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see weather manip
see fema death threat gubmint militia
russia disinfo to help trump
see FEMA NOEM
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Why this country is making Shell nervous
SIMON CLARK 11 26 ATTRIBUTION, OCEAN WARM
SUPER TYPHOON TROP CYCLONE CAT 1-FIVE IN 24 HRS ODETTE RAI PI 12/21 15TH ONE; 8 MIL PPL AFFECTED, 1.4M HOMELESS?
Why this country is making Shell nervous
125,310 views Nov 5, 2026
Get Nebula using my link for 50% off an annual subscription: https://go.nebula.tv/simonclark Watch the extended interview with Fredi: https://nebula.tv/videos/simonclark-h... Learn more about the case: https://www.odettecase.org/about Take action: https://www.odettecase.org/take-action REFERENCES 1. https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/ 2. https://egusphere.copernicus.org/prep... 3.https://web.archive.org/web/202205060... 4.https://www.theguardian.com/world/201... 5. https://www.hrlc.org.au/case-summarie... 6. https://essc.org.ph/content/nicc/ 7. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c... 8. https://www.ucs.org/about/news/fossil... 9. https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-c... 10. https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/... 11. https://www.desmog.com/american-enter... 12. https://www.scotusblog.com/cases/sunc... 13. https://law.stanford.edu/2026/10/06/w... 14. https://www.theguardian.com/world/202... You can support the channel by becoming a patron at 
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ALSO HURRIC FLOOD SO-CAL?
Officials scramble to appease Trump while hurricane threatens Alabama
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mma 7 26
Right-wing media could use a quieter 2026 hurricane forecast to downplay climate risk before storms form
El Niño may reduce Atlantic storm formation, but fewer expected storms does not mean lower public risk
Special ProgramsClimate & Energy
Written by Evlondo Cooper
Published 06/29/26
Right-wing media have repeatedly cited the impacts of El Niño, short-term weather variability, and quieter stretches of hurricane season to argue that storm risks from climate change are exaggerated, and now the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s “below-normal” 2026 Atlantic hurricane forecast gives that playbook a new opening.
NOAA’s outlook for the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season, which runs June 1 to November 30, predicts a 35% chance of a near-normal season, a 10% chance of an above-normal season, and a 55% chance of a below-normal season.
The agency is forecasting a total of 8-14 named storms (winds of 39 mph or higher). Of those, 3-6 are forecast to become hurricanes (winds of 74 mph or higher), including 1-3 major hurricanes (category 3, 4 or 5 with winds of 111 mph or higher). NOAA has a 70% confidence in these ranges. An average season has 14 named storms with seven hurricanes, including three major hurricanes.
NOAA cites the development of El Niño as one factor likely to reduce storm formation in the Atlantic basin, which is a forecast about expected basin-wide activity, not a verdict on the risks posed by any storms that do form. Yet climate skeptics are already treating the prediction as an argument against connecting storms to climate change, pushing climate context out of hurricane coverage even before the season unfolds.
Corporate media outlets can reproduce the same narrow coverage without adopting the right’s rhetoric if they report the outlook as a quiet-season story and stop there. Instead, strong forecast coverage should make it clear that NOAA’s storm-count ranges estimate how active the Atlantic basin might be — not how dangerous the season will be for people in harm’s way. A season with few storms can still produce rapidly intensifying hurricanes, catastrophic rainfall, uninsured losses, and breakdowns in disaster response.
Right-wing media have used quieter hurricane forecasts to portray climate risk as exaggerated
Climate skeptics and right-wing outlets have repeatedly used natural weather variability, storm-frequency predictions, and lower-than-expected hurricane activity to argue that climate warnings and media coverage are exaggerated or unreliable. That move is already visible in response to NOAA’s below-normal 2026 Atlantic hurricane forecast.
The Heartland Institute, which has long promoted climate skepticism, cited the new forecast and then argued that “whether it is a devastating season or a mild one, climate change has nothing to do with it,” while warning readers not to believe media coverage or attribution studies linking hurricanes to climate change. In a May 29 newsletter, Heartland claimed that it’s “as certain as death and taxes” that “at one point or another during the hurricane season some media outlet, mainstream or social media only, will claim one or more hurricanes were caused by or made more likely by climate change,” adding, “That last claim is patently false.”
CBN News, an evangelical Christian broadcast network, similarly used NOAA’s confirmation of El Niño to frame the event as potentially “good news.” The outlet cited WeatherBELL’s Joe Bastardi, who has frequently appeared on Fox News and spread hurricane misinformation, to argue that a powerful El Niño could minimize Atlantic hurricanes while warning against “climate alarmism.”
“The way you get attention is, ‘Oh my gosh, this has never happened before, there's unprecedented climate change,’” he said, “That's not how it happens. That's not how it works. If you go back and look at these things, you could see the good and the bad and some ugly. And that's probably what you're going to see this year, too.”
Bastardi predicts the current El Niño, like the one in 1997, will minimize Atlantic hurricanes.
“That was a very powerful El Niño. The strongest on record, it was a benefit for the United States,” he said. “We had one storm, a Category One storm hit. Danny hit Louisiana on July 15th. The rest of the hurricane season? Nothing.”
Just weeks later, Hurricane Helene became one of the deadliest U.S. storms of the century.
A similar move occurred during the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, when Daily Wire hosts Matt Walsh and Ben Shapiro falsely suggested there had been “no hurricanes” or “really nothing” as Hurricane Francine approached the Gulf Coast, even though Hurricane Beryl and Hurricane Debby had already caused real harm and peak season was still underway. Just weeks later, Hurricane Helene became one of the deadliest U.S. storms of the century.
El Niño can reduce Atlantic hurricane activity by increasing vertical wind shear, sinking motion, and atmospheric stability. However, that does not eliminate the climate conditions that can make storms more damaging when they do form, including warmer oceans, heavier rainfall, higher storm surge, and more coastal flooding.
For 2026 coverage, the risk is that right-wing media and climate skeptics can use a quieter Atlantic outlook or any quiet stretch during the season to argue that journalists and experts are exaggerating the threat, scientists are overstating the climate connection, and officials are overreacting before their audiences have seen what the season actually produces.
Broadcast and cable news should not help right-wing media turn the NOAA hurricane forecast into a storm-count story
Broadcast and cable news networks covering NOAA’s outlook for this year’s Atlantic hurricane season are unlikely to adopt climate denial talking points outright. But forecast coverage can still reproduce a softer version of the same misinformation if it treats the number of expected storms as a proxy for public danger, leaving audiences with the impression that fewer expected storms means less risk.
Before the season produces a major storm, the forecast may become the main public reference point for hurricane risk. If coverage treats it mainly as a quiet-season story, it can make risk look smaller before any storm has tested evacuation systems, flood protections, insurance coverage, or emergency response. It can also give right-wing media an easier opening to argue that warnings, preparedness messaging, and climate context are alarmist.
During quiet stretches, outlets should not treat a lull as confirmation that the below-normal forecast made warnings or climate context unnecessary. A quiet stretch does not show whether the next storm will intensify quickly, produce dangerous flooding, or expose gaps in local preparedness.
When storms form, coverage should move beyond track and landfall projections. Those forecasts are essential, but they do not explain the full public risk. Viewers also need context about rapid intensification, rainfall, storm surge, evacuation access, infrastructure vulnerability, and the communities most likely to face barriers before, during, and after the storm.
After landfall, coverage should examine whether preparedness, insurance, and disaster-response systems protected the communities in harm’s way. Climate disasters are not only weather events — they are also tests of public systems that shape who is exposed, who can leave, who gets help, and who is left to recover with the least support.
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03/04/26 10:06 AM EST
- ### National TV news largely failed to connect Hurricane Helene to climate change despite clear signals
10/01/24 2:10 PM EDT
06/26/25
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GMAIL 10 25
NO LNX MANY
In this issue:
Record breaking climate disasters in 2025 ⬇️
Big Oil’s predicted “catastrophic events” are coming true in Jamaica ⬇️
A major win in French court ⬇️
Let’s get into it.
