MORE NEWS: TRUMP, DEMOCRATS SPAR OVER WILDFIRES IN CALIFORNIA
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — With the smell of California wildfires in the air, President Donald Trump on Monday ignored the scientific consensus that climate change is playing a central role in historic West Coast infernos and renewed his unfounded claim that failure to rake forest floors and clear dead timber is mostly to blame.
The fires are threatening to become another front in Trump’s reelection bid. His Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, in his own speech Monday said the destruction and mounting death toll across California, Oregon and Washington require stronger presidential leadership and labeled Trump a “climate arsonist.”
Trump traveled to Northern California to be briefed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and other state and federal officials. At one point, state Natural Resources Agency Secretary Wade Crowfoot urged the president to “recognize the changing climate and what it means to our forests.”
“If we ignore that science and sort of put our head in the sand and think it’s all about vegetation management, we’re not going to succeed together protecting Californians,” Crowfoot added.
Trump responded, “It will start getting cooler, just you watch.”
Crowfoot politely pushed back that he wished the science agreed with the president. Trump countered, “I don’t think science knows, actually.”
That striking moment came on a day of dueling campaign events, with Trump and Biden dramatically contrasting their outlooks on climate change.
Biden lashed at Trump, saying the moment requires “leadership, not scapegoating” and that “it’s clear we are not safe in Donald Trump’s America.”
“This is another crisis, another crisis he won’t take responsibility for,” Biden said. He said that if voters give “a climate denier” another four years in the White House, “why would we be surprised that we have more of America ablaze?”
Trump holds ‘roundtable’ in Phoenix
Also Monday, Trump spoke to Hispanic supporters at what was labeled a “roundtable” meeting in Phoenix, though even the president acknowledged “it looks like a rally.”
Trump said he was at the event to listen, but he was also trying to energize the crowd of several hundred, mostly unmasked and sitting closely together indoors.
Biden building election legal team
Biden is assembling a team of top lawyers in anticipation of court challenges to the election process that could ultimately determine who wins the race for the White House.
Biden’s presidential campaign says the legal war room will work to ensure that elections are properly administered and votes correctly counted.