Trump Wages Water War Against Newsom

Good afternoon, happy Friday, and thanks for opening the latest edition of the OC Conservative Brief! Remember, if you like what you read, please consider forwarding to a few like-minded friends and urge them to sign up here or click the button below.

Hope you have had an incredible start to the new year! There’s certainly been no lack of news going around. There’s a LOT to parse through, so let’s get to it…

TRUMP’S WATER WARS It’s obvious that President Trump was spoiling for a public showdown with California and Governor Gavin Newsom over the state’s failing policies as soon as he took office. The California wildfires forced it sooner than expected.

A lot can be said about the unimaginable fires that wiped out an entire town in Los Angeles. Land management and wildfire mitigation efforts - clearing underbrush, prescribed burning, thinning forests - are preventative measures that should be an urgent priority.

But most of the debate has centered around one word: water. Empty reservoirs. Fire hydrants that didn’t work. A real conversation about California’s water policies is long overdue and would not be happening if President Trump was not forcing it.

President Trump is raising questions - via rhetorical but attention-grabbing broadsides - that Governor Gavin Newsom, who would much rather wax about climate change, doesn’t want to answer.

Take the fight over the infamous “delta smelt,” which President Trump recently and hilariously called an “essentially worthless fish.” Every year, California reroutes a ton of fresh water from the northern California mountains - which normally goes into aqueducts supplying the farms of the Central Valley and cities across Southern California - into the river and out into the ocean to create proper salinity levels in the delta so the smelt can survive.

• How much is a ton? In 2023, operators of the State Water Project sent 600,000 acre-feet of water to the ocean. That's more than Los Angeles' annual water consumption.

To his credit, Gov. Newsom suspended the flow rules in 2023 and cut back on the normal flows this past fall. This should be the norm, not the exception. Why are we sending fresh water that could support the entirety of L.A. for a year out into the ocean when we are routinely told we are facing existential climate-change related droughts?

• 🔖 READ DEEPER: The Los Angeles Times wrote a revealing piece last fall on the politics around the delta smelt and the state’s recent decision to cut back.

President Trump signed an executive order last week, titled “Putting People Over Fish,” to prioritize fresh water access over radical environmentalist demands. Excerpted below:

Another question: Given the alleged coming of climate change, why is the state not critically and rapidly investing in building more reservoirs to take advantage of the “atmospheric river” rain dumps our state occasionally gets?

Take the proposed Sites Reservoir, a $4.5 billion project northwest of Sacramento that would hold 1.5 million acre-feet of water pumped from the Sacramento River and supply a quarter of a million Californians, mostly in Southern California, with fresh water. The project first took off in the 2010s, but ground hasn’t been broken yet; it’s expected to be completed in the early 2030s.

• 😂 NO JOKE: Radical environmental groups like the Sierra Club spent years in court trying to kill the project altogether arguing it would endanger salmon. They recently lost their case this fall.

It shouldn’t take two decades to build a reservoir, particularly when it’s a critical piece of infrastructure. Yes, Gov. Newsom supports the project, but as governor, what is he actually doing to get it done? (We know President Trump would move heaven and earth to get the biggest reservoir in half-a-century built).

BOTTOM LINE: California is very good about talking about the abstract dangers of climate change and how we need to specifically ban gas cars to stop it. Our state is awful at dealing with reality. If wildfires and droughts are indeed going to be the norm, then what is our government doing to mitigate the effects? “Taking on the fossil fuel industry” does nothing for you when a wildfire sparks in the hills above your home. “Mandating EVs” is a laughable solution when no water is coming out of the fire hydrants on your street corner.

This isn’t an easy solution. It takes decisive and pragmatic leadership that Governor Newsom and other Sacramento Democrats currently lack. Thankfully, President Trump has the courage to rail against California’s mismanagement and keep up the pressure.

CHANGING OF THE OC GOP GUARD Former Newport Beach Mayor Will O’Neill was overwhelmingly elected chair of the Orange County Republican Party earlier this month, replacing outgoing Chairman Fred Whitaker, who had held the position for nearly a decade.

Speakers at the monthly OC GOP meeting when the elections took place (your author was in attendance) both celebrated the overall Republican win in the 2024 elections while acknowledging frustrating GOP losses within Orange County and more work that needs to be done.

O’Neill ran on a platform of “Grow. Win. Serve.” Excerpts from his email after the election are below:

• Grow: We must grow the ranks of our party with voters and volunteers and make OC red again… We must also increase the boots on the ground… and we must continue to demand election integrity and clean voter rolls.
  

• Win: The future of our county and our state depends on Republicans winning races up and down the ticket. We will build a robust infrastructure that empowers every candidate with the resources they need to win. We must also double down on fundraising to compete with the endless cash Gavin and his allies pour into our county to win these seats.
  
