Trump's FEMA thumbs nose at state that backed him 3 times: 'Gonna cost a lot' [View all]
trump is denying FEMA assistance to a number of red states.
Under President Donald Trump, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has turned down a request from a storm-ravaged state that narrowly voted for him three times.
— Raw Story (@rawstory.com) 2025-05-24T04:00:07Z
https://www.rawstory.com/fema-north-carolina
Under President Donald Trump, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has turned down a request from a storm-ravaged state that narrowly voted for him three times.
Western North Carolina saw massive devastation last year from Hurricane Helene, which killed over 100 people and left the city of Asheville, along with a number of small communities in the Appalachian Mountains, struggling to pick up the pieces after flooding in areas that had hardly ever seen floods before. At the time, Trump supporters spread baseless conspiracy theories that the federal government was ignoring communities there, or only giving aid to Democratic areas, and Trump himself vowed to improve emergency management.
According to Rolling Stone, however, Trump's administration is now denying an extension of a commitment to pay the full amount for a vital portion of the recovery process.....
With Trump rejecting the state's request, he continued, "It will cost North Carolina taxpayers a lot more to clean up west through North Carolina, and debris removal is just one of the many categories of relief we need."
Since taking unified control of government, Republicans have increasingly toyed with the idea of making political demands of areas that require disaster relief. After wildfires destroyed several neighborhoods in Los Angeles months ago, for instance, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) repeatedly suggested Congress should impose new policy changes in California as a condition of receiving aid to rebuild.