President-elect Donald Trump will “probably” travel to Southern California next week, he told NBC News, making the likely first trip of his second term to the liberal stronghold still reeling from some of the worst wildfires in its history.
In a wide-ranging phone interview on Saturday with “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker, Trump said he “was going to go, actually yesterday,” to the Golden State, but decided “it would be better if I went as president.”
The wildfires have been raging in and around Los Angeles since Jan. 7, killing dozens and forcing tens of thousands to evacuate, according to the Associated Press, as they ravaged the country’s second-largest city.
California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom — who has been criticized by Trump and Republicans for his handling of the fires — invited Trump to visit California last week. President Joe Biden was in Los Angeles when the fires started earlier this month, and Vice President Kamala Harris, whose primary residence is in Los Angeles, canceled her final foreign trip as vice president due to the fires.
Tensions have flared in recent weeks between Trump and Newsom, and in the interview, Trump said he had not yet spoken to the governor about the fires. Trump also discussed a number of other issues, including his plans to ramp up mass deportations “very early, very quickly,” but said he didn’t want to reveal which cities the operation would begin in because “you’ll see it firsthand.”
Trump said he believes he and his team “made the right decision” to move Monday’s inauguration ceremony into the Capitol due to freezing temperatures, and added that he aims to sign “a record-setting number of documents … right after this [inauguration] speech.”
When discussing TikTok — which said it would “go dark” on Sunday after the Supreme Court ruled the app must be sold to a non-Chinese buyer — the president-elect said a “90-day extension is something that will be most likely done.”
“If I decide to do that, I’ll probably announce it on Monday,” he added.
And on the cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas that Israel agreed to earlier Saturday, Trump pledged to ensure the deal would hold via “good government.” He said he would meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, an ally, “fairly soon.”
