President Trump was in Los Angeles Friday to view the damage caused by the LA wildfires. Gov. Newsome met Trump on the tarmac and everyone was on their best behavior.

Air Force One touched down at LAX around 2:55 p.m. with a delegation that included First Lady Melania Trump.

The president and the governor met on the tarmac and exchanged a friendly handshake before addressing the assembled media together.

“I appreciate the governor coming out and meeting me,” Trump said. “We want to get the problem fixed … It’s like you got hit by a bomb.”

“We’re going to need your help,” Newsom said of Trump. “It means a great deal to all of us. Not just the folks in Palisades, the folks in Altadena who were devastated, we’re going to need your support.”

A bit later Trump participated in a roundtable discussion with local leaders including Mayor Karen Bass. And once again Bass was on her best behavior.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass was among the local leaders on hand for Friday’s discussion at a Los Angeles Fire Department station in Pacific Palisades. She thanked Trump for his presence so shortly after inauguration day and his promise to help the community recover.

But as the questions rolled on, a clear division appeared between Trump who was channeling the eagerness of people to get back on their own property and Bass who was saying people couldn't return until it was deemed safe.

Trump said if it was up to him, rebuilding work would begin that night, but Bass reaffirmed there was still significant danger to repopulate and reconstruct Pacific Palisades and the Pasadena region, including in the form of hazardous waste that will take weeks to remove.

The president was seemingly unimpressed with the explanation.

“What’s hazardous waste?” Trump asked. “I mean, you’re going to have to define that … I just think you have to allow the people to go on their site and start the process tonight.”

This is really Trump doing what populists do best which is expressing the kind of popular urgency that regular people feel about things instead of taking a "government will keep you safe" approach being taken by progressive mayor Bass. Even so, the optics of this was in danger of going against Trump because he was a white man telling a black woman how to do her job. You can almost hear the progressive scribes itching to call Trump a mansplainer and a racist as this unfolds and Bass tries to assert herself.

What saved Trump in this instance is that so many people in the room were on his side of this argument. Bass is saying people can clear their own lots and then someone points out that no one is allowed onto their own property at the moment. She concedes it will be a week (at least) before it's deemed safe. She lost the argument right there, at least in the room. People who are staying in hotels and Airbnbs with their families and pets and few remaining possessions absolutely do not want to hear about red tape at this moment.

Republicans and Democrats have sometimes been referred to as the daddy party and the mommy party and I think you can see that play out in this argument. "Everyone is standing in front of their house, they want to go to work and then they're not allowed to do it. A week is a long time," Trump said. Speaking over him, Bass said, "And the most important thing is for people to be safe."

More delay and expense is inevitable. It will be many months before any of these homes are rebuilt, but no one facing that prospect wants to hear that they can't do anything at all (besides sit and stew) until the mayor says its okay. Trump read the room better than Bass.

Stay to the end to see Trump drop the hammer on Bass with his comments about "water."