Category: Fact Check

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As wildfires continued to rage in Southern California, President-elect Donald Trump took to social media with several false and misleading claims casting blame on California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, and President Joe Biden.

• Trump claimed that Newsom had “refused to sign” a declaration that would have allowed water to flow from Northern California into the affected areas “to protect an essentially worthless fish.” But water policy experts told us there’s no connection between state water regulations or water flowing from the north and the ability to fight the fire.
• Trump made the inaccurate claim that there were no “firefighting planes” being used. Those aircraft were temporarily grounded the night of Jan. 7 due to very high winds, but were back in use early the next day, according to city officials.
• His claim that there was “no water in the fire hydrants” to fight fires is not the whole story. Local public works officials said that a lack of water pressure due to high water consumption made it difficult to get water to some fire hydrants in the higher regions of the Pacific Palisades.
• Trump also wrongly claimed Biden had left the Federal Emergency Management Agency with “NO MONEY” in its emergency funds to provide federal assistance. FEMA said there is about $27 billion in its Disaster Relief Fund from a recent infusion from Congress, enough to provide short-term disaster relief in California.

Wildfires spread by unusually strong winds and dry conditions have devastated the Los Angeles area, resulting in 10 deaths and more than 10,000 structures destroyed. As the fires still raged, Trump went to Truth Social and placed blame for the fires on Newsom.

“Governor Gavin Newscum 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,” Trump wrote on Jan. 8. “He wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt, by giving it less water (it didn’t work!), but didn’t care about the people of California. Now the ultimate price is being paid. I will demand that this incompetent governor allow beautiful, clean, fresh water to FLOW INTO CALIFORNIA! He is the blame for this. On top of it all, no water for fire hydrants, not firefighting planes. A true disaster!”

Hours later, Trump falsely attacked Biden for leaving no money in FEMA for disaster relief.

“NO WATER IN THE FIRE HYDRANTS, NO MONEY IN FEMA,” Trump wrote. “THIS IS WHAT JOE BIDEN IS LEAVING ME. THANKS JOE!”

Trump repeated some of those false claims in comments to reporters the same day. Many of those same claims were also spread by other social media users.

Trump’s comments about FEMA funding mirror some of those he made in the aftermath of Hurricanes Helene and Milton, which devastated parts of the southeast U.S. in the fall. Then, Trump falsely claimed that the Biden administration “stole” money for hurricane recovery and spent it on housing for people in the U.S. illegally. As we wrote, no funds intended for disaster relief were used to pay for programs that respond to illegal immigration.

‘Water Restoration Declaration’ and Smelt

Trump blamed Newsom for the wildfires, claiming he had “refused to sign” a document that would have allowed water to flow from Northern California into the affected areas in Los Angeles.

But state officials have said there’s no such declaration, and water policy experts told us there’s no connection between water flowing from the north of the state and the ability to fight the fire.

“The availability of water for fighting the fires … had nothing to do with water supply from Northern California,” Peter Gleick, a hydroclimatologist and co-founder of the Pacific Institute, a California nonpartisan research and policy group, told us in a phone interview. “There’s plenty of water in Southern California. In fact, the reservoirs in Southern California are more full now than they normally are for this time of year. And the problem has been that no urban water system is capable of providing enough water for massive urban wildfires, and that’s what led some of the hydrants to go dry in Southern California.” 

Letitia Grenier, director of the Public Policy Institute of California’s Water Policy Center, agreed. 

“The transfer of water from Northern California to Southern California is not related to water availability to fight the fires in the Los Angeles area,” she told us in a phone interview. “Currently, reservoirs in the Los Angeles area are mostly full. There is local water available to fight fires, but there are logistical challenges.”

Grenier told us it’s not clear what Trump is referring to when he mentioned a “water restoration declaration.” Newsom’s press office posted that “there is no such document.”

A Trump-Vance transition spokesperson referred to a lawsuit by California over a Trump February 2020 memorandum to deliver more water to the Central Valley in California. This was part of a plan to divert large amounts of water from the San Francisco Bay Delta in Northern California to the Central Valley to irrigate farms. The state filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, claiming the plan failed to protect endangered fish species including the delta smelt and the Chinook salmon.

Greiner said that although water is always diverted to the Central Valley and Southern California, it’s just a question of how much to divert while still leaving water in the river for the fish and other environmental issues. That memorandum “didn’t comply with the laws of California and that’s why California sued,” Grenier told us.

In his Jan. 8 post, Trump claimed that Newsom didn’t sign the “water restoration declaration” to “protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt … but didn’t care about the people of California.”  

That same day, Trump told reporters that fire hydrants in Los Angeles didn’t have water because the water was sent to the Pacific Ocean to protect smelt, typically a two- to three-inch fish that only lives in the San Francisco Estuary. 

“They send it out to the Pacific because they’re trying to protect a tiny little fish, which is in other areas, by the way, called the smelt. And for the sake of a smelt, they have no water,” he said. 

As we explained in 2016 when Trump said California was “shoving [water] out to the sea” to protect a “three-inch fish,” California officials release fresh water from reservoirs partly to protect endangered species but mostly to prevent the contamination of water supplies with salt water.

These water regulations don’t have anything to do with fire hydrants in the Pacific Palisades going dry, Grenier and Gleick told us. Most of the water that Los Angeles gets doesn’t come from the area where the delta smelt lives, but from the Colorado River, the Owens Valley and from local groundwater resources, Gleick said. 

“There are many different water policies in California that determine how much water is sent from one part of the state to another and when it’s sent,” he said. “There have been some efforts in recent years to restore some water to threatened and endangered species … but none of those policies have reduced the amount of water delivered to cities in Southern California. They affect sometimes the amount of water delivered to farmers in the Central Valley, but again, there’s no connection with that and the water that’s available for fighting the fires. They’re simply separate issues,” Gleick said.

Firefighting Planes and Fire Hydrants

Trump’s claim on Truth Social that there were “not firefighting planes” is inaccurate.

Aircraft used to drop water or flame retardant on the fires were only temporarily grounded the night of Jan. 7, according to the Los Angeles Times, which cited statements made by city and fire officials.

“Extreme winds Tuesday night forced crews to temporarily halt efforts to battle the Palisades and Eaton fires by air, authorities said,” the L.A. Times reported.

In a press conference earlier that day, Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone explained how increased wind speeds make aerial firefighting “more dangerous” and largely ineffective.

Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, posted on social media that the firefighting planes were back in operation the next day on Jan. 8.

As for there being “no water in the fire hydrants,” as Trump wrote in another post, that’s only part of the story.

Firefighters in the Pacific Palisades did have problems getting water from the local fire hydrant system for several reasons, including low water pressure caused by the unusually high water demand, according to city officials.

In a Jan. 8 press conference, Janisse Quiñones, chief executive and chief engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said that three nearly 1-million-gallon water tanks that are used to maintain water pressure for the local water system all ran empty by 3:00 a.m. local time on Jan. 8. And because “so much water was being used” elsewhere before those tanks could be refilled, she said, there wasn’t enough water pressure to get the water that was in the system’s trunk line “up the hill” to some of the fire hydrants.

“Fighting a wildfire with urban water systems … is really challenging,” said Quiñones. She echoed Mark Pestrella, director of Los Angeles County Public Works, who said at the same press event that having “multiple fire hydrants drawing water” from the municipal water system “for several hours is unsustainable” because the system was not designed to fight a wildfire.

Statements about the fire hydrants being dry were also prevalent on social media, with some posts blaming local Democrats, including Newsom.

FEMA Funding

Trump also wrongly claimed that there was “NO MONEY IN FEMA” to assist with the California wildfires, blaming Biden.

In fact, in December, Congress approved a continuing resolution with $110 billion in disaster assistance, including $29 billion to replenish FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund. The bill was passed on a bipartisan basis, 366-34 in the House, and 85-11 in the Senate, and was signed by Biden into law. Biden had asked for $40 billion for the Disaster Relief Fund.

“Thanks to Congress’s recent passage of a disaster supplemental, FEMA has the funding and resources to respond to the needs of California and other active disasters FEMA continues to support,” a FEMA spokesperson told us via email. “The current balance of the Disaster Relief Fund is approximately $27 billion.”

Craig Fugate, FEMA administrator during President Barack Obama’s administration, told us via email that the funding bill approved by Congress in December “has sufficient funding to support short-term response and recovery operations for the Los Angeles wildfires and recent disasters.”

“However,” Fugate added, “additional funding will be required to address long-term rebuilding efforts. The total cost of the Los Angeles wildfires is not yet known. Long-term recovery funding requirements will involve additional funding for FEMA, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Small Business Administration (SBA), and other federal programs.”

