damage and drawing up estimates.
“We want to make sure we get a cost estimate that is real, that is thought through,” he said.
Trump has blamed California Gov. Gavin Newsom for the disaster in a series of social media posts, suggesting he’d failed to properly prepare the state for such a catastrophe. Newsom has dismissed the criticism, accusing Trump of playing politics even as firefighters are in the midst of a dayslong struggle to contain the blaze.
Biden’s Oval Office meeting was the second briefing in as many days on the wildfires, which have generated historic levels of damage across swathes of southern California.
On Thursday, Biden pledged that the federal government would shoulder all of the cost of the disaster response for the next 180 days, including paying for debris removal, temporary shelters and first responder salaries.
“This is not going to be over even when the fires are out,” he said. “We’re going to be around.”
