Indiana’s lieutenant governor posted on X — and then deleted — that the Trump administration had made it “VERY clear” it would strip federal funding from the state if its leaders didn’t redraw the congressional map to advantage Republicans in the midterms.
Todd Huston, the Indiana House speaker, and the office of the Senate president pro tempore, Rodric Bray, tell NOTUS that never happened.
“Never once was a threat made to me that federal funding would be impacted based on the outcome of redistricting,” Huston said in an emailed statement. “The White House was very professional in this process and only advocated for the importance of this issue.”
“In Sen. Bray’s conversations, the White House never threatened to pull all federal funding from the state,” Molly Swigart, Bray’s communications director, said.
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Both Huston and Bray met privately with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office in August about the redistricting push, Politico reported. The two also met with Vice President JD Vance.
A senior White House official told NOTUS that they had never heard of the president threatening federal funds in the Indiana redistricting lobbying effort.
The confusion over what Trump and his administration did — and did not — threaten Indiana lawmakers with began with a Heritage Action post on X on Thursday, claiming Trump had made “clear” that “all federal funding will be stripped from the state” if the state’s Republicans voted down the proposed congressional map.
Indiana Republicans did vote down that map, and the confusion hasn’t been cleared up among state leaders.
In addition to his deleted post, Indiana Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith told Politico that “these conversations happened,” and that the White House threatened funding “specifically around the USDA Hub that we were potentially getting.”
Beckwith did not respond to NOTUS’ request for comment. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
One thing is clear: Trump very much intends to retaliate in some way.
And the Trump administration has previously used federal funding to punish and persuade states — but such tactics have typically only been used against states run by Democrats, like when he said he’d rescind federal funds to New York City if Zohran Mamdani won the mayoral race. (Though Trump’s meeting with Mamdani seemed to indicate he would not make good on that.)
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins earlier this month did threaten Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funding from blue states if they did not share program data with the Trump administration. Trump froze federal funding from colleges that his administration alleges violated civil rights laws, prompting some colleges to reach settlements with the administration. It also cut energy funding from blue states.
Whether this strategy will be used as leverage in Indiana remains to be seen. That said, Trump and his allies, including Gov. Mike Braun, have said lawmakers should expect primary challenges.
And political fundraising groups like Turning Point Action and Fair Maps Indiana Action have said they’ll invest money into the races.
NOTUS also reached out to Braun’s Cabinet members but did not receive any responses.
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