Trump Is Now Holding States’ Disaster Relief Hostage

Trump is holding hostage the emergency disaster relief and transit funding of states that don’t agree with his immigration demands, according to two lawsuits filed by several states Tuesday.

The lawsuits claim that the White House is using cuts to federal aid to threaten states into supporting President Trump’s mass deportations, putting their infrastructure and emergency response abilities at risk.

“By hanging a halt in this critical funding over states like a sword of Damocles, defendants impose immense harm on states, forcing them to choose between readiness for disasters and emergencies, on one hand, and exercising their judgment about how to best use scarce resources to investigate and prosecute crimes on the other,” a draft of one of the complaints states.

One of the parties to the lawsuits, New York, claims that it could lose hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for bomb squads, hazmat units, emergency relief services, and SWAT teams that were vital in the state’s response to hurricanes and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Other states joining the lawsuit include California, Rhode Island, Illinois, and more than 12 others. In one of the complaints, they cite the Department of Homeland Security’s new “Standard Terms and Conditions,” which state that emergency relief grants to states depend on them providing help with deportation efforts and ending any program that “benefits illegal immigrants or incentivizes illegal immigration.”

The other lawsuit, filed by many of the same states, is directed at the Department of Transportation over the agency’s declaration last month that it would halt funding for any state that doesn’t cooperate with the Trump administration on immigration.

“On April 24, 2025, United States Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy issued a letter to all recipients of U.S. DOT funding announcing its policy, for the first time, of imposing an immigration enforcement condition on all U.S. DOT funding,” the lawsuit draft states.

In both lawsuits, the states claim that their funding had already been approved by Congress without conditions, making the White House’s attempt to withhold funds illegal. It also seems to be an attempt by Trump to impound funds already appropriated by Congress, setting up a constitutional crisis.

But these two lawsuits aren’t even the first examples of Trump trying to withhold funds from states going against his deportation agenda: A federal judge found last month that the White House tried to secretly withhold disaster relief funds from states with immigration policies counter to Trump’s agenda. It seems that Trump is trying to strongarm state governments by using needed funding against them.

Donald Trump announced Tuesday he will lift all U.S. sanctions on Syria, but the timing of the lifted international penalties was remarkably suspicious.

“I will be ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at greatness,” Trump told an auditorium in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, describing the apparently unnecessary sanctions as “brutal and crippling.”

“In Syria, which has seen so much misery and death, there is a new government that will hopefully succeed in stabilizing the country and keeping peace. That’s what we want to see,” he continued. “In Syria, they’ve had their share of travesty, war, killing many years. That’s why my administration has already taken the first steps toward restoring normal relations between the United States and Syria for the first time in more than a decade.”

American caution toward Syria has spanned half a dozen administrations. Syria has been designated as a state sponsor of terrorism by the U.S. since 1979, when Syrian forces occupied Lebanon. The Bush administration slammed Syria with more sanctions in 2004, condemning Syria’s “pursuit of weapons of mass destruction” and its support for Hezbollah and Hamas, U.S.-designated terrorist organizations. The Obama administration imposed more sanctions on Syria in 2011, denouncing the country’s dictator, former President Bashar Al Assad, for human rights abuses against its protesting citizens.

“We’re taking them all off,” Trump said Tuesday.

But the decision to strip what had effectively become an embargo of Syrian goods followed another important development for the Trump family: the possibility of building a Trump Tower in Syria’s capital, Damascus.

“[Syrian leader Ahmed Al Sharaa] wants a business deal for the future of his country,” pro-Trump activist Jonathan Bass—who met with Sharaa for hours in late April—told Reuters Monday.

Sharaa is working to meet face-to-face with Trump, but his priorities include economic revival, regional stability, and healed relations with Israel, according to Bass.

“He told me he wants a Trump Tower in Damascus. He wants peace with his neighbors. What he told me is good for the region, good for Israel,” Bass told the newswire.

As a reminder, it’s actually unconstitutional for presidents to profit from or receive compensation from foreign governments—but that hasn’t stopped Trump one bit. The Trump family’s Middle East real estate plans include a Trump-branded golf course in Qatar (as part of a $5.5 billion development project), a $1 billion Trump hotel and residence in Dubai, and a $2 billion cryptocurrency investment by an Abu Dhabi firm into one of Trump’s cryptocurrency projects, the World Liberty Financial coin.

The family also revealed in December that it would be expanding its presence in Saudi Arabia, announcing Trump Tower Jeddah. The price tag for the building has not been made public, but one of the developers on the project, Dar Global, compared it to another $530 million Trump Tower in the city, reported Reuters.

