Last week, Blaze News covered a story about a FEMA supervisor named Marn’i Washington who was fired due to a released report accusing her of ordering relief agents under her authority to avoid homes with Trump signs in Lake Placid, Florida.

According to Washington, however, she was merely the scapegoat for FEMA’s broader discriminatory policies.

“FEMA preaches avoidance first, and then de-escalation. This is not isolated. This is a colossal event of avoidance. Not just in the state of Florida. You will find avoidance in the Carolinas,” Washington said on a podcast, during which she explained that FEMA at large tends to avoid homes with Trump signs for fear of aggression.

Jill Savage and Blaze News editor in chief Matthew Peterson invite Rachel Bovard, vice president of Conservative Partnership Institute, on the show to discuss the situation.

“Is this problem bigger than just one employee at FEMA?” Jill asks.

“This is the way the government has been operating for the last four years,” says Bovard. FEMA has “taken direction from the president of the United States, who stood in front of Independence Hall two years ago and said, ‘Anyone who supports Donald Trump is an extremist.”’

“All of the ideologues in the bureaucracy were activated to essentially make that statement by the president their government policy,” she explains. “When you think about the mission that FEMA is supposed to represent, they are supposed to be there to help Americans at the worst point in their lives, and here we have that agency … putting partisan politics ahead of it all.”

Matthew Peterson calls the event one of many examples of “how bad things have become.”

However, now that Trump will return to the White House bolstered by his bold Cabinet picks, the future looks hopeful.

“I’d love to know your thoughts on the picks so far,” he tells Bovard.

“I think institutional Washington is losing their minds, but I actually think [Matt Gaetz] is the perfect answer to Merrick Garland,” who “turned the Department of Justice into an arm of the president’s political terror,” says Bovard.

“[Garland] put Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro — two people who served in Trump’s administration — in jail; he aggressively pursued peaceful pro-life protesters; he ignored the disorder in the streets and used taxpayer-funded resources to harass and prosecute and terrorize peaceful J6 protesters to the ends of the Earth. … Those actions need to be answered with a sledgehammer, and I really do kind of feel like Matt Gaetz is maybe the perfect person to do that.”

Before Gaetz can get to work as Trump’s attorney general, however, he first has to be confirmed by the Senate that just elected John Thune as its new majority leader.

“What does the pick of John Thune tell you about where the Senate does want to go?” asks Jill.

Bovard is a bit concerned when it comes to Thune.

“John Thune, I should point out, voted to confirm Merrick Garland,” as did other Republican senators, including Mitch McConnell, John Cornyn, Thom Tillis, and Susan Collins — “all of the people you now see pearl-clutching about Matt Gaetz,” Bovard explains.

She hopes they will confirm Gaetz in order to “atone for their sins of confirming Merrick Garland.”

To hear more of the conversation, watch the clip above.

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