The Kills frontwoman Alison Mosshart has hit out at Donald Trump amid the ongoing wildfires in California, saying it will be “harder” to rebuild communities once he is in power.
The singer-songwriter, who owns a property in Los Angeles, shared a message on Instagram today (January 9), in which she sent “love and extreme mental fortitude” to those affected by the disaster.
READ MORE: The Kills: “Why should hip-hop be future-forward and guitar music always looking back?”
The wildfires that began in LA on Tuesday (January 7) quickly morphed into five concurrent blazes in separate neighbourhoods, causing over 150,000 residents to flee from their homes.
Billie Eilish and Ariana Grande are among those to have shared links to resources on social media. Other figures from the entertainment world have detailed their experiences with evacuation, including Star Wars actor Mark Hamill and Paris Hilton.
Mosshart wrote: “I’m up all night for LA. This is beyond cataclysmic, these fires, a fire storm, a true nightmare, but even those words are nothing in comparison to the pain [of] bulldozing the 2nd largest city in America. A city I love deeply.
“I’m thankful to my neighbours there who have stayed on the phone with me updating me about my neighbourhood as I’m halfway across the country, and to my dear friend @erinmariedean who made the trip to my house to save as much artwork as possible in the event that all may be lost.”
The vocalist – who grew up in Florida and also owns a house in Nashville, Tennessee – said she was “lucky to have great people in [her] life who show up”, adding: “Very fucking lucky.”
Mosshart continued: “After these fires (soon I hope) die down and stock of loss is taken and those who lost everything must begin again, it’s going to have to be a community effort, it’s going to be a lot of hard work to rebuild, 10x harder with this incoming administration who loathes California for not voting for him.”
She then labelled Trump a “petty fuck”, over losing California to Kamala Harris and Joe Biden in the 2024 and 2020 presidential elections, respectively. California is considered a safe blue state, and is a Democratic stronghold.
“We have to do this together,” Mosshart added. “Share our resources and our time and goodwill. LA is a lot of things, but what I’ve always loved about it the most is that people show up for one another. And I know, despite the magnitude of this loss, the magnitude of us, is bigger.”
Gavin Newsom, Governor of California, criticised President-elect Trump yesterday (January 8) for recent comments he made about the disaster. “This guy wanted to politicise it,” he said (via The Hill).
Trump had earlier hit out at Newsom, writing on Truth Social: “[He] refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way.”
There is no such document as the water restoration declaration – that is pure fiction.
The Governor is focused on protecting people, not playing politics, and making sure firefighters have all the resources they need. https://t.co/5WnnlrP3Wl
— Governor Newsom Press Office (@GovPressOffice) January 8, 2025
The quantity of available water to be pumped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta faces restrictions because of federal and state regulations to protect an endangered fish called the smelt.
“He wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt, by giving it less water (it didn’t work!), but didn’t care about the people of California,” Trump added in his Truth Social post.
“Now the ultimate price is being paid. I will demand that this incompetent governor allow beautiful, clean, fresh water to FLOW INTO CALIFORNIA! He is the blame for this. On top of it all, no water for fire hydrants, not firefighting planes. A true disaster!”
Per NBC News, Trump threatened to withhold federal disaster aid for wildfires in California on numerous occasions as President.
Last October, at a campaign rally in Coachella, he said: “We’re going to take care of your water situation, and we’ll force it down [Newsom’s] throat. And we’ll say, Gavin, if you don’t do it, we’re not giving you any of that fire money that we send you all the time for all the fire, forest fires.”
Trump threatens to withhold aid to California: We’ll force it down his throat and we’ll say, Gavin, if you don’t do it, we’re not giving you any of that fire money that we send you for all the forest fires you have pic.twitter.com/EBneSYZrTG
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 13, 2024
Following Trump’s historic US election win in November, Newsom said he was preparing to “Trump-proof” California ahead of inauguration day later this month.
“We’re talking about everything we need to do to prepare for this transition, to prepare California,” he explained of his plans to push back against Trump’s agenda (via CBS News). “Protecting our environmental leadership […], issues related to healthcare, disaster recovery, disaster relief…”
This week, Newsom said outgoing President Biden “had the backs of every single person in this community” and “didn’t play politics”. Biden also wrote on X/Twitter that his administration would “do everything it [could] to support the response”.
“I am being frequently briefed on the wildfires in west Los Angeles,” he said. “My team and I are in touch with state and local officials, and I have offered any federal assistance that is needed to help suppress the terrible Pacific Palisades fire.
Donald Trump. CREDIT: Chip Somodevilla/Getty
“Earlier tonight, FEMA approved a Fire Management Assistance Grant to support areas that are impacted and help reimburse the state of California for the immediate firefighting costs.”
He went on to “urge the residents of the Pacific Palisades and the surrounding areas of Los Angeles to stay vigilant and listen to local officials”.
During an interview with NME in 2020, Alison Mosshart called then-President Trump “the biggest dick of all time” over his response to the COVID-19 pandemic. “I really hope he goes away,” she said at the time.
Last November, Mosshart’s former Dead Weather bandmate Jack White described Trump as a “wannabe dictator”. The White Stripes later dropped their copyright lawsuit against the re-elected POTUS after he used their music in a campaign video.
The Kills released their sixth and latest studio album, ‘God Games’, in 2023. During an interview with NME that year, the duo talked about being one of the few ’00s survivors still evolving their music.
“I’m really proud, but when we started we decided to make this band into our lives, and our lives into this band,” Mosshart said.
“We just believed that it would always happen. Very seriously, and we believed it was very possible because there was just two of us, we could do anything artistically that we wanted to do.”
In other news, Mosshart recently reflected on performing at the star-studded Mark Lanegan tribute show in London last month.
The post The Kills’ Alison Mosshart hits out at “petty fuck” Donald Trump ahead of “hard work to rebuild” LA after wildfires appeared first on NME.
