Trump Unleashes Wild Rant Claiming Fallen Trees Become More Explosive As They Rot

President Donald Trump on Sunday blamed recent wildfires in California on environmentalists he claims “don’t want you to touch” fallen trees that he claims turn into explosive trees as they rot.

“I just left, as you know, California,” Trump told Fox News opinion host Mark Levin. “I met with [Gov. Gavin Newsom] and, and honestly he’s been very nice with words and that’s good. And I said, ‘you’ve got to manage this, it’s a management thing,’ he said ‘no, it’s global warming.'”

“But I said, ‘when the leaves build up and you have a floor of leaves and the trees fall down and you don’t remove ’em because the environmentalists don’t want you to touch the tree,’ Trump falsely claimed.

“Within 18 months, that tree gets to be like a matchstick. It gets to be unbelievably flammable. And I meet with foreign leaders of countries, and they have an expression, ‘Sir, we are a forest nation.’ But they say, ‘we have trees that are far more explosive than the trees in California. We don’t understand how a thing like that can happen. You have to manage your forest,” Trump continued.

“They have to do cuts, and they sell those trees for a lot of money, and they have to do cuts in between sections so that if there is a fire over here it doesn’t burn down 500,000 acres because you have a cut and they water that cut, very strongly and the fire can’t go - you know, it’s the width of a football field or whatever, or less,” he added.

“I mean frankly or much less. But you have cuts. But they don’t do that because the environmentalists don’t want them to do it,” he falsely claimed. “When a tree comes down you have to take that tree out, immediately because when it first comes down it’s wet from sucking up the water, but then it gets very dry and then it gets really dry. Then it starts to rot and then it catches fire. But the leaves, you’ve got to do something about it, you can’t have leaves that are so dry. Somebody takes a cigarette, they throw it in and that’s the end of 400,000 acres,” Trump said.

"I meet with foreign leaders of countries, & they have an expression, 'Sir, we are a forest nation.' But they say, 'we have trees that are far more explosive than the trees in California. We don't understand how a thing like that can happen. You have to manage your forest" -Trump pic.twitter.com/wxPPEQbMLC

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 21, 2020