As Trump makes false claims about hurricane relief, White House calls it ‘poison’
Posted on 10/05/2024
EVANS, Ga. — Former president Donald Trump doubled down on misinformation about Hurricane Helene in an appearance in this storm-ravaged state Friday, repeating the falsehood that the White House used disaster funds for migrants.
Speaking at a news conference after a state disaster briefing, Trump again falsely said the U.S. government is unable to fund the storm response because it used the money on people “who came into the country illegally” — claims that the White House slammed in a memo Friday as “poison.”
Trump’s comments that the White House is “missing $1 billion” that was used for migrants, as he said Friday, have created a swirl of misinformation around the Helene response. The White House warned Friday that the falsehoods could keep hurricane victims from seeking the assistance they critically need, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency launched an anti-rumor tool that counters Trump’s claims.
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The Biden administration said in its memo — which did not name Trump but included a headline that did — that Republicans are spreading “bald-faced lies” about the hurricane response and are “using Hurricane Helene to lie and divide us.”
“It is paramount that every leader, whatever their political beliefs, stops spreading this poison,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates wrote in the memo, adding: “This isn’t about politics — it’s about helping people.”
Hurricane Helene swept across several Southern states last week, devastating large areas and killing at least 213 people. It was one of the biggest storms to strike the Gulf Coast in decades and one of the deadliest hurricanes in modern times, and it has left behind a challenging aftermath — dismantled homes, destroyed water supplies, cut off and wiped-out towns.
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The federal government has mounted a huge response following routine protocol, sending supplies, meals and more than 1,000 personnel; taking aid applications from affected residents; and coordinating with state and local agencies. Search-and-rescue efforts are ongoing in remote areas. The response faces logistical challenges because of the scope of the damage, across six states, and some residents have complained about waiting for on-the-ground aid.
Trump’s claims, however, have focused on undermining confidence in the federal response and tying his political opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, to that negative picture.
He has sought to blame the hurricane devastation on immigration, on Thursday falsely saying that those affected by the hurricane are getting “no help” because the federal government has instead spent its money “on people that should not be in our country.” In response to questions from The Post, Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt claimed that Harris “stole” money from FEMA and repeated the claim that the federal government had no funding, without providing evidence.
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“Kamala has spent all her FEMA money, billions of dollars, on housing for illegal migrants,” Trump said at a rally Thursday.
Harris does not disburse FEMA funding as vice president. The claim about using disaster relief funding to house immigrants is false, a Washington Post fact check found.
FEMA has the funds needed to respond to Helene, Bates said in the White House memo. The agency has processed $45 million in direct assistance to people affected by Helene so far, the White House said.
“No disaster relief funding at all was used to support migrants housing and services,” the memo said. “None. At. All.”
Trump, however, did move money from FEMA as president: He diverted nearly $10 million in funding to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to use for detention programs in 2018. In 2019, his administration redirected millions more from the disaster fund to ICE, including $38 million in the middle of hurricane season.
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Trump also came under criticism as president for his responses to certain natural disasters, including Hurricanes Irma and Maria. His administration also rolled back more than 125 environmental regulations, including flood standards and measures aimed at curbing climate change factors that can drive extreme weather.
FEMA, like other government agencies, has long struggled with funding issues and sometimes draws frustration from communities after disasters. Some residents in areas hit by Helene have complained that federal aid has not yet reached them. But those problems are unrelated to immigration, and misinformation makes it more difficult for disaster victims to understand what’s going on and how to access aid, experts say.
The Harris campaign said in a statement Friday that Trump’s presidential record includes “gutting FEMA, blocking critical disaster relief, and making crisis after crisis about himself while leaving hard-working Americans on their own.”
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Trump’s attendance at the Georgia briefing came before he headed to North Carolina — also an electoral battleground state — for an evening town hall, where he repeated some of the same claims. In Evans, he talked to reporters alongside Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) in their first joint appearance since 2020, when the governor refused to interfere with Georgia’s election results on Trump’s behalf.
Kemp thanked Trump for visiting Georgia twice since the hurricane, which he called “a living nightmare.”
Trump spent much of an August rally in Georgia criticizing Kemp in personal terms, alarming some Republicans who worried it would hurt Trump in a swing state. Trump has struck a friendly tone more recently, however, praising Kemp and saying he looked forward to working with him. On Friday, he claimed he and Kemp have always worked “very well” together.
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The governor left the news conference immediately after Trump delivered his remarks, not taking any questions from reporters or staying as Trump did.
The governor has expressed gratitude for the Biden administration’s response to the storm while also asking for more aid. This week, Trump falsely claimed that President Joe Biden had not spoken to Kemp about the disaster. Trump on Friday afternoon said the White House’s response has been “terrible.”
Trump was leading Harris in Georgia by two percentage points Friday, according to The Washington Post’s polling averages, though she had gained slightly there over the past two weeks.
After the barrage of criticism Friday, Trump appeared more subdued at the news conference, asserting that he was “thinking about lives,” not voters. Still, Trump noted that he was ahead of Harris in Georgia and said he hoped to “keep it that way.”
