States are starting to feel the impact of President Donald Trump's budget cuts and funding freezes, which has reportedly forced GOP members of Congress to beg Trump for money.
While Republicans have publicly professed their support of Trump and his slashing of government, behind the scenes, they're calling his Cabinet officials to ask for help, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.
Federal employees are losing jobs even outside the Washington, D.C., area, and the funding freeze means that government contracts are being broken.
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So, U.S. senators are calling Cabinet secretaries and other Trump White House officials to ask for their money back.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) even went so far as to say that begging might be the new normal, the report said.
He suggested "lawmakers could lobby [Elon] Musk to save spending they’ve allocated for their states as he slashes and cancels contracts at agencies."
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) has been speaking directly to the departments trying to get her state's money. The Post reported that Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) are working with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to stop cuts to the NIH that hurt their states.
While Trump talked about eliminating the Environmental Protection Agency, Sen. Shelly Moore Capito (R-W.V.) wants the grants her state was given from EPA for green school buses, the report said.
The Post continued that Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS) has been fighting tooth and nail since USAID was cut. The cuts left millions of dollars in food aid from Kansas farmers sitting in ports. The Food for Peace program buys crops from American farmers and sends them abroad to help end starvation. Those farmers may not get their money now.
The era of begging means those who are friends with Trump would have a leg up, while putting Democrats and blue states at a disadvantage, the report suggested.
But the Post recalled that the idea of canceling funding is part of what Trump campaigned on in 2024. Trump claimed he could use a tactic called "impoundment."
Republicans in Congress have been "laying the groundwork for challenging restrictions on that power in court and have aggressively flouted Congress’s power with early freezes on spending," the report said.
Giving money to his friends over his foes is why impoundment "is so dangerous," Matt Glassman, a former Capitol Hill staffer who worked for the Congressional Research Service, told the Post.
“It creates a sort of favor-factory atmosphere where you’ve got to beg the president for your funding," he added.