JOSH HAMMER: Comic book villain Gavin Newsom was too busy ‘Trump-proofing’ California to fireproof it, now his state isn’t the only thing going up in flames…

California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has never seen a camera he didn’t like or a bottle of hair gel he didn’t like, bears a rather suspicious physical resemblance to a villain from a superhero movie.

He plays the role more and more often.

The Sacramento braggart has been on a real tear since the historically terrible wildfires, which have claimed the lives of at least 27 people so far, started burning through Los Angeles last week.

Newsom, who harbors the most thinly veiled presidential ambitions imaginable, is a political animal — that’s what he does best. So slick Gavin took to Obama’s popular podcast, “Pod Save America,” on Saturday to launch a preemptive PR strike against his critics.

He was promptly castigated for passing the buck to beleaguered local leaders. “I want to get the answers,” Newsom told former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau. “And I’ll be honest with you: I didn’t get any straight answers.”

As always in Gavin’s mind, he is flawless. It’s everyone’s fault, don’t you see?

But his careless lack of priorities and negligence regarding fire safety certainly cannot be ignored.

After Donald Trump’s crushing election victory, Newsom furiously set to work to make the state of California ‘Trump-proof’.

California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has never seen a camera he didn’t like or a bottle of hair gel he didn’t like, bears a rather suspicious physical resemblance to a superhero movie villain.

The Sacramento braggart has been on a real tear since the historically terrible wildfires, which have claimed the lives of at least 27 people so far, started burning through Los Angeles last week.

The Sacramento braggart has been on a real tear since the historically terrible wildfires, which have claimed the lives of at least 27 people so far, started burning through Los Angeles last week.

He convened a special legislative session in Sacramento, bringing together lawmakers, lawyers and activists to protect his state from the new administration’s supposedly threatened federal interference. And much of the attention, euphemistically sold to the masses as an effort to “protect California values,” has been focused on protecting the draconian progressive green energy policies.

“The discrepancy between what Californians need and what Democrats are focused on is astonishing,” California Assemblyman James Gallagher said after that latest bout of decadent virtue signaling.

Indeed. The fact is that Newsom and California Democrats should have spent less time “Trump-proofing” and more time brand-proofing.

Just hours after Democrats in Sacramento vowed Monday to positively oppose federal deportation efforts — a legally dubious proposal — Newsom was forced to accept reality and call a special legislative session to address the raging wildfire crisis in Los Angeles County to grab.

Newsom is now calling for $1 billion in emergency funding, additional money to expedite school repairs, and $1.5 billion more for future wildfire prevention and mitigation.

Quite a change in priorities.

California’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget, which Newsom signed into law last June, cut funding for wildfires and forest resilience by as much as $101 million. In the city of Los Angeles, reckless Mayor Karen Bass similarly approved a $17.6 million budget cut for the Los Angeles Fire Department in the most recent municipal budget.

Maybe try being less catastrophically stupid next time, guys?

Gavin took to Obama's popular podcast,

Gavin took to Obama’s popular podcast, “Pod Save America,” to launch a preemptive PR strike against his critics.

In 2014, Californians under then-Governor Jerry Brown voted to borrow $7.5 billion to build and conserve more water. But Sacramento never got the message. Newsom, who has been in office since 2019, certainly never listened; the last reservoir built for the infamous wildfire-prone Los Angeles area was completed in 1979.

But at least the local fire hydrants have water to put out the fires, right?

Wrong.

There are reports of fire hydrants in Pacific Palisades and other hard-hit areas drying up due to a lack of water, rendering firefighters useless.

Apparently, the power outages caused by the fires have shut down water pumping stations, according to none other than President Joe Biden. The mind reels at this predictable and catastrophic failure of contingency planning.

When CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked why fire hydrants ran dry during the worst wildfires in state history, Newsom blamed “local people” in the Palisades and other devastated areas.

Way to take responsibility, Gavin!

Making matters worse, California under Newsom’s “leadership” has resisted the kind of controlled burns that have been the standard best practice in forestry for generations.

In September, a poignantly prescient headline in the New York Times read: “In California, Controlled Fires Can Save Homes. Why isn’t more happening?’ Chris Field, a Stanford scientist who has studied controlled burns, told The Gray Lady, “The state is struggling to get anywhere near the goals they’ve set for prescribed fire.”

Again, it’s a matter of priorities.

Radical greenie activists in the Golden State rejected controlled burns and lobbied against them in the name of “climate change.”

Newsom's careless lack of priorities and negligence regarding fire safety cannot be ignored.

Newsom’s careless lack of priorities and negligence regarding fire safety cannot be ignored.

Ironically, “climate change” is the same one-size-fits-all answer that the same fanatics are now offering to explain the deadly fires. Like the medieval Europeans who attributed the bubonic plague to demonic spirits, leftists now also blame their pagan forces of choice for the deadly destruction. There is nothing new under the sun, as we know from Ecclesiastes.

Southern California has had many wildfires in its history, and there were always going to be more. This much should be clear. But it is equally clear that deliberate actions by the officials responsible have made the situation worse – much, much worse.

Like the superhero villains he physically resembles, Newsom’s egomania knows no bounds.

Equally boundless is his desperation for the microphones and cameras, as he demonstrated by hanging out with Obama brothers while his state’s largest city burned.

It’s no surprise that a new Daily Mail poll found that nearly half of Californians hold Newsom responsible for the devastation — and now Trump reportedly has plans to turn the Blue state ‘Republican Red’ by the 2028 elections .

The sickening irony of all this is that Newsom, instead of “Trump-proofing” California, may have handed it over to the president-elect on a charred gold platter.