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Fair Fight, a liberal voting rights group founded by former Georgia state representative Stacey Abrams (D), criticized Kemp’s inclusion of Trump at the hurricane briefing, saying a politician without a role in the recovery should not have been included in an official briefing.
“It’s outrageous that Governor Kemp would inject partisan politics into a critical recovery briefing by inviting candidate Trump, who has been spreading lies about Hurricane Helene recovery efforts. This should be a moment focused solely on the needs of Georgians, not to score political points,” Lauren Groh-Wargo, CEO of Fair Fight, said in a statement.
Trump has appeared to pull from the same playbook he used in the 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, where he attempted to set the crisis up as a political showdown with Biden.
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Then, he blasted Biden for not visiting the town sooner, as he has done with Harris about Helene, and he cast the government as unresponsive even though the state’s Republican governor had not made any requests of Biden and federal officials were on the ground.
On Thursday morning, Trump falsely said on his Truth Social platform that Biden and Harris were “universally” being criticized for the hurricane response. Republican governors, including in Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia, have said the federal response was quick.
“It’s been superb,” South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R) said of the federal response, noting that he had talked to Biden, the transportation secretary and the FEMA administrator. “We’re getting assistance, and we’re asking for everything we need.”
Trump also claimed on Truth Social that North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) was withholding aid from areas where Republicans lived. On Friday, a spokesman for Cooper, Fred Porter, said the governor is “very concerned about the impacts of misinformation,” adding: “This is a situation where we need a high degree of coordination and people working together. Confusion can be harmful.”
Online, Trump baselessly claimed that Hurricane Helene was the “WORST & MOST INCOMPETENTLY MANAGED ‘STORM,’ AT THE FEDERAL LEVEL, EVER SEEN BEFORE.”
When he was president, Trump was criticized for how he handled some storms. His administration withheld $20 billion in disaster recovery funds for Puerto Rico after deadly hurricanes Irma and Maria and then blocked a federal investigation into why those funds had not been released, the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s inspector general found.
A Politico investigation found that Trump and his allies responded more aggressively to help hurricane victims in the conservative state of Texas than in the Spanish-speaking territory of Puerto Rico. On Thursday, Politico reported that Trump also reportedly refused to approve disaster aid for California wildfires until he was shown that an area that voted for him was affected.
Project 2025, the road map for a second Trump administration, says that FEMA should cover fewer of the costs of disasters. It also proposes privatizing the federal weather agencies that predict hurricanes and other extreme events, where most people get their information when a storm is barreling toward their hometown. Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025, despite many of his allies’ having contributed to its creation.
Hannah Knowles in North Carolina and Maxine Joselow and Amy Gardner in D.C. contributed to this report.
Speaking at a news conference after a state disaster briefing, Trump again falsely said the U.S. government is unable to fund the storm response because it used the money on people “who came into the country illegally” — claims that the White House slammed in a memo Friday as “poison.”
Trump’s comments that the White House is “missing $1 billion” that was used for migrants, as he said Friday, have created a swirl of misinformation around the Helene response. The White House warned Friday that the falsehoods could keep hurricane victims from seeking the assistance they critically need, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency launched an anti-rumor tool that counters Trump’s claims.
Advertisement
The Biden administration said in its memo — which did not name Trump but included a headline that did — that Republicans are spreading “bald-faced lies” about the hurricane response and are “using Hurricane Helene to lie and divide us.”
“It is paramount that every leader, whatever their political beliefs, stops spreading this poison,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates wrote in the memo, adding: “This isn’t about politics — it’s about helping people.”
Hurricane Helene swept across several Southern states last week, devastating large areas and killing at least 213 people. It was one of the biggest storms to strike the Gulf Coast in decades and one of the deadliest hurricanes in modern times, and it has left behind a challenging aftermath — dismantled homes, destroyed water supplies, cut off and wiped-out towns.
Advertisement
The federal government has mounted a huge response following routine protocol, sending supplies, meals and more than 1,000 personnel; taking aid applications from affected residents; and coordinating with state and local agencies. Search-and-rescue efforts are ongoing in remote areas. The response faces logistical challenges because of the scope of the damage, across six states, and some residents have complained about waiting for on-the-ground aid.
Trump’s claims, however, have focused on undermining confidence in the federal response and tying his political opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, to that negative picture.
He has sought to blame the hurricane devastation on immigration, on Thursday falsely saying that those affected by the hurricane are getting “no help” because the federal government has instead spent its money “on people that should not be in our country.” In response to questions from The Post, Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt claimed that Harris “stole” money from FEMA and repeated the claim that the federal government had no funding, without providing evidence.
Advertisement
“Kamala has spent all her FEMA money, billions of dollars, on housing for illegal migrants,” Trump said at a rally Thursday.
Harris does not disburse FEMA funding as vice president. The claim about using disaster relief funding to house immigrants is false, a Washington Post fact check found.
FEMA has the funds needed to respond to Helene, Bates said in the White House memo. The agency has processed $45 million in direct assistance to people affected by Helene so far, the White House said.
“No disaster relief funding at all was used to support migrants housing and services,” the memo said. “None. At. All.”
