Trump to Kentucky: you’re on your own.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) denied requests for three Kentucky counties affected by severe storms last spring, and deemed the state ineligible for hazard mitigation grants that would help prepare for future disasters .

Fema officials claimed the areas did not suffer enough damage to merit federal support, in a letter issued to the governor on Tuesday. But the move is just the latest in a series of denials from the agency, as the Trump administration seeks to shift the burden of responding to and recovering from disasters on to states.

Look, if Kentucky doesn’t want to be slammed by storms it should move to a part of the country where there are no storms. It’s not the federal government’s job to help citizens deal with natural disasters, it’s only those crazy communist Democrats who think major disasters are a federal issue.

Last week, Fema also rejected Maryland’s request for disaster assistance after near-record-level flooding in May destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses and tore into roads and public infrastructure, leaving close to $16m in damages.

That’s Maryland’s problem, not ours.

Fema, which is responsible for an on-the-ground response during large-scale emergencies along with coordinating resource deployment, funding recovery and supporting efforts to mitigate risks, has been left critically under-resourced and unprepared for the escalating and compounding catastrophes wreaking havoc across the US with greater intensity and frequency.

Thanks to Musk and his band of pranksters, right? Because they got rid of all those expensive luxuries like federal disaster relief and weather forecasting? Freeing up billions to pay for Trump’s visits to his golf courses in Scotland.

Trump has called for dismantling the agency, part of the US Department of Homeland Security, and has already begun to cut funding in key areas. “We want to wean off of Fema, and we want to bring it back to the state level,” the president said, speaking from the Oval Office in June, noting his plans to promptly “give out less money” to states in recovery.

Fema has also terminated a multibillion-dollar grant program funding infrastructure upgrades that build resiliency, a move challenged in court by a group of 20 states earlier this month. Many of these states also filed lawsuits against the administration in May over directives that would link funding for emergency preparedness to immigration enforcement cooperation.

“This administration is abandoning states and local communities that rely on federal funding to protect their residents and, in the event of disaster, save lives,” said the Massachusetts attorney general, Andrea Campbell, in a statement about the elimination of Fema’s building resilient infrastructure and communities program, which was approved and funded by Congress.

Federal funding is for Trump to spend, not states.