Here's the Latest
Americans are spending more than ever on climate disasters. Of the $20 trillion in GDP growth the U.S. has seen since 2000, $7.7 trillion — or about 36% — stems from spending to recover from or prepare for climate disasters. No wonder Big Oil is scared of paying its fair share.
Climate disasters during the first half of 2025 were the costliest on record, new data shows. Fourteen different weather disasters battered the U.S. in the first six months of the year, racking up $101 billion in damages — and taxpayers are being left to foot the bill.
“We’ve got extremely lucky we’ve not had any bigger disasters than we’ve already had this year. We are basically sitting ducks for when the next major disaster hits.”
Emergency management expert Samantha Montano
Hurricane Melissa is barreling toward Jamaica, bringing an estimated 40 inches of rain and the threat of “catastrophic” flooding. Sound familiar? That’s because Exxon warned in 1982 that if the use of fossil fuels was not reduced, it could cause “potentially catastrophic” climate events.
Voters want to hold Big Oil accountable
Across the U.S., voters of all stripes — and political ideologies — support holding fossil fuel companies accountable for climate change costs. When people hear more about Big Oil’s decades-long deception and the actual dollar costs of climate change, support often increases.
CCI’s polling has found that more than two-thirds of nationwide voters support suing oil companies to pay for climate damages.
READ THE POLLS
Dig Deeper
Big Oil is not a partner in the energy transition, new research shows
Big Oil companies are contributing minuscule amounts of renewable energy to the global market, a new study found — contradicting industry claims that fossil fuel companies are partners in climate solutions. The research comes at a time when fossil fuel companies such as ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, and Chevron are facing a growing number of lawsuits that argue the companies are deceiving the public about their role in the climate crisis through false or misleading advertising and other means.
The study, published in Nature Sustainability, found that, despite years of advertising to the contrary, the largest 250 oil and gas companies own just 1.42% of global renewable energy capacity in operation, more than half of which can be attributed to renewable energy operations that the fossil fuel companies acquired.
Of the Big Oil companies headquartered in North America and Europe — including ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, and Chevron — renewable energy makes up less than half a percent of each company’s energy generation.
READ THE BLOG
On The Record
TAP INTO THE CLIMATE ACCOUNTABILITY CONVERSATION
Imagine how much more progress could have been made to secure cheaper and cleaner energy if these giant polluters had not fought so hard to keep us hooked on their dirty products. Now the local costs of fossil-fueled climate change are falling on our residents while the corporations that imposed them on us pay nothing."
Maryland Senator Pamela Beidle in the Baltimore Sun.
Legal Action Against Big Oil
French oil giant TotalEnergies is misleading consumers with claims about its "net-zero ambitions" and role in the energy transition, a Paris court ruled this month. The ruling is the first of its kind.
ExxonMobil sued the state of California last week over new laws that would require the oil giant to disclose its greenhouse gas emissions and climate-related financial risks. “They’re scared they won’t be able to greenwash anymore,” California Senator Scott Wiener said about the suit. California already has two ongoing lawsuits that seek to hold Exxon accountable for deceiving the public about climate change and plastic recycling.
More than 60 survivors of Super Typhoon Odette are suing Shell in UK court, demanding the fossil fuel major pay for the damages the climate-charged disaster caused in the Philippines. The lawsuit is the first civil claim to directly link polluters to deaths and personal injuries that have already happened in the global south.
ICYMI
(IN CASE YOU MISSED IT)
🥤 Big Soda wants to turn MAGA against MAHA — and Big Oil’s fingerprints are all over it.
🤨 A Los Angeles Times investigation into how Exxon went "from embracing the science of climate change to publicly questioning it" was published 10 years ago last week. Evidence unearthed in that piece has been cited in a growing number of lawsuits against the oil giant.
🔎 READ: Trump and Republicans Join Big Oil’s All-Out Push to Shut Down Climate Liability Efforts
Check out this post ⬇️
You may have heard that the pesticide industry is seeking a liability shield from Congress — but did you know that the fossil fuel industry is also seeking legal immunity from Congress? Big Oil is fighting tooth and nail to escape a growing number of lawsuits that could make them pay for lying about the climate and health harms of their polluting products.
CCI’s President Richard Wiles explains why every American should oppose efforts to put these powerful industries above the law.
WATCH HERE
Who is cheerleading for Big Oil?
John Yoo thinks that communities shouldn’t have the right to sue Big Oil for lying about the safety of their products.
The law professor has also been accused of war crimes and been investigated for violations of domestic and international law. 🙄
WATCH HERE
Until next time 👋,
Isabella Garcia
Communications Strategist, Center for Climate Integrity
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MMA
09/30/25
09/04/25 mma
From Katrina to Helene: A timeline of Fox News’ hurricane misinformation, harmful narratives, and climate denial
August 29 marks the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall in Louisiana
Written by Allison Fisher
Published 08/28/25 mma
For two decades, Fox News has weaponized major disasters caused by supercharged storms to attack political opponents, push right-wing narratives, and deny climate change.
Major storms that hit populated areas generate wall-to-wall TV news coverage. At its best, this coverage exposes systemic issues that leave certain populations vulnerable to disasters, keeps a spotlight on both rescue and recovery processes to keep accountable those responsible for disaster response, and discusses the link between our warming planet and the intensification of storms, along with solutions for reducing climate pollution.
At its worst, coverage ignores these issues, downplaying or denying the role of climate change and using disasters to amplify false narratives and misinformation that serve a political agenda. In 20 years of hurricane reporting, Fox News’ coverage has predominately reflected the latter.
Below is an overview of some of the major storms that have made landfall in the U.S. over the past 20 years – and how Fox covered them.
- ### 2005 Hurricane Katrina: Fox pushed a false narrative of widespread violence and redirected federal failures to Democratic state and local officials
Hurricane Katrina remains the costliest extreme weather disaster in U.S. history and one of the deadliest, with many of the 1,392 deaths likely having come as a direct result of the federal government’s failed response. Over 1.5 million survivors were displaced, making it also “one of the largest forced migrations in U.S. history. … Families were separated, homes were lost, and entire communities were erased.”
The media latched on to unverified stories of violence and societal breakdown, demonizing those most impacted by the storm and further delaying rescue and recovery efforts. Military forces were deployed to suppress the victims rather than evacuate them. Fox pushed this narrative of violence — “robberies, rapes, carjackings, riots and murder. Violent gangs are roaming the streets at night, hidden by the cover of darkness” — and supported the Bush administration's reported strategy of blaming the faulty emergency response on Democratic state and local officials.
- ### 2012 Hurricane Sandy: Fox personalities and guests tried to brand the federal response to Hurricane Sandy as “Obama’s Katrina”
Superstorm Sandy hit the eastern United States in October 2012, causing at least 182 deaths and approximately $65 billion in damage. Fox criticized the Obama administration's Hurricane Sandy relief efforts by comparing them to the Bush administration's response to Hurricane Katrina. In fact, there were few similarities between the responses, and the Obama administration's response to Sandy was widely praised by members of both parties.
Discussing Hurricane Sandy on the November 1, 2012, edition of his show, Fox host Sean Hannity asked: “So where's President Obama? Well, after his photo-op with Gov. Chris Christie, and the help of your tax dollars, he boards Air Force One and he begins his day with a stump speech.” Hannity later said, “And with the horrifying images of Sandy's devastation now contrasted with the president's constant campaigning, this is starting to look like, in my opinion, Obama's Katrina.”
- ### 2017 Hurricanes Harvey & Irma: Fox personalities downplayed the storms, claiming, “It’s called the weather,” and suggested that the number of hurricanes making landfall is “decreasing”
Hurricane Harvey was, at the time, “the most significant tropical cyclone rainfall event in United States history” and was particularly devastating to Black and Hispanic communities in Texas. Discussing Hurricane Harvey on the August 25, 2017, edition of The Five, Fox host Jesse Watters downplayed the impact of climate change on hurricanes, stating, “Hurricanes have been happening since the beginning of time. … These things just happen. It’s called the weather” — a nonsensical argument, as scientists are not claiming that climate change causes hurricanes, but that it makes them stronger and more intense.