Donald Trump got back into his hobby of sucking up to autocratic dictators Tuesday, when the U.S. president made several effusive comments about Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

During a rambling address at a Saudi investment forum in Riyadh, the president showered the head of the country’s royal family with praise, touting the crown prince as an “incredible man.”

“We have great partners in the world, but we have none stronger, and nobody like the gentleman that’s right before me, he’s your greatest representative, your greatest representative,” Trump said, as MBS beamed up at him from the audience.

“And if I didn’t like him, I would get out of here so fast. You know that don’t you? He knows me well,” Trump said. “I do, I like him a lot. I like him too much, that’s why we give so much, you know? Too much. I like you too much!”

But who exactly does the president like so much? The 39-year-old prince rules over a modern surveillance state, where political dissent is not tolerated, and human rights standards are abysmal. MBS also serves as the chairman of Saudi Arabia’s massive sovereign wealth fund that has both facilitated and benefited from rights violations.

But still, a drowsy-sounding Trump couldn’t help from gushing over the kingdom.

“We are rockin’, the United States is the hottest country—with the exception of your country, I have to say, right?” Trump joked, addressing MBS in the crowd.

“I’m not going to take that on. No, Mohammed, I’m not gonna take that on. Wouldn’t that be a terrible thing if I made that full statement. I will not do it. You’re hotter! At least as long as I’m up here, you’re hotter.”

Trump also announced that he would be lifting sanctions against Syria to “give them a chase at greatness.” After the audience got through cheering, the president sighed, acknowledging that he’d just made a major U.S. policy shift at the behest of a foreign leader.

“Oh, what I do for the crown prince,” he said.

House Republicans’ draft budget bill includes a clause to give Donald Trump the ability to revoke the tax-exempt status of any group the Treasury Department says is a supporter of terrorism. 

The move appears to be a revival of the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act, which the House passed in November under President Biden. The Senate had not taken up the measure, which drew criticism for granting dangerous powers to the president. Now those powers have resurfaced deep within the GOP’s “big beautiful bill”: on page 380, to be exact. 

Last year, 15 Democrats joined Republicans in the House to pass the anti–free speech bill, which was originally intended to help clamp down on pro-Palestinian protesters, particularly those on college campuses. Even though the bill has languished since then, Trump has still attempted to target nonprofit institutions that refuse to kowtow to him, including institutions such as Harvard University.

If the clause isn’t excised from the final bill and passes, Trump can target any nonprofit that he and the Republicans don’t like, whether they are focused on reproductive rights, climate change, refugee support, or anything else. The budget bill is going through the reconciliation process, meaning that it only requires a simple majority in the House and Senate to be passed. 

If party lines hold on this bill, the nonprofit clause can pass without a single Democratic vote. Will Democrats hold the line and try to mobilize to remove the anti-nonprofit clause? Or will the caucus once again be divided, with some Democrats supporting the measure? 

Elon Musk announced Tuesday that Saudi Arabia had approved the use of Starlink, as part of his mounting efforts to use Donald Trump’s trip abroad to boost his many businesses. While speaking with Saudi Minister of Communications and Information Technology Abdullah Alswah on the White House–led trip, the billionaire bureaucrat thanked Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for approving his SpaceX–owned and operated satellite internet service for aviation and maritime use.

But Starlink wasn’t the only one of Musk’s businesses that got a plug to the president’s foreign friends. Musk said that he had shown Trump and MBS several of Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robots, which are still undergoing development. Musk warned last month that China’s suspension of rare earth metals exports, amid Trump’s slowly deescalating trade war, could potentially delay manufacturing.

Musk also discussed his ambitions to bring Tesla’s robotaxis to Saudi Arabia.

“I think it would be very exciting to have autonomous vehicles here in the kingdom, indeed, if you’re amenable,” Musk said. The U.S. National Highway Safety Administration is still probing Tesla on how well these autonomous vehicles will function in poor weather conditions, including sun glare and dust, which could potentially decrease their utility in a city like Riyadh, which experiences frequent sand storms.

But it seems Musk had a solution for this: He pitched that the Saudi government construct tunnels with the help of his Boring Company. “In order to solve traffic, you really need to go 3D with roads,” Musk said, describing tunnels as a novel kind of “wormhole” and not a classic feature of public infrastructure.

Musk began to plug his infrastructure and tunnel service after being prompted by Alswah to discuss yet another one of his companies, xAI. He described the goal of that project as to produce a “maximally truth-seeking” artificial intelligence.

“What questions do we not know to ask? Once you know the question, the answer is the easy part,” Musk said.

Alswah called Musk a “lifetime partner” to the kingdom, and said they were “joining hands” on “XAi, Starlink, robotics, and Tesla.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s first day in Saudi Arabia was off to a sleepy start. The president was filmed falling asleep during a briefing with MBS, shutting his eyes and jerking awake.