Donald Trump’s corruption is showing again. While other states will have to pay 25% of the cost of National Guard deployments helping them with coronavirus response, Trump made a special exception for just two states: Florida and Texas.
Trump isn’t even trying to pretend there’s a reason Florida and Texas deserve help 48 other states aren’t getting. The White House explained his decision was because their governors made “special, direct cases to the President.” In other words, because they’re big states with Republican governors and a lot of Electoral College votes.
The National Governors Association said that governors across the country had asked both Trump and Mike Pence to continue fully funding the National Guard coronavirus efforts, but Florida’s Ron DeSantis and Texas’ Greg Abbott apparently did something special.
“It will cost states millions (we don't have a more precise number) to come up with their 25 percent match, during a time when state budgets already are under unprecedented strain,” a National Governors Association spokesperson told CNN. And during a time when Republicans are opposing aid to state and local governments as part of the next coronavirus stimulus, despite the threat to millions of jobs without that funding.
The only thing that’s surprising here is that Trump didn’t just preemptively grant exceptions to every state that both has a Republican governor and November polling that worries him.