'Vengeful' Trump withheld disaster aid and will do so again, ex-officials warn

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

80% : "They love me in the Panhandle," Trump said, according to an autobiography written by Ron DeSantis, Florida's Republican governor.
60% : "What's so stunning is that Trump enjoys his authoritarian instincts in refusing to help people.
58% : "Gavin Newscum [Newsom] is going to sign those papers," Trump said from his golf course in California.
42% : "Next time you won't have the integrity of Mike Pence: you'll have JD Vance who will do whatever Trump wants," said Troye, who is a Republican but has endorsed Kamala Harris for president.
41% : "It was clear that Trump was entirely self-interested and vengeful towards those he perceived didn't vote for him," Carroll told the Guardian.
38% : Trump, however, did not agree to provide the help, which was only given once Joe Biden came into office.
35% : Ultimately, Fema covered debris cleanup in Puerto Rico, and Trump visited the US territory, throwing paper towels to hurricane survivors.
32% : "Trump consciously and maliciously withheld assistance in a fit of juvenile pique because my state had the effrontery to question his policies," Inslee told the Guardian.
30% : This came just months before Trump agreed to pay 100% of Florida's costs after the state was hit by Hurricane Michael.
25% : What do they need?"While officials around Trump were able to persuade him to relent somewhat in these instances, the former president held firm in refusing to provide disaster relief to Washington after wildfires ravaged the east of the state, largely destroying the communities of Malden and Pine City, in 2020.
24% : "Just last month, Trump signaled that his deal-making over disaster aid would not change if he were president again, warning that he would block assistance to California unless the state's governor, Gavin Newsom, agreed to deliver more water to farmers.
23% : As Hurricane Helene and then Hurricane Milton have ravaged much of the south-eastern US in the past two weeks, Trump has sought to pin blame upon Joe Biden's administration for a ponderous response to the disasters, even suggesting that this was deliberate due to the number of Republican voters affected by the storms.
21% : In the wake of the disaster, Trump claimed the death toll had been inflated "to make me look as bad as possible", called the mayor of San Juan "crazed and incompetent", and halted billions of dollars of federal support for the island.
19% : "Trump absolutely didn't want to give aid to California or Puerto Rico purely for partisan politics - because they didn't vote for him," said Kevin Carroll, former senior counselor to the homeland security secretary John Kelly during Trump's term.
18% : McMorris Rodgers wrote to Trump to side with him in his dispute with Inslee while pleading with the president to release the funding.
14% : "Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary of the Trump campaign, did not answer questions regarding the allegations made by Carroll and Troye, and instead referenced efforts by Trump to improve forest wildfire management and repeated debunked claims that disaster relief money has been diverted by Fema to migrants.
10% : Former administration officials say Trump deliberately denied funds to states he deemed politically hostileDonald Trump deliberately withheld disaster aid to states he deemed politically hostile to him as US president and will do so again unimpeded if he returns to the White House, several former Trump administration officials have warned.
8% : For months, Trump denied Washington's request for federal help due to his dislike of Jay Inslee, the state's Democratic governor and a prominent critic, according to an aide of Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican congresswoman whose district was scorched by wildfires.

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