A Trump-Vance transition spokesperson told us, “The approved FEMA funding was for communities that were long overdue disaster assistance, such as those in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida impacted by Hurricanes Helene and Milton.” While the authors of the bill, which extended government funding through March 14, noted that the funds would help victims of those hurricanes, the money also would apply to “response, recovery, and mitigation activities” related to any presidentially declared major disaster. Indeed, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, the Republican who introduced the bill, noted in a floor speech that it would help the victims of tornadoes in his home district in Oklahoma.

On Jan. 9, Biden announced the federal government would be paying for 100% of all fire response costs related to the California wildfires for the first 180 days.

“This is going to pay for things like debris and hazardous material removal, temporary shelters, first responders’ salaries and all of the necessary measures to protect life and property,” Biden said. “I told the governor and local officials, spare no expense to do what they need to do to contain these fires and in their communities that have really been devastated.”

“Since the fire started,” Biden said, “FEMA has been working with the state to help residents get shelter, groceries, prescriptions and other critical goods like baby formula.”

But he acknowledged that the cost of disaster relief — although currently unknown — will be enormous and that Congress will need to pass more funding in the future to cover its cost.

“I’m going to make an appeal right now to the United States Congress,” Biden said. “They’re going to have to step up when we ask for more help, more help to get these people the kind of shelter they need, to get the kind of help they need. Because it really does matter.”

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Source: FactCheck

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Quick Take

Oregon has sent hundreds of firefighters, 75 fire engines and other equipment to help battle the blazes in Southern California. But social media posts falsely claim Oregon’s firefighting vehicles were “being held in Sacramento for emissions testing.” California and Oregon officials said the trucks only go through quick safety inspections.

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Full Story

The wildfires raging since last week in the Los Angeles area have killed at least 24 people, consumed over 62 square miles, destroyed thousands of homes and displaced more than 150,000 people. The National Weather Service predicted severe wind gusts again this week in Los Angeles and Ventura counties that could intensify and spread the fires, the Los Angeles Times reported.

To assist its neighbor, the Oregon State Fire Marshal has sent 370 firefighters, 75 fire engines, 30 water tenders that carry water to a fire line and other equipment to Southern California.

But social media posts have spread the false claim that California has delayed the deployment of Oregon’s equipment in order to inspect the trucks’ emissions and ensure they meet state environmental requirements.

Conservative activist Dinesh D’Souza, who has previously spread election misinformation, posted on X on Jan. 11 claiming, “Oregon sent 60 fire trucks to California to help with the fires, but they’re being held in Sacramento for emissions testing. You can’t make this up! What is going on?!” The post, which included a video of a man attributing that information to a publication called the Santa Monica Observer, received more than 1.3 million views as of Jan. 13, according to the platform.

The Santa Monica Observer, which has posted false news and dubious information in the past, according to the Los Angeles Times, wrote that its “original story was based on a tweet that has since been deleted” and said that it “can verify that there are fire fighters and vehicles from all over the Western US, fighting fires on the Westside now.”

A Jan. 12 Threads post also claimed, “The state of Oregon sent 60 fire trucks to California to assist with the wild fires. However they have not arrived. Why? All 60 fire trucks were stopped in Sacramento because (get this) they [didn’t] have a California Smog Emission test. So they are all currently in Sacramento, awaiting a smog test and have not gotten it yet. California is dead serious.”

A factsheet compiled by the office of California Gov. Gavin Newsom to address misinformation about the fires said D’Souza’s claim is wrong. The factsheet says, “out-of-state fire trucks take part in 15 minute safety & equipment inspection to ensure no issues with the vehicle. At the time of the original post, the Oregon firefighting teams were already in the Los Angeles area battling the blazes.”

In addition, Newsom said in a Jan. 11 post on X, “Oregon has courageously sent CA some of their best firefighters and equipment — all have been here for days fighting these blazes. To say otherwise is not only incorrect, it’s offensive to the brave men and women who are fighting on the frontlines right now.”

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or CAL Fire, posted a video on Jan. 11 showing the safety inspection process for out-of-state vehicles assisting in the firefighting efforts.

In an email to FactCheck.org, Kassie Keller, a spokesperson for the Oregon State Fire Marshal, also said the social media claim “is not true; no emissions testing took place.”

Keller directed us to a Jan. 12 statement on Facebook issued by the Oregon fire marshal, which said, in part: “We want to clear up confusion about our Oregon firefighters and equipment sent to California to help with the wildfires. There is misinformation spreading on social media and from some news outlets claiming our equipment had to pass emissions tests and our equipment and firefighters were turned away or delayed. TO BE CLEAR: THIS IS FALSE.

“Our firefighters left Oregon mid-morning on Wednesday (1/8) from various locations in the state. These strike teams traveled to Sacramento where they stayed the night. On Thursday (1/9) at 6 a.m., they went through a routine safety check with CAL Fire to make sure the engines were mechanically sound. CAL Fire posted on their social media channels detailing the process.

“Our strike teams were scheduled to arrive in Southern California on Thursday. There was no delay in the process or travel. Our equipment is held to the highest safety standard to ensure the safety of our firefighters. This equipment also does not regularly travel hundreds of miles at a time. Firefighter safety is our number one priority.

“No engine was turned away. They all completed the safety check, and all 15 strike teams arrived in Southern California on Thursday and began their 24-hour shift early Friday morning,” the Oregon fire marshal’s statement said.

The state of California has some of the strictest vehicle emissions requirements in the U.S., according to the Kelley Blue Book. But the state has not required the Oregon fire equipment to undergo smog tests before assisting in the battle against the Los Angeles area wildfires, as some social media posts have claimed.

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Sources

“California Fire Facts.” Gavinnewsom.com. Accessed 13 Jan 2025.

Harter, Clara, et al. “Weather services issues its most severe fire warning for parts of L.A. area as winds pick up.” Los Angeles Times. 13 Jan 2025.

Keller, Kassie. Public affairs director, Oregon State Fire Marshal. Email to FactCheck.org. 13 Jan 2025.

Oregon State Fire Marshal. “Clearing Up Misinformation.” 12 Jan 2025.

Oregon State Fire Marshal. “Oregon State Fire Marshal sending additional support to California.” 11 Jan 2025.

Weber, Christopher and Holly Ramer. “24 dead as fire crews try to corral Los Angeles blazes before winds return this week.” Associated Press. 13 Jan 2025.

Source: FactCheck

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President-elect Donald Trump said that when he takes office he will “immediately” reverse President Joe Biden’s recent executive action making more than 625 million acres of U.S. coastal waters off limits for new offshore drilling. But Trump’s intent to quickly “unban” any future oil and gas drilling in those areas may not be as simple as he suggests.

That’s because Biden issued his ban using authority granted to presidents by the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, a 1953 law that allows presidents to protect unleased lands of the outer continental shelf from oil and gas development. In 2019, a federal judge ruled that any such prohibition could be overturned by Congress — but not a future president.

However, after Biden announced the new ban on Jan. 6, the incoming president pledged to undo it.

“I see it just came over that Biden has banned all oil and gas drilling across 625 million acres of U.S. coastal territory,” Trump said in a Jan. 6 interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. “It’s ridiculous. I’ll unban it immediately. I will unban it. I have the right to unban it immediately.”

The next day, in a press conference from Florida, Trump reiterated his goal.

“President Biden’s actions yesterday on offshore drilling, banning offshore drilling will not stand. I will reverse it immediately. It’ll be done immediately and we will drill, baby, drill,” he said.

Here, we’ll explain what Biden did and how Trump may be able to stop it.

Biden’s Ban on New Offshore Drilling

Biden took executive action on Jan. 6 to protect much of the U.S. coastline from more exploratory drilling. He issued two presidential memorandums that withdrew more than 625 million acres of coastal waters from potentially being leased for new oil and natural gas production.  

The areas covered by the actions are the eastern U.S. Atlantic coast; the eastern Gulf of Mexico; the Pacific Coast along California, Oregon and Washington; and portions of the Northern Bering Sea in Alaska.

States have rights to the resources in the area that is three nautical miles, or more in some cases, from their coastlines, according to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. But the federal government has jurisdiction over the outer continental shelf, which extends beyond the state jurisdiction. 

“President Biden has determined that the environmental and economic risks and harms that would result from drilling in these areas outweigh their limited fossil fuel resource potential,” the White House said in a fact sheet on his actions. “With these withdrawals, President Biden is protecting coastal communities, marine ecosystems, and local economies – including fishing, recreation, and tourism – from oil spills and other impacts of offshore drilling,” the fact sheet said.

