President Donald Trump spoke to reporters during a visit to review hurricane damage in North Carolina, and CNN's Daniel Dale was ready with a fact check afterward.
The president met with reporters Friday morning in Fletcher, one of the areas devastated last fall by Hurricane Helene, and he floated the idea of eliminating the Federal Emergency Management Agency through executive order and making Canada the 51st state, and Dale lamented that he was providing false and misleading information during the ongoing disaster.
"The lies impact people's lives, they really do," Dale began. "So, again, people are entitled to criticize FEMA's response to Helene, the overall Biden administration's response, but the fact is that Trump has made numerous claims about FEMA and that federal response that are just not true. So, for example, he said in early January that FEMA is out of money – one of those lies that impacts people. It is not out of money. FEMA's disaster relief fund had $27 billion in it as of two weeks ago."
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"He said repeatedly that FEMA had no money for North Carolina because it diverted all of the funding to illegal immigrants," Dale said. That did not happen. What actually happened was that Congress gave FEMA tens of billions for disaster relief and a much smaller pot of money, a separate pot of money, about $650 million, for a program to help communities around the country shelter migrants. Two separate programs Congress funded separately, there wasn't like some sort of improper diversion."
"The president has said over and over that North Carolina residents who lost their homes only got $750 in aid, while foreign countries got billions," Dale continued. "In fact, that $750 was merely initial emergency assistance for immediate pressing needs of food, water, baby formula. Those people are also eligible for tens of thousands in additional assistance, including, for example, up to $42,500 each for home repairs, and I think the biggest one, the president has said over and over and over that FEMA just hasn't helped North Carolina at all, has been completely absent. That is not true."
"You can argue they didn't help fast enough in some communities, that aid has been too, too slow in being distributed, but they've been there," he added. "FEMA has deployed more than 1,700 employees to North Carolina. Former governor Roy Cooper said it was more than 8,500 federal personnel total FEMA had provided as of Inauguration Day. More than $316 million in cash grants to North Carolina, and, in addition, more than $300 million extra to North Carolina governments for infrastructure repairs and debris cleanup."
"So, again, yes – criticize away," Dale concluded. "But FEMA has responded in the state."
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