One of President Donald Trump’s mouthpieces is calling a report on lagging federal disaster aid, especially in blue states, “complete fiction.”
But the New York Times, which published information showing the Trump administration is withholding aid, is fighting back, using Trump’s own words against him.
The Times’ report, published on Oct. 21, says Trump and his cronies are using FEMA funds, dangling the aid in front of voters as a means to try and stay in power.
The news outlet pointed to a visit this week by Vice President JD Vance to western North Carolina, a region Hurricane Helene pummeled in 2024. Vance told voters the administration will release an additional $800 million for storm victims more than two years after the disaster.
But Trump himself undercuts that. Several weeks ago, he told a MAGA rally in Gastonia he’ll withhold the funds if Democrat Roy Cooper beats GOP Senate candidate Michael Whatley.
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Trump later claimed he was joking, but The Times reported he has already made releasing the money conditional on support for Republicans in other states.
The outlet also quoted Carnegie Endowment for International Peace senior fellow Sarah Labowitz.
She told the paper, “People are smart enough to know that if the president wants to take away some people’s disaster aid, they can take away your disaster aid, and that’s just a bad system.”
A day after the report was published, White House communications director Steven Cheung took to social media to whine about it.
“This story is complete fiction. Nobody is withholding any disaster aid. The ‘expert’ the NYT cites is actually a Democrat donor and extreme liberal nut job,” Cheung claimed Thursday morning.
By that afternoon, the Times hit back.
“As our article factually reports, any suggestion that the administration is withholding aid comes directly from words spoken by President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance. Here’s a gift link to read the full report,” the Times brazenly posted, setting Cheung straight.
Social media erupted in support of the Times.
“NYT standing up to the lackeys in the current admin is chef’s kiss. Need more of this,” an X user proclaimed.
Others agreed, “Cook that toad looking, mf man.”
This commenter advised, “Don’t try to fool him with words and logic and truth.”
Lost amid the back-and-forth with the Times was how Cheung’s reply to the Times did not address another damning report about disaster aid this week.
Politico reported on Oct. 20 that Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Cameron Hamilton told an audience of state officials in Little Rock, Arkansas, on Tuesday at FEMA’s annual conference that “every state must have the appropriate financial reserves” and the federal government increasingly is going to be shifting the burden of emergency relief to the states themselves.
The FEMA chief’s remarks revealed where the administration stands on disaster aid when the president isn’t tying relief to politics.
An increasingly desperate Trump threatened voters in Gastonia on Sept. 17, saying if they didn’t elect Whatley, he would cut off hurricane disaster aid for the state.
Whatley is trailing in the latest polls behind the former Gov. Roy Cooper.
Helene killed more than 100 people and damaged an estimated 125,000 homes in the state in September 2024, The Independent reported.
Then, in Ohio last month, Trump told a MAGA crowd he had signed off on disaster funds as a favor to GOP Sen. John Husted. Husted is in a tight race with Democrat Sherrod Brown.
He’s threatened to withhold disaster funding from states run by his political opponents before. Americans have never seen a U.S. president act this way in modern history.
In June, CNN reported Trump threatened to prevent the distribution of tens of millions of dollars in Department of Homeland Security funds to states that refused to make sweeping election changes.
The Independent reported a month later that Trump denied $227 million already approved by FEMA to blue states.
According to Politico, Trump refused to send disaster aid for a devastating snowstorm in February to New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island. All are Democratic-led states with Democratic U.S. senators.