California Gov. Gavin Newsom has been cleaning up the state’s forests since President Donald Trump told him to the last time he visited a big California wildfire in 2020. But as Trump touches down in Los Angeles on Friday to view the latest damage, forest management remains a political vulnerability for Newsom that Republicans have capitalized on since the wildfires started — and that Democrats have struggled to defend against. Trump’s repeated chastisements of Newsom to “manage your forests” echoes in-state Republicans’ longstanding argument that Newsom and Democrats aren’t doing enough to clear overgrown flammable brush and trees from the state’s forests. Some Republicans have taken up Trump’s idea of holding disaster aid hostage for policy concessions… Trump himself has repeated the familiar cudgel, telling Fox News, “Remember, I took criticism when I said, ‘You have to manage your forests.’ … Look at what happened in Los Angeles. It’s like a nuclear weapon went off.”