Lawmakers urge Trump: Don't politicize disaster aid ahead of winter storm

Fog clears to reveal One World Trade Center and the Manhattan skyline, as seen from the Edge NYC, in New York City, U.S., December 29, 2025. REUTERS/Adam Gray

As dozens of states brace for a historic winter storm this weekend, all eyes are on President Donald Trump's administration and whether politics will play a role in who gets federal disaster assistance.

Politico reported Friday that many governors of states in the path of Winter Storm Fern are already scrambling to line up resources as nearly an inch of freezing rain is expected across much of the Deep South, while heavy snow is likely to pummel the bulk of the Midwest and the East Coast. According to the Weather Channel, the storm will impact approximately 230 million Americans.

One unnamed senior official within the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) anonymously told Politico that states are "expecting the worst" after discussions with the Trump administration.

"They’re preparing for no grants, no money," the official said.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill recently approved a spending bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — which has FEMA under its umbrella — through 2026. And one provision in the legislation stipulates that "snowstorms shall be eligible for Federal relief." Still, some Democrats are worried the Trump administration will attempt to stifle aid to Democratic-run states.

Under the second Trump administration, Cameron Hamilton – the former acting FEMA administrator — entertained the idea of denying aid for snowstorms. And Politico reported that after catastrophic flooding in the spring of 2025, the Trump administration denied federal disaster funding to Maryland, which is led by Democratic Gov. Wes Moore.

A spokesperson for Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said the propensity of Trump and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem "to turn even the weather into a partisan issue and play politics with people’s lives may make an already bad situation somehow even worse." And House Homeland Security Committee ranking member Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) also urged the administration to heed the standard set by the recent DHS funding bill.

"Any notion that snowstorms don’t qualify as a disaster defies logic — and is unnecessarily cruel," Thompson told Politico.

FEMA has spent roughly $272 million on helping communities recover from snowstorms since 2016, according to Politico. The outlet also observed that was a comparatively small sum given the tens of billions of dollars the agency has spent since then on all disaster relief. States are particularly dependent on federal money after snowstorms, with former FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate — who served during the Obama administration — telling Politico that cash-strapped states that don't often experience wintry conditions tend to cut snow removal funding during lean times.

"We tried to set the thresholds to say, unless this is an extraordinary event, it should not be supplanting state and local responsibility to fund snow removal and treatment operations on their highways on the back of the federal taxpayers," he said.

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