Donald Trump likes to talk about water. Water in showers? Trump’s on it. Water in dishwashers? He’s on that, too. Water in faucets? That’s also one of his subjects of interest. Water in water heaters? Yep. Water in toilets? Unfortunately, that’s also been a popular topic for the Republican.
As a rule, the Republican president’s water-related preoccupation generates eye-rolling and easy jokes. Sometimes, however, it’s not funny at all.
Last week, for example, Trump falsely blamed officials in California for not sending enough water to Southern California to fight fires, ignoring reality. Similarly, the president said it’d be easy to address the fires. “All they have to do is turn the valve,” he said at a press conference last week.
Whether Trump understands this or not, there is no such “valve.”
It was against this backdrop that the Republican began the second week of his second term with a curious announcement published to his social media platform. The missive, published shortly before midnight, read in its entirety:
The United States Military just entered the Great State of California and, under Emergency Powers, TURNED ON THE WATER flowing abundantly from the Pacific Northwest, and beyond. The days of putting a Fake Environmental argument, over the PEOPLE, are OVER. Enjoy the water, California!!!
It sounds rather dramatic: The military, in the middle of the night, presumably acting on Trump’s orders, “entered” California and apparently took some kind of remarkable actions to ensure water flows to the fine people of the Golden State. The problem is that Trump had no idea what he was saying. As Politico reported, the president was referring apparently to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s water pumps in Northern California, which had been temporarily down for maintenance. Officials at California’s state Department of Water Resources further explained in an online statement of their own, “The military did not enter California. The federal government restarted federal water pumps after they were offline for maintenance for three days. State water supplies in Southern California remain plentiful.” Officials did not say, “Please don’t listen to Trump’s nonsense,” but that does seem to be the broader takeaway.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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