The Trump regime has weaponized federal funding to reward allies and punish political opponents. This is not exactly news for folks who follow such things, but two recent examples prove the point. In each case, the flagrant corruption is without precedent in the history of the American presidency.
Clean Energy Grants
First, Trump’s lawyers have confirmed in federal court the lies they’ve told to prop up their autocratic maneuvers in cancelling research dollars.
In October 2025, the Energy department announced, “Following a thorough, individualized financial review, DOE determined that these projects did not adequately advance the nation’s energy needs, were not economically viable, and would not provide a positive return on investment of taxpayer dollars.” This was a lie.
Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, gloated over the cancellations on X.
Every state on Vought’s list was carried by Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, a fact that Vought undoubtedly wished to convey back in October. Trolling the opposition party and its constituents is a MAGA specialty. Nonetheless, Vought’s boast bolstered the Energy Department lie — that “a thorough, individualized financial review” led to the cancellations.
In testimony before a Congressional committee last month, Energy Secretary Chris Wright repeated the lie, denying in vulgar language that the cuts were political. “No decisions were made on politics. I keep hearing that charge. It’s bullshit. We’re going to say it a million times.”
But in a move that allowed DOJ to dodge discovery related to a class-action lawsuit filed by researchers at the University of California, the Trump folks changed their story last week. Government lawyers agreed in writing (with plaintiffs’ counsel) to a number of stipulations, among them:
9. DOE accepts that the inclusion of grants in the October notice tranche was based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state, i.e., whether the recipient’s location and/or place of performance was in a Blue State or a non-Blue State. DOE will not contend that it looked beyond the prime grantee(s) to consider the political identity or geographic distribution of downstream beneficiaries of the grant funds.
10. DOE accepts that the differential treatment resulting in the October 2025 termination of Blue State grants and the non-termination of non-Blue State grants was not based on a rational connection between the recipient’s location and/or place of performance and DOE’s past or current agency priorities.
If the grantee was in a Blue state, the grant was cancelled. There was no rational connection tied to the decisions; they were based solely on the political identity of the state (that is, led by Democrats). This conflicts with respect for the rule of law, trashes institutional evenhandedness, and harms the national interest because multi-billion dollar decisions matter.
Disaster Relief
In a second case a pattern has emerged: there is a huge disparity between Trump’s approval of disaster aid for Red states and Blue states. This has been evident for quite a while, since requests by governors and approvals by the federal government are public. As with the early and emphatic denials of partisanship in the cancellation of clean energy grants, the Trump administration denies any bias regarding disaster funding. From a PBS report (“Trump is taking longer to approve disaster aid and denying Democratic states more frequently”) two weeks ago:
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement that “there is no politicization to the President’s decisions on disaster relief.”
A more recent report (from Politico) Jackson uses almost the same words and adds to them:
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said, “There is no politicization to the President’s decisions on disaster aid.”
“President Trump provides a more thorough review of disaster declaration requests than any Administration has before him — gone are the days of rubber stamping FEMA recommendations.”
That’s the story, but the facts are clear. And the White House has failed to address the sharp partisan disparity.
Politico’s E&E News reviewed 2,500 natural disaster declarations resulting in approval of disaster funding going back to 1979, when FEMA was created. Their report concluded, “President Donald Trump has rejected disaster aid for Democratic-run states at the highest rate in the 47-year history of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.”
No other administration came close to funding approvals that revealed such a flagrant partisan divide. In Trump’s second term, only twenty-three percent of Democratic requests have been approved (compared to not quite 90% of Republican requests). In the chart below, the blue line represents states with a Democratic governor and 2 Democratic senators; the red line, a Republican governor and 2 GOP senators.
Politico’s report also revealed that when Trump has granted assistance to Blue states, he has taken longer to do so. Furthermore, in several denials of aid, Trump overruled the determination of federal officials:
President Donald Trump overruled his own agencies when he denied disaster aid for four Democratic-led states this month.
…
Trump’s rejections came after regional offices of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and NOAA determined that the states met government thresholds for receiving aid following a record-breaking snowstorm in February.
It stretches credulity to believe that the disparity is not deliberate. As Politico E&E News noted: “Trump has been openly partisan on social media about using disaster funding for political purposes. He has linked his decisions to grant aid with his electoral victories in Republican-led states.”
Over the past eighteen months, we have seen Trump turn the levers of power at his command into a personal weapon of revenge and extortion.
Red states are rewarded with federal funds, while Blue states are denied funding even when these decisions conflict with the laws passed by Congress. Trump has swept aside the rules and regulations in place to ensure the integrity of federal funding decisions in order to punish states that Kamala Harris won in 2024.
The outcome of such partisan corruption is outrageous — undemocratic and contrary to the rule of law. Moreover, this outrage is amplified by another disparity, as noted by a number of commentators.
Blue states, primarily through the income tax, collectively pay more in taxes than Red states. This MAGA president is exacting revenge against the Blue states by denying them funding, while channeling their dollars to Red states. (California, home of more Democrats than any other state, which has the biggest gap between funds sent to the feds and funding sent back to the state, is still waiting for wildfire relief.
Corruption erodes democracy
The Trump regime is intent on imposing authoritarian rule on a nation with a rich democratic history. Before 2016, both major political parties were more or less in step regarding a range of guardrails that kept democratic governance on track. Both parties, for instance, respected election results even when faced with a loss.
No longer. And that change is among a host of additional changes inimical to democracy. In their analysis of democratic backsliding, Levitsky and Ziblatt focused on mutual toleration and institutional forbearance as critical to maintaining democracy.
Donald Trump has trashed both of these guardrails. Intolerant of dissent, he disparages his opponents as illegitimate. And rejecting forbearance, he has sought to wield power without restraint. We see this in the decisions canceling grants and approving disaster aid.
Anything goes. Or anything that he thinks he can get away with.
This is a threat to American democracy.