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Unknown A
All right, Crystal, what are you taking a look at?
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Unknown B
Well, we've come to North Carolina with a simple message for all the people of this region who are hit so hard by Hurricane Helene. And that message is very simple. You are not forgotten any longer. You were treated very badly by the previous administration.
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Unknown C
That was Donald Trump pledging to fully rebuild North Carolina after devastating flooding that was caused by Hurricane Helene and also slamming the Biden administration for what he claimed was their inadequate response. Now, Trump, you may recall, campaigned extensively on the supposed failures of the Biden administration to come to the aid of western North Carolina in their time of need, tying that to his own supposed commitment to working class Americans. Well, we've now got the first test case for how the Trump administration is going to approach disaster relief in his second Elon Musk fueled turn in the White House. And so far, the answer is near complete abandonment. So. So, tens days ago, parts of Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, they were all hit with devastating floods. After a rapid snowmelt was then followed by torrential rains. Rivers overran their banks. Roads were completely swamped. Thousands of houses and businesses were destroyed.
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Unknown C
More than a dozen people actually were killed in these floods. More than 1,000 people had to be rescued. You're seeing some of that on the screen right here. In order to survive the raging waters and resulting mudslides, West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrissey declared a state of emergency in 10 counties in southern West Virginia as a result of those floods. But so far, while Trump has approved an emergency declaration in neighboring Kentucky, no such designation has come for West Virginia. That means not one penny of federal aid and no fema. West Virginia, one of the poorest states in the country, and, by the way, one of the most Trump supporting has literally had to fend for itself. Now, southern West Virginia, and these counties in particular are the historic heart of coal country. It was here that miners were subjected to indentured servitude until gaining union rights in armed insurrections against company rule like the Battle of Blair Mountain.
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Unknown C
After having their resources plundered by robber barons who didn't care whether miners lived or died, they then watched as the industry declined with nothing to replace it, leaving a wake of economic devastation. In fact, two of the hardest hit counties, McDowell and Mingo counties, they're among the poorest in the nation because of this legacy of exploitation, neglect, and abandonment. Even before these floods hit, they were struggling, and now they are literally and figuratively underwater. My friend JD Belcher is a filmmaker from the area. He posted drone footage of the damage to his channel Creepa Lacha. This was no small incident. In West Virginia alone, some 2,000 homes were destroyed. Countless businesses, schools remain closed. Water remains undrinkable. Roads remain impassable. Some areas flooded three feet higher than the previous record. It was historic devastation. And the federal government remains completely absent from the scene. Yet another betrayal of these Americans, this time by the political figure that they have trusted the most.
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Unknown C
I honestly don't know what's going on here. Maybe Trump is just too busy, like renaming the Gulf of Mexico golfing and cheering on Elon's efforts to destroy the entire government. After all, it seems like if he was going to care about any ordinary people, it'd be this state and these people who vote for him in some of the most overwhelming numbers of anywhere in the country. The governor here is a Republican. The entire congressional delegation, they're all Republicans and they are all begging the president for help. Now, he may still yet make the declaration, but we're already 10 days out. What is the holdup here? Now, I'm told one potential issue could be that the declaration process requires locals to fill out surveys online attesting to the damage. But broadband access is limited to non existent in some of these communities. Not to mention they're a little busy trying to dig out and put their lives back together here with no help from the feds.
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Unknown C
Now, local news outlets are starting to ask whether this abandonment of West Virginia is actually intentional, if it's actually part and parcel of a Trump administration ideological project. In particular, this regional paper pressed Senator Shelley Moore Capito on if she thought Elon's Doge cuts were hurting the response, noting that FEMA has been hit already with staffing cuts thanks to the federal government purge. They also asked her if she expected Trump to completely dismantle FEMA and send it to the states, as he has previously suggested. Now, Moore Capito said she didn't think so, saying, quote, I don't see a scenario where all disaster relief goes to the states. I really don't. I think that there's just too much in some of these disasters that are very large, too much for a state to be able to handle. But there's no real indication that Trump and his band of austerity radicals really cares about any of that.
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Unknown C
In fact, they've already previously unreported significant cuts to federal disaster relief. According to Dropsight at the bidding of the Trump administration, Speaker Mike Johnson slashed over $100 million from a program to help disaster victims with legal aid after the initial shock of a catastrophe in the early phases of basic survival in boots on the ground style cleanup, the next phase of recovery often involves a lot of legal battles to secure your rights. In particular, homeowners and renters often have to go to war with their insurance companies to be able to get what they are entitled to. Scammers also often swoop in to take advantage of the desperation caused by this crisis. Recognizing this need, federal disaster relief has for over a decade now included legal assistance, so people at least have a chance in these battles against the insurance companies and scammers. That is no longer the case.
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Unknown C
At the direction of Trump Budget Director Russ Vogt, House Republicans stripped all the money that was meant to fund legal assistance for victims of floods, hurricanes and fires. Now the impact of these cuts will be felt most acutely in rural areas, places like southern West Virginia where government backed legal aid nonprofits are literally the only available options. And it will also be most acutely felt among poor people who have no resources to fight back without this assistance. Now vote. He's an anti government ideologue. He's attempted to push these cuts through before during Trump's first term, but to no avail. But in the new Trump administration, fueled by this sort of anarcho capitalist flavor, Russ's assault on federal disaster relief was taken up and passed. No problem whatsoever. But whether this is an ideological commitment or an accidental oversight, West Virginia's fate. Here is a preview of what's to come.
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Unknown C
If Trump and Musk and Vote get their way with gutting fema, everyone will suffer. But actually, the hardest hit that's going to be rural areas in small states. The kind of places where politicians like Trump are happy to go and do a photo op when it serves their interest. It immediately cast aside as soon as the news cycle moves on. And I'm kind of floored by this saga. I kept thinking like I'm going to write a monologue about this.
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Unknown A
Hey guys, if you want to see what I had to say to Kristol's monologue, not just this one, all of them going back to the very beginning. Become a Premium subscriber today. BreakingPoints.com.