Trump takes office in less than a week, but California's road to recovery will take months, and politics might get in the way.

Top Republicans in the U.S. Congress are considering imposing conditions on disaster aid to Los Angeles communities devastated by wildfires, after President-elect Donald Trump claimed that state and local officials had mishandled the situation.

California and other Democratic-controlled states would need to atone for “bad behavior” if they wanted federal assistance, one lawmaker said.

California began confronting a very different, unpredictable Washington Friday, as a Republican-controlled Congress officially began its 2025 session. The state’s 52 member House delegation now has nine GOP members, its lowest number in years. California’s two senators are Democrats without the powerful seniority that recent state members have had.

House Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republicans say they believe approval of wildfire aid to California to assist with devastating fires in Los Angeles County should be contingent on policy changes.

Withholding natural disaster aid to force policy changes is unusual and would mark a major escalation in Republicans’ feuds with blue states.

The president-elect and his minions in Congress have threatened to punish California for its liberal policies by letting its people suffer

Governor Gavin Newsom agreed to add the Southern California wildfires to a special session of the legislature. This comes after Republicans in Sacramento called for that special session to deal solely with the wildfires and not focus on the incoming Trump administration.