'This needs to stop!' FEMA chief goes on CNN to beg Trump to halt hurricane lies
Donald Trump is accused of trying to capitalize on catastrophic hurricanes wreaking havoc on the southeastern United States, sending a false message to his supporters that the federal government isn’t delivering aid to those affected by the historic storms.
And a senior official pleaded with him to stop Tuesday.
Since Hurricane Helene made landfall last month, killing at least 227 people, the former president has spread several lies about the federal government’s emergency response — including that Vice President Kamala Harris “spent all her FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) money, billions of dollars, on housing for illegal migrants.” He’s also said the Biden Administration is giving only $750 “to people whose homes have been washed away."
The former president delivered a variation of these false claims Monday in an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham.
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“So we're into almost $300 billion for Ukraine, and yet they're offering people $750,” Trump said as Ingraham clarified the money is being provided “for immediate needs” and does not represent the full scope of the federal government's hurricane recovery efforts.
“Yeah, but for the worst, hurricane that anybody's seen,” Trump countered. “But more importantly than that is they don't have the people. It's a bad, it's a very bad thing.”
Asked how he would “do it differently,” Trump said he’d “have a tremendous team of people here."
"They don't have any people here," he claimed. “I was in North Carolina yesterday, I was in Georgia — and Georgia is different, you have a good governor who's doing a very good job — but North Carolina is a disaster. And it was also hit very hard. But they don't have the people and they're complaining there's no people around to help.”
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Now as Hurricane Milton — which was a massive category 4 hurricane Tuesday — threatens as many as 15 million people on Florida’s Gulf Coast, FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell is begging Trump to stop with the false rumors about the response from her agency — and the entire federal government.
"His accusations are just completely false,” Criswell said Tuesday on CNN.
“... Just because you don't see somebody on the ground in a FEMA shirt, doesn't mean that we don't have people there. We have people that are embedded in the state Emergency Operations Center. I have teams that are walking around neighborhoods. I have teams that are embedded with all of the county EOC’s.
“People are on the ground, but we're also bringing in resources. And it's not just FEMA. We are one part of the federal family. We have over 3,400 members from across all federal agencies in North Carolina, helping to support this response. We will continue to bring in more resources as we go into the recovery and the long term needs that these communities have.”
“We really have just got to stop this rhetoric, because what it's doing is it's putting fear in the people that we're not going to be there to help them,” Criswell continued. “And I worry that they won't register for assistance with us and get access to the critical resources that they are eligible for.”
The FEMA administrator noted that on the ground, “The majority of people, the local leaders, the sheriffs” are “also helping to fight back on this narrative, letting people know that FEMA has been there with them.”
“The federal government has been there with them side by side during the response, and now the recovery,” she continued. “And they're the trusted leaders in that community. But I want to make sure that this has to stop because if it continues, we will see more and more people not trusting their federal government to be able to give them what they need. And so I need people to register for assistance so I can get them the financial resources they need to support their recovery.”