Trump initially refused to provide California wildfire aid because it's a blue state, former aide says

In the aftermath of Hurricane Helen, former President Donald Trump blasted the Biden administration for its handling of the disaster, going so far as to accuse Democratic leaders of ignoring the needs of Republican victims of the storm.

But a review of Trump's record by POLITICO's E&E News and interviews with two former Trump White House officials show that the former president was at times blatantly partisan in responding to disasters and wavered on at least three occasions to provide disaster aid to areas he considered politically hostile. or ordered special treatment for pro-Trump states.

Mark Harvey, who served as Trump's senior director for resilience policy at the National Security Council, told E&E News on Wednesday that Trump initially refused to approve disaster aid for California after the wildfires. forest murderers in 2018 due to the state's Democratic lean.

But Harvey said Trump changed his mind after Harvey withdrew the voting results to show him that badly damaged Orange County, Calif., had more Trump supporters than the entire county. Iowa State.

We went so far as to check the number of votes he got in the affected areas to show him that these are people who voted for you, said Harvey, who recently endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris alongside more than 100 other former Republican national security officials.

The previously unreported exchange drew a stunned response on social media Thursday from President Joe Biden, who summed up Trump's attitude as follows: You can't help those who need it only if they have voted for you.

This is the most fundamental part of being president, and this guy doesn't know anything about it, Biden posted on X, in response to a tweet on an earlier version of this article.

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom added that the episode was a glimpse into the future if we elected Trump.

The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment from E&E News.

Harvey and Olivia Troye, a former Trump White House homeland security adviser who has supported Harvey's claims, say Trump is approaching Hurricane Helene with a similar mindset. They say he is politicizing a disaster that has left more than 170 people dead in six states. And Troye, who supported Harris for president, accused Trump of trying to distract from his own policy responsibilities for disaster responses.

She said that if Trump won the White House again, he would view disasters through a political lens that values ​​personal loyalty over damage.

It's not going to be about that American voter who doesn't even really pay attention to politics, and their house is gone, and the President of the United States is judging them by how they voted, and they don't have didn't even vote. , Troye said in an interview Wednesday.

Troye, who played a leading role in the federal disaster response, said local political leaders routinely called his office to ask for help because Trump refused to sign documents approving the aid. Troye said she had to repeatedly call on former Vice President Mike Pence for pressure.

Harvey added: There is no empathy for the survivors. It's all about taking your photoshoot, right? Disaster theater to make it look good.

On Monday, Trump turned a visit to flood-damaged Valdosta, Georgia, into a partisan attack. He falsely claimed that the Biden administration and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) were doing everything possible not to help people in Republican areas and that GOP governors couldn't get the president on the phone .

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, both Republicans, confirmed that was not true and praised the federal response. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) also applauded the Biden administration's response to Helene, which damaged the southeastern part of the state.

While Trump is alone among political leaders in accusing President Joe Biden of ignoring Republican victims of Hurricane Helen, his four years in the White House show he has at times played favor of disaster response.

“They love me in the Panhandle. What do they need?

In early 2019, shortly after taking office, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis met with Trump at the White House to ask for a favor.

A few months earlier, when DeSantis was running for governor, Hurricane Michael caused enormous damage in the Florida Panhandle.

DeSantis asked: Would the president direct the Federal Emergency Management Agency to pay 100% of recovery costs instead of the usual 75%?

This is Trump country and they need your help, DeSantis told the president, according to the Republican governor's autobiography, “The Courage to Be Free.”

They love me in the Panhandle, Trump responded, according to DeSantis' book, published in 2023 as he prepared to run for president. I must have won 90 percent of the votes. Huge crowds. What do they need?

On March 9, 2019, Trump signed an order directing FEMA to pay 100% of most disaster-related costs in Florida. As a result, FEMA paid about $350 million more than it would have received without Trump's intervention, according to an E&E News analysis.

