Trump on Disaster Relief… is a Disaster

Natural disasters occur all over the US, and part of the role of the federal government is to help out states in recovery. Except… Trump seems to think Democratic states deserve disasters, and withholds aid based on his political needs.

Federal Disaster Aid in Democratic & Republican States

An article earlier this year in Politico included data showing Trump was using disaster relief funding denials and delays for political punishment. ^[1] This was recently confirmed by some Associated Press reporting picked up by Boston’s PBS station, WBUR. ^[2] Let’s see what’s going on there.

First, Trump in general seems to be denying state applications for disaster relief at an overall historical low:

President Donald Trump has rejected disaster aid for Democratic-run states at the highest rate in the 47-year history of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

But his denials have been politically extremely biased, as shown in the plots over time of the number of grants approved in red/blue states and the delay time involved:

He approved just 23 percent of disaster funding requests from states with a Democratic governor and two Democratic senators since returning to office 14 months ago. For states with a Republican governor and two Republican senators, it’s the opposite — Trump has approved 89 percent of their requests.

This is historically unprecedented since the founding of FEMA in 1979. It’s also highly distinct even from his first term, when it was 93% vs 89%, i.e., statistically indistinguishable.

The time to process the application also indicates significant foot-dragging on any application from a Democratic state:

Trump has taken 80 days on average to approve or deny requests from Democratic-led states — compared to 39 days for Republican-led states.

He has also openly admitted partisan bias, citing his wins in Republican states as reason to grant applications.

“I just approved \$60.6 million for the Great State of Tennessee (which I won three times!)” Trump wrote on Feb. 6.

“It is my Honor to deliver for the Great State of Alaska, which I won BIG in 2016, 2020, and 2024,” Trump wrote on Oct. 22, 2025, announcing \$25 million in disaster aid.

“I won ‘The Show Me State’ three times in 2016, 2020, and 2024, and it is my Honor to deliver for these incredible Patriots!” Trump wrote in an Oct. 22, 2025, post announcing \$2.5 million in disaster aid for Missouri.

Although nakedly corrupt, this is apparently prima facie legal: federal law gives the president complete authority over such aid, without review. As always, when Trump gets unreviewable power, he turns it to corrupt uses.

Of course our generally mathematical illiterate press does not report the number of cases approved or disapproved by various presidents over time, nor their delay times. This makes it impossible to assess statistical significance in our usual way, but the graphs above certainly look damning. It would be a stupendous surprise if this were not statistically significant!

The Weekend Conclusion

As you can see here, the Weekend Publisher and the Assistant Weekend Publisher also keep an eye out for disasters, from their observation blind among the shiso plants. However, in their case, ‘disaster’ means something like ‘small mammal running around loose in the back yard’ that they would prefer to kill. I mean, they’re cats.

Even as cats, they make more sense and have more moral standing than Trump. And just a couple of spoiled housecats is a low moral bar, so that’s an amazing fact about Trump and the complicit Republicans.

(Ceterum censeo, Trump incarceranda est!)

(Et ceterum censeo, index Epsteiniani divulganda est!)

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Notes & References

1: T Frank, “It’s 3 times harder for blue states to get disaster funding under Trump”, Politico, 2026-Mar-23. ↩

2: DA Lieb & MK Wildeman, “Trump is taking longer to approve disaster aid and denying Democratic states more frequently”, WBUR, 2026-Jul-16. ↩