Hurricane Irma, which hit Florida, was one of the strongest hurricanes ever recorded in the Atlantic. It claimed 129 lives in the U.S. and Caribbean and cost an estimated $52 billion in damages. Discussing Hurricane Irma on the September 11, 2017, edition of The Five, co-host Greg Gutfeld also brought up the frequency of hurricanes while ignoring intensity, stating that “landfalling U.S. hurricanes, they’ve been decreasing over the last 140 years.”
- ### 2017 Hurricane Maria: Fox defended Trump’s response to Hurricane Maria and his lie that the death toll in Puerto Rico was inflated
Hurricane Maria killed an estimated 3,000 people in the U.S. territory and caused roughly $90 billion worth of damage. President Donald Trump’s administration was widely criticized for its response and for blocking federal aid to Puerto Rico, which struggled for weeks to return power to its residents. The mayor of San Juan publicly criticized Trump’s response, and Trump drew backlash when he threw paper towels into the crowd at a relief center. Lying about death toll numbers, Trump claimed Democrats had inflated the number to make him look “as bad as possible.”
Fox personalities were among the right-wing media figures who leapt to Trump's defense. Fox Business’ Lou Dobbs called the Hurricane Maria death toll a “farce” and “an amazing tortured inflation.” Fox News’ John Roberts suggested that the dispute over Maria's death toll in Puerto Rico was part of Trump’s “feud with Puerto Rican officials.”
On the October 19, 2017, edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight, the former host defended Trump from charges of racism against Puerto Ricans because “Puerto Rico is 75 percent white, according to the U.S. Census.” Carlson characterized as “unfounded” the charges that the Trump administration’s response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico was racist and added that “the race angle” bothered him because “it makes people hate each other, and it’s just stupid.”
- ### 2018 Hurricane Florence: Fox guest and climate science denier Joe Bastardi claimed, “If there’s climate change going on, it's actually decreasing the amount of major hits”
Hurricane Florence caused catastrophic damage to the Carolinas, claiming at least 37 lives. On Fox, climate denier Joe Bastardi and Rush Limbaugh’s former “official climatologist” Roy Spencer dismissed the link between climate change and intensifying hurricanes in favor of the denier argument that the frequency of hurricanes is decreasing. (Climate science does not argue that climate change is increasing the number of storms, but rather that it is making storms “more intense, with higher wind speeds, heavier rainfall, and more severe storm surge.”)
On the September 14, 2018, edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight, Spencer talked about the declining frequency of “hits of the United States by major hurricanes,” claiming there’s too much “natural variability” to determine what influence human actions have had on hurricanes. On Hannity, Bastardi stated, “The amount of hurricanes in the last 50 years, from Florida to New England, is 37% of what it was the previous 50 years, so if there’s climate change going on, it's actually decreasing the amount of major hits.”
- ### 2019 Hurricane Dorian: Fox personalities dismissed the impact of climate on hurricanes and defended Trump’s “Sharpie-gate.” Hannity called the media who reported on Trump’s lie “psychotic jackasses.”
Affecting many states in the south, Hurricane Dorian was also the worst storm ever to hit the Bahamas and was responsible for at least 78 deaths. But the lives that Dorian claimed were overshadowed by the spectacle of “Sharpie-gate” when the president altered a map of the storm’s predicted path with a marker. After Trump lied about the path of Hurricane Dorian, using a Sharpie to manufacture a threat to Alabama, not only did prime-time host Sean Hannity defend him, but Fox’s Howard Kurtz attacked the media for covering Trump’s comments. Hannity called the media who reported on Trump’s lie “psychotic jackasses” and claimed that only “Trump derangement syndrome” could explain why reporters would point out that the president was wrong.
Roy Spencer appeared on the September 2, 2019, edition of The Story with Martha MacCallum to downplay climate change’s impact on hurricanes. Spencer stated that there is “no long term trend in either their intensity or in the number of major hurricanes … that have hit Florida.” On the September 4, 2019, edition of Fox & Friends, co-host Ainsley Earhardt again brought up storm frequency in order to downplay the link between climate change and hurricanes, stating, “Hurricanes have been happening since the beginning of the atmosphere.” Later, on September 4, 2019, Jesse Watters appeared on The Story with Martha MacCallum to claim falsely that “there's no correlation between temperature and hurricanes, and there's no trend over the last hundred years about intensity or ferociousness or numbers.”
- ### 2021 Hurricane Ida: Fox host Sean Hannity claimed, “The left is blaming climate change for the heavy rainfall, severe weather, and using it as yet another pretext to push their Green New Deal socialist agenda”
Hurricane Ida caused extensive damage from the Southeast to the Northeast U.S., where it brokeprecipitation records in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania and caused major flash flooding, killing 95 people and causing an estimated $85 billion in damages. Fox News used the storm to downplay the seriousness of climate change and attack then-President Joe Biden’s climate agenda, including the infrastructure bill that contained measures to make communities more resilient in the face of extreme weather.
While discussing Hurricane Ida on the September 7, 2021, edition of The Ingraham Angle, one of the network’s favorite climate contrarians, Michael Shellenberger, said that the frequency of hurricanes is decreasing and that there is “no significant increase” in intensity — a bald-faced lie. On the September 8, 2021, edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight, Joe Bastardi downplayed the intensity of the storm by arguing that other bad storms happened in the 1950s.
On the September 2, 2021, edition of Fox News’ Hannity, Sean Hannity began a segment downplaying the impacts of climate on Ida by stating, “The left is blaming climate change for the heavy rainfall, severe weather, and using it as yet another pretext to push their Green New Deal socialist agenda.” On the September 5, 2021, edition of Fox News’ The Next Revolution with Steve Hilton, host Steve Hilton ran a short segment on Democrats supposedly using Ida to implement the Green New Deal.
- ### 2022 Hurricane Ian: Former Fox host Tucker Carlson falsely stated “there’s no science” behind claims connecting climate change to more intense storms
Hurricane Ian brought a historic storm surge and catastrophic flooding to Florida and was responsible for at least 84 storm-related fatalities. As Hurricane Ian pummeled Florida and the Carolinas, Fox News dismissed, mocked, and outright denied climate change’s impact on hurricanes. On the September 29, 2022, edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight, former Fox host Tucker Carlson focused on hurricane frequency and downplayed the intensity argument, falsely claiming that “there’s no science behind these claims.” On the September 28, 2022, edition of Hannity, Sean Hannity stated, “During hurricane season, you usually have hurricanes, like we did a hundred years ago.” Later that night on The Ingraham Angle, Michael Shellenberger stated that hurricanes are “not intensifying right now, so any perception that hurricanes are more intense is just a perception fed by that relentless alarmist media.”
Meanwhile, Jesse Watters mocked Biden's disaster response. Watters said, “Maybe the reason Joe [Biden] isn't talking with the leader of the state that's about to be devastated by this natural disaster is because he's already got the whole thing covered with the Inflation Reduction Act. Sen. Amy Klobuchar laid it out for us clearly. There's no need to worry, people, because the Inflation Reduction Act and voting for Democrats is going to stop hurricanes.”
- ### 2023 Hurricane Idalia: Fox guest and climate science denier Judith Curry said scientists have “seriously mischaracterized” the threat of climate change
Hurricane Idalia slammed into Florida's Gulf Coast, causing approximately $4 billion in damage to one of the state's poorest and least populated areas. As climate-fueled Hurricane Idalia barreled toward Florida, Jesse Watters Primetime hosted Judith Curry, a climate contrarian who consulted for oil and gas companies during her time in academia, to argue that scientists have “seriously mischaracterized” the threat of climate change. She claimed that the “dominant factor” in climate change is “far and away” Earth’s “natural climate variability.”