The White House said that there is no expiration date for the withdrawals, which “prohibit all future oil and natural gas leasing” in the protected areas. The memorandums also note that nothing in the withdrawals “affects rights under existing leases in the withdrawn areas.”

Biden acted using the authority granted to presidents under section 12(a) of the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, and this is not the first time that he has done so. Biden previously used his authority in January 2021, to protect part of the Northern Bering Sea, and in March 2023, he withdrew nearly 3 million acres of the Beaufort Sea in the U.S. Arctic Ocean from future oil and gas drilling.

In 2020, Trump, citing the same law as Biden, issued his own presidential memorandum making parts of the coasts of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina unavailable to be leased until 2032.

With Biden’s recent actions, the White House said the president has now conserved more than 670 million acres of U.S. federal land and waters.

Can Trump Undo the Ban? 

After Biden’s ban was announced this month, Trump said that he would quickly end it. But he may not be able to do so on his own.

Hannah Wiseman, a Penn State law professor and co-director of the university’s Center for Energy Law and Policy, told us in an email that the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act authorizes presidents to, in the words of the act, “from time to time, withdraw from disposition any of the unleased lands of the outer Continental Shelf.” But the law “says nothing about whether a later President may revoke this prior withdrawal,” she said.

In fact, in 2017, Trump was unsuccessful in trying to reverse bans on new drilling in parts of the Arctic Ocean that were implemented by President Barack Obama. Trump issued an executive order to undo Obama’s bans, but in 2019, a federal district judge in Alaska, Sharon Gleason, an Obama appointee, ruled that Trump’s order was “unlawful and invalid” because the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act does not allow a president to repeal a withdrawal made by another president.

“The court in 2019 reasoned that ‘the statute does not expressly grant to the President the authority to revoke prior withdrawals’ and that the phrase ‘from time to time’ does not suggest that presidential withdrawals of land from leasing must be temporary (subject to revocation),” Wiseman said.

The Trump administration appealed the decision, but a higher court never weighed in before Biden took office in January 2021 and revoked Trump’s executive order. After Biden’s revocation, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit dismissed the case as moot.

This time, Trump could issue another executive order and hope that it survives a legal challenge.

Andrew Mergen, a professor in environmental law at Harvard Law School, told the Washington Post that he believes the 2019 court ruling could have been overturned if the appeal had proceeded. The Congressional Research Service also wrote in a January “legal sidebar” that a different effort by Trump “to revoke a withdrawal may be interpreted differently by courts.”

Another option is for Trump to work with the Republican-controlled Congress on legislation that would amend Biden’s ban or rescind it. In her email, Wiseman noted that Gleason’s 2019 ruling said that Congress could override a leasing ban “by either revoking the withdrawal itself … or amending Section 12(a) to expressly provide that a future President could also revoke a prior presidential withdrawal.”

Some Republicans have already suggested that they are open to do so. In a Jan. 6 statement he issued responding to Biden’s actions, Rep. Bruce Westerman, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, said that congressional Republicans “will use every tool, including reconciliation,” to make the regions that Biden protected accessible for future oil and gas drilling.

The reconciliation process would allow the Senate to pass a bill with a simple majority instead of the 60 votes required to stop a potential filibuster.

We asked Trump’s transition team how he plans to go about reversing Biden’s executive action, but we have not received a response.

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On social media, President-elect Donald Trump amplified a claim that California Gov. Gavin Newsom slashed the state’s fire budget by $100 million just months before the outbreak of the recent wildfires. Newsom dismissed the claim as “a ridiculous lie,” saying that under his leadership, the state has “nearly doubled” its fire protection budget. Actually, both things are true.

Newsom did approve cuts to several supplemental funding initiatives in the wildfire budget last summer, but overall, the state’s multibillion-dollar firefighting budget and workforce increased.

On Jan. 11, Trump reposted a headline from Breitbart, “Report: Gavin Newsom Cut $100 Million from Fire Prevention Budget in 2024.” Social media posts have also cited the same report.

The claim originates from a Newsweek article published on Jan. 10, which began, “The 2024-25 California state budget, which Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law in June 2024, slashed funding for wildfire and forest resilience by $101 million as part of a series of cutbacks according to an analysis by the state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office.”

That’s the state Legislature’s nonpartisan fiscal adviser. The story reflects a February 2024 summary by the Legislative Analyst’s Office of Newsom’s proposed 2024-25 budget. The summary showed that Newsom proposed cutting a total of $101 million from seven “wildfire and forest resilience package” programs. Those were proposed cuts to “a previous budget agreement for a special package of one-time wildfire funding,” according to Rachel Ehlers, the agency’s deputy legislative analyst.

Those cuts ended up being even deeper than what Newsom originally proposed.

Facing a $55 billion budget shortfall and a requirement to pass a balanced budget, the state Legislature and Newsom ultimately agreed upon a $144 million reduction to those wildfire-related funds. Of that, the largest cut was $46 million from money slated for a pilot project to create hydrogen from biomass. Another $35 million was cut from wildfire resilience projects on state-owned land and $28 million from projects undertaken by various state conservancies.

“To underscore: these were reductions to one-time augmentations, not reductions to CalFire’s ongoing base programs and funding,” Ehlers told us via email, referring to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Newsom responded via X that the claim about him cutting the fire budget is “a ridiculous lie.”

“We have doubled the size of our firefighting army, built the world’s largest aerial firefighting fleet, and increased the forest management ten-fold since taking office,” Newsom wrote. “Time to serve these folks the facts.”

A webpage launched by Newsom’s office to combat misinformation about the wildfires added, “The number of CalFIRE personnel has nearly doubled since 2019 (from 5,829 to 10,741) … CalFIRE’s budget has nearly doubled since 2019 ($2 Billion to $3.8 Billion).”

The figures in the state’s official budget act documents are a little different, but they back up the trendline Newsom cited.

According to those documents, the 2018-19 budgeted amount for CAL FIRE was $2.5 billion and included 7,182 personnel. That was the fiscal year before Newsom took office in January 2019. The 2024-25 budget approved in June 2024 included $4.2 billion (a 68% increase from 2018-19) and 12,511 personnel (a 74% increase). The budget and number of fire personnel has increased under Newsom, including between the 2023-24 and 2024-25 budgets. In California state government, the fiscal year runs from July 1 to the following June 30.

Estimates provided to us by the Legislative Analyst’s Office also show that the total CAL FIRE expenditures have risen every year of Newsom’s tenure as governor — from $2.74 billion in fiscal year 2019-2020 to $4.43 billion in 2023-24. Total expenditures for 2024-25 are $4.59 billion, according to the agency. However, Ehlers noted, the 2024-25 amount “does not yet reflect additional costs being incurred for the LA fires; I expect that total will increase when updated data are available.”

In addition, Ehlers said, the 2024-25 budget agreement that Newsom signed also included “a multiyear plan to phase in significant increases in the number of new firefighters at CalFire.” (See Figure 5.)

So facing a large budget deficit, Newsom proposed cuts to one-time supplemental funding for some wildfire-related programs, but the overall wildfire budget — and the number of personnel it supports — has increased under Newsom’s watch.

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In his farewell address to the nation and in other recent remarks, President Joe Biden has repeated claims that are misleading or need additional context.

• Biden said, “We’ve created nearly 17 million new jobs, more than any other single administration in a single term.” But no president’s administration is responsible for all jobs gained or lost. Furthermore, on a percentage basis, job growth was higher during President Jimmy Carter’s four-year presidency and during President Lyndon Johnson’s one full term.

• He boasted about “bringing violent crime to a 50-year low,” a statistic that’s correct or nearly so, according to FBI data. But the violent crime rate has been relatively stable for a decade, and presidents have little to do with noticeable changes in crime.

• Biden misleadingly claimed that billionaires “paid an average of 8.2% in federal taxes.” That figure is a White House calculation that includes earnings on unsold assets and stock as income.

• The president stretched the facts when touting “Buy America” laws and claiming that “past administrations … failed to buy American.” He has expanded such requirements on federal spending, but we found no indication that his predecessors had violated the laws during their tenures.

Job Growth

Biden began his presidency by misleadingly claiming to have created more jobs during his term than former presidents, and he’s ending his four-year tenure by doing the same.

In his farewell address to the nation on Jan. 15, Biden said, “We’ve created nearly 17 million new jobs, more than any other single administration in a single term.” And while talking about the latest jobs report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on Jan. 10, he said, “All told in four years, we’ve created 16.6 million new jobs, the most of any single presidential term in history.”

