'False in at least four ways': CNN delivers brutal fact-check of Trump's NC comments

Donald Trump’s latest comments on the federal response to Hurricane Helene prompted CNN fact checker Daniel Dale to clap back with a detailed report on why the former president’s “debunked lies” are “false in at least four ways.”

The brutal fact check came hours after Trump made a stop in a storm-ravaged community near Asheville, North Carolina, where he used a question-and-answer session with reporters to repeat a false claim that has been widely debunked since he first made it earlier this month. The claim involves a false narrative that FEMA spent disaster relief money on migrants who entered the country illegally, leaving it with no money to help hurricane victims.

“It’s all gone. They’ve spent it on illegal migrants,” Trump said Monday, according to CNN, which adds that he went on to say: “They were not supposed to be spending the money on taking in illegal migrants.”

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“First, there is zero basis for Trump’s suggestion that FEMA or the Biden administration might be running some sort of scheme to get undocumented immigrants to vote illegally in the 2024 election,” Dale wrote Monday.

A noncitizen voting in a federal election carries a felony charge, he added.

He also pushed back on the realities of Trump’s claims that FEMA disaster funds were improperly reallocated to migrants and that FEMA funds are “all gone.”

“FEMA is not out of cash,” Dale wrote, noting that FEMA told CNN last week that the agency’s Disaster Relief Fund contained some $8.5 billion remaining. The article also notes that Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC) published a fact sheet earlier in October that stated “FEMA has NOT diverted disaster response funding to the border or foreign aid.”

Dale concluded his fact check by knocking down Trump's assertion that Biden administration officials “didn’t have any money left for North Carolina.”

In fact, Dale writes, various forms of assistance have poured into North Carolina in the monster storm’s aftermath, with the White House saying “more $300 million has been approved so far.”