Trump declares himself firefighter-in-chief, slams ‘incompetent’ L.A. leaders, while flexing over paperwork

In a characteristically self-congratulatory Truth Social post Tuesday morning, Donald Trump declared he saved Los Angeles from fiery destruction — all while boasting that his administration’s federal permitting paperwork was “DONE!!!”

Amid intense immigration protests and thousands left homeless from catastrophic fires, the former president took a victory lap… over bureaucracy.

“If I didn’t ‘SEND IN THE TROOPS,’” Trump wrote, L.A. would be “burning to the ground,” much like the “25,000 houses burned” in the city earlier this year. He blamed the devastation — and delays in rebuilding — not on climate crisis or overwhelmed infrastructure, but on “incompetent” city and state leaders, namely California Governor Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass.

The post reads like a parody of a disaster film press junket, complete with Trump portraying himself as a lone hero fighting off flames and red tape, while everyone else bungles the job.

Immigration protests meet wildfire crisis

Los Angeles has spent 2025 fighting on multiple fronts. In January, record-setting wildfires tore through the region, incinerating homes and displacing entire communities.

By spring, the city found itself at the center of nationwide immigration protests over controversial Trump-era ICE protocols. Demonstrators flooded streets, demanding an end to mass deportations and family separations.

In response to these situations, reports indicated that Trump advocated for and oversaw the deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles, and even suggested the involvement of active-duty Marines to “restore order.” 

Such a deployment of active-duty military personnel for civil unrest is a highly unusual and legally complex measure, viewed by many as an intimidating maneuver. 

The weird flex heard ’round the internet

While much of the nation focused on the human toll of these overlapping disasters, Trump zeroed in on…permits.

In his post, he gleefully reported that the federal permitting process for rebuilding the 25,000 destroyed homes was “virtually complete,” while local and state permits were “WAY BEHIND SCHEDULE!” The implication? Trump’s federal paperwork team deserves a medal. Never mind the trauma, housing crisis, or constitutional questions raised by military deployment on U.S. soil.

Meanwhile, “DONE!!!” and “WAY BEHIND SCHEDULE!” aren’t exactly true. Trump’s statement that federal permits are “virtually complete” conflates debris removal authorization with building permits. Federal cleanup may be well advanced, but it has not finished issuing construction or rebuilding permits — local agencies handle those.

Meanwhile, bottlenecks persist at the city and state levels, although these systems have been accelerated with emergency orders.

This bureaucratic back-patting came off as especially tone-deaf considering the ongoing protests against federal immigration crackdowns — crackdowns Trump himself championed and helped re-escalate.

Newsom, Bass, and the bigger picture

Governor Newsom and Mayor Bass, both vocal critics of Trump’s immigration and climate policies, have resisted federal interference. While Trump plays firefighter-in-chief from his social media bunker, California continues to lead the charge on rebuilding, reforming emergency infrastructure, and addressing root causes — from climate to immigration justice.