BLS data show that, as of December, total nonfarm employment grew by 16.6 million since January 2021. Although no president is responsible for all jobs gained or lost, that is the largest increase in employment during a single presidential term, according to BLS data going back to 1939.

But much of that job growth under Biden was due to jobs regained after millions of American jobs were lost during the COVID-19 pandemic. The December employment level is 7.2 million higher than the pre-pandemic peak in February 2020. (Note that the final employment figures are expected to be adjusted downward next month, when BLS completes its yearly “benchmarking” process.)

Furthermore, on a percentage basis, which factors in the U.S. population at the time, the growth in jobs under Presidents Jimmy Carter and Lyndon Johnson was better than the increase under Biden.

BLS data show that employment went up by about 12.7% under Carter — from 80.7 million in January 1977 to 90.9 million in December 1980. And in Johnson’s only full term in office, there was 16.2% job growth from January 1965 to December 1968 — when total employment increased by nearly 9.7 million.

Meanwhile, employment has increased about 11.6% in the same 47-month period under Biden.

Crime

In his farewell address, Biden boasted about “bringing violent crime to a 50-year low.” The statistic is true, or very nearly so, according to FBI crime statistics. But there are some caveats.

Despite some fluctuations, the yearly violent crime rates have been relatively stable for a decade, and are far lower than the peak levels in the 1990s. And experts say presidents have little impact on changes in nationwide rates.

In 2023, the latest year available from FBI data, the violent crime rate was 363.8 per 100,000 people. Technically, 2014 was slightly lower, at 363.6 per 100,000 people. (The figure for 2021 is lower still, but there are some issues with that year’s estimate, as we’ve explained.)

Violent crime jumped a bit in 2020, Trump’s last year in office, and 2023 was about 6% lower than that. But 2023 was also in line with the rate in 2019 (364.4) prior to the pandemic.

While the 2023 FBI violent crime rate is at or near the low in the most recent decades, according to the FBI data available online, we were unable to verify if that were true going back a full 50 years. However, in May 2024 Jeff Asher, an analyst for AH Datalytics, provided PolitiFact with violent crime data — adjusted for some of the changing definitions of violent crime over time — which indicate Biden’s statistic is accurate, or nearly so, dating back to the early 1970s.

It’s worth noting that all available crime data are inexact. The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports only collect data about crimes that are reported to police, and some crimes, like sexual assault, have notoriously low reporting rates. In addition, not all law enforcement agencies submit their data to the FBI — though for 2023, agencies representing 94.3% of the U.S. population participated.

A second set of government crime data — one frequently cited by Trump to claim crime has increased — comes from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ Criminal Victimization report. It estimates levels of crimes based on a survey of about 240,000 people each year, asking whether they have been victims of various crimes. Biden’s claim of a 50-year low is less defensible by this yardstick.

According to the 2023 Criminal Victimization report, the rate of violent victimization in the U.S. dropped from 23.5 per 1,000 people in 2022 to 22.5 in 2023. However, that 2023 rate was higher by about 6 percentage points than it was in 2020 and 2021. It was also slightly higher — though “not statistically different” — than the 2019 rate of 21 per 1,000 people. (See Table 1.) The rates from these surveys in the last decade — which have remained relatively stable — are more than 70% lower than the rates in the early 1990s. (See Figure 1.)

These survey datasets also have limitations. As we have written before, the survey trends tend to lag trends in the FBI data; they rely on surveys of people over the age of 12; they are subject — as all surveys are — to a margin of error; and, of course, the surveys cannot include the victims of murder.

There’s one other caveat to Biden’s boast. As we have written before, crime experts have long cautioned that presidents, regardless of party, have little to do with noticeable changes in crime.

The late criminologist Richard Rosenfeld, who wrote about crime trends for the nonpartisan Council on Criminal Justice at the end of his long career in this field, told us in 2021 that presidents “can facilitate a response,” citing an initiative by Biden at the time to work with cities to reduce gun violence. “But no president, in my memory, has ever single-handedly been responsible for a sharp crime increase or for that matter a sharp crime decline. Crime is driven by other factors and the president has little control over those factors.”

Billionaires

In Jan. 10 remarks on jobs and the economy, Biden repeated a misleading talking point about taxes paid by billionaires. “And you’ve heard me say it a hundred times: We have over a thousand billionaires in America. They paid an average of 8.2% in federal taxes,” he said.

We’ve heard it a lot — and we’ve fact-checked it several times. As we’ve written, Biden’s 8.2% figure isn’t the average rate billionaires pay in the current tax system. Instead, that figure, calculated by the White House, considers earnings on unsold assets and stock as income. Under the current tax system, the top-earning taxpayers, on average, pay higher tax rates than those in lower income groups, as we’ve explained.

Biden is referring to “unrealized” gains — earnings on assets, such as stocks. Those earnings aren’t subject to capital gains taxes until the asset is sold. Unrealized gains, the White House has argued, could go untaxed forever if wealthy people hold on to them and transfer them on to heirs when they die. This is the basis for Biden’s proposal for a “billionaire minimum tax” that he wanted to apply to those worth over $100 million.

The president made this claim in many speeches, including at the Democratic National Convention this year, and in his June debate with President-elect Donald Trump.

Buy American

Biden spun the facts in claiming that past administrations had skirted so-called “Buy America” laws requiring that federal government money be used to purchase only U.S. materials or products. We examined this issue in May, finding that while Biden had broadened such requirements, including as part of the 2021 infrastructure law, there was no indication that past presidents had violated the laws in place when they were in office.

“Buy America has been the law of the land since the ‘30s. It says that any money the president is authorized … by Congress to spend should use American workers and American products,” Biden said in his Jan. 10 remarks. “But past administrations, including my predecessor, failed to buy American and use American workers. But not on our watch.”

On Jan. 14, the administration issued a final rule that will eliminate a longtime waiver for federally funded highway projects that exempted manufactured products that don’t contain steel and iron from Buy America provisions. The rule is set to be phased in starting in October.

When we wrote about this last year, a former House transportation committee staff member told us that some on Capitol Hill had tried to get rid of that waiver over the years, but no one had been successful. The former staffer said if this is what Biden means in talking about past administrations not upholding the law, it’s a legitimate claim. But other experts we spoke with disagreed.

Presidents of both parties, including Trump, have embraced the “Buy America” rhetoric. Scott Lincicome, the vice president of general economics and trade at the libertarian Cato Institute, told us that Biden’s claim “stretches the truth,” noting that the Trump administration “was quite active” in trying to “make the rules more restrictive.”

“Previous administrations were perfectly entitled to invoke the [Federal Highway Administration] waiver,” Gary Clyde Hufbauer, a nonresident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told us. “Nothing wrong with that. They did that to save taxpayer money and speed up projects.”

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Quick Take

Canada and Mexico have sent firefighting crews to help battle the blazes in the Los Angeles area, and Ukraine also has offered assistance. But social media posts misleadingly claim “$00,000,000” in “foreign aid” has been offered to the U.S. to help with the Southern California disaster.

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Full Story

Wildfires that began on Jan. 7 continued to burn in Southern California this week, propelled by strong winds and drought-like conditions. As of Jan. 16, the fires have ravaged about 40,000 acres, destroyed more than 12,000 structures and prompted evacuation orders for more than 100,000 people. At least 25 people have died.

The Palisades Fire, which began as a brush fire in the Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles County on Jan. 7, remains the largest blaze. The Eaton and Hurst Fires in Los Angeles County and the Auto Fire in Ventura County have also caused substantial damage, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

About 88,000 residents of Los Angeles County were still under evacuation orders as of Jan. 16, as more than 16,000 personnel work to contain the flames and coordinate recovery, according to state officials.

But social media posts have spread false characterizations of the fire response efforts. One recent meme misleadingly suggested that California has received no assistance from foreign countries.

The meme circulating on social media depicts firefighters responding to a hillside blaze and says: “$00,000,000,000 THE AMOUNT OF FOREIGN AID FLOWING IN FROM UKRAINE, ISRAEL, EUROPE, MEXICO AND CANADA TO HELP.”

One Instagram user, whose bio labels the account as “satire,” received more than 9,000 likes for the meme. The post itself isn’t labeled as satire, and the meme has been shared by many other social media users. 

While other nations have not sent money to assist Southern California, Canada and Mexico have sent firefighting crews to the Los Angeles area, and Ukraine has offered to help fight the fires. 

