During the recent government shutdown, the Trump administration started cutting energy grants to states, but the only states that were affected were ones that Donald Trump lost in last year’s elections. Last week, federal lawyers conceded in a court filing that this was not a coincidence.
On the contrary, two months after officials in blue states accused the White House of “mafioso tactics,” administration officials were unexpectedly candid in acknowledging that they did precisely what they were accused of doing. “[C]onsideration of partisan politics is constitutionally permissible, including because it can serve as a proxy for legitimate policy considerations,” they argued.
The broader question, however, is just how frequently the Republican president and his team are applying this approach.
Take federal disaster aid, for example.
After Illinois suffered extensive damage from two major storms over the summer, for example, state officials sought federal disaster aid. After the White House said no, Politico reported, “Trump’s denials are the first time any president since at least 2007 — including Trump to this point — has refused to help residents recover from such extensive damage to their homes, federal records show.”
It wasn’t just Illinois (a state Trump lost by 11 points). Maryland (a state Trump lost by 29 points) and Vermont (a state Trump lost by 31 points) found their appeals for federal relief funds denied, too.
Colorado (a state Trump lost by 11 points) has found itself in the same club. The Associated Press reported:
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis accused President Donald Trump of playing ‘political games’ Sunday after the Trump administration denied disaster declaration requests following wildfires and flooding in the state earlier this year.
Polis’ office said he received late Saturday two denial letters from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The letters follow requests for major disaster declarations following wildfires and mudslides in August and what Polis had described as ‘historic flooding’ across southwest Colorado in October.
“Coloradans impacted by the Elk and Lee fires and the flooding in Southwestern Colorado deserve better than the political games President Trump is playing,” the Democratic governor said in a written statement.
Although the White House denied political considerations, one day before the administration rejected Colorado’s aid request, the president published an item to his social media platform that read, “I have just informed Senator Roger Marshall that I have approved $5.7 Million Dollars for the wonderful State of Kansas in order to recover from severe storms, tornados, and flooding. These are tough and smart Patriots who love our Country, and will rebuild stronger than ever before!”
Everything about the message was overtly political, including Trump referring to Marshall by name but not Kansas’ governor or Republican Sen. Jerry Moran. The difference: Marshall is currently running for reelection and will be on the ballot in 11 months.
Around the same time, Trump also wrote online, “I just spoke with Governor Greg Gianforte, of the Great State of Montana, and informed him that I will be approving an Emergency Declaration for Montana for severe storms they experienced this month. I LOVE MONTANA!”
But whether he loves the state should be irrelevant. These decisions are supposed to be made on the merits, not the president’s personal affinity for a state based on its electoral history. Complicating matters is recent history. Trump published an item to his social media platform two months ago, announcing that he’d personally approved $2.5 million in disaster aid for Missouri, while emphasizing the number of times he’d won Missouri’s electoral votes — as if there were some connection between his political support in the state and his eagerness to provide aid. The Republican went on to mention the “incredible Patriots” in the GOP stronghold. Just a minute later, he published a follow-up item, touting his approval of $15 million for Nebraska. The minute after that, he added a third missive, announcing $25 million for Alaska — “which I won BIG in 2016, 2020, and 2024,” he wrote. It would be easier to see this as a coincidence if the Republican administration had been evenhanded in dealing with red and blue states, but the obvious fact that it has not makes these latest decisions even more difficult to defend. “Trump seems to see Democratic-led states — and the people in them — less as constituents to which he has a set of larger obligations and more as enemies to be pacified and defeated,” The New York Times’ Jamelle Bouie recently argued. “For Trump, there is no whole people of the United States. There are only his people and his states.” This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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