President Trump’s foray this week into the fire rebuilding process in Pacific Palisades has been met with confusion and rolled eyes from local officials who say he’s now railing against projects that have never even been proposed.
Trump said Thursday he planned to stop a low-income housing project from being developed in Pacific Palisades. His promise, made during a Cabinet meeting, marked the second time this week he has weighed in on local housing issues in the fire-scarred Palisades.
“They want to build a low-income housing project right in the middle of everything in the Palisades, and I’m not going to allow it to happen,” Trump said. “I’m not going to let these people destroy the value of their houses.”
The comments left politicians around Los Angeles and California scratching their heads: what low-income housing project was the president referring to?
Both Councilmember Traci Park and Mayor Karen Bass said they did not know of a major, low-income housing project coming to the Palisades.
“There are no plans to bring low-income housing to the Palisades,” Bass said in a phone interview with The Times on Thursday from Washington, D.C. “It’s not true. There couldn’t possibly be a project that neither the councilmember nor the mayor would have any knowledge of.”
Trump also took aim at Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday as he announced an executive order to “preempt” the city’s permitting process to make it easier for fire victims to rebuild.
The order, if implemented, would allow residents to self-certify to federal authorities instead of going through city bureaucracy for permits.
Bass said Thursday that she would welcome an executive order that would bring the insurance and banking industries together to help Angelenos whose houses burned down get more significant insurance payouts and longer-term mortgages.
The Governor’s Office also said they had no idea what low-income housing project Trump was referring to on Thursday.
“The president of the United States is a bumbling idiot and has no idea what he’s talking about,” said Izzy Gardon, a spokesperson for Newsom. “This narrative that Gavin Newsom is trying to build high-density, low-income housing in the Palisades and turn them into ‘Newsomvilles’ is absurd.”
Gardon said the state is providing resources for developers to rebuild below-market-rate housing that was destroyed in the Palisades fire, which tore through the beach-side enclave in January 2025, killing 12 and destroying thousands of homes and structures.
In July, the governor committed $101 million to help rebuilding efforts of “affordable multifamily rental housing in the fire-devastated Los Angeles region.”
The financing was for areas affected by both the Palisades and Eaton fires.
The program allows affordable housing developers to apply for financing and prioritizes projects that are near wildfire burn areas, ready for immediate construction.
The program required the developments to remain affordable for more than a half-century to receive the funding.
Trump did not specify Thursday whether he was speaking about the July announcement or about a specific project.
“That was money that went to the L.A. area for the four communities impacted by the fires to help developers to rebuild low-income mixed-use housing that was destroyed by the fires,” Gardon said.
Maryam Zar, a Palisades resident, said that many in the Palisades feared a new project on the site of a Shell gas station that developer Justin Kohanoff said he wanted to build into an eight-story, 100-unit, low-income building.
Kohanoff’s father, Saeed Kohanoff, declined to comment beyond saying the family has no immediate plans to develop the property.
The Trump administration did not immediately specify what low-income housing project, if any in particular, the president was speaking about.
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