President Donald Trump has approved millions of dollars in disaster aid to states he won in 2024 while denying funds to states that did not back him, but an analyst explained that he was hurting his own supporters in blue states.
The president signed off on aid for Nebraska, North Dakota, Missouri and Alaska, going out of his way to point out that he'd won those states when announcing the funds, but denied requests for relief from Maryland, Vermont and Illinois, and The New Republic's Greg Sargent said Trump was making his intentions clear.
"Why would Trump bother declaring that he had won these states that he’s awarding disaster relief to in the first place, which he did in his Truth Social post," Sargent said. "It could be just his usual megalomania at work. My only association with this state is that I won it or whatever. But I think it’s also to make it explicit that he doles out government resources to those who support him."
Trump withheld funding from Maryland, which he lost by nearly 30 points, requested by Democratic Gov. Wes Moore for flash-flood damage in the state’s two westernmost counties, Garrett and Allegany counties – which he won by 54 points and 40 points, respectively, in November's election.
"According to a high-level person in Gov. Wes Moore’s administration ... his staff privately informed Trump officials that the two Maryland counties with the damages are in Appalachia, are in Trump country," Sargent said, "and according to the source, anyway, the Trump officials appeared surprised to hear this — as if they didn’t really know that these could be in Appalachia and in Trump country."
Trump's budget director Russell Vought has explicitly targeted Democratic priorities when making cuts and the president cheers him on, but he said his own supporters were being hurt by those moves.
"Here again, he’s also screwing over red state voters," Sargent said. "There’s a particular project I have in mind. One of the projects that Russell Vought cut or shut down, defunded, is called the Pacific Northwest Hydrogen Hub, and that happens to span Oregon, Washington State, and — you guessed it — Montana."
"The state’s Republican governor, Montana’s Republican governor, has hailed this project as something that will create good-paying Montana jobs," Sargent added. "So here again, totally screwing his own people."