President Donald Trump said the government wouldn't continue to pay California over its worsening wildfires if the state didn't "get their act together."
While speaking at the White House on Wednesday, Trump said California's wildfires are costing the country billions of dollars. He added that whoever becomes governor in November needs to "better get your act together."
"So I say to the governor or whoever is going to be the governor of California you'd better get your act together because California, we're just not going to continue to pay the kind of money that we're paying," Trump said.
The president went on to blame the state's worsening fires on forest land, saying California doesn't, "want to clean up their forest because they have environmental problems in cleaning it up."
"And here we are with thousands of acres and billions and billions of dollars every year it's the same thing every year," Trump said. "And they don't want to clean up their forest because they have environmental problems in cleaning it up. It should be the opposite. Because you're going to lose your forest you'll lose it."
As of August, nine wildfires had scorched an estimated 721,642 acres in the state and has been one of the deadliest, killing six firefighters.
