Two weeks ago, I wrote in this space about the need for investigations into the causes of the Los Angeles wildfires, if they could have been prevented, and if future disasters of this magnitude can be prevented. Early conversations have included ideas about building homes out of more fire-retardant materials and changing certain policies regarding water. There have been reasonable and legitimate criticisms of how state and local officials have handled the response to the fires. Those criticisms have manifested in low public polling numbers for both California Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.

It reminds me of another natural disaster that happened 20 years ago. When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, there were a lot of questions about public officials’ failure to protect the city against the devastation that followed the hurricane. Even now, New Orleans has not fully recovered from Katrina.

Despite the questions and policy failures that preceded and followed Katrina, then-President George W. Bush and Congress took just days to approve $10.5 billion in federal disaster aid. Less than two weeks after that initial approval, lawmakers approved another $51.8 billion. What Congress didn’t do was engage in second-guessing. They took seriously their obligation to help Americans in crisis. There were no conversations about using aid as a way of forcing policy changes or attaching strings to the disaster assistance.

Here, 20 years later, some members of Congress have forgotten their obligations to their fellow Americans. House Speaker Mike Johnson, who represents Louisiana, has said that he supports attaching conditions to aid for California. President Trump has also said he would like to use aid to California to force policy changes. It is disappointing, but frankly not surprising, that the current leadership in Washington, D.C., would willingly hold disaster victims hostage when they are at their most vulnerable.

Speaker Johnson should remember that his state of Louisiana was accused of having flawed levees and knowing that they were flawed before Katrina hit, but nobody in Washington made aid to the victims of the flooding contingent on policy changes. To consider withholding aid from Americans when they needed it the most seemed like an unthinkable breach of the social contract between citizen and government. The only consideration at the moment was helping those in need.

If President Trump and Speaker Johnson do withhold aid while policy discussions happen, the only people who will get hurt are those who have already lost everything. It will not be the public officials, policy makers, or political rivals that will be harmed by Trump and Johnson’s cynical brand of politics, it will be our fellow citizens. Is that what we’ve become as a nation? Is that who we want to be as a people? The kind of society that denies help for our neighbors because they have different politics than us?

As I said two weeks ago, there should be an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the fires. Those investigations, which should be bipartisan and thorough, could help prevent future disasters of this magnitude. But those investigations should happen after the aid has been distributed.

The attachment of strings to disaster aid sets a terrible precedent for the future. Could Wisconsinites who are hit by tornadoes be denied help because they voted for the other party? States and municipalities can’t print their own money, they are solely reliant on aid from Washington. Washington, using this reliance to hold those states and municipalities hostage puts the worst of human nature on display.

Trump has long prided himself as a master negotiator. But negotiations and partisan politics have no place in the immediate aftermath of natural disasters. This should be an easy opportunity for Congress to demonstrate bipartisanship early in the second Trump administration as well as an opportunity to bring Americans together after a particularly divisive election season. It is tremendously disappointing that it appears as if Trump and Johnson, along with other members of Congress, have decided not to take that opportunity.