For days since President Donald Trump announced his intent to travel to Los Angeles to survey fire damage, a question has hung over his planned visit: Will Gov. Gavin Newsom be with him?

Tension between the newly reinstalled Republican president and California’s Democratic governor — longtime political nemeses who nevertheless routinely worked together on disaster recovery during Trump’s first term — exploded alongside the fires that have burned through Pacific Palisades, Altadena and other swaths of the Los Angeles region over the past two weeks. The clash has appeared to put federal support for California at risk, even as Newsom publicly offered an olive branch to Trump.

Furious over the early response to the disaster, Trump has repeatedly railed against the governor he dubbed “Newscum,” spread misinformation about the causes of the fire and suggested that California will not receive the typical federal aid for recovery unless it changes its water policy. Or its forestry policy. Or its immigration sanctuary policy.

Though the governor quickly extended an invitation to Trump to visit Los Angeles, an effort to lower the temperature on the unusually politicized furor surrounding a natural disaster, Newson acknowledged late Thursday afternoon that he had still not heard back from the president, less than a day before his expected touchdown in California.

Excluding Newsom would be a stinging rebuke of the governor, who met with Trump when he traveled to California fire zones in 2018 and 2020. On Wednesday, the president indicated to Fox News host Sean Hannity that he might not offer Newsom the same courtesy this time around: “I don’t know. I haven’t even thought about it,” Trump said.

But Newsom struck an optimistic tone with reporters Thursday, after approving $2.5 billion in fire recovery funds that he hopes will eventually be reimbursed by the federal government. He promised to be at the airport today to greet Trump — even if a spokesperson said his office didn’t yet know which airport. And Newsom said he expected the president would ultimately “do the right thing” for Los Angeles.

“I’m glad he’s coming out here. I’m grateful that the president’s taking the time,” Newsom said. “And I hope he comes with a spirit of cooperation and collaboration. That’s the spirit to which we welcome him.”

It’s common for presidents and governors of opposing political parties to do battle on policy differences and then come together when natural disasters strike, said state Sen. Ben Allen, a Santa Monica Democrat whose district has been badly damaged by the Palisades fire.

“It would be a delicate balance under any president and certainly, it’s more delicate under this president,” he told CalMatters. “It may appear a little messy, and perhaps it is, but it’s also an integral part of our federal system.”

Newsom is at a precarious moment in his relationship with Trump. While he initially positioned California at the forefront of a renewed resistance after Trump won a second term in November, even calling a special session to fund litigation against the incoming administration, Newsom now finds himself dependent on the goodwill of a federal government almost fully under the sway of Trump.

It’s unclear how forthcoming federal assistance will be. Since the outbreak of the Los Angeles fires more than two weeks ago, Trump has depicted them as Newsom’s fault and even demanded that he resign. With the support of many congressional Republicans, the president has also threatened to withhold or condition disaster aid.

“I don’t think we should give California anything until they let water flow down,” Trump told Hannity, a reference to inaccurate claims that Los Angeles lacked water to fight these fires because the state does not send enough water south from Northern California.

Newsom has substantially, though not entirely, pulled his punches against Trump in recent weeks. He largely kept a low profile leading up to the president’s visit, working on fire response from Los Angeles. After the president erroneously complained in Monday’s inauguration speech that the fires were burning “without even a token of defense,” Newsom issued a gentle statement that emphasized “finding common ground and striving toward shared goals” with the Trump administration.

“In the face of one of the worst natural disasters in America’s history, this moment underscores the critical need for partnership, a shared commitment to facts, and mutual respect,” Newsom said.

Yet he also, on social media, slammed several of Trump’s early executive orders on immigration and climate change, then sent an email to supporters deriding the passage from Trump’s inaugural speech as “nonsense” and “insulting” to firefighters.

Meanwhile, the governor’s special session to “safeguard California values” from the Trump administration continues on, with Democrats in the state Senate voting Thursday to advance $25 million for legal fees. Republican lawmakers have lambasted the session as a distraction from wildfire response and an unnecessary poke at the president.

Allen, the senator from Santa Monica, said he understood that Trump is fulfilling his campaign promises to the Americans who supported him, but that California politicians would be derelict if they didn’t push back, because voters had elected them with a different vision for how to run the country.

“We want, and our constituents want us, to cooperate with the federal government to help on the areas of mutual agreement and need,” he said. “The flip side is, we are also part of the loyal opposition.”

Newsom told reporters Thursday that it was important for the state to prepare to fight Trump at the same time that he is courting the president’s help, noting that Trump “already assaulted the Fourteenth Amendment” with his day one executive order challenging birthright citizenship, which California immediately sued to stop.

The governor evoked the “great relationship” he had with Trump during the COVID pandemic, when they spoke nearly every week, and said he did not expect the special session to affect that because it was “nothing personal,” but rather based on “fundamental policy disagreements.”

“This is situational. Don’t color it in any more than it needs to be,” Newsom said. “I’m here for the long haul, to support the president where we can, to defend our values where we must.”

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CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.