On the August 30, 2023, edition of Fox News’ so-called straight news program Special Report with Bret Baier, anchor Bret Baier dismissed comments from Joe Biden connecting the storm to climate change.
- ### 2024 Hurricane Helene: Fox host Jesse Watters claimed that “the Biden-Harris administration spent a billion dollars of FEMA money on illegal aliens”
With 213 fatalities, Hurricane Helene became the second deadliest hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland in 50 years, with economic losses estimated at more than $200 billion. Fox used Hurricane Helene to attack the Biden administration’s policies and disaster response while laundering harmful misinformation, even while politicians of both parties representing the impacted areas praised the response and begged media and bad actors to stop spreading misinformation that ultimately disrupted rescue and recovery efforts and put Federal Emergency Management Agency workers in danger.
One of these false and harmful claims contended that FEMA’s hurricane victim relief funds had been drained by aid to undocumented immigrants. In reality, the funding is separate and unrelated. Jesse Watters and Sean Hannity led the charge in repeating the false claim; Watters’ prime-time show repeated the lie in 5 consecutive broadcasts starting October 3, and Hannity managed 6.
Fox News also falsely claimed that Vice President Kamala Harris and the Biden administration were ignoring millions of Americans impacted by intense flooding while dishonestly claiming that victims were only entitled to $750 in aid, when in reality that is just the start of federal benefits. Fox’s misleading coverage of the $750 payments was “one of the more dishonest omissions ever seen on Fox News – which is saying something,” Mediaite senior editor Michael Luciano wrote of the misleading attack by Fox hosts Hannity, Watters, and Laura Ingraham.
Fox personalities also complained about the Biden administration’s pledge to give $157 million to Lebanon, incorrectly claiming that the humanitarian aid for Lebanon was being taken from funds that would otherwise be used for disaster relief assistance. Hannity misleadingly suggested U.S. foreign aid was competing with disaster relief for funding. Watters, meanwhile, incredulously asked, “How is it that Biden and Harris can send money overseas faster than they can send it to our own citizens?”
- ### 2025 extreme weather season: Fox News is giving the Trump administration a pass on federal disaster response
In May, just weeks before the start of the Atlantic hurricane season and peak extreme weather, CNN obtained an internal memo warning that FEMA was “not ready” for hurricane season. According to the internal assessment, preparations for hurricane season have been “derailed” and issues abound at the agency, “including a general uncertainty around its mission, lack of coordination with states and other federal agencies, low morale and new red tape that will likely slow responses.” Fox ignored reporting on the agency's lack of preparation for this year’s extreme weather season. The network was also quiet about multiple states that expressed frustration over delayed or denied disaster relief from the Trump administration.
On June 2, acting FEMA Administrator David Richardson made headlines, first in Reuters, for telling staff in a daily briefing that he had been unaware the U.S. has a hurricane season. Legacynewsoutlets, including cable networks CNN and MSNBC, covered Richardson’s controversial remarks and the wider concerns about FEMA’s hurricane preparedness while Fox News seemingly ignored them.
After the deadly flooding in Central Texas in early July, Fox News personalities attacked the media and prominent Democrats for linking the flooding to climate change and for raising concerns about Trump administration cuts to agencies and services that predict and respond to extreme weather events. When reporting showed that the Trump administration’s response had been delayed, Fox ran defense for Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
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an 8 25
Feds still withholding millions in funds for North Carolina as Hurricane Erin bears down
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2024/11/01/opinion/wake-helene-milton-conspiracy-theories-disinformation
The experiences with Hurricanes #Helene and #Milton serve as a stark warning of the problems we face in an era of accelerating climate change alongside rampant #misinformation, writes Andrew Heffernan #disinformation #fema
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mma 10 24
Trump and right-wing media are still lying about FEMA, and CNN is still fact-checking them
Weeks after Hurricane Helene hit southern Appalachia, Trump and right-wing media are still spreading lies that are harming aid efforts and attracting extremist groups to vulnerable communities
Special ProgramsClimate & Energy
Written by Ilana Berger
Published 10/24/24
On October 21 and 22, CNN News Central continued to debunk misinformation about FEMA that former President Donald Trump repeated at his October 21 visit to Swannanoa, North Carolina.
During the visit, Trump addressed victims of Hurricane Helene, which devastated western North Carolina in late September, including Swannanoa. He falsely claimed that FEMA’s “rescue effort was almost non-existent” in the state and that the Biden administration “spent a lot of money on bringing illegal migrants … so they don't have any money for the people that live here.”
Finally, Trump specified that the administration was spending money designated for rescue and recovery on “illegal immigrants … maybe so they could vote in the election.” Right-wing media have been amplifying these lies, and omitting the fact that in 2019, Trump used FEMA funds to respond to migrants at the border.
The rhetoric appears to have resonated, as a new poll released by Harvard's Center for American Political Studies and the analytics firms The Harris Poll and HarrisX, found that “two-thirds of Americans think the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) should not provide housing to undocumented immigrants.” FEMA funds have never been diverted away from hurricane aid for any other purpose, including housing for migrants.
FEMA, local officials, and the White House have been responding to a flood of misinformation related to both the causes of the hurricane and FEMA’s response in the impacted areas. Driven in part by lies like the ones Trump has repeatedly amplified, such as claims that FEMA is willfully ignoring hurricane victims because they are Republican, threats against the agency, and other outlandish conspiracies have proliferated online. FEMA has faced at least two armed threats on the ground during its response to Helene, and the threats are ongoing.
The Washington Post reported on October 23 that Veterans on Patrol, a group that the Southern Poverty Law Center calls a “hard-right” antigovernment militia run by a Christian nationalist, set up a distribution site at a grocery store to help residents of Lake Lure, North Carolina, but ended up intimidating them.
One Lake Lure volunteer told the Post that she was afraid and not sleeping because of the behavior of the group's founder, Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer, after she questioned his intentions. “It turned into people calling me last night, like, be careful. Be careful. Really, he’s talking a lot about you,” she said.
Video
CitationFrom the October 21, 2024, edition of CNN's CNN News Central
On October 21, reporting from Concord, North Carolina, correspondent Kristen Holmes told hosts Brianna Keilar and Boris Sanchez on CNN News Centralthat Trump promoted “disinformation around FEMA.” She called out the false and dangerous claim that Democrats purposely spent FEMA money on migrant housing rather than relief efforts because they “want migrants to be voting in this election.” The accusation comes as Project 2025 allies are actively organizing to steal the election.
Holmes emphasized the network’s dedication to setting the record straight, saying that reporters had “fact-checked this before, we’ll fact-check it again.” She repeated that “we know that FEMA has different pots of money. They do have money that goes toward migrant housing, that does not come from disaster relief money.” She also added that while speaking with governors and state officials in places that Helene impacted, “None of them complained really about the federal response or about FEMA.”
Video
CitationFrom the October 22, 2024, edition of CNN's CNN Central
The next day on October 22, CNN followed up with another fact check on Trump’s most recent tirade, where reporter Daniel Dale clarified that FEMA does still have disaster relief money, that there has been “no sign that anything inappropriate’s happening” with the allocation of FEMA funds, and finally, that “it is not true that the Biden administration ran out of money.”
Doubling down on Trump and right-wing media’s assertions about where aid is going, Dale said that it’s “not true that FEMA improperly diverted disaster relief money to house migrants” and that “FEMA itself has already provided more than $100 million in individual assistance to North Carolina residents” as well as “more than $300 million to the state in general” from the Biden administration overall.
an 10 24
A new report details how Russian actors played a significant role in the spread of disinformation concerning the federal response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton this fall.
On Thursday, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) — a Washington, D.C. based think tank that researches extremism, polarization and misinformation — published a detailed report into how Russia capitalized on America's partisan climate in the wake of both hurricanes. Researchers found that Russian actors aimed to "sow distrust in U.S. institutions" by "attempting to exploit existing frustrations among certain political groups."
One particular talking point Russia seized on was the false claim that U.S. support for Ukraine's defense against Russia's invasion was diverting federal money from hurricane victims. Of course, this is flatly untrue: The last Ukraine aid package was appropriated by Congress months before the hurricanes hit.
