The president repeatedly bashed the Biden administration’s response to the disaster
Late in the 2024 campaign cycle, parts of western North Carolina were devastated by Hurricane Helene. Donald Trump accused former President Joe Biden of abandoning the region and mishandling the response to the crisis. The disaster in North Carolina became the jumping point for a myriad of conspiracies and attacks by Republicans against the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FAMA). Trump vowed he would improve disaster responses as president.
That was then.
This is now:
Now, four months into his administration North Carolina Governor Josh Stein, a Democrat, has become the latest lawmaker from a disaster-ravaged state who has been forced to beg the president to provide much-needed aid.
On Friday, Stein published a video on social media informing the public that the Trump administration had denied the state’s request for FEMA to honor a Biden-era commitment to pay for 100 percent of debris removal costs.
I guess King Donald changed his mind.
Raw Story: Trump’s FEMA thumbs nose at state that backed him 3 times: ‘Gonna cost a lot’
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.
See above for the Rolling Stone article.