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By Karen Kinard, Bridge2Blue
Our president is openly retaliating against states that he did not carry in 2024. A Department of Energy (DOE) court filing affirmed that Trump’s cancellation of already approved federal energy and infrastructure grants to blue states was based on those states’ 2024 Electoral College votes for Kamala Harris and/or the fact that they are represented by two Democratic Senators. The Trump administration has acknowledged, in court documents, that $7.6 billion in grants were cancelled for clean energy projects “based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state.”
This admission was made as part of a settlement to stop further discovery, which could have uncovered texts, emails, and memos with even more damaging evidence of retaliation.
Weaponizing Disaster Relief Funding
Clearly President Trump’s governing style mirrors the classic Mafia playbook — a system of leverage, intimidation, and selective punishment, which he learned from his mentor, notorious mob lawyer Roy Cohn. The techniques are unmistakable: reward loyalists, punish dissenters, weaponize bureaucratic processes, and make public examples of anyone who resists.
The pattern of control over resources is not subtle: cut off money to “enemy” states, shower allies with favors, and brag about it openly. This is governance by extortion, not leadership, and it reflects the same coercive tactics used by Cohn’s mob clients — power is maintained not by serving the public, but by making people afraid of what happens if they fall out of line.
That’s why Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones has joined 25 states plus the District of Columbia in the extraordinary step of suing the Trump administration for what they describe as extortion: withholding $148 million in disaster aid unless states agree to meet Trump’s political demands on election administration. Their lawsuit argues that Trump’s FEMA and White House officials made life-saving federal assistance conditional on states’ willingness to comply with partisan directives. While some might euphemize the president’s offer as “transactional” or “deal-making,” this tactic really resembles an organized-crime protection racket.
The attorneys general and two governors argued that by withholding disaster-relief funding, the president is violating long-standing law requiring nonpartisan disaster assistance, abusing federal power, and endangering millions of Americans by turning disaster relief into a political weapon. Their case frames Trump’s behavior exactly as they describe it: coercive, retaliatory, and fundamentally incompatible with a government meant to serve all citizens—not just those who pledge loyalty to the president.
To keep their full disaster-relief funding, the president is demanding that these blue states change their election laws to resemble his voter-suppression SAVE America Act. The desperate kingpin knows he needs chaos and access to personal voter data (now blocked 18-0 in court rulings) to have any hope of avoiding the loss of one or both houses of Congress. He fears the oversight, guardrails, and constraints on questionable appointments that a shift in congressional control would bring.
Disaster Aid Power Plays Ignore the Law
Federal disaster recovery laws have long required aid to be distributed without political bias. Dennis Atwood, a former FEMA specialist from Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, explained that unbiased administration “has been a bedrock principle of disaster response and recovery in the United States, since enactment of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster and Emergency Relief Act in 1988.”
Trump has ignored that basic principle. According to an Associated Press analysis, before he withheld funds to force states to implement suppressive voting laws, Trump approved 80% of disaster requests from Republican governors and only 60% of requests from Democratic governors. He also is the slowest president in approving disaster aid since 1989, and he has denied more requests than any president on record — overwhelmingly from blue states.
In early 2026, a brutal winter storm hit New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Jersey. FEMA’s own assessments showed damage that ranged from $45 million in Massachusetts to $84.4 million in New Jersey. Every one of the four states met the criteria, but each state was denied. At the same time, Trump boasted on Truth Social about approving $846 million for six Republican-led states.
Atwood called Trump’s behavior “unprecedented,” adding that “in addition to being cruel and immoral, it does massive harm to the professionalism of emergency management and public trust in disaster response throughout the nation. Disaster victims are all residents of the United States and pay federal taxes.”
Trump’s Wind-Power Attacks Hit Virginia’s Clean‑Energy Buildout
Trump’s blue-state attack also functioned as a protection-racket payoff to major oil and gas industry donors who accepted an offer they didn’t want to refuse. As the Brennan Center describes: “Trump asked oil and gas executives in 2024 to raise $1 billion for his campaign and told them he’d grant their policy wish list if he won. The investment, he said, would be a ‘deal’ given the taxes and regulation they would avoid under his presidency.” Other news oulets reported the same “quid-pro-quo” pitch. Subsequent estimates found he pulled in roughly $75–95 billion in industry donations.
Trump’s 2025 freeze on offshore wind approvals, including the halt of the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) expansion, has already cost Virginia. A federal judge in the Eastern District of Virginia granted an injunction allowing Dominion Power to proceed while its lawsuit, along with the State Corporation Commission’s lawsuits, challenged DOE’s freeze. Dominion reported losses of $5 million a day due to the restriction, and Dominion and state plaintiffs warned of lost construction seasons, higher ratepayer costs, stalled Hampton Roads job creation, and a setback to Virginia’s energy independence.
Presidents Should Serve the Whole USA
Whether Republican or Democrat, our former presidents have always recognized that they serve the whole country. George W. Bush was the “president of everyone who voted for me and everyone who did not.” Barack Obama was not the “president of red states or blue states” but of the “United States.”
Founding Father Benjamin Franklin remarked, while assisting in the creation of the operating manual for this nation: “The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy.” In his view, “An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy.”
Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, spread his infrastructure, chip manufacturing, and Inflation Reduction Act energy and healthcare funding across so many red states that GOP senators who did not vote for those bills are still cutting ribbons, and Trump administration secretaries are appearing in the news taking credit for the projects and results. Trump himself, along with Virginia Republican Congressman Rob Wittman, has publicly claimed credit for Biden administration initiatives.
Democrats Win a Check on Abuse, But More Protection Is Needed
Democrats used their filibuster leverage to force guardrails into the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, limiting Trump’s ability to selectively delay or deny of disaster aid to Democratic-led states. The act will go into effect in January 2027, despite Trump’s refusal to sign it. Accountability matters. However, guardrails alone cannot stop corruption when the president is determined to abuse the system.
When we, those disgusted by corruption, restore Democrats to power, the Protecting Our Democracy Act will be at the top of the legislative agenda. The bill is designed to rebuild the constitutional guardrails that have eroded under years of executive overreach and misconduct — restoring checks and balances, shielding inspectors general and whistleblowers from retaliation, and preventing any president from using emergency powers or federal funds as tools of extortion. It would codify norms that once relied on good faith, ensuring that future administrations cannot weaponize the Justice Department, manipulate appropriations, or conceal foreign entanglements.
This critical step serves as the foundation for repairing public trust in government and protecting democracy from the next strongman tempted to test its limits whether it is signed by this president or not.
What We Must Do Now
Vote. Persuade your neighbors and friends to join you. We are less than 100 days away from our best chance to begin cleaning up after the Trump organized crime party and those who have focused on making their own lives better, not yours. These are not the conservative values Republicans have supported for in the past. No economic golden age is in this administration’s plan for you.
Elect Democrats who will craft legislation that promotes fairness and affordability. Contrary to critics’ claims, affordability is not a hoax. And keep Democrats to their commitment to pass laws that hold the administration accountable and curb the influence of big money that buys political favors before and during their time in office.