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “offered Canada’s full support to assist California’s firefighting efforts,” according to a Jan. 10 press release from Trudeau’s office. “Fire crews, aircraft, and equipment from Canada, including from British Columbia and Quebec, were some of the first on scene to help battle the fires.”

On Jan. 11, Trudeau posted a video on X with the caption, “Canadian aerial firefighting aircraft readying for another pass over the Southern California wildfires.” Trudeau announced the deployment of 60 firefighters to California the next day and subsequently confirmed Canadian assistance in the region in posts on X. 

“Canadian firefighters are on the ground, working shoulder to shoulder with American crews, helping wherever they can,” Trudeau wrote. “More Canadian crews are on the way. We’re proud to help our American friends, and grateful for the first responders working in the toughest of conditions to save homes and keep people safe.”

The Canadian government said in a press release that it continues to work with provinces and territories to prepare personnel and other resources should California request additional support. 

Mexico has also mobilized aid to California. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo announced in a news conference on Jan. 10 that the Mexican secretary of foreign affairs had talked with California Gov. Gavin Newsom and President Joe Biden about providing a support team to the region, the Arizona Republic reported.

Newsom announced that 72 Mexican firefighters and disaster relief workers from the National Forestry Commission and Ministry of Defense landed in Los Angeles on Jan. 11. 

“We are a generous and supportive country,” Sheinbaum wrote on X of the deployment. “You carry with you the courage and heart of Mexico.”

According to a press release from Newsom’s office, ​​​​​​the Mexican firefighters will form crews to assist in the fire response. “Emergencies have no borders – we are deeply grateful to our neighbors in Mexico for their unwavering support during one of our greatest times of need,” Newsom said. “Thank you to President Claudia Sheinbaum for lending the best of the best.”

In a Jan. 12 post on X, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country also offered aid to California. “Today, I instructed Ukraine’s Minister of Internal Affairs and our diplomats to prepare for the possible participation of our rescuers in combating the wildfires in California. The situation there is extremely difficult, and Ukrainians can help Americans save lives,” he said.

“This is currently being coordinated, and we have offered our assistance to the American side through the relevant channels,” Zelenskyy said. “150 of our firefighters are already prepared.”

The California National Guard was quick to respond to Zelenskyy’s post: “Ukraine’s offer of support to California during these devastating wildfires is nothing short of extraordinary. President Zelenskyy’s leadership and the preparation of 150 Ukrainian firefighters are a testament to the power of global partnerships.”

We reached out to Newsom’s office to find out whether Ukrainian firefighters were assisting the efforts in Southern California, but we did not receive an answer.

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Sources

Stelloh, Tim, et al. “California wildfires: What we know about L.A.-area fires, maps, what caused them, who is affected and more.” NBC News. 14 Jan 2025.

NBC News. “California wildfire live updates: Los Angeles area on alert as high winds fan flames.” 15 Jan 2025.

California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. “Current Emergency Incidents.” Accessed 15 Jan 2025.

Lynch Baldwin, Sarah, et al. “L.A. Fires Live Updates: ‘Particularly dangerous’ winds warning yet again for Southern California.” CBS News. 16 Jan 2025.

Governor Gavin Newsom. “Governor Newsom mobilizes L.A. debris removal teams to begin work immediately once cleared for safety.” 14 Jan 2025.

Jaffe, Alan. “Oregon Fire Trucks Fighting L.A. Blazes Didn’t Require ‘Emissions Testing.’” FactCheck.org. 13 Jan 2025.

Jaramillo, Catalina, et al. “Trump’s Blame Claims About Wildfire Responses.” FactCheck.org. 10 Jan 2025.

Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau. “Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks with Governor of California Gavin Newsom.” 10 Jan 2025.

Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau). “Canadian aerial firefighting aircraft readying for another pass over California fires.” X. 12 Jan 2025.

Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau). “Canada is deploying 60 firefighters.” X. 12 Jan 2025.

Government of Canada. “Update on Canada’s response to the wildfires in California.” 14 Jan 2025.

Government of Canada. “Government of Canada’s response to the wildfires in California.” 10 Jan 2025.

Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo (@Claudiashein). “En este momento sale el grupo de ayuda humanitaria a Los Ángeles, California.” X. 11 Jan 2025.

Gobierno de México. “México envía ayuda a Los Ángeles: contingente mexicano llega para combatir incendios en California.” 13 Jan 2025.

Torres, Miguel. “Canada, Mexico to send firefighting help to Los Angeles. What to know.” Arizona Republic. 10 Jan 2025.

Governor Gavin Newsom. “Governor Newsom welcomes firefighters from Mexico to boost firefighting capacity.” 11 Jan 2025.

Governor Newsom (@CAgovernor). “72 firefighters and emergency personnel have arrived from Mexico to help.” X. 11 Jan 2025.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy (@ZelenskyyUa). “Today, I instructed Ukraine’s Minister of Internal Affairs and our diplomats to prepare.” X. 12 Jan 2025.

California National Guard. “Ukraine’s offer of support to California during these devastating wildfires is nothing short of extraordinary.” X. 12 Jan 2025.

Source: FactCheck

Multiple fires continue to burn in the Los Angeles area after flames have razed neighborhoods, forced mass evacuations and claimed at least 27 lives over more than a week. Some fires have been contained, but three are still active. 

That includes two of the biggest and most devastating infernos, the Palisades fire in West Los Angeles and the Eaton fire in Altadena, which are already projected to be the most costly in U.S. history.

As the fires have spread, false or unsupported information about them — particularly about how they started and why they have been so severe — has also escalated.

Some people have cast the fires as largely the result of global warming, while others have denied any climate change connection and pinned blame on a lack of water or vegetation management. (As we’ve already written, many of the claims about water are bogus.) Meanwhile, some have baselessly pointed to lasers or directed energy weapons, among other fanciful conspiracies, as ignition sources.

Here, we explain what’s known about how the fires started and the factors that scientists do — and don’t — think contributed.

• What conditions allowed for the rash of catastrophic fires?
• What sparked the fires?
• Did climate change contribute to the fires?
• Was poor vegetation management to blame?
• What more can be done to prevent similar devastating fires in the future?

What conditions allowed for the rash of catastrophic fires?

Several unique conditions were in place that enabled multiple wildfires to begin and quickly spread. 

With almost no rain since July and very low levels of moisture in the air and soil after an extremely hot summer, it was exceptionally dry in Southern California. The precipitation expected with the start of the wet season, which usually begins by December, had not yet arrived. This meant the vegetation, which primarily includes grasses and shrubs, or chaparral — as well as other materials — was highly flammable, and ready to ignite with any spark.

“In modern history, it has not been this dry this late in the ostensible rainy season,” University of California, Los Angeles climate scientist Daniel Swain, who has been closely following the L.A. wildfires, told the New Yorker. Even if a small amount of rain had fallen, he added, there wouldn’t have been the “explosively dry vegetation.”

The already parched conditions were worsened by unusually fierce Santa Ana–like winds, the seasonal dry winds that blow toward the ocean, which also rapidly spread flames and made fighting the fires incredibly difficult.

“When it’s that dry, wind has ultimate power,” University of California, Merced climatology professor John Abatzoglou told Cal Matters.

It’s typical for California to have strong, dry winds this time of year, but these winds were particularly powerful, with gusts reaching up to 100 miles per hour.

In addition to the unprecedented dryness and the stronger-than-normal winds, the amount of vegetation available to burn was also unusually high. That’s because for the two previous years, it had been wetter than normal, allowing plants — and particularly grasses — to grow more. The swing back to dryness meant there was now more fuel to burn, allowing the fires to become more intense.

As several UCLA scientists wrote in a preliminary analysis of the wildfires posted on Jan. 13, “It will require extensive research to fully understand the relative importance of the various factors underlying the fires, and how the factors interacted, but there is broad consensus as to what those factors might be: there was a buildup of fuels—i.e. vegetation—from 2022–2024, followed by a very warm summer in 2024. Then the winter rains that normally arrive in November and December largely failed to materialize. On top of all that, we saw a nearly unprecedented Santa Ana wind event that was critical for the rapid spread.”

What sparked the fires?

There are no definitive answers yet. State and federal officials are investigating possible sources, which for one or more fires include rekindled embers from a previous fire, a failure in energized power lines and arson.

In the information vacuum, social media is awash with misinformation about what started the fires. Some conspiracy theories repeat baseless claims that spread after the Maui fires in 2023, including suggestions that the fires were started with lasers or directed energy weapons or that they’re part of a plot to create smart cities controlled by the government. Other unfounded claims say that the fires were started by smart meters or electric car batteries — or were intentionally set by local officials, neighbors or the rich.