But less than two months earlier, Trump had threatened to veto in Congress a disaster aid measure that would require FEMA to pay 100 percent of all disaster costs in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands after Hurricane Maria killed more than 3,000 people.

The White House said in a policy statement on January 16, 2019, that it strongly opposed the proposal.

Cost sharing is essential to ensure that work with affected jurisdictions is collaborative and that both partners have an incentive to operate efficiently and control costs, the Office of Management and Budget wrote.

The bill failed in the Senate.

Presidents often increase the federal share of disaster costs for the worst disasters. Trump himself increased the federal share following 23 disasters during his administration, including after Hurricane Maria, according to a Congressional Research Service report.

Trump paid 100% for Maria, but only for FEMA funds dedicated to debris cleanup and emergency protection. Under the legislation that Trump opposed, FEMA would have paid 100% of all of Maria's recovery costs, including reconstruction.

The Department of Homeland Security's inspector general has released eight reports criticizing FEMA's response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands during the Trump administration. The department oversees FEMA.

A 2020 IG report found that FEMA mismanaged the distribution of $257 million worth of products, which took an average of 69 days to reach their destination.

The report also reveals that FEMA gave hurricane survivors in Puerto Rico junk food, including Oreos, Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal and Airheads candy. Vendors were at capacity to provide nutritional meals after Hurricane Harvey, the IG writes, and could no longer produce them to support efforts in Puerto Rico.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development's inspector general found that the White House delayed the release of $8.3 billion in HUD disaster aid to Puerto Rico, approved by Congress in February 2018. HUD officials told the IG that the White House has undertaken a review process it has never previously required.

The money was allocated in January 2020.

The Trump administration also withheld a report for nearly two years that could have helped Congress improve HUD's disaster aid program, E&E News reported. The report, completed in April 2019, was released the day before Trump left office.

Harvey, Trump's former special assistant, remembers trying to push Trump to move money out to Puerto Rico.

It was really a business deal, like, “This is a lot of money. What do we get in return? Harvey said. There were still a lot of dropouts, dropouts, dropouts, don't give them what they need yet.

It just fits into the following pattern: We don't grant that, they're not my people. That general feeling is that I'm here to help my people, and they're not my people, so I don't have a responsibility to help.

Trump's approach to Puerto Rico contrasts with how he responded to another disaster in Alabama, where he won 63% of the vote in 2016.

In early 2019, days after tornadoes killed 23 people in Alabama, Trump wrote on Twitter, I directly asked FEMA to give Treatment A Plus to the great state of Alabama and the wonderful people who have been so devastated by tornadoes.

There is no indication that FEMA gave Alabama any special treatment.

“Take politics out of disaster”

The gloomy view of Trump's disaster response is not shared by all of his former officials.

Former Trump FEMA administrator Brock Long denied the president slowed aid to Democratic areas. He said the proof existed in the amount of money that was sent to California for wildfire recovery and to Puerto Rico after Maria.

But, Long said, the agency has been subject to politicization from both Republicans and Democrats for too long.

Long, who was in North Carolina this week and described the destruction as a generational damage, said dragging its rebuild into campaign politics would be very damaging.

This is why he wants FEMA to no longer be run by a political person.

The hope is that in major disasters like this, we can take politics out of the disaster, and we hope we can focus on the people who are suffering, Long said. Let them be the agency that can function and get the job done without politics on both sides.

Trump approved 89 disasters in states that opposed them, including 17 in California, more than any state, according to an E&E News analysis of FEMA data.

More than 80% of the disaster applications Trump denied came from governors of states he won in 2016, according to an E&E News analysis of FEMA data.

There's really no difference that I've seen, Chad Berginnis, executive director of the Association of State Floodplain Managers, said in an interview this week.

Brock Long, like Deanne Criswell, are committed emergency managers who try to fulfill their agency's goals and do the best job possible, Berginnis said, referring to FEMA administrators under Trump and President Joe Biden.

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