READ MORE:['Totally out of luck': How Project 2025 would gut relief for Hurricane Helene victims
However, Russian disinformation artists still managed to seize on that narrative as a means of undermining American support for Ukraine. The Vladimir Putin regime was particularly fond of billionaire X owner Elon Musk's tweets making that point for them, according to ISD.
"Similarly, Russian media echoed remarks from former President Donald Trump in which he criticized the Biden administration’s supposed focus on Ukraine over domestic disaster recovery," ISD researchers wrote.
Russian actors also shared fake AI-generated images of supposed flooding at Disney World in Florida that never actually occurred. Moscow-based news outlet RIA Novosti shared the fake images on the social media app Telegram in the hopes of reaching English-speaking audiences.
"The Kremlin’s overarching goal in these disinformation campaigns is not simply to critique the Biden administration’s handling of Hurricanes Milton and Helene, but to sow distrust in US institutions," ISD wrote. "By painting the U.S. government as either incompetent or actively malicious, Russian media attempts to undermine public confidence in the U.S. disaster relief system, federal agencies including FEMA and broader political leadership.
READ MORE:[Trump — who has $4 billion — is now asking other people to donate to Helene relief
The Biden administration's response to the hurricanes was praised by governors of affected states representing both parties. Georgia Republican Governor Brian Kemp noted that after Helene ravaged his state, Biden called him personally and simply asked: "What do you need?" South Carolina Republican Governor Henry McMaster also praised FEMA's rapid recovery efforts in the Palmetto State. And North Carolina Democratic Governor Roy Cooper heaped praise on Biden for deploying thousands of federal employees and equipment to help rescue stranded residents and rebuild infrastructure.
"We’re grateful for the quick actions and close communications that we have had with the president and with the FEMA team,” Cooper said. “And Mr. President, we know that we have made a lot of asks of you, and we are grateful for your ear and for your actions.”
READ MORE:'All because of greed': 6 die at factory that told employees to work during Helene or be fired
*Click here to read ISD's report in full.
For the second time in as many weeks, Florida residents are picking up the pieces from a major hurricane supercharged by the climate crisis. While not as severe as meteorologists feared, Milton has killed at least 11 people, left 3 million without electricity, flooded coastal towns, spawned tornadoes, and caused what will likely be billions in damage.
But even as forecasters were left speechless as Milton became one of the fastest-growing hurricanes in history, there was one group of people that shouldn’t have been surprised—fossil fuel executives.
For at least 45 years, oil company scientists have been privately warning executives that burning fossil fuels would lead to catastrophic storms. Their startlingly accurate warnings are detailed in internal documents and publicly-released films obtained by the Center for Climate Integrity and Dutch news site De Correspondent.
Here’s some of what Big Oil knew about the connection between fossil fuels and catastrophic weather, and when they knew it:
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A 1979 memo from Exxon scientists to Exxon managers. Source: Center for Climate Integrity
- 1979: Exxon scientists warn managers that fossil fuels will cause “major shifts in weather patterns." An internal memo distributed to Exxon managers summarized an Exxon scientific study that found that “present trends of fossil fuel combustion with a coal emphasis will lead to dramatic world climate changes within the next 75 years.” Those predicted climate shifts included drought, violent storms, hurricanes, sea level rise, and reduced snowpack—all of which are now startlingly accurate. To avoid these changes, one Exxon executive concluded, “dramatic changes in patterns of energy use would be required.”
- September 1982: Exxon scientist tells top executives there is “unanimous agreement” about weather shifts. A memo from one of Exxon’s top scientists to Exxon management read: “There is unanimous agreement in the scientific community that a temperature increase of this magnitude would bring about significant changes in the earth’s climate, including rainfall distribution and alterations in the biosphere.” The scientist concluded that despite the connection between “Exxon’s major business” and “the increase of atmospheric CO2,” it is Exxon’s “ethical responsibility” to publish its research (the results were later published in scientific journals).
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Source: Center for Climate Integrity
- November 1982: Exxon manager warns that rising CO2 will lead to potential global catastrophes. In a second memo, sent only a few months later, the head of Exxon’s environmental affairs division warned management that global warming could lead to “potentially catastrophic effects” including sea level rise, melting polar ice caps, drought, and flooding. The Exxon manager summarized an outside scientific study, saying that carbon emissions from fossil fuels could eventually cause “great irreversible harm to our planet.”
- 1988: Shell scientists predict that fossil fuels will lead to extreme storms. In a confidential report on “The Greenhouse Effect” that summarized five years of internal climate studies, Shell scientists predicted that “increases in CO2 and other greenhouse gases would most likely cause a 2 degree warming by 2040 and a 5 increase by 2100,” which would lead to “dramatic changes in precipitation and storm patterns and a rise in global average sea level.” The report also estimated that there would be an increase in “the frequency of tropical storms, which is again a temperature dependent phenomenon.”
- 1989: Shell experts project that violent weather could lead to conflicts. A confidential planning document includes projections of the consequences of climate change, including the statement that “there would be more violent weather – more storms, more droughts, more deluges.” The authors warned that people could not escape these extreme weather patterns because “there is no place to go.” The report concluded that the climate crisis could spark multiple conflicts, and that “civilization could prove a fragile thing.”
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Source: Center for Climate Integrity
- 1991: Shell film projects that abnormal weather will become commonplace. In the film “Climate of Concern”, which was made for public viewing but unseen for years, Shell admitted that global warming would likely lead to intense weather events. “What is now considered abnormal weather could become a new norm,” the film said. “It is thought that warmer seas could make destructive [storm] surges more frequent and even more ferocious.”
- 1991: BP makes a film about the climate crisis’ impact on extreme weather. In another film produced that year, called “This Earth—What Makes Weather?”, BP presciently predicted the exact warming mechanism that made hurricanes like Helene and Milton so powerful. “From warmer seas, more water would evaporate, making storms and the havoc they cause more frequent,” the film said. “Catastrophic floods could become commonplace.” BP added that “the threat of such climatic change is now one of our most urgent concerns. Never has it been more important to understand climate and the seemingly chaotic mechanisms of weather.”
- 1998: Shell researchers predict that they’ll be blamed for violent storms. In an astonishing series of internal planning scenarios—nicknamed TINA for “There Is No Alternative”—Shell researchers predicted not only that violent hurricanes would become more likely, but that people would blame fossil fuel companies for them. The report said that by 2010, a “series of violent storms [will cause] extensive damage to the eastern coast of the U.S.”
Shell also predicted that in reaction to more destructive storms, “a coalition of environmental NGOs [will bring] a class-action suit against the US government and fossil-fuel companies on the grounds of neglecting what scientists (including their own) have been saying for years: that something must be done.” Shell’s predictions were so eerily accurate that the Climate Investigations Center called them “seemingly clairvoyant.”
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An excerpt from Shell’s 1998 planning scenario document. Source: Center for Climate Integrity
At the same time these internal memos were being circulated, fossil fuel executives from the same companies were publicly downplaying their industry’s role in the climate crisis, and its connection to extreme weather.
In 1988, after a particularly hot summer, oil corporations began to plan their public relations strategy for climate change. In an internal memo in August of that year, an Exxon spokesperson advised leadership to “emphasize the uncertainty in scientific conclusions” and work with key government agencies, including the United Nations, the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency.
In the following decades, fossil fuel companies would run advertising campaigns, write policy, and influence scientific reports to hide the link between fossil fuels and extreme weather. That climate denial is still happening today, as oil giants spend billions delaying any action that will phase out fossil fuels while greenwashing their polluting projects.
As recently as 2015, internal emails obtained by The Wall Street Journal revealed that Exxon executives were still asking scientists to cast doubt on climate science and its connection to natural disasters. Last year, fossil fuel companies sent a record 2,456 lobbyists to the United Nations annual climate summit to influence negotiations. And most recently, the U.S. Senate Budget Committee found that the fossil fuel industry is still misleading the public about its efforts to mitigate the climate crisis, while privately admitting it can’t meet its net zero emissions goals.
