Trump Nixing of Dem State Disaster Aid Backfires, Screwing MAGA Voters

In recent days, President Trump has approved federal disaster aid for the red states of Nebraska, North Dakota, Missouri and Alaska while denying it to the blue states of Maryland, Vermont, and Illinois. The White House has not offered meaningful explanations for the discrepancies, which just happen to punish states that didn’t support him in 2024. But we noticed something interesting about this whole saga: In Maryland, the disasters and damage in question severely afflicted the state’s westernmost counties. Allegany and Garrett counties are in Appalachia, deep in Trump country: Both voted for Trump by at least 40 points. We talked to MSNBC’s Steve Benen, author of Ministry of Truth, who has been writing well about Trump’s selective approach to disaster aid. We discuss the explicit nature of Trump’s punishment of states that don’t support him, how Trump screws his own voters while seducing them with promises of pain to blue America, and how this latest turn illustrates Trumpism’s larger depravities. Listen to this episode here.