California Officials Push Back Hard on Trump’s Claim the Military ‘TURNED ON THE WATER’ Under His Orders

California state officials denied President Donald Trump’s Truth Social claim late Monday night that the military had entered California under “Emergency Powers” to restore water supplies, instead claiming that water supplies were “plentiful” and that the federal government had restarted federal water pumps that were offline.

During the peak of efforts to battle the Los Angeles wildfires in January, water demand exceeded the supply available at hydrants, causing some to run dry. Compounding the issue, a nearby city reservoir was out of service for repairs when the fire erupted, according to a January 10 report by the Los Angeles Times.

At that time ranking members of the then-incoming Trump administration, including Vice President JD Vance, escalated the news into an attack on the Democratic state leadership, accusing Democrats of making “bad decisions” that had hampered the emergency response and that reservoirs had been “dry for 15-20 years.”

On Sunday Trump issued an executive order calling on federal agencies, including the Defense Department, to explore ways to increase water deliveries to Southern California and the Central Valley.

His order tied water policy to a broader critique of environmental regulations, claiming they’ve prioritized “Fake Environmental arguments” over human needs.

Taking to Truth Social late Monday the president wrote:

The United States Military just entered the Great State of California and, under Emergency Powers, TURNED ON THE WATER flowing abundantly from the Pacific Northwest, and beyond. The days of putting a Fake Environmental argument, over the PEOPLE, are OVER. Enjoy the water, California!!!

(Screengrab via Truth Social)

The claim prompted a rebuttal by the state’s Department of Water Resources clarified in a late-night post on X to deny that military had entered California and clarify that the pumps “were offline for maintenance for three days.”

Federal officials reportedly turned on the Jones Pumping Station in Northern California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a pumping station that is a key piece of the federal water infrastructure that helps serve 28 million residents and irrigates 4 million acres of farmland.

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