LA Sent Firefighting Equipment To Ukraine, Biden Preps Handout

The Los Angeles County Fire Department shipped equipment to Ukraine in 2022, and now the Biden administration is working overtime to send the country millions more in handouts as wildfires devastate California.

Perhaps ABC 7 put it best in 2022 when it declared that “all over southern California people are finding ways to keep Ukraine front and center and it’s no different for the Los Angeles County Fire Department.”

The fire department donated its own “surplus” supplies to help a foreign regime and is now caught flat-footed without the capacity to respond to the Pacific Palisades wildfire, which continues to cause deaths and untold damage to thousands of acres of land, including countless homes.

Far-left Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who is missing in action because she is busy attending an event in yet another foreign country, Ghana, also slashed the Los Angeles Fire Department’s budget by $17.6 million for the 2024-2025 fiscal year. Her initial proposal was $23 million.

The city has faced firefighter shortages for several years, and the number of federal firefighters from the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) has also atrophied considerably since 2020. USFS also ended certain forest management projects, like prescribed burns in California, after President Joe Biden opposed a bill to help contain fires, claiming it would have undermined wildlife and environmental protections.

In a reactionary move that displays California’s and the federal government’s lack of preparedness to battle wildfires, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has cut a deal with California to reimburse the state for having to hire more firefighters, providing compensation for up to 75 percent of “eligible firefighting costs” for things like equipment, supplies, and mobilization efforts.

In 2021, Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., lauded the new Biden administration as “not a sparring partner, but a working partner,” in contrast to the Trump administration. But President-elect Donald Trump slammed Newsom for repeatedly refusing his first administration’s efforts to help mitigate and fight wildfires.

“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 posted on social media. “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!” 

Trump frequently criticized Newsom’s mismanagement of wildfires while he was president, saying in 2018, “There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor. Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!”

Coupled with the Biden administration’s last-ditch effort to send Ukraine even more money on his way out of office, the treason-level incompetence displayed by Democrats at local and federal levels shows they care more about the lives and livelihoods of a group of people across the planet than they do about Americans.

Democrat fealty to Ukraine has continued apace, and as Biden prepares to leave office, his focus remains to give the country as much money as possible as opposed to saving Americans in California.

This week, Defense Department officials were preparing another massive giveaway of cash to Ukraine, to be announced Thursday, but were seemingly dejected that they would not be able to send all $4 billion left in the Ukraine coffers to the country before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

“There will be more than a couple of billion dollars remaining in PDA assistance for future use after Jan. 20,” a Pentagon official said. “What we are focused on right now, especially at the Pentagon, is providing Ukraine with the defense capabilities that we can provide in the time we have, including putting things on contract that will be delivered throughout 2025 and into 2026 in order to build that capability so that Ukraine can be in the strongest possible position if it comes to a negotiation.”

Breccan F. Thies is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. He previously covered education and culture issues for the Washington Examiner and Breitbart News. He holds a degree from the University of Virginia and is a 2022 Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. You can follow him on X: @BreccanFThies.