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FEMA Caught Blocking Grants to States That Didn’t Vote for Trump

13 0
08.05.2026

FEMA Caught Blocking Grants to States That Didn’t Vote for Trump

The Trump administration is doing everything it can to target Democratic states.

FEMA has been deliberately delaying grants to blue states, putting American citizens and Indigenous tribal land at risk in order to carry out President Trump’s petty and vindictive agenda.

On Friday, The Washington Post reported that FEMA significantly decreased the amount of hazard-mitigation grants to Democratic-led states last year. From February to June 2025, the agency awarded $91 million per month, before reducing that to just $3 million a month for the rest of 2025. While the agency appeared to reverse course,  approving grants worth $760 million in March after facing legal scrutiny, Colorado and California have still received barely any money since last summer. 

California has only received $830,000 from FEMA since July 2025. Colorado has not received anything, according to the Post’s analysis.

Experts say this is a deliberate and targeted decision. 

“There’s a pattern—a state like Colorado is repeatedly being denied FEMA aid and others like California are waiting on FEMA money that’s already been approved,” the Carnegie Endowment’s sustainability, climate, and geopolitics research assistant Debbra Goh told the Post. “Hazard-mitigation funding is designed to help communities prepare for the next disaster. Without it, communities are rebuilding into the same risk.” 

Much of this funding delay is also due to former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s aggressive policy requiring that she personally sign off on any FEMA aid over $100,000.

“Communities still have damaged park facilities, fenced-off trailheads, and patched-up roadways that wash out in heavy rain because permanent work cannot move at full speed without the promised federal reimbursement,” California Governor Gavin Newsom said last month. “Schools still wait for dollars to rebuild facilities and classrooms that burned or were heavily damaged.​”

Colorado Representative Joe Neguse noted that the delays also come in the face of evolving environmental issues. 

“Climate change is a five-alarm fire—literally—for our state.… We’ve already had a number of fires, and I anticipate this year could be the most difficult fire season we’ve had in some time. And unfortunately, right now, we find ourselves at a time when the administration has no regard for the communities that it is supposed to serve,” Neguse said. “[Colorado is] entitled to the same relief that folks in Kentucky and South Carolina and other Republican states have been able to access.”

While the Trump administration claims there is “no politicization to the president’s decisions on disaster relief,” its past actions would suggest otherwise, as Trump denied disaster aid to blue states last October.

Trump Plans to Fire FDA Chief Over Vaping Fight

President Trump’s purging of his Cabinet is in full force.

President Trump is planning to fire Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary over disagreements relating to flavored vapes and other policy decisions, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Trump’s displeasure with Makary has been well documented. Last week, the Journal reported that the president became frustrated with the commissioner because he refused to approve blueberry, mango, and menthol vape flavors from manufacturer Glas because they’d be too marketable to young and underage users. This complicated Trump’s campaign promise to “save vaping,” as well as his effort to win back the youth vote.

Recent polling shows Trump sitting at a dismal 24 percent approval rating with Gen Z, having lost virtually all of the gains he made with that bloc in 2024.

Makary is a top MAHA advocate, but many conservative lobbyists will be happy to see him gone. Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of the anti-abortion organization Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, has been calling for Makary’s firing since December, citing his decision not to impede the approval of a generic abortion pill. Former Senator Rick Santorum last week lamented that Makary “immediately fired the best leaders at the FDA, replaced them with anti-Trump leftists who hollowed out FDA, harmed patients, stifled innovation & drove bio-tech to China then lied about it.”

Trump has yet to publicly comment on Makary’s job status.

This story has been updated.

ABC Accuses FCC of Violating First Amendment in Blistering Filing

The media company says the Trump administration is creating a “chilling effect” on free speech.

ABC is fighting back against President Trump’s Federal Communications Commission, accusing the agency of violating its First Amendment rights.

In a filing Friday, the TV network said that the FCC’s latest probe into the TV show The View created a “chilling effect” on free speech by punishing political content the Trump administration disagrees with.

“Some may dislike certain—or even most—of the viewpoints expressed on ‘The View’ or similar shows. Such dislike, however, cannot justify using regulatory processes to restrict those views,” ABC said in the filing.

The FCC set its sights on The View after a February episode with Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico of Texas. The agency questioned whether the show was exempt from the equal time rule, which requires news broadcast stations to give equal time to political candidates. According to ABC’s filing, the FCC ordered the company’s Houston station KTRK-TV to file a request with the agency asking if the show qualified for an exemption from the equal time rule.

The network claimed that this went too far; The View received an exemption in 2002 which had not been challenged once in the following 24 years. It called the demand to file for a new exemption “unprecedented, beyond the Commission’s authority and counterproductive to the Commission’s stated goal of encouraging free speech and open political discussion.”

Two weeks ago, the FCC asked to review the broadcast licenses of eight ABC stations years before they are set to expire, after late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel made a joke about Trump and first lady Melania Trump that angered........

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