Shortly after receiving an ultimatum from a frustrated North Carolina Republican, the Trump administration Thursday announced millions in federal disaster aid to the Tar Heel State for last year’s Hurricane Helene.

“I am proud to approve nearly $32 Million Dollars [sic] in assistance for the Great State of North Carolina,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

The president also announced disaster aid to Kansas, Wisconsin, and South Dakota. In each post, he was sure to note that the funds were going to states in which he’s had electoral successes in the past. In North Carolina, for example, he wrote, “I WON BIG all six times” (six, that is, because he included Republican primaries in his count). Notably, in his post about Wisconsin, Trump repeated his false assertions that he actually won the state in 2020.

Trump credited North Carolina Republicans such as Senator Ted Budd for requesting the aid. Two days prior, Budd had skewered Kristi Noem’s Department of Homeland Security for delays in the disbursement of $5.95 billion in Federal Emergency Management Agency funds—$4.2 billion of which the state was reportedly still waiting for as of June.

“Here we are, nine months later, we still haven’t seen the reimbursements,” Budd told CNN Tuesday. The senator assigned significant blame to Noem, citing her controversial policy requiring all DHS expenditures exceeding $100,000 to receive her approval.

“We’ve let leadership know we’re going to place holds on all DHS nominees until we get an appropriate dialog and response on the outstanding invoices that have not been paid to western North Carolina from FEMA,” he said.

Later that day, Noem announced FEMA grants to North Carolina amounting to $12 million.

On X Thursday, Budd responded to Trump’s announcement with gratitude. “Dramatically addressing the backlog of projects waiting for funding is great news for [western North Carolina] communities as we approach this storm’s 1-year anniversary,” the senator wrote.

Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau threatened Thursday to deport noncitizens that don’t demonstrate the requisite amount of sadness and sobriety about Charlie Kirk’s death.

“In light of yesterday’s horrific assassination of a leading political figure, I want to underscore that foreigners who glorify violence and hatred are not welcome visitors to our country,” Landau wrote on X. “I have been disgusted to see some on social media praising, rationalizing, or making light of the event, and have directed our consular officials to undertake appropriate action.”

He also asked to be notified of any such “comments by foreigners” so that the State Department could “keep Americans safe.” In a separate post, the secretary said people should reply to his post with examples, and he’d “direct consular officials to monitor the comments to this post.”

Beneath Landau’s post, users on X submitted posts they’d seen making jokes about Kirk’s death. Each time, the secretary responded with an image of the Department of State seal, captioned with “El Quitavisas,” which roughly translates to “The Visa Revoker.”

Disturbingly, some of the posts Landau responded to didn’t include jokes. One post sent to Landau was of a news group describing Kirk as an “extremist,” which he was. Apparently, accurately describing a public figure’s political statements is now a privilege reserved only for American citizens.

In the aftermath of Kirk’s death Wednesday, some Republican lawmakers have begun a push for censorship online. Right-wing influencers such as Libs of TikTok and Laura Loomer have launched sweeping campaigns to dox and intimidate anyone whose characterization of Kirk doesn’t match their own.

Landau’s threat represents the latest escalation in the Trump administration’s campaign to strip noncitizens of First Amendment protections that began with the government’s vicious crackdown on foreign students’ pro-Palestinian speech.

Republican messaging in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination is tearing the party apart.

Conservatives across the country seemingly interpreted Kirk’s death as an opportunity for more violence, intimating online that the brutal attack against the 31-year-old firebrand was a sign of “war” with their political opposition. But not every Republican was willing to hop on the dogpile.

Senator Thom Tillis was disturbed by his party’s language, telling National Journal’s Nancy Vu Thursday that he was disgusted by the way that Republicans had co-opted Kirk’s death to rack up digital attention.

“What I was really disgusted by yesterday is a couple of talking heads that sees this as an opportunity to say we’re at war so that they could get some of our conservative followers lathered up over this,” Tillis said. “It seems like a cheap, disgusting, awful way to pretend like you’re a leader of a conservative movement. And there were two in particular that I found particularly disgusting.”

Tillis did not clarify which two comments he was referring to, though plenty of conservatives have shared their own twisted takes on Kirk’s murder.

Figureheads leading the charge included Laura Loomer, who

© New Republic