Trump Presser Goes off the Rails as President Throws Down With California Democrat: ‘You Made It So Impossible’

President Donald Trump’s Friday night press conference in Pacific Palisades went off the rails after he went back and forth with Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) about state policy on forest management, water, FEMA, and private insurance companies.

Trump landed late Friday afternoon in Los Angeles, where he was greeted by Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom. Trump and Newsom have traded barbs publicly about this month’s deadly L.A. County wildfires.

While seated next to First Lady Melania Trump and one chair over from L.A. Mayor Karen Bass at Friday’s conference, Trump found another nemesis in Sherman.

The longtime House Democrat had already confronted Trump about making federal aid for devastated communities in the area conditional.

Minutes later, the two sparred over everything from rainwater collection to FEMA and insurance companies – many of which canceled policies in recent months for those who lost everything to fire:

TRUMP: FEMA is incompetently run and it costs about three times more than it should cost. We can spend money on schools instead of giving money to bureaucracy. It takes you so much longer –

SHERMAN: Mr. President, I beg you –

[CROSSTALK]

TRUMP: FEMA has a standard, Brad, and I’m a builder. I build – was a very good builder. FEMA has a standard that’s so slow. They want permit on permit on permit, and then they want permits on top of that. If you use FEMA, you’ll be here for a long time. What I’m saying is get the city, get the state to give you immediate 24-hour permits. These people are going to build their own homes. They’re going to get them built fast. How many of them? Could I ask you one question? How many of the people – what are people going to do for financing? What are people going to do? How many people can build a – percentage-wise – like where they don’t have to go out and get funds? Some people, are just not going to be able to rebuild their home, because they have a beautiful home, but they don’t have cash. Right. So what are people looking to do in that case? You’re going to have a big percentage, I would say, to assume, Brad, like that. What are they going to do? Go ahead.

SHERMAN: Mr. President, without your help, they’re only going to get $43,000 from the federal government, even if they have a half-million-dollar insurance policy.

TRUMP: You did something, Brad. Every insurance company in the country left California. That’s why you have no insurance. Because you made it so impossible. People that think like you made it so impossible. And for me, every company – I’ll tell you this, I might think.

[CROSSTALK]

SHERMAN: Mr. President, I don’t know what you know about my thinking.

TRUMP: I’ve never seen a state where almost nobody has insurance. And I said, What happened? And they said, like six months ago, they all left. And two years ago, they had different, you know, quadrants. But they left. And you have very little insurance here. I mean, I’ve never seen anything like it.

SHERMAN: We had a lot of insurance companies pull out, but I –

TRUMP: The insurance companies actually have been warning you now. I’m not a big fan of insurance companies, okay? They have their big drawbacks, too. But the insurance company I’ve been reading, I read the papers very well. And, you know, they’ve been warning California for a long time. They’ve also been saying, we want water. You don’t have water. You know, you’re supposed to get fire insurance. And the insurance company said you don’t have any hot water in your fire hydrants. So it’s a tough situation. I’m not a big fan of insurance companies. I get that.

SHERMAN: They’re but they’re pulling out of Florida as well.

TRUMP: And you lost your insurance company six months ago because the state wouldn’t give them what they had to have, you know?

Watch above via Fox News.