Trump threatens to pause Baltimore bridge reconstruction funding after falsely claiming he ‘gave the money’

US President Donald Trump deepens his feud with Maryland’s Democratic government as he threatened on Sunday to cancel funding for the reconstruction of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which was destroyed by a ship strike last year. The Republican firebrand did not attempt to offer a reason for hurling such threats.

Trump warned to pause funding because of his own political differences with Wes Moore, Maryland’s governor and the only Black leader of a US state. In a post on TruthSocial, Trump alluded to the fact that the disaster relief funding would be wielded as a political weapon against any state or local leaders who dared challenge him.

“I gave Wes Moore a lot of money to fix his demolished bridge,” Trump wrote in the post on Sunday. However, the proclamation is untrue because he wasn’t the president of the country in 2024, when the full federal funding for the project was allocated soon after the crash. “I will now have to rethink that decision???” he continued.

Why is Trump angry with Moore?

The president’s remarks on the matter came in response to Moore’s invitation to the president to walk the city of Baltimore. The Democratic governor attempted to extend an olive branch to the president, extending an invitation for him to visit the city last week.

The invitation also came amid Trump’s threats to extend his federal takeover of Washington, DC to other cities with Democratic leadership and large Black populations, like Chicago. “Donald Trump, if you are not willing to walk our communities, keep our name out of your mouth,” Moore said last week.

The remarks left Trump fuming. In a lengthy post on TruthSocial on Sunday, Trump claimed that the governor’s record on “crime” is “a very bad one, unless he fudges his figures on crime like many of the other ‘Blue States’ are doing.” He went on to declare that he would send in “troops” like he did in Los Angeles to “quickly clean up” the crimes in the city.  “When it is like that in Baltimore, I will proudly ‘walk the streets’ with the failing, because of Crime, Governor of Maryland,” he wrote.

Trump’s crackdown on Democratic led cities

Earlier in August, the White House announced that it was federalising the country’s capital, Washington, DC’s police force. He went on to deploy the National Guard and agents from multiple federal law enforcement agencies on the streets of the nation’s capital.

The Trump administration argued that these measures were being taken ostensibly to combat a crime wave, though the administration’s explanation has shifted between fighting crime and beautification measures. After a few days of tussle, the control of the policy was returned to the city leaders.

However, National Guard troops continue to remain deployed across the capital, and federal agents still patrol the streets of Washington, DC. On Friday, Trump went on to declare that he was looking to expand his efforts to other cities led by Democrats, though legal restrictions over the deployment of the Guard will likely hinder that plan.

Meanwhile, Moore, like other Democratic governors, has maintained that he would refuse to authorise the deployment of Maryland’s National Guard troops for crimefighting efforts in Baltimore.