In early September 2020, wildfires tore through eastern Washington state, obliterating tens of millions of dollars of property, displacing hundreds of rural residents and killing a 1-year-old boy.
But then-President Donald Trump refused to act on Gov. Jay Inslee’s request for $37 million in federal disaster aid because of a bitter personal dispute with the Democratic governor, an investigation by POLITICO’s E&E News shows.
Trump sat on Inslee’s request for the final four months of his presidency, delaying recovery and leaving communities unsure about rebuilding because nobody knew if they would get federal help.
Trump ignored Inslee’s 73-page request even after the Federal Emergency Management Agency found during weeks of inspection that the wildfires easily met the federal damage threshold for disaster aid.
The two men had been feuding in the months leading up to the wildfire with Trump calling Inslee “a snake,” a “nasty person” and a “failed presidential candidate” after the governor criticized the administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. And Inslee, in an open letter two days before seeking disaster aid, assailed Trump’s “reckless statements” on climate change and his “gutting of environmental policies.”
Trump’s spurning of Washington — documented by internal emails, letters, federal records and interviews — is the latest example of how the former president used disaster requests to punish political foes. E&E News reported in early October that Trump had refused to give disaster aid to California after wildfires in 2018 because the state is strongly Democratic.
Delays in three other states
Trump learned the political value of disasters after Hurricane Harvey overwhelmed southeastern Texas in 2017 and Time magazine wrote a flattering account of the administration’s response, said Mark Harvey, who was Trump’s senior director for resilience policy on the National Security Council staff.
“It really got stuck in his mind at that point-of-disaster response, that showing up and doing this disaster theater is a way for him to garner support and a way for him to be admired — and that feeds into his personality,” said Harvey, who is supporting Vice President Kamala Harris for president.
Harvey said that as Trump’s presidency continued, he more frequently delayed disaster aid based on factors that had nothing to do with helping with cleanup and rebuilding.
“It was, ‘What looks good for me,’ not, ‘What’s the right thing to do,’” Harvey said.
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