Trump loves making blue states suffer
"Cross me, will you? To hell with you and to hell with your disasters.
Perhaps it’s best that the quiet part is pretty much being screamed now, and it’s all just out in the open that President Donald Trump is using the federal government to punish blue states without even the fig leaf of pretending it is about fraud or immigration or whatever.
Politico recently obtained emails showing that Trump personally overruled Federal Emergency Management Agency officials to deny disaster aid to New Jersey, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New York.
It’s pretty bleak to realize that these disaster aid requests were so airtight and valid that even the lackeys Trump has running FEMA thought they should be granted, but to no avail.
Yes, the president has the sole authority to grant or deny disaster aid—which, come to think of it, seems to be kind of a big problem with the law here—but a former FEMA official told Politico that “I can’t think of a time a declaration was denied” after FEMA had verified the damages were enough to require disaster aid.
So this means denying aid to Rhode Island for the February 2026 blizzard that dumped 37.9 inches on the state in 24 hours and caused $19 million in damage, while approving $846 million in disaster relief for nine Republican-leaning states the same day. Trump also denied disaster aid to New York for the same blizzard.
While blue states are getting battered by the ravages of natural disasters and having to go it alone, Trump has approved nearly 90% of requests for aid from states governed by Republicans.
Of course, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson was duly trotted out to insist that “there is no politicization to the President’s decisions on disaster relief” and that Trump handles disaster requests “with great care.”
Ah, yes, like the “great care” with which Trump arbitrarily cancels grants for states that voted for Harris. Turns out that the administration is indeed openly politicizing how it doles out federal money, and apparently isn’t afraid to say it.
Federal officials admitted in a court filing earlier this month that they totally lied when they said that the cancellation of over $7.5 billion in grants for clean energy projects in blue states was because the projects “did not adequately advance the nation’s energy needs, were not economically viable, and would not provide a positive return on investment of taxpayer dollars.”
Whoopsie. Turns out they actually canceled the grants “based solely” on political criteria. “With one exception, the 284 terminated grants had a recipient location and/or at least one place of performance in a state that awarded its electoral votes to Kamala Harris in the 2024 election and has two Democratic-caucusing senators.”
Well, that’s not subtle, is it.
It isn’t clear why the administration decided to come clean on this, but there is one bleak theory, which is that the Department of Justice is admitting this in court to tee up an argument that it is perfectly fine and good and within the president’s authority to cancel any federal funding to any state that didn’t vote for him.
Related |Trump lackeys cry fraud to strip $10B from blue states
Because that’s certainly Trump’s stance, from inventing fraud allegations to terminate billions in vital Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and Child Care Development Fund aid in five blue states to pressuring blue states to join in his murderous deportation spree or lose completely unrelated federal funding. Or the creation of an anti-fraud “task force” that seems designed to overlook red state fraud and invent fraud in blue states in order to justify withholding federal money. Or killing the funding for the Hudson River tunnel project that affects New Jersey and New York and taunting Sen. Chuck Schumer about doing so.
This isn’t how the United States works. States aren’t obliged to vote for the president to get money from the federal government. It’s kind of our whole deal. But this is the world we live in now, and until Congress or the Supreme Court tells Trump to knock it off, we’re stuck.
"That'll teach you Antifas to cross the Donald. May you wallow in your own disaster."
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