Rantz: Democrats cut Washington wildfire budget, pre-emptively blame Trump for future blazes

Democrats, with their friends at KING 5, are setting the stage to blame Donald Trump for Washington wildfires. They hope you don’t realize that it’s Democrats in Olympia that will be to blame for a difficult Washington wildfire season.

As soon as the wildfire season rolls around, you can practically set your watch by the left-wing media’s desperate attempt to find a way to blame anyone but the actual people in charge. And this time, their target is, of course, President Donald Trump. KING 5, always ready to carry water for their friends in Olympia, just ran a piece practically setting the table for the blame game.

Their new boogeyman is the Trump administration’s layoffs at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service. The layoffs supposedly making our wildfire season “more challenging,” though they don’t offer any specific challenges faced in Washington yet.

“For the last two years, we have seen concerning snowpack across the state. In 2023, that was driven by the hot May we saw that impacted the water supply in the state,” Caroline Mellor, Statewide Drought Lead with the Washington Department of Ecology, told KING 5.

This is the soft launch for the media’s favorite story template.

“We have less incident management teams available in the region today than we did two years ago. Folks are getting overworked already,” Matthew Dehr, a wildland fire meteorologist with the Washington Department of Natural Resources (DNR), explained to KING 5. “I’m just a little scared for what this summer might look like without full capabilities from both our incident management teams and our incident meteorologists.”

KING 5, Democrats set stage to blame Trump for Washington wildfires

If we have a bad fire season, the headlines are pre-written. “GOP Cuts, Trump Policies, Federal Inaction—Oh My!” And yet, as always, there’s no actual evidence that these supposed federal layoffs will have any measurable impact on our ability to fight wildfires. Not a shred!

It’s all fear porn for Seattle’s progressive crowd who treat climate change as both a religion and a convenient way to dodge local responsibility like forest management that clears dead, dry brush.

But here’s what KING 5—and every single Washington Department of Natural Resources official they’re breathlessly quoting—conveniently leaves out: it was neither Trump, nor the GOP, that just gutted our state’s wildfire budget. That was the work of Washington Democratic lawmakers. In fact, it was Washington Republicans, led in part by Rep. Tom Dent (R-Moses Lake), who fought against budget cuts to wildfire prevention.

But Washington Democrats cut wildfire funding

According to The Seattle Times, Democrats in Olympia slashed the wildfire budget in half. In coverage, state Lands Commissioner Dave Upthegrove said the state is prepared to tackle wildfires even with the cuts, “no matter what happens with the budget,” as stated by the Times reporter.

Weird that didn’t make it into the KING 5 report. No mention of the legislature’s priorities including billions for so-called “climate initiatives” that mostly enrich consultants, but when it comes to boots-on-the-ground wildfire response—suddenly it’s time to tighten the belt.

Luckily, some local media doesn’t always choose to serve as publicists for Democrats. KXLY in Spokane did what KING 5 refused to: honestly frame the issue around threats to wildfire prevention due to Democrats’ cutting the budget.

See through the propaganda

Maybe Democrats figured that as long as they get to grandstand about “federal cuts,” nobody will notice they’re actually leaving us less prepared. Perhaps Upthegrove was lying about wildfire preparedness to spare Democrats from criticism? Or he was being uncharacteristically honest and KING 5 is contriving news to satiate its left-wing audience who hates Trump?

Wildfire season isn’t about federal inaction. It’s about local mismanagement, budget cuts, and a press that’s too busy playing defense for their friends in power to ask even the most basic, obvious questions.

But hey—at least they have someone to blame when Democrats’ own policies, as always, go up in smoke.

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