Colorado governor accuses Trump of playing 'political games' after disaster request denials
Source: AP
Updated 8:02 PM EST, December 21, 2025
DENVER (AP) — Colorado Gov. Jared Polis accused President Donald Trump of playing “political games” Sunday after the Trump administration denied disaster declaration requests following wildfires and flooding in the state earlier this year.
Polis’ office said he received late Saturday two denial letters from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The letters follow requests for major disaster declarations following wildfires and mudslides in August and what Polis had described as “historic flooding” across southwest Colorado in October.
Polis and Colorado’s U.S. senators, fellow Democrats Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, decried the denials. Polis said the state would appeal. “Coloradans impacted by the Elk and Lee fires and the flooding in Southwestern Colorado deserve better than the political games President Trump is playing,” he said in a statement.
Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, said Trump responds to each request for federal disaster assistance “with great care and consideration, 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.”
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/colorado-disaster-declarations-polis-trump-c6d873d38d9892a47a63d9c151e80883
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They send taxes for STATE employees (which might also include County and Municipal workers), since those employees are obviously NOT employed by "private" entities. 
So basically it would be like withholding the withholding, or something like that? Maybe keep in escrow until the dispute is resolved and Federal monies get released? That would be speaking drumpf's language! 
By Celia Bernhardt
October 14, 2025
New York has been hit with a slew of federal funding cuts and clawbacks in the past month: $18 billion in infrastructure funding for the Hudson tunnel and Second Avenue subway, $34 million in counterterrorism dollars for the MTA and half a billion in clean energy grants. (Another $187 million was initially revoked but later restored.) That’s not to mention the $80 million in FEMA funding that the Trump administration quietly took from the city’s bank account in February. Negotiations with the White House, pressure campaigns and suing the feds has been the only recourse that states like New York have had in fighting back against federal funding cuts. But a bill introduced in Albany earlier this year could give the state some teeth – or open up new legal headaches.
The RECOURSE Act (which is short for “Reciprocal Enforcement of Claims On Unpaid or Reduced State Entitlements”), sponsored by state Sen. Jessica Ramos and Assembly Member Micah Lasher, would enable New York to withhold an equal amount of funds to the federal government if federal payments are withheld from the state in violation of a court decision. Equivalent bills have been proposed in the Maryland, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin legislatures; Lasher said he stays in touch with the representatives shepherding the idea in their respective states.
“Everyone in the Legislature right now is scrambling to figure out how we can best protect our state,” Ramos said, adding that she thinks the bill “has wide support.”
“It’s a way to fight fire with fire. It’s putting our money where our mouth is,” she said.
(snip)
There are a lot of "public employees" that are not feds and obviously not in the "private sector".
I somehow missed this discussion. I am so happy we have people like Newsom and those other legislators working for us.
I look forward to seeing where this leads! 
bouncy happy!
I've been embracing any win I can get, lately. I like this idea a lot!
And be careful because Vance might be hiding under a cushion on that sofa! 
Her claim that Trump responds to each request for federal disaster relief “with great care and consideration” is utter bullshit.
