OTTAWA, CANADA — With wildfires once again spreading across Canada and toxic smoke drifting into the United States, California Governor Gavin Newsom personally arrived in a smoke-choked Ottawa this week to provide hands-on, one-on-one coaching to Prime Minister Mark Carney on how to successfully blame Donald Trump for Canada’s catastrophic wildfires while simultaneously gutting the nation’s emergency response budgets.
According to sources familiar with the meeting, Newsom spent several hours privately coaching Carney on how to handle a wildfire crisis without making the mistake of accepting blame, focusing instead on what officials described as “the California-tested strategy of finding someone else to blame before the smoke even clears.”
“Mark, the first thing you need to understand is that the fire itself is not the crisis,” Gavin Newsom told Carney while standing in front of a forest currently on fire. “The crisis is allowing people to ask why you weren’t prepared.”
The California governor told Carney that the key to effective disaster leadership is making sure every conversation begins and ends with President Donald Trump.
“If someone asks why you don’t have enough firefighters, you say ‘Trump,'” Newsom advised. “If someone asks why your water bombers aren’t ready? Trump. Someone asks why you cut funding? Trump. Even when the question has absolutely nothing to do with Trump, you must make sure somehow Trump becomes part of the answer.”
Canadian officials confirmed the plan does not include fighting the fires themselves, but will dedicate significant resources to fighting the misinformation that suggests the government should have fought them.