  Serve: When Republicans win, we must govern as conservatives and deliver on our promises so that residents can count on Republicans for safe streets, clean neighborhoods, thriving businesses, good schools, and strong public safety.

Other newly-elected OC GOP officials include Garden Grove Mayor Stephanie Klopfenstein as First Vice Chair, Laguna Niguel Mayor Ray Gennaway as Second Vice Chair, and Jon Fleischman as Treasurer.

Meanwhile on the same night, the Orange County Democrats elected labor attorney Florice Hoffman as their new chair.

DAVE MIN PUTS THE ‘MIN’ IN AD HOMINEM While most Democrats on social media were making noise over the implications (fake or not) of President Trump’s federal spending freeze, Orange County’s newest Democrat Congressman Dave Min (CA-47) took a uniquely different approach … by personally going after White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt herself.

Leavitt is “wearing a giant cross to let everyone know how pious and moral she is, even as she is so comfortable stating a bald faced lie to hundreds of millions of people,” Min said in one fiery post on X Wednesday afternoon. In another a few hours later, Min attacked Leavitt for “bearing false witness” and called her “a Fake Christian, like so many in this Golden Calf administration.”

Dave Min was arrested in Sacramento in 2022 for a DUI and is still under probation as a sitting Congressman.

While I try to avoid national politics in this newsletter, let’s just quickly address the crux of Min’s point: that Leavitt is a “bald faced liar” for claiming that the Trump Administration was stopping “50 million in taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza.”

The media was swift to fact-check this claim and dismiss it as ludicrously false. Indeed, that’s what Dave Min is doing here … and calling her a “fake Christian” for saying it. But dig a little deeper into some of these “fact checks” and you’ll find informative nuggets like this one buried at the bottom of a “fact check” by The Independent:

Are we literally paying for $50 million in shipments of condoms to Gaza? No. Are we funding $50 million in medical services in Gaza for “family planning,” “emergency contraception,” “sexual healthcare,” and “contraceptives” that almost positively includes condoms? According to the Administration official quoted above, sure sounds like it to me.

That may be why the Independent changed their fact-check headline from “doesn’t hold up under scrutiny” to “the details are murky.”

Of course, it’s up for debate whether such funding is a waste of tax-payer dollars. But for the media to wildly dismiss Leavitt’s statement as factually false without providing any context into the underlying substance of what she was talking about does a disservice to everyone, pushes false narratives about the credibility of the Trump Administration … and gives politicians like Dave Min cover to call her a “fake Christian.”

SD-36 SPECIAL ELECTION UPDATE As we discussed in the last edition of the OC Conservative Brief, Orange County is teeing up for a primary special election in the 36th State Senate District to replace former Republican state Sen. Janet Nguyen, who resigned last year after winning a seat on the county Board of Supervisors.

The 36th District, which includes most of coastal Orange County as well as the cities west of Santa Ana, leans Republican (Nguyen last won this same seat in 2022 with 57%).

Given that advantage, campaign and party leaders are aiming for Republican Tony Strickland to win over 50% of the vote in the open primary on February 25th, thus avoiding a runoff.

• Strickland, who currently serves on the Huntington Beach City Council, has emerged as the heavy favorite, with endorsements from a long list of federal, state, and local Republican leaders and organizations.

• According to publicly available data through the CA Secretary of State’s website, Strickland for Senate 2025 has raised over a quarter of a million dollars.

• You can check out Strickland’s answers to a questionnaire from the OC Register here.

“We have the unique opportunity to win this race in February and avoid a runoff if Tony Strickland gets 50% +1 of the vote,” the OC GOP posted on X this week. “This means we need every single Republican in the 36th State Senate District to return their ballot immediately and end this race now.”

Strickland is not the only Republican running. John Briscoe is also running, as are Democrats Jimmy Pham and Julie Diep, who all submitted answers to the OC Register questionnaire as well.

No campaign fundraising data was available for Briscoe or Diep as of Thursday, while Pham had reported just $300 raised.

WAIT, THERE'S MORE...

👍 Republicans in the California Assembly effectively delayed a vote on the Democrats’ $50 million legislation to “Trump-Proof” the state after they demanded a vote on an amendment to block funds from being used to protect criminal illegal immigrants from deportation.

🇺🇸 Huntington Beach Mayor Pat Burns displayed a bust of President Trump on the dais during a city council meeting the day after his inauguration.

🐋 A pod of orcas, already a rare sight in coastal Orange County, that had never before been seen in the area was spotted off the coast of Newport Beach this week.

🤷 The OC Register reporters that the L.A. wildfires are causing rental prices as far south as Newport Beach to soar in certain neighborhoods.

🤯 Tustin Democrat City Councilmember Lee Fink pled guilty to battery after an incident where he was filmed on camera shoving and shouting at an elderly man.