President Trump on Monday directed that states pay 25% of the cost of their state’s National Guard deployments, regardless of where in the United States they’re sent, as part of the effort to test and treat coronavirus patients.

Two states are exempt from picking up the bill:  Texas and Arizona, republican-led states that are in the midst of coronavirus outbreaks, reports Politico.

The ploy is widely viewed as a nakedly political move, given that Arizona and Texas are states Trump won in 2016 but they’re viewed as toss-up or “leans Democratic” in the upcoming presidential election.

While some states are seeing more significant coronavirus hotspots than Texas and Arizona, all states are feeling the long term economic impact of the pandemic, with tax revenues and fees falling and unemployment reserves being stretched.

Approximately 25,000 Guard members are currently deployed around the country, doing everything from building hospitals, delivering supplies and contact tracing.  The White House has extended National Guard deployments through December 31st after previously attempting to cut short deployments so Guardsmen would not get long term benefits.

Back in May, Trump tried to schedule the end of the current deployment one day short of vesting for some Guardsmen.

“With American lives at risk, the president is continuing to manipulate our nation’s pandemic response to benefit his own political fortunes,” said Noam Lee, the executive director of the Democratic Governors Association. “While the coronavirus doesn’t discriminate between ‘red’ states or ‘blue’ states, it is disturbingly clear that our president does.”