Trump Didn’t Want to Help California Fire Victims Until Aides Convinced Him ‘These Are People Who Voted For You,’ Per Report
AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura
Two former Trump White House officials claimed that the former president was hesitant to give disaster aid relief to areas that voted Democrat and gave special treatment to pro-Trump states, according to a report.
Recently, Donald Trump has slammed the Biden administration for its handling of Hurricane Helene while baselessly accusing Democratic leaders of ignoring the needs of storm victims from areas that tend to vote Republican.
However, a report by Politico’s E&E News indicates that the GOP nominee was partisan at times during his response to disasters and allegedly hesitated giving aid to areas he considered political hostile towards his candidacy on at least three occasions.
Trump’s former senior director for resilience policy, Mark Harvey, told the outlet that Trump refused to provide disaster aid back in 2018 to California following the deadly wildfires. Harvey claims Trump was reluctant because of the state’s Democratic leanings.
Harvey claims that Trump changed his mind after he showed the former president the Republican voting habits of residents of Orange County, California, which had been heavily damaged by the fire.
“We went as far as looking up how many votes he got in those impacted areas … to show him these are people who voted for you,” Harvey claimed.
Harvey added, “There’s no empathy for the survivors. It is all about getting your photo-op, right? Disaster theater to make him look good.”
Olivia Troye, a former Trump White House homeland security adviser, confirmed Harvey’s claim while adding that Trump is attempting to divert attention away from his own partisan responses to disaster relief. Troye said that if Trump regained a second term in the White House he would once again evaluate disaster response through a political lens.
“It’s not going to be about that American voter out there who isn’t even really paying attention to politics, and their house is gone, and the president of the United States is judging them for how they voted, and they didn’t even vote,” Troye said.
Troye also claims that she had to convince former Vice President Mike Pence to help apply pressure and convince Trump to sign documents approving aid.