“One of the things that everybody wants to know is how did these fires start. And until the team of investigators concludes their investigations, we don’t really know,” U.S. Forest Service Chief Randy Moore told President Joe Biden at a briefing on the federal response to the fires on Jan. 14, answering a question about the spread of false claims. “And so, there’s a lot of speculation out there about how these fires started, but there’s no proof to validate a lot of these rumors that we’re — we’re hearing.”

The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ National Response Team was tasked with investigating the origin of the Palisades fire, which is the largest fire so far. It started the morning of Jan. 7, and as of Jan. 17, is just 27% contained and has burned over 23,700 acres.

Investigators continue to examine the area, gathering evidence and witness statements, but the investigation is likely to take months. (ATF’s team investigation of the Maui wildfires took nearly 14 months.)

A possible ignition source for the Palisades wildfire is a small fire that occurred on New Year’s Eve on a nearby hiking trail. The small fire, which may have been sparked by fireworks, was put out by firefighters. But officials are investigating whether remaining embers could have been rekindled, fueled by the strong winds — similar to how the Maui wildfire started. 

The area, known as Skull Rock, is also frequently visited by hikers, who could have somehow sparked a fire. The New York Times reported there was “evidence of recent visitors” at the site. At least one lawyer is investigating if a downed utility line could have sparked the fire, according to the Times.

“Nothing is being ruled out at this point,” Doug Shores, a spokesperson for the ATF’s National Response Team, told us in an email.

In the case of the Eaton fire, which had burned over 14,100 acres and was 55% contained as of Jan. 17, investigators of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection are looking into possible failures on electrical towers owned by Southern California Edison over Altadena. 

Utilities are required to report any electric incidents potentially associated with wildfires to the California Public Utilities Commission. On Jan. 9, SCE filed such a report “out of an abundance of caution” after social media posts showed flames under an electrical transmission tower and suggested the company’s equipment could be at fault. (Four lawsuits filed this week blamed SCE.) According to the report, the transmission tower lines in the area were energized when the fire started, but early analysis by the company “shows no interruptions or electrical or operational anomalies until more than one hour after the reported start time of the fire.”

David Acuna, battalion chief with CAL FIRE, told CNN that investigators are still gathering information and have not ruled out any cause of the Eaton fire. 

“It’s really early in the investigation,” he said in the Jan. 14 interview. “Where we really want to focus right now is to understand that 95% of all fires are started by humans. That’s not all arson, it can be accidental.”

Given the ideal conditions for fire, it doesn’t take much to produce a spark. As an example, Acuna mentioned a mower hitting a rock, a vehicle dragging chains, a campfire or having some sort of combustible near grass.

A 2021 research article that examined Santa Ana wind fires from 1948 to 2018 found that “100% of the fires were caused by humans, either intentionally or accidentally.” The article, published in Science Advances, found that from 1948 to 1983, most fires were sparked by campfires. But later, from 1984 to 2018, most were sparked by arson or power line failures, with the latter dominating in the last decade.  

SCE filed a separate report on Jan. 10 for an incident potentially associated with the Hurst fire, which burned nearly 800 acres and is fully contained. In that case, the utility reported a downed conductor at a tower in the vicinity, but says it doesn’t know “whether the damage observed occurred before or after the start of the fire.” Fire agencies are investigating if the equipment was involved in the ignition, according to the report. 

Did climate change contribute to the fires?

It’s too early to know how much climate change contributed to the fires, but many climate scientists say it did play a role.

Climate change — as with any other contributing factor — is never the sole cause of a wildfire, which requires not only a spark, but also flammable conditions and something to burn. Fires are also far more devastating when they occur near populated areas and burn people’s homes. Instead, increasing temperatures due to climate change and the downstream effects of that extra heat can make certain events more likely or more severe.

In the case of these wildfires, the primary way climate change is thought to contribute is by drying out vegetation. As Swain, the UCLA climate scientist, has explained, the hotter temperatures increase atmospheric “thirstiness,” or how much moisture the air can suck up. Without increases in precipitation, this can make plants and other material drier and more flammable than they otherwise would be.

Another potential mechanism is related to the previously discussed wet-to-dry swing that occurred this year. Some research, including work led by Swain, suggests that climate change itself may be making such “hydroclimate whiplash” events more common. 

As Swain put it in a blog post, “the ‘worst climate for wildfire’ may in fact not be one that becomes steadily hotter and drier, but instead one that increasingly lurches back and forth between episodic wet and dry extremes, yielding increasingly large swings between rapid fuel accumulation and subsequent drying (especially in grassland, shrubland, and woodland environments).” 

Continued warming, combined with wider swings between wet and dry, he continued, “are likely to increasingly interact with California’s narrowing rainy season” to generate more frequent overlap of strong, dry winds with “critically dry vegetation conditions” — the exact recipe for catastrophic fires in the region.

In a Jan. 9 X post, Swain called the whiplash phenomenon “an emerging factor” for how climate change could be increasing the risk of wildfire in California.

Not all scientists, however, are convinced that the swing is necessarily related to climate change.

“Is that climate change or is it just, you know, an unfortunate timing of events?” Alexandra Syphard, a senior research ecologist at the Conservation Biology Institute, told us.

Syphard, who was a co-author of the Science Advances paper on wildfire ignition sources, noted that for wildfires specifically in Southern California, the role of climate change is “nuanced” and “often indirect.” For example, climate change-fueled drought conditions can lead to dieback of the native shrubs, including of the chaparral ecosystem that blankets much of Southern California. As those evergreen plants die, invasive grasses can come in, increasing the risk of fire.

“Climate change certainly exacerbates the situation, but in Southern California, the issues that we’re having right now have a lot more to do with human factors than climate factors,” she said. “And the reason for that is because Southern California already has climatically extreme conditions every year.”

As we have explained before, the weaker linkage to climate change for Southern California wildfires is different from the interior forests of California and elsewhere, where the connection is much more clear. Syphard said that in places such as Australia or the Sierra Nevada, climate change “is having a much more severe effect” and “is playing a massive role in those fires.”

In general, Syphard said she considered the role of climate change on fire in Southern California to be “minor to moderate.” In this particular case, she said, “we just don’t know” yet, but said it would be incorrect to say the fires are primarily the result of climate change.

Swain was more definitive, telling us in an email, “I do believe it is accurate to say that climate change is an ‘important/substantial/major’ contributor to the extremely high wildfire risk conditions that were in place the time these dual wildfire disasters unfolded, though it is far from the only relevant factor in why the disaster unfolded as it did.”

The UCLA rapid analysis estimated that climate change “may be linked to roughly a quarter of the extreme fuel moisture deficit when the fires began.”

For its estimate, the report, which has not been peer-reviewed, assumed that climate change did not play a role in the lack of rain, but did contribute to dryness due to the “anomalously warm summer and fall of 2024.” It also noted that “a small part (~10%) of the excess precipitation from during the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 wet seasons, which led to abnormally high fuel loads, may be climate-change-driven.”

“The fires would still have been extreme without climate change, but probably somewhat smaller and less intense,” it concluded.

Was poor vegetation management to blame?

Soon after the L.A. wildfires began wreaking havoc, a common narrative emerged claiming that poor vegetation management was a key reason why these fires have been so bad. 

Donald Trump Jr., for example, stated in an Instagram post mocking California Gov. Gavin Newsom that “proper brush mitigation was ignored for years.” 

Other posts have highlighted President-elect Donald Trump’s previous comments blaming Newsom and a lack of forest “raking” or “clean[ing]” of forest floors for wildfires. “Still true,” an Instagram post said of a 2019 Trump tweet.

But as we explained then — and as experts told us once again — while proper forest management is an important part of reducing severe fire risk in forests, it’s a different situation in the grass- and shrubbery-dominated landscape where the current fires are burning in Southern California. (In a Jan. 13 interview with Newsmax, Trump repeated this and other false claims.)

Not only is vegetation management of that ecosystem not particularly helpful in reducing wildfire risk, but active management of the chaparral could backfire. “If the government had requested to remove more chaparral, in a way it could have created an even worse situation,” Syphard said.

That’s because when chaparral is removed, invasive grasses — which are more flammable — move in, heightening the fire risk.

Even putting in more fuel breaks, Syphard said, is not always a good idea, because if a person is not there to fight the fire, the break area can also increase fire risk.

“In Southern California, creating a fuel break means cutting down the chaparral and converting it to grass,” she said. “When you convert it to grass, if an ember lands on that fuel break, it might actually start a new spot fire.”

