President Donald Trump recently approved several disaster relief requests from red states, and denied aid requests of several blue states. But one analyst is pointing out that Trump's politically motivated disaster relief decisions are actually going to disproportionately harm his base.
On Monday, the New Republic's Greg Sargent interviewed MSNBC columnist Steve Benen, who delved into the ramifications of Trump's denials. As Sargent recounted, Trump approved requests from Alaska, Missouri, Nebraska and North Dakota (while bragging about him winning those states by large margins) and simultaneously denied requests from Illinois, Maryland and Vermont.
"If there was just any variance in this, it would seem less subtle. But it’s not," Benen said. "He’s just being overt about this."
"We’ve seen Donald Trump repeatedly say that he is the president of red states, exclusively," he continued. "He looks at blue states as somehow beneath him, as if they are second-class citizens, as if they’re undeserving of his support because they failed to support him in the election — which is ridiculous and it’s un-American — but nevertheless, it has become our life now."
However, as Benen pointed out, the counties that would receive most of the aid requested by blue states are packed full of Trump supporters. Allegany and Garrett County in Maryland voted for Trump in 2024 by a 40-point margin and a 54-point margin, respectively. Maryland Governor Wes Moore (D) stated that both counties experienced $33.7 million in damages from floods in May of this year — which is more than eleven times greater than the federal threshold for aid requests.
"He lost Maryland, I think, by roughly 29 points. But what he doesn’t appreciate is the fact that there are nuances in states — that no state is this monolithic entity — that there are going to be blue voters and red voters," Benen said. "... And so for him to just look at Maryland and say, Well, they’re all my enemies, that necessarily means that he’s going to end up punishing a lot of people who voted for him and who support him and are looking to him for assistance that they deserve."
Both Benen and Sargent also remarked on how similar Trump's approach to evaluating disaster relief requests was to Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought's targeted defunding of clean energy projects in predominantly blue states — both in its brazen political undertones and in its unintentional consequences on Republican voters. Vought's targeting of $26 billion in clean energy initiatives ended up provoking backlash from Republican members of Congress who represent pockets of conservative voters in those states – many of whom stand to lose sorely needed jobs and investment in their communities as a result.
Click here to read Greg Sargent's full interview with Steve Benen in The New Republic.