Trump, however, did move money from FEMA as president: He diverted nearly $10 million in funding to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to use for detention programs in 2018. In 2019, his administration redirected millions more from the disaster fund to ICE, including $38 million in the middle of hurricane season.
Advertisement
Trump also came under criticism as president for his responses to certain natural disasters, including Hurricanes Irma and Maria. His administration also rolled back more than 125 environmental regulations, including flood standards and measures aimed at curbing climate change factors that can drive extreme weather.
FEMA, like other government agencies, has long struggled with funding issues and sometimes draws frustration from communities after disasters. Some residents in areas hit by Helene have complained that federal aid has not yet reached them. But those problems are unrelated to immigration, and misinformation makes it more difficult for disaster victims to understand what’s going on and how to access aid, experts say.
The Harris campaign said in a statement Friday that Trump’s presidential record includes “gutting FEMA, blocking critical disaster relief, and making crisis after crisis about himself while leaving hard-working Americans on their own.”
Advertisement
Trump’s attendance at the Georgia briefing came before he headed to North Carolina — also an electoral battleground state — for an evening town hall, where he repeated some of the same claims. In Evans, he talked to reporters alongside Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) in their first joint appearance since 2020, when the governor refused to interfere with Georgia’s election results on Trump’s behalf.
Kemp thanked Trump for visiting Georgia twice since the hurricane, which he called “a living nightmare.”
Trump spent much of an August rally in Georgia criticizing Kemp in personal terms, alarming some Republicans who worried it would hurt Trump in a swing state. Trump has struck a friendly tone more recently, however, praising Kemp and saying he looked forward to working with him. On Friday, he claimed he and Kemp have always worked “very well” together.
Advertisement
The governor left the news conference immediately after Trump delivered his remarks, not taking any questions from reporters or staying as Trump did.
The governor has expressed gratitude for the Biden administration’s response to the storm while also asking for more aid. This week, Trump falsely claimed that President Joe Biden had not spoken to Kemp about the disaster. Trump on Friday afternoon said the White House’s response has been “terrible.”
Trump was leading Harris in Georgia by two percentage points Friday, according to The Washington Post’s polling averages, though she had gained slightly there over the past two weeks.
After the barrage of criticism Friday, Trump appeared more subdued at the news conference, asserting that he was “thinking about lives,” not voters. Still, Trump noted that he was ahead of Harris in Georgia and said he hoped to “keep it that way.”
Advertisement
Fair Fight, a liberal voting rights group founded by former Georgia state representative Stacey Abrams (D), criticized Kemp’s inclusion of Trump at the hurricane briefing, saying a politician without a role in the recovery should not have been included in an official briefing.
“It’s outrageous that Governor Kemp would inject partisan politics into a critical recovery briefing by inviting candidate Trump, who has been spreading lies about Hurricane Helene recovery efforts. This should be a moment focused solely on the needs of Georgians, not to score political points,” Lauren Groh-Wargo, CEO of Fair Fight, said in a statement.
Trump has appeared to pull from the same playbook he used in the 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, where he attempted to set the crisis up as a political showdown with Biden.
Advertisement
Then, he blasted Biden for not visiting the town sooner, as he has done with Harris about Helene, and he cast the government as unresponsive even though the state’s Republican governor had not made any requests of Biden and federal officials were on the ground.
On Thursday morning, Trump falsely said on his Truth Social platform that Biden and Harris were “universally” being criticized for the hurricane response. Republican governors, including in Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia, have said the federal response was quick.
“It’s been superb,” South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R) said of the federal response, noting that he had talked to Biden, the transportation secretary and the FEMA administrator. “We’re getting assistance, and we’re asking for everything we need.”
Trump also claimed on Truth Social that North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) was withholding aid from areas where Republicans lived. On Friday, a spokesman for Cooper, Fred Porter, said the governor is “very concerned about the impacts of misinformation,” adding: “This is a situation where we need a high degree of coordination and people working together. Confusion can be harmful.”
Online, Trump baselessly claimed that Hurricane Helene was the “WORST & MOST INCOMPETENTLY MANAGED ‘STORM,’ AT THE FEDERAL LEVEL, EVER SEEN BEFORE.”
When he was president, Trump was criticized for how he handled some storms. His administration withheld $20 billion in disaster recovery funds for Puerto Rico after deadly hurricanes Irma and Maria and then blocked a federal investigation into why those funds had not been released, the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s inspector general found.
A Politico investigation found that Trump and his allies responded more aggressively to help hurricane victims in the conservative state of Texas than in the Spanish-speaking territory of Puerto Rico. On Thursday, Politico reported that Trump also reportedly refused to approve disaster aid for California wildfires until he was shown that an area that voted for him was affected.
Project 2025, the road map for a second Trump administration, says that FEMA should cover fewer of the costs of disasters. It also proposes privatizing the federal weather agencies that predict hurricanes and other extreme events, where most people get their information when a storm is barreling toward their hometown. Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025, despite many of his allies’ having contributed to its creation.
Hannah Knowles in North Carolina and Maxine Joselow and Amy Gardner in D.C. contributed to this report.
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