Donald Trump isn’t known to be a man that reads voluminous amounts of material or one that listens to experts. Now, the president — who deems himself to be a “stable genius” — might claim to, but that’s easy to debunk considering that Trump doesn’t even read his daily intelligence briefings.
So, Trump and California Gov. Gavin Newsom held a joint press briefing on Monday to address the state’s raging wildfires, and it was really something. Trump had to be schooled by Newsom that the federal government owns the vast majority of forest land in California — and guess who the leader of the federal government is? Well, it’s Donald J. Trump, the very man that blames poor forest management for the wildfires in that state.
Before the two met for the press conference, Newsom gave Trump a packet of extremely simplistic facts and graphs about the wildfires that are ravaging his state, according to Business Insider. Fox LA reporter Elex Michaelson tweeted out a copy he obtained of the briefing packet. And, this would be hilarious if Trump wasn’t the president amid multiple national crises.
This is the packet @CAgovernor @GavinNewsom gave to @POTUS @realDonaldTrump for his briefing on California wildfires. pic.twitter.com/fEvTEWvW7h
— Elex Michaelson (@Elex_Michaelson) September 14, 2020
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Trump was presented with full-sized pictures of the wildfires, colorful graphs, and the images contained huge font. This sort of explains why Trump was so proud of remembering the words “Person, woman, man, camera, TV” in sequence.
The packet explains in simplistic terms how the most destructive wildfires California’s history has coincided with rising average temperatures in recent years. Trump has, however, repeatedly brushed off any scientific evidence of climate change. The pie chart in the packet contains massive lettering with the stats showing how much the federal government owns forest land in the state.
When Newsom tried to explain that on Monday to the president, Trump’s body language indicated that he was resistant to the statistics. Trump also claimed that the climate would just “start getting cooler; you just watch.” Then, when California’s Natural Resources Secretary said, “I wish science agreed with you,” the president said, “I don’t think science knows actually.”
We are so screwed. The United States is burning and an arsonist is in charge.
Featured image via Gage Skidmore/Flickr, under Creative Commons license 2.0