Particularly with the high winds typical of the season, wildfires will easily cross fuel breaks, Syphard added, noting that embers have jumped across 15-lane freeways.

“Landscape-scale reduction of chaparral will not stop wind-driven wildfires from spreading,” she said.

That’s not to say that property owners shouldn’t keep better tabs on their own plants. Removing vegetation around homes or other structures is recommended, Syphard said. 

But other than better enforcement of defensible space rules, she said she did not think the government could have done anything more with vegetation management that would have helped with these fires.

“[L]ack of vegetation management is not what went wrong in these fires,” she said.

What more can be done to prevent similar devastating fires in the future?

Taking action on climate change could reduce some of the extra risk that increasing temperatures can pose to fires in the future. More immediately, however, experts say more attention should be paid to preventing ignitions, making structures more fire-resistant and not continuing to build in high-risk areas.

Reducing human ignitions, Syphard said, will mean fewer fires, which will help stop the so-called grass-fire cycle, in which human-sparked fires beget more grass, which begets more fire, which begets more grass and so on. Understanding the details of how fires start could allow people to develop customized prevention strategies, she said.

Syphard also recommended that people in high-risk communities come together to make their homes and other structures as fire resilient as they can. She cautioned that this work is “not a guarantee” — plenty of people who do all the right things will still lose their homes when wildfires do happen. But, she said, “it can minimize the damage.”

As Heatmap News has reported, California adopted the strictest building code standards for wildfire in the country in 2008, but the standards only apply to new buildings and many homes in the areas that are burning are quite old and may not be built to any code.

Finally, experts say a key way to avoid future disasters is to stop building in the most high-risk areas.

“In the future, if we keep putting more [structures] out there, that’s just putting greater numbers of people to start fires and to be affected by fires,” Syphard said. “So we really should consider where we put future development.”

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Quick Take

President Joe Biden said victims of the California fires are eligible for a $770 payment for necessities like food and fuel. Social media posts misleadingly suggested the payment would be the only federal aid for those affected by the fires. Federal aid available to the fire victims includes help with home repair or replacement, medical expenses and other assistance.

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Full Story

The wildfires burning in Southern California since Jan. 7 have killed at least 24 people and destroyed thousands of homes and other buildings, displacing about 180,000 people.

Among the federal assistance programs available to victims of the California wildfires is a $770 emergency payment to cover the cost of immediate necessities like food, fuel and baby formula.

Those payments are available through the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s new Serious Needs Assistance program, which President Joe Biden referenced during a briefing with federal officials on Jan. 13.

Later that evening, an X account managed by President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee posted a clip from the briefing and highlighted the portion of Biden’s comments that said, “People impacted by these fires are gonna receive one-time payment of $770. One-time payment.”

That clip was reposted by some widely followed conservative accounts that misleadingly compared the emergency payments of $770 for California’s wildfire victims to either millions or billions in U.S. aid for Ukraine. Those posts leave the misleading impression that the emergency payments would be the only aid available to those affected by the fires, implying that U.S. aid to people in another country unfairly outpaced domestic aid. The clip of Biden racked up about 7 million views between two of these posts and the RNC’s alone.

The suggestive claim that victims of the fires would receive only $770 from the federal government soon migrated to other platforms, where users compared the emergency relief payments to funding for the war in Ukraine and Israel’s war in Gaza.

But, as we said, the $770 emergency payment is just one of the federal aid programs available to victims in California.

The emergency payment is available through the Serious Needs Assistance program that was introduced in January 2024.

“Serious Needs Assistance is a flexible, upfront payment that can be used to pay for emergency supplies like water, food, first aid, breast-feeding supplies, infant formula, diapers, personal hygiene items, or fuel for transportation,” according to a fact sheet published by FEMA in October.

“This is only one form of assistance the Federal Emergency Management Agency offers,” Jayce Genco, a spokesperson for FEMA, told us in a phone interview. “It’s not the only assistance that folks could be eligible for.”

Genco provided a list of other programs available to California fire victims, including rental assistance, home repair or replacement, and medical expense assistance.

And, for those interested in the full context of Biden’s remarks, he first specified that federal agencies would help pay for general costs associated with fighting the fires and addressing their destruction.

“The federal government is going to cover 100% of the cost, for the next 180 days, for things like firefighter overtime pay, debris removal, temporary shelters,” he said. “It’s going to cost tens of billions of dollars to get Los Angeles back to where it was, so we’re going to need Congress to step up to provide funding.”

The president then mentioned the emergency program available to individuals who are affected.

“I want to be clear — we’re not waiting until those fires are over to start helping the victims. We’re getting them help right now, as you all know,” he said. “People impacted by these fires are going to receive a one-time payment of $770 — one-time payment — so they can quickly purchase things like water, baby formula and prescriptions. So far, nearly 6,000 survivors have registered to do just that and $5.1 million has gone out.”

This isn’t the first time that political influencers have suggested that the federal government was providing only one form of assistance to disaster victims. We wrote about similar claims that circulated in October following the devastation from Hurricane Helene. The claims aren’t correct this time around either.

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Sources

Los Angeles Times. Fires. Accessed 14 Jan 2025.

Federal Emergency Management Agency. Press release. “Biden-Harris Administration Reforms Disaster Assistance Program to Help Survivors Recover Faster.” 19 Jan 2024.

Federal Emergency Management Agency. Fact sheet. Serious Needs Assistance. Oct 2024.

C-SPAN. “President Biden Hosts Briefing on California Wildfires.” 13 Jan 2025.

Genco, Jayce. Spokesman, Federal Emergency Management Agency. Telephone interview with FactCheck.org. 14 Jan 2025.

Federal Emergency Management Agency. Fact sheet. FEMA Individual Assistance (California, 2025). Accessed 14 Jan 2025.

Keefe, Eliza. “Posts Misrepresent Federal Response, Funding for Hurricane Helene Victims.” FactCheck.org. 8 Oct 2024.

Source: FactCheck

Federal law enforcement officials have identified an Army veteran, who was born in the United States, as the sole person responsible for the Jan. 1 terrorist attack in New Orleans that killed 14 people and injured many more. But some Republican politicians and social media posts have wrongly claimed or suggested that the attack was the result of illegal immigration.

An inaccurate report the morning of Jan. 1 from Fox News led some, including President-elect Donald Trump, to suggest a link to immigration at the border between the U.S. and Mexico. Even after Fox News had corrected its report, Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson continued to make statements suggesting an unsupported connection between the attack and illegal immigration.

In this article, we provide information currently known about the alleged attacker, and we cover what some Republicans have said about the attack.

What We Know About the Suspect

Authorities identified Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, of Texas, as the man who drove a Ford F-150 pickup truck into a crowd of New Year’s revelers on Bourbon Street in New Orleans shortly after 3 a.m. Central time on Jan. 1. Fourteen people were killed and more than 35 were injured, according to the FBI, which classified the incident as an act of terrorism.

Jabbar shot at police and was pronounced dead at the scene, according to the FBI.

Jabbar was born in Texas, the FBI said. According to the Beaumont Enterprise, which interviewed family and high school classmates, he grew up in Beaumont, a small city near the Louisiana state line.

He joined the U.S. Army in 2007 and worked in human resources and information technology until 2015 when he joined the Army Reserve as an IT specialist, a spokesperson for the U.S. Army told FactCheck.org in a statement. He served in Afghanistan for about a year in 2009.

Jabbar had three marriages that each ended in divorce, according to research from ABC News, and he recently had been living in the Houston area.

In videos that Jabbar posted online in the hours before the attack, he said he had joined the Islamic State group before this summer, FBI Deputy Assistant Director Christopher Raia said at a Jan. 2 press conference.

On Dec. 30, Jabbar picked up an F-150 pickup truck in Houston that he had rented through the car-sharing app Turo and then drove to New Orleans on the evening of Dec. 31, Raia said.

Jabbar posted five videos to his Facebook account shortly before the attack, and he explained in one of them that “he originally planned to harm his family and friends, but was concerned the news headlines would not focus on the ‘war between the believers and the disbelievers,’” Raia said.

Investigators also found an ISIS flag in the truck, and they initially considered that others may have been involved in the attack. The investigation, however, concluded that Jabbar acted alone, Raia said.

“We’ve had 24 hours now to go through media, to go through phones, to interview people, to analyze those videos, analyze other databases, and after all of that … we’re confident, at this point, that there’s no accomplices,” he said.

False Connection to Illegal Immigration

But federal authorities did not confirm that Jabbar was a U.S. citizen until after some inaccurate reporting from Fox News suggested that the attack may have been committed by someone in the country illegally.

