Governors face a new challenge as they barrel into natural disaster season: navigating President Donald Trump’s increasingly personal approach to awarding federal aid.
In recent weeks, Trump has heralded disaster aid awards to states including Michigan, Kentucky and Indiana via Truth Social — and accompanied Indiana's $15 million award with a note that he “won BIG” there in the past three general elections. His practice of flattering federal recipients on social media has left state leaders who are still awaiting decisions wondering how to get into his good graces.
There's no clear evidence he's making funding decisions based on politics. Rather, it's Trump’s public statements — indicating he’s making the decisions — that's making state officials nervous. And Trump's proposals to dramatically downsize or even get rid of FEMA, and to withhold funding from states over their immigration and energy policies, have officials in Democratic-led states less willing to attack him.
“We're not going to rock the boat while we're still trying for assistance,” a top official in the office of a Democratic governor said last month. The official was granted anonymity over their fears of potential retaliation from the Trump administration. Officials in two other states that voted blue in 2024 also said in interviews that worries over Trump withholding FEMA funds influence their decisions on criticizing the president.
The White House insisted states' fears are misplaced. “Any allegation that the President is favoring certain states over others is false,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told POLITICO in a statement. “President Trump continues taking decisive action ensuring the safety and security of all Americans regardless of red state or blue state.”
Of the eight states that received FEMA awards in July, some waited months to hear that their requests were granted, while others — like Texas — waited just one day. States also received varying degrees of approval. For severe March storms that triggered flooding and landslides in Oregon, for example, FEMA approved public assistance to state, local and tribal governments for recovery but denied a request for individual assistance to residents.
When responding to aid requests, the White House also said, Trump is trying to make sure FEMA funding is being used “to supplement — not substitute, [states’] obligation to respond to and recover from disasters.” Trump has said repeatedly that he believes states should be more responsible for their own recovery efforts.
A FEMA spokesperson flatly rejected any implication of political bias in award decisions, adding in a statement that disaster response and preparedness are best “when locally led, state managed and federally supported.”
“The law and regulations require FEMA to review each request closely and consider the unique circumstances of disaster-caused damages as well as state and local capacity. These decisions just like all disaster requests [are] based on policy not politics,” the FEMA spokesperson said.
The president doesn't appear to be favoring red states over blue ones, Michael Coen, former FEMA chief of staff under presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, said in July. But Coen said he’s noticed a slower pace of awarding funds in the current administration, which appears to approve multiple requests at a time, rather than on a rolling basis. This, he says, means some states are waiting longer for approval.
But Democrats remain worried that the president’s history of singling out his critics will extend to disaster aid. Democratic Rep. Jared Huffman said local officials and nonprofits in his liberal northern California coast district are actively working to avoid triggering retribution from the Trump administration. “If you're in a blue state, if you are in the communities that I represent, Trump would love to pick a fight with you,” he said.
“I run into it everywhere — there is a culture of fear, of hesitancy,” Huffman said.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer spent months courting the White House for aid. She called Trump within days of destructive ice storms in March, according to her office. She visited the White House in April — getting drawn into an impromptu Oval Office press conference and a now-infamous photo that drew criticism from fellow Democrats. Trump called Whitmer to tell her he approved Michigan's $50 million award last month.
A handful of Democratic governors — including those who are looked at as potential 2028 presidential candidates — have publicly criticized Trump's disaster aid decisions. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore told NBC4 Washington it was “shocking” when FEMA denied his request last month for $15.8 million for floods that hit Western Maryland in May.
"This decision was petty. This decision was partisan, and this decision was punishing.” Moore said.
And after the Los Angeles wildfires in January, California Gov. Gavin Newsom was quick to propose that politics could play a role in Trump’s approval or denial of funding for his state.
“He’s done it in the past, not just here in California,” Newsom said on Pod Save America. “The rhetoric is very familiar, it’s increasingly acute, and obviously we all have reason to be concerned about it.”
A review by Seattle-based public radio station KUOW in June found that FEMA denied six of the 10 major disaster requests that Democratic states filed between February and June, while denying just one of 15 requests from Republican states. Asked about the analysis, a White House official said that "Democrat state requests were denied in the first six months because they were not disasters. In the past, states have abused the process. President Trump is right-sizing FEMA and ensuring it is serving its intended purpose to help the American people."
Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs became the rare governor to criticize the federal government’s disaster management in mid-July when she called for an investigation following a destructive fire on federal land that burned down a beloved Grand Canyon lodge. Hobbs said that she does not intend her call for an investigation to be viewed as a criticism of the Trump administration.
“I don't, and I think it's really important,” Hobbs said in an interview, adding that good working relationships between officials managing tribal, federal and state land are key. “This is not intended to undermine that collaboration, but … we need to look at what led to that decision being made.”
Steve Ellis, former deputy director of the Bureau of Land Management who worked for the agency and the U.S. Forest Service under multiple administrations, said that any federal agency involved in managing a fire of the magnitude and destructiveness as the one in the Grand Canyon should be launching an investigation without a governor’s need to call for it.
“Those are political things, but … they should be doing it anyway,” Ellis said. “That thing starts to heat up, you should announce [a review], you shouldn't wait for the governor to tell you to do that review.”
Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), who echoed Hobbs' call for an investigation, said it’s “crazy” that states are at a point where they even need to consider whether or not to speak out in situations like this.
“We pay a lot of tax dollars to the federal government for instances like this,” he said in an interview. “And the fact that we can't actually ask questions, we can’t hold them accountable. It's going to make things I think very difficult.”
Since taking office in January, Trump has rebuffed both Republican and Democratic governors' aid requests. Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders — Trump’s former spokesperson — had to appeal an initial FEMA request denial, receiving the funding on her second attempt.
Trump was also accused of politicizing disaster aid at times in his first term, and on several occasions hesitated to give funding to Democratic-led states. Governors have criticized the president of an opposing party over a denial before.
Historically, officials in both parties try to keep politics out of disaster response, Coen said. When Biden approved aid decisions, Coen explained, it was common practice for governors to find out through their regional FEMA administrator — not a presidential announcement.
Coen said, however, that he hasn’t seen any glaring red flags so far over Trump’s decisions on helping states deal with natural disasters. FEMA releases a daily operations brief of pending and approved awards every morning that Coen said he still checks frequently.
“I haven't seen a clear red line that there's much difference on what's being declared [now] than what would have triggered in past administrations,” Coen said. “But it's still early. We're only six months in.”
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