These tactics successfully blocked policy over the past 50 years that could have helped prevent climate catastrophes like Milton. Half of U.S. states, including Florida, recently passed laws prohibiting methane gas restrictions, even though it’s a highly-polluting fossil fuel. Fossil fuel lobbyists have also prevented a global resolution ending fossil fuel use, which experts say is necessary to preserve a livable climate.
Misinformation about the responses to hurricanes Helene and Milton— ranging from accusations that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is failing to mobilize resources to hard-hit areas to conspiracytheories that the government controls the weather — has surged across social media platforms in the past several weeks.
Media Matters found content on TikTok, Facebook, Telegram, and X where users expressed interest in traveling to instigate violence toward FEMA workers in North Carolina or said they supported others doing so.
The threats have forced FEMA to take safety precautions while distributing aid, and in one county, temporarily pause aid altogether. In Rutherford County, North Carolina, and Carter County, Tennessee, FEMA workers faced threats of violence from armed civilians.
Following online misinformation about the federal response to Hurricane Helene, FEMA faced threats of violence
According to The Washington Post, on October 12, North Carolina resident William Jacob Parsons was arrested after Rutherford County officials received a tip that “a white male had an assault rifle” and had made comments about going to harm FEMA employees.
There were initial reports that U.S. military personnel "had come across … trucks of armed militia saying they were out hunting FEMA” but further investigation revealed that the threat was “more limited.” FEMA was operating in the area again as of October 13, but the Post reported that the agency was “working out of an abundance of caution” by stationing their operations at fixed locations instead of going door to door.
On October 15, a group of disaster relief workers said they came across a group of armed individuals confronting FEMA workers in Carter County, Tennessee.
“They were all armed, open carry not guns drawn, but they had surrounded them and there was a lady there that was yelling and threatening them,” said veteran volunteer Tracy Elder. WJHL reported that “During the confrontation, Elder did call 911 because she said they weren’t being rational,” but she was ultimately able to diffuse the situation.
Anxiety around potential encounters with armed civilians follows the proliferation of false claims on social media that FEMA has been “obstructing” or confiscating supplies or closing roads and bridges, preventing residents from leaving.
Social media users said they plan on forming armed convoys to go to North Carolina or support militias that are mobilizing against FEMA
Media Matters found social media content with significant engagement, including videos with tens of thousands of views, implying that armed civilians should confront FEMA. Some of these creators say they are part of active groups, though there aren’t currently reports of FEMA encountering armed militias.
Additionally, Media Matters found examples of users on alt-tech sites like Gab, Gettr, and Truth Social explicitly encouraging harming or killing FEMA workers.
One TikTok account with a username that seemingly implies violence against federal employees said — in a video with 322,000 views — that they are “part of a group that we are willing to get you through any and all roadblocks by any means necessary. Any means necessary. You know what I mean.” The original has been deleted, but as of this writing the video is still viewable on the app via repost.
On October 3, one TikTok user claimed without evidence in a video with over 60,000 views that “FEMA turned guns on people trying to help out.” He claimed that it was “confirmed by Newsmax.”
Another account appeared to be recruiting “special forces, SEAL teams, Rangers, Marines, anybody that has combat experience” to “build the team” prior to Hurricane Helene. The same account later began raising money for a 25-hour drive to North Carolina. In one video that has since been deleted, the TikTok user said that, “FEMA has no idea what’s coming” and that “we’re going to get our meat.”
Media Matters also previously found an October 5 video specifically calling for TikTok users to “organize” a convoy against FEMA, and another encouraging them to “stand by awaiting the rally point” to defend the country against “domestic enemies.” Both have been taken down from the app.
One TikTok user claimed on October 8 that a militia was going to Chimney Rock in Rutherford County, North Carolina to “stop the bulldozing and stop the mines.” He then said “y'all boys get started, give me a call. Let’s drain this fucking swamp.”
Accompanying support for armed militias in North Carolina were calls for sheriffs to arrest FEMA workers on X and Facebook. On X, Newsmax host Todd Starnes wrote, “It is only a matter of time until law enforcement in North Carolina physically remove FEMA and any other federl assets who are impending rescue efforts and relief deliveries. The government is playing a very dangerous game.”
A video of North Carolina Sheriff Tripp Kester “calling for local citizens to form militias to protect the Constitution” has been shared widely on Telegram, TikTok, Facebook, and X. The posts claim that he “calls for local citizens to form militias to protect the Constitution … either by voting, or God forbid, to use our 2nd amendment rights to protect ourselves from tyranny.” But the video is actually from 2020 when the sheriff was reacting to a proposed bill that was labeled as a “gun grab.”
In a video shared on Telegram, Jeremy Herrell, a host on the right-wing streaming network LFA TV, claimed that “the Sheriff departments are literally banning together with the fire departments and saying that they will arrest any federal employee that tries to impede on any rescue or relief by claiming jurisdiction.”
One TikTok user appears to be attempting to organize a gathering of some sort in Washington, D.C., from November 15-17 to “make your bullshit insurrection look like chump change.” The account previously posted at least one video promoting misinformation about the response to Hurricane Helene.
FEMA, the White House, and the media have been actively combatting pervasive misinformation about Hurricanes Helene and Milton
Fearing the exact scenario that is currently playing out in North Carolina and Tennessee, both FEMA and the White House made a point to push back against false claims about recovery efforts.
FEMA created a “Myth vs. Fact” page in an attempt to dispel rumors and President Joe Biden
misinformation twice in televised appearances, triggering more backlash from right-wing media.
Several media outlets have debunked claims that FEMA is purposefully withholding aid and highlighted the agencies’ efforts.
Biden has urged House Speaker Mike Johnson to take action in Congress to approve additional aid for FEMA. Johnson has refused because “It would be premature to call everyone back now, because these storms are so large in their scope and magnitude, it's going to take a little bit of time to make those calculations.”
10/16/24 mma
mma
How a lie about immigrants and FEMA disaster aid spread across Fox News
Fox’s Jesse Watters and Sean Hannity spread the lie on 5 and 6 straight broadcasts, respectively. Many shows on the network joined in to push similar claims at least once since October 3.
Written by Helena Hind & Alicia Sadowski
Published 10/11/24 mma
Amid the right-wing media onslaught of hurricane-related misinformation, Fox News has latched onto the false claim that the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s relief funds for hurricane victims have been drained by aid to undocumented immigrants. In reality, the funding is separate and unrelated.
Top-rated hosts Jesse Watters and Sean Hannity led the charge in repeating the false claim; Watters’ prime-time show repeated the lie in 5 consecutive broadcasts starting October 3, and Hannity managed 6.
Even though a Fox reporter obtained evidence debunking the lie, the narrative spread to the majority of the network’s opinion and “straight news” programs.
