U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth on Friday urged President Donald Trump to stop playing “political games” with disaster assistance after the president this week denied disaster funding for Illinois.
Trump on Wednesday approved major disaster declarations for Alaska, Nebraska, North Dakota, and the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe. But he also denied requests from Illinois, Maryland and Vermont. Several other states are awaiting decisions.
Illinois and Maryland are led by Democratic governors, and Vermont is led by a Republican governor. But in social media posts this week, Trump wrote that he won Alaska “BIG” in the 2016, 2020 and 2024 presidential elections. He touted the same for North Dakota, in a separate post about approving the state’s disaster declaration. Both posts were about calling the state’s governors to tell them he had granted disaster assistance.
Gov. JB Pritzker requested authorization of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Individual Assistance for impacted counties, as well as disaster loan programs to help Illinoisans following two severe weather events: a multi-day storm between Aug. 16 and Aug. 19 that passed through Boone, Cook, Kane, McHenry and Will counties, and another storm between July 25 and July 28 in Calhoun, Cook and Jersey counties.
Durbin and Duckworth blasted Trump’s denial, calling it “yet another troubling example of the Trump administration putting politics ahead of people.”
“Withholding this critical assistance delays recovery efforts and places unnecessary burdens on families, businesses, and communities,” the senators said in a statement. “We urge the President to stop playing these political games with disaster assistance and work for all Americans — not just the states that voted for him. The people of Illinois deserve better.”
The governor’s office said assistance should be evaluated by the level of damage sustained — and said the state will pursue all available options to secure disaster relief following the storms.
“Despite Illinois’ substantial investments in emergency management, the cumulative effects of summer flooding incidents across Illinois exceeded local and state capacities and underscore the ongoing need for additional federal support to bridge critical resource gaps,” a governor’s office spokesman said. “Our State’s ability to adequately respond hinges on the federal administration taking action to ensure the timely processing of federal emergency management, disaster response and recovery, and mitigation response grants.”
The White House claimed the president has provided “a more thorough review of disaster declaration requests than any Administration has before him.”
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told the Associated Press that Trump was “ensuring American tax dollars are used appropriately and efficiently by the states to supplement — not substitute, their obligation to respond to and recover from disasters.”