California governor accuses Trump of keeping disaster money from wildfire survivors

• California Gov. Gavin Newsom blasts President Donald Trump's declaration of a national emergency Friday and accuses him of forgetting about the "real emergency" needs of survivors of the disastrous Camp Fire.
• Newsom says there are still survivors waiting for federal disaster recovery money and people are suffering.
• Also, the governor says California plans to join several other states in a lawsuit to challenge the national emergency declaration that the president is using to get billions of dollars to fund his southern border wall.
• The Democrat, who has been a harsh critic of the president, calls Trump's planned border wall "a monument to stupidity."

Jeff Daniels
Published 21 Hours Ago Updated 18 Hours Ago

California Gov. Gavin Newsom blasted President Donald Trump's declaration of a national emergency Friday and accused him of forgetting about the "real emergency" needs of survivors of the disastrous Camp Fire that destroyed most of the town of Paradise and killed 86 people.

Newsom said there are still survivors waiting for federal disaster recovery money and people are suffering. He said $12 billion in funds that Congress approved for disaster assistance for California, Texas, Georgia and elsewhere is "not moving" as needed to help out with relief efforts.

"You have a real disaster that needs to be cleaned up — $12 billion sitting there," Newsom told reporters at a press conference in Sacramento. "And not even an utterance, not even a reference in today's press conference [by Trump] of a real, pressing need and a real human crisis that's manifesting in real time."

Newsom, a Democrat, said he just returned Thursday from a visit to Paradise and saw firsthand the continued suffering of the survivors in Northern California's Butte County. More than 10,000 homes were destroyed in the Camp Fire.

-snip-