FEMA’s disaster relief fund has nothing to do with immigrant aid — and Fox knows it
- FEMA maintains separate funds for disaster relief and aid for immigrants. As a FEMA spokesperson explained, “The Shelter and Services Program (SSP) is a completely separate, appropriated grant program that was authorized and funded by Congress and is not associated in any way with FEMA's disaster-related authorities or funding streams." Newsweek, [10/4/24]
- Donald Trump alleged that the Biden administration “stole the FEMA money” for undocumented immigrants during an October 3 campaign rally, prompting a fact check from FEMA. An October 3 entry in FEMA’s “Hurricane Rumor Response” page explained: “FEMA’s disaster response efforts and individual assistance is funded through the Disaster Relief Fund, which is a dedicated fund for disaster efforts. Disaster Relief Fund money has not been diverted to other, non-disaster related efforts.” The Daily Beast, [10/3/24; Federal Emergency Management Agency, 10/3/24]
- Fox News knows that FEMA disaster money is not going towards aid to undocumented immigrants. On October 8, senior congressional correspondent Chad Pergram posted on X that Fox News obtained a GOP memo saying there is “no funding connection between” the migrant shelter program and the Disaster Relief Fund. When Pergram appeared on the network after posting about the memo, he failed to discuss the part of the document that debunks the lie that the federal government spent disaster relief funds on migrant aid. . Media Matters, [10/10/24, 10/9/24, 10/9/24]
- ### Jesse Watters's Fox show repeated the false claim in 5 consecutive broadcasts
- Watters first repeated the smear on the October 3 edition of his eponymous show, saying “the Biden-Harris administration spent a billion dollars of FEMA money on illegal aliens,” without providing context about the separate funds. Watters continued, “When American citizens, the ones who were born here and pay taxes, deserve help, Biden and Harris are saying, ‘Ah, sorry, we gave it all away to the people who broke into the country.’” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [10/3/24]
- The next day, after FEMA published a fact-check debunking the claim on its webpage, Watters repeated the lie: “After blowing a billion dollars on migrants and with Mayorkas saying they ran out of money, FEMA clearly has been mismanaged, either through corruption or incompetence.” Watters then called for the immediate firing of FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell. Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [10/4/24; FEMA, 10/3/24]
Watters doubled down the next Monday, October 7: “FEMA’s broke. … Where’d the money go? More than a billion dollars went to welcoming Biden's migrants.” Watters also said that White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre “lied” after she debunked the claim on October 4. Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [10/7/24]
- On October 8, during a segment criticizing Vice President Kamala Harris’ approach to Hurricane Milton relief, Watters’ guest Stephen Miller accused Harris of “divert[ing] all the FEMA funds to illegal aliens.” Miller ranted, “Now FEMA is broke, they can't help Americans. Why? Because Kamala cares about illegals more.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [10/8/24]
* As Hurricane Milton made landfall on October 9, Watters doubled down again: “Mayorkas said FEMA was going to run out of money for hurricane season. And FEMA admitted they wasted a billion on migrants. Now, I'm not great at math… but if you spend too much money on one thing and don't have enough money for another thing, that means you messed up.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [10/9/24]
* ### Sean Hannity repeated the lie in 6 consecutive broadcasts of his Fox News show
- Hannity began repeating the lie on his prime-time show on October 3, alleging the Biden administration “took over $1 billion of FEMA funds supposed to be available for national emergencies to help you, the American people, … and they spent all of that money on their 11.5 million unvetted illegal immigrants from over 180 other countries.” Hannity falsely claimed disaster money was used for “free food, housing, health care, education, sex change surgeries, debit cards, four-star hotels for illegal immigrants.” Fox News, *Hannity*, [10/3/24]
- The next day, Hannity lamented that FEMA is “taking money for Americans and giving it to their illegal immigrants that they are obsessed with.” He added, “It is unconscionable. It is soulless,” and maintained that FEMA “should be focused on emergency management, not illegal immigration.” Fox News, *Hannity*, [10/4/24]
- The following Monday, October 7, Hannity persisted with the smear, saying that FEMA is “bankrupt” because “over a billion dollars went to Harris-Biden unvetted illegal immigrants.” Fox News, *Hannity*, [10/7/24]
- On October 8, Hannity demanded that the Biden administration “not steal the money from FEMA and give it to your unvetted illegal immigrants from 180 countries, because their illegal immigrants seem to be prioritized that are way more important than the American people.” Fox News, *Hannity*, [10/8/24]
- On October 9, Hannity complained that “the agency distributed more than a billion dollars to house and feed Harris and Biden unvetted illegal immigrants.” “Secretary of Homeland Security Mayorkas said, ‘Yeah, FEMA is apparently in shambles financially and we probably don't have enough money for hurricane season,’” Hannity ranted. “Then, we discovered on FEMA’s own website that the agency distributed more than a billion dollars to house and feed Harris and Biden unvetted illegal immigrants.” Fox News, *Hannity*, [10/9/24]
- On October 10, Hannity continued to claim that at FEMA, “over a billion dollars was diverted to help their unvetted illegal immigrants.” Fox News, *Hannity*, [10/10/24]
- ### After Watters and Hannity seeded the lie, the narrative then spread onto Fox’s opinion programming
- On Fox & Friends First, former NFL player and conservative activist Jack Brewer cited “FEMA money going to illegal immigrants” as a reason that the Biden-Harris administration has to change the “way that we deal with natural disasters.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends First*, [10/8/24]
- While discussing Hurricane Helene relief, Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy attacked Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for allegedly having “millions and millions and millions of dollars” and choosing to spend the money not on Americans, but on “processing people who are in this country illegally.” Co-host Ainsley Earhardt responded that the money should instead “go toward these American families that have lost everything.” Doocy suggested the Biden administration should remedy the budget crisis by announcing a “pause on all the people coming into the country illegally” and should instead “reprogram that money to take care of the people here in the United States.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [10/3/24]
Outnumbered* co-host Kayleigh McEnany falsely claimed that the “reason why” FEMA was facing a budget shortfall was because the agency spent “almost a billion dollars” on “illegal immigrants in migrant shelters.” Emily Compagno reiterated the sentiment by alleging that the “federal government wasted the taxpayer money that these Americans invested” and that Americans were entitled to the money over undocumented immigrants. “FEMA's funds are their funds that they paid into, that they are now being withheld from to pay for illegal migrants,” she complained. Fox News, *Outnumbered*, [10/4/24]
- The Five co-host Greg Gutfeld used a false analogy to compare FEMA funding to a bank account to allege aid to undocumented immigrants was taken at the expense of disaster relief aid: “It’s all the same thing. So, if you've got to spend money here, it is going to be taken away from here.” He asked, “Why do Americans have to wait in line for the stuff they pay for?” Fox News, *The Five*, [10/9/24]
* Laura Ingraham stated that “Democrats are prioritizing the needs of noncitizens … ahead of the people that our leaders are supposed to be serving.” Ingraham called the allocation of money for undocumented immigrant aid “disgraceful” and claimed it resulted in Americans facing inflation and debt to “give gobs of money to liberal special interests.” Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [10/3/24]
- Repeat Gutfeld! guest and antisemitic right-wing media personality Bryan Sharpe complained The New York Times was not addressing “FEMA not having money because they spent it on illegal migrants” Fox News, *Gutfeld!*, [10/8/24; Media Matters, 9/9/22, 10/3/23]
- ### Some of the network’s “straight news” programs spread the narrative or failed to contextualize FEMA appropriations for undocumented aid
- Fox anchor Dana Perino highlighted DHS Secretary Mayorkas’ “warning” that “FEMA does not have the funds to make it through hurricane season” despite “Mayorkas' DHS having $640 million — now that’s designated money — to help communities support illegal migrants.” Fox correspondent Chad Pergram took the blame off Congress: “Congress made sure FEMA had more than $20 billion in last week's emergency spending bill ahead of the storm.” Fox News, *America’s Newsroom*, [10/3/24]
- Even though the Shelter and Services Program is distinct from FEMA’s disaster response, Fox News contributor Kellyanne Conway said that “they want us to believe that that’s not so and those funds wouldn't be fungible anyway.” Fox News, *The Faulkner Focus*, [10/9/24; Media Matters, 10/9/24]
* Fox anchor John Roberts asked why the federal government did not use the $66 billion FEMA spent “taking care of the illegal immigration problem” to pay for hurricane relief. Fox News, *America Reports*, [10/3/24]
- Former Vivek Ramaswamy communications director Tricia McLaughlin claimed, “We know that $670 million have gone to efforts under FEMA's umbrella to house migrants.” She asked, “Why is the focus on noncitizens in this country and not on the recovery efforts for Americans?” Fox News, *Fox News @ Night*, [10/9/24]
It takes a bubble
Hurricane Helene shows the catastrophic consequences of the right-wing echo chamber's support for Donald Trump's lies
Written by Matt Gertz
Published 10/08/24 mma
Former President Donald Trump’s deadly lies about the federal response to Hurricane Helene — and soon, inevitably, Hurricane Milton — depend on the impermeability of the right-wing information bubble.