Initially, a Fox News anchor, citing two of the network’s national correspondents, wrongly said that the suspect “came through Eagle Pass, Texas, two days ago.” Eagle Pass is on the border with Mexico. However, minutes later, one of the reporters the anchor mentioned in the segment, David Spunt, clarified that it was not clear that the suspect was the person driving the truck when it crossed into the U.S. from Mexico.

“To be clear, we don’t 100% know that this man … was the person driving that crossed the border. That is unclear at this point,” Spunt said. “We just know that the actual license plate was picked up by a reader at a border crossing. This is per two federal law enforcement sources to Fox News.” Spunt added that “the other thing that’s not entirely clear right now is the status, the immigration status of this driver.”

But Spunt incorrectly reported that the vehicle had entered the U.S. “two days” before the attack.

Despite Spunt’s caveats about the identity of the driver, the reporting led some Republican politicians to falsely claim or suggest that the attack was related to illegal immigration at the southern border.

Soon after the Fox News report, Trump posted on Truth Social: “When I said that the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in our country, that statement was constantly refuted by Democrats and the Fake News Media, but it turned out to be true. The crime rate in our country is at a level that nobody has ever seen before. Our hearts are with all of the innocent victims and their loved ones, including the brave officers of the New Orleans Police Department. The Trump Administration will fully support the City of New Orleans as they investigate and recover from this act of pure evil!” (Note: The U.S. violent crime rate isn’t at its highest level; it’s less than half the rates in the early 1990s.)

In addition, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who posted a 38-second clip from the Fox News report, wrote on X: “New Orleans terrorist attacker is said to have come across the border in Eagle Pass TWO DAYS AGO!!! Shut the border down!!! Who did our government bomb lately that is taking it out on innocent Americans?”

In a post prior to that one, Greene wrote: “Terrorist attack in NOLA similar to the one in the German Christmas market. What did we expect would happen with wide open borders and millions of gotaways?”

More than an hour after the first Fox News report, Spunt updated his earlier reporting, adding that the truck the suspect was driving did enter the U.S. through Eagle Pass – but it was about two months ago, in November, not “two days ago.” He also said that he was told by his federal sources that the suspect “was not the person driving the truck” at the time.

“The truck did change some hands, so they’re working on the provenance of that truck and how it got to New Orleans,” he said.

But after Fox News corrected its earlier report, Trump and others continued to suggest a connection between the attack and illegal immigration.

In a Jan. 2 Truth Social post, Trump wrote: “With the Biden ‘Open Border’s Policy’ I said, many times during Rallies, and elsewhere, that Radical Islamic Terrorism, and other forms of violent crime, will become so bad in America that it will become hard to even imagine or believe. That time has come, only worse than ever imagined.”

In addition, on Jan. 2, House Speaker Mike Johnson, in two media appearances, wrongly linked the terrorist attack to President Joe Biden’s immigration policies.

“I don’t know if enough attention is being paid to this, but we all know that for the last four years, the Biden administration has been completely derelict in its duty,” Johnson said on “Fox & Friends” while discussing the attack. “The congressional Republicans, we here in the House and the Senate, have repeatedly asked the [Department of Homeland Security] under the Biden administration about the correlation, the obvious concern about terrorism and the wide open border. The idea that dangerous people were coming here in droves and setting up potentially terrorist cells around the country, we have been ringing the alarms. We impeached DHS Secretary Mayorkas in the House over that very issue and others related to it. So, this is a big concern.”

Later, on Fox Business, when host Larry Kudlow asked for Johnson’s thoughts on the attack, Johnson said that the Biden administration had “tried to convince us that the greatest threat to the homeland was racially motivated extremism, when we all looked at the wide open border and thought logically that that might lead to terrorist attacks in the future.”

We asked Johnson’s office why he has continued to suggest that the attack was connected to illegal immigration, but we have not received a response.

We posed the same question to Trump’s transition team, and we were sent the following statement from his communications director, Steven Cheung: “President Trump rightfully highlighted that criminals crossing the border have committed some of the most heinous crimes this country has witnessed in its history. That is a factual statement, and it is a big reason why Americans overwhelmingly voted for him and gave him a massive mandate. It is also true that radical Islamic terrorism and its warped ideology have crossed into our country and infected those looking to spread hate and violence.”

However, there is no indication that illegal immigration played a role in the Jan. 1 attack. As we said, the sole person accused of committing that crime was born in the U.S.

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Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, 202 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104. 

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We wrote about a lot of misinformation in 2024, and, as usual, some fact-checking articles piqued our readers’ interest more than others. In this post, we present the 10 most popular stories published on our website this past year.

Perhaps to no surprise, posts about the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates occupy most of the spots on our list. Articles about immigration also were in high demand, as was our guide to the conservative playbook known as Project 2025.

Here, in order, are our most read stories:

Harris’ Position on Health Care for Transgender Prisoners and Detainees

In this Ask FactCheck article, we answered readers who asked if Vice President Kamala Harris supported government-paid gender-affirming surgery for prison inmates and immigrant detainees. As we wrote, Harris expressed support in a 2019 questionnaire for “medically necessary” gender-affirming care, including surgical care, for federal prisoners and detainees. She also said in an Oct. 16 Fox News interview that, if elected, she would “follow the law,” which requires medical care for prisoners and detainees.

Breaking Down the Immigration Figures

Illegal immigration was a major issue for voters, and in our article, published in February, we looked at the number of encounters on the southern border of those trying to enter the U.S. without authorization. That number increased significantly under President Joe Biden, but some Republicans exaggerated the number of people encountered who had been released into the U.S. at that time.

A Guide to Project 2025

Democrats repeatedly tried to tie President-elect Donald Trump to Project 2025, an 887-page conservative playbook that was written in part by some of Trump’s former White House aides. So we published a story all about Project 2025, which is a roadmap for “the next conservative President” to downsize the federal government and fundamentally change how it works, including the tax system, immigration enforcement, social welfare programs and energy policy, particularly policies designed to address climate change. The book also wades deeply into the culture war that has been dividing the country.

Posts Mislead About Harris’ Romance with Willie Brown

Vice President Harris had a romantic relationship with powerful California politician Willie Brown in the 1990s. But claims on social media that she broke up his marriage misrepresent the facts. Brown had separated from his wife years before he and Harris had dated.

FactChecking Vice President Kamala Harris

In about 48 hours, Harris went from No. 2 on the Democratic presidential ticket to the presumptive presidential nominee, after Biden exited the race and endorsed her. In this article, we fact-checked some claims that Harris made in her speeches in the days before and after Biden dropped out.

What Biden Left Out of Pardon Statement

On Dec. 1, Biden provided a blanket pardon for his son Hunter for any potential crimes committed over nearly an 11-year period, from Jan. 1, 2014, through Dec. 1, 2024. In the statement the president provided to justify his reversal of position, he left out a few inconvenient facts.

Unraveling Misinformation About Bipartisan Immigration Bill

Even before a bipartisan group of senators unveiled the text of a foreign aid and immigration overhaul bill on Feb. 4, it faced significant opposition from Trump and other Republican leaders. On Feb. 7, the bill failed in the Senate after it was opposed by all but four Republicans and a few Democrats. Some of the criticism leveled by Republicans opposing the bill was based on a distortion of what it would and would not do.

Trump’s Misleading Chart on Illegal Immigration

This story is about Trump’s favorite chart — the one he credited with saving his life because he turned to gesture to it right at the moment a would-be assassin began shooting at him in July. At rally after rally, Trump pointed to the chart on apprehensions of people illegally crossing the southern border to show that he had illegal immigration under control by the end of his presidency.

For example, during a speech in Green Bay, Wisconsin, in April, Trump pointed to the chart and said: “See the arrow on the bottom? That was my last week in office. That was the lowest number in history.” But Trump was wrong on both points. In fact, the arrow is pointing to apprehensions in April 2020, when apprehensions plummeted during the height of the pandemic. In his last months in office, apprehensions had more than quadrupled from that pandemic low and were higher than the month he took office. Also, April 2020 did not have the lowest number of apprehensions in history.

FactChecking the Harris-Trump Debate

The highly anticipated debate between Trump and Harris — which was their only debate — was a combative event in which facts were repeatedly trampled and distorted.

Study Largely Confirms Known, Rare COVID-19 Vaccine Side Effects

An international study of around 99 million people confirmed known serious side effects of COVID-19 vaccination. It also identified a possible relationship between the first dose of the Moderna vaccine and a small risk of a neurological condition. Social media posts about the study left out information on the vaccines’ benefits and the rarity of the side effects.

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Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, 202 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104. 

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