Rep. Garamendi Warns Trump: 'Don't Screw With California!'
*By Justin Chermol*
Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) warned President Trump not to mess with emergency funding for California on Friday after the commander-in-chief threatened to cut off disaster-relief in the fire-ravaged state.
In a tweet on Wednesday, Trump suggested that California itself was to blame for the wildfires that killed 86 people and destroyed thousands of homes last year, and said he was considering pulling its FEMA funds.
"Billions of dollars are sent to the State of California for Forest fires that, with proper Forest Management, would never happen," [the president wrote](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1083022011574747137?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1083022011574747137&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fstory%2Fnews%2Fpolitics%2F2019%2F01%2F09%2Fdonald-trump-fema-california-wildfires%2F2523581002%2F). "Unless they get their act together, which is unlikely, I have ordered FEMA to send no more money. It is a disgraceful situation in lives & money!"
Rep. Garamendi responded to the threat on Friday, saying, "Mr. President, California is the most important economy in this nation,"
Garamendi told Cheddar Friday. "Don't screw with California. Do not harm people that have lost their home."
"It is wrong, it is immoral. Don't do it," he said.
The tweeted threat comes just as Trump's administration is considering diverting billions in unspent disaster relief funds to build the border wall that is at the heart of a political dispute that has shuttered the government. Trump is reportedly [looking to end the shutdown](https://www.apnews.com/c9539cdeaa394fc2a00277f876ff3e43) by signing an emergency declaration to order the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to build the wall without congressional approval.
In California, that funding is earmarked to maintain levies to avert flooding and maintain reservoirs to prevent them from failing, Garamendi said.
"People are in danger," he said. "People need to recover from the disasters of a year and a half ago. So the president's going to take that money to build a border wall? No. He does not ー should not have the power to do that. We should be introducing legislation to make sure that he cannot do that."
The government shutdown will become the longest in U.S. history on Saturday. Nearly 800,000 federal employees hoping to pay their mortgage, rent, or bills received no paycheck on Friday as they are either working unpaid or on furlough.
"They should be madder than hell at President," Garamendi said.
President Trump and ranking members of his administration continue to tell Americans that both a humanitarian and national security crisis abound at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Garamendi says otherwise: "There's no crisis on the border."
And the proposed state of emergency an abuse of power, he said.
"We do not have, or should not have, an imperial president. But he would establish himself, crown himself literally, as though he was Caesar."
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/dont-screw-with-california-congressman-garamendi-slams-trump-in-latest-standoff).
Coming off a 2021 campaign where the prices of Bitcoin, Ether, and other cryptocurrencies reached unpreceded levels, Bitwise Asset Management CIO Matt Hougan and OpenNode Co-Founder & CTO João Almeida join Cheddar News' Crypto Craze: The Year of the Token to discuss the ways the crypto market can soar even higher in 2022.
The Cowboy State has become one of the world's top tax havens, according to the Pandora Papers, a trove of more than 11.9 million documents obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and The Washington Post. The papers reveal, among other things, how ultra-wealthy people from around the world move money into the U.S., invest, and spend it under a shroud of secrecy. Allison Tait, University of Richmond law professor, joined Cheddar to talk about Wyoming's laidback tax laws, their impact on the nation's economy, and provided some details on the financial arrangement known as the "cowboy cocktail."
Carlo and Baker preview President Biden's address to the nation as Omicron becomes the new dominant Covid strain. Plus, Trump gets booed for getting his booster and the White House gets a new puppy.
China and Russia are saying they want to work closer together in different areas after a recent call between Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin. What are the implications of a close partnership between Beijing and Moscow? Cheddar News breaks things down with expert Hagar Chemali.
Michele Schneider, Partner and Director of Trading Research & Education for MarketGauge.com, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where she says the spread of the Omicron variant and Jerome Powell's comments following the latest Fed decision are spooking investors heading into the weekend.
Carlo and Baker wrap up another week discussing the latest explosion in new Covid cases in the Northeast, President Biden's stalled agenda and more. Plus, Love, Hate, Ate featuring the question: why did movie dialogue get so hard to understand?
Since July 2021, families with children have received monthly payments from the federal government as part of the expanded child tax credit, a policy that may be expiring this month. Megan Curran, policy director at the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University, joined Cheddar News to discuss.
During the pandemic, student loan debt repayment was put on pause amid an unprecedented crisis. However, on February 1, 2022, the schedule is set to resume, and currently it looks as though the Biden administration has no plans to extend it. Cody Hounanian, the executive director of the Student Debt Crisis Center, spoke to Cheddar about why he believes the loan collection pause needs to at least be extended as borrowers are still struggling with the resurgent pandemic and inflation. "There's really no good economic or policy or political reason as far as why they're focused on getting payments started now," Hounanian said. "We surveyed 33,000 people with student loans last month. Nine out of 10 told us that they are not ready to resume payments."