President Joe Biden has directed an ongoing federal and state response to the swath of death and destruction Hurricane Helene left on the southeastern United States, an effort which includes tens of thousands of personnel helping victims across several states.
Trump’s Helene response has been characterized by conspiracy theories and grievance-mongering for political gain.
The Biden administration won plaudits from GOP elected officials across the region, but Trump falsely claimed the federal government abandoned the public. Americans affected by the storm can access a robust program of federal assistance, but he falsely claims they could only get $750 in aid. The White House stressed there’s plenty of FEMA funds to respond to both Helene and Milton — and Republicans are reportedly the ones blocking additional funding — but Trump falsely claims Vice President Kamala Harris blew “all her FEMA money” housing immigrants.
The former president, through these deranged fabrications, is trying to win votes in the coming election. He is summoning an alternate reality in which Biden and Harris are blithely unconcerned with the fates of millions of victims because many of those victims are Republicans and they instead prioritize immigrants. And he is doing so despite his own record as president of allegedly withholding disaster aid for political reasons.
The only reason this strategy is remotely plausible is that the right-wing media ecosystem is willing to play along with it. The news sources Republicans rely on, from MAGA influencers to Fox stars, have bolstered Trump’s lies at every turn. The result is that right-wing audiences are bombarded with falsehoods from within an echo chamber.
The MAGA media ecosystem responds in this same fashion to every news event because its function isn’t to report on what is happening. Instead, right-wing pundits offer a scapegoat — immigrants, Jews, journalists, teachers, trans people, Democrats, anti-Trump Republicans — in order to hold their audience’s attention, make money, and support the GOP’s core agenda of tax cuts for rich people and abortion bans.
This incentive structure is universally toxic. But when it collides with issues like disaster relief, the consequences can turn deadly. Before, during, and after a hurricane, people on the ground need credible information about what to do, what help is available, and how to get it. Right now, the sources many victims depend on for news are lying to them.
Hurricane misinformation is plaguing the response to Helene. Local media outlets, federal and state officials, and emergency responders all are desperately trying to swat down rumors and falsehoods — some promoted by the former president. Republican officials in affected areas are begging the people pushing “conspiracy theory junk” to stop lying and pitch in instead.
“The scale of the misinformation — and simply the number of posts and the eyeballs that each of those are being given online, particularly on [X] — that is what is different and truly scary,” a North Carolina state official told Politico. “This has felt like you're in the Thunderdome, and people are just piping this noise in. They create this great confusion. It creates chaos and a crisis moment where you need people to be able to work together and come together.”
The calamity hearkens back to the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, when Trump and his media allies first downplayed the potential impact of the deadly virus, then promoted unproven and ultimately ineffective medications as a “miracle cure.”
And it bodes ill for the coming election if Trump loses, when all the same figures will have the same incentives to help him deny and subvert the results.
//
Right-wing media lies about the federal response to Hurricane Helene
10/04/24
10/04/24
- ### [Ignoring praise for federal aid from GOP governors and officials on the ground, right-wing media falsely claim that Hurricane Helene is “Kamala’s Katrin]a
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Fox knows it’s lying about immigrants and disaster aid
Written by Matt Gertz
Published 10/10/24 mma
Fox News hosts and anchors have in hand evidence that their network obtained from a Republican source debunking a falsehood the network has repeatedly promoted about the Hurricane Helene response. They do not care — and are in many cases continuing to push the same lie — because they work for a propaganda outlet whose primary objective is helping former President Donald Trump return to the White House.
Fox chief congressional correspondent Chad Pergram landed a big scoop on Tuesday night, posting to X about how he had “obtained a fact sheet assembled by the majority side of [the] House Appropriations Committee about disaster aid” for Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton.
He keyed in on the fact sheet’s statements about aid to immigrants, writing: “It also declares there is ‘no funding connection between’ the migrant shelter program and the Disaster Relief Fund. It adds there is ‘no intermingling of funding between these two programs.’ It adds that ‘the only connection is that both programs are administered by FEMA.’”
This is important because Trump had repeatedly tried to link the programs for his own political gain, claiming that there was no money for hurricane disaster aid because President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris had spent it all on helping immigrants — and Fox’s propagandists and the rest of the Trumpist media chimed in. The Biden administration and mainstream news outlets had debunked these lies, but Pergram’s scoop revealed that House Republicans — a source Fox viewers would be more likely to trust — knew they were false.
Fox’s response over the 24 hours after Pergram posted about the fact sheet provides an instructive case study about how the network functions:
- On Wednesday morning, Fox News continued to push the falsehood on Fox & Friends, with contributor Miranda Devine claiming that “FEMA was handing out money to illegal migrants instead of keeping it for hurricane victims.”
- At around the same time on Fox Business, anchor Maria Bartiromo appeared to reference the House Republican memo Pergram obtained — but only to attack it, asking House Appropriations Committee member Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) whether his colleagues were “lying” (“It’s all FEMA money,” he replied in part).
- Pergram did not appear on either network until the lower-rated midday programs — and his packaged report did not address the immigrant funding misinformation that Fox had spread.
- On The Five, Jessica Tarlov and Jeanine Pirro sparred inconclusively without mentioning the GOP fact sheet over whether Trump’s claims about disaster aid money going to immigrants was a lie. Jesse Watters ended the discussion by telling Tarlov, “Americans are dying and you're talking about Donald Trump.”
9. That evening on Fox’s flagship “news” show, Special Report anchor Bret Baier did not reference the GOP fact sheet but mentioned in passing that there has been a “back and forth about FEMA money going to immigrants, there is a pot, it’s just different than the disaster pot where the money comes from.”
- The network’s high-rated evening Trumpist propagandists all continued to claim money that should have gone to disaster aid went instead to migrants on Wednesday night. Laura Ingraham claimed FEMA money had gone to “sheltering migrants” that “should be spent and allocated to shoring up disaster management for Americans, not on illegal aliens.” Watters claimed that “FEMA admitted they wasted a billion on migrants” and that the agency had been “leaving Americans hanging, but bending over backwards to help foreigners who broke into the country.” And Sean Hannity **said the Biden administration claimed to be running out of funds for disaster aid after FEMA “distributed more than a billion dollars to house and feed Harris and Biden unvetted illegal immigrants.”
A real news outlet would want to get that information out to ensure that its audience knew the facts. But Fox is a Trumpist propaganda outlet, and they acted instead to reinforce the right-wing media bubble that keeps their viewers from the truth.
===
an 10 24
A progressive policy group in North Carolina was among those expressing alarm on Sunday as news spread that federal emergency workers were forced to evacuate an area hit hard by Hurricane Helene late last month after officials warned that "armed militias" were "hunting" hurricane response teams.
But the news didn't come as a shock to Carolina Forward, an independent think tank, considering that it came after weeks of lies from Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump about the Biden administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) response to the hurricane.
"This is what MAGA does," said Carolina Forward on social media. "Eventually, their lies have real world consequences."
As The Washington PostreportedSunday evening, a U.S. Forest Service official sent an urgent message to other federal agencies involved in the recovery on Saturday afternoon, saying FEMA had advised all federal responders in Rutherford County, North Carolina "to stand down and evacuate the county immediately."
National Guard troops in the area, said the official, "had come across x2 trucks of armed militia saying there were out hunting FEMA."
The message was verified by two federal officials.
"It's terrible because a lot of these folks who need assistance are refusing it because they believe the stuff people are saying about FEMA and the government... And it's sad because they are probably the ones who need the help the most."
Emergency responders moved to a "safe area" and paused their work in Rutherford County, where they had been delivering supplies and clearing trees from roads in order to help search-and-rescue crews.
"Let's be clear: Armed militia are terrorizing FEMA rescue workers and causing important work to stop because Donald Trump spread lies and disinformation about the hurricane. This is on the Republican candidate for president with help from Elon Musk," saidmedia critic Jennifer Schulze, referring to the billionaire owner of X who has used the social media platform to amplify Trump's lies. "Shameful and disqualifying."
The forced pause in the work is just the latest example of the measurable impact of statements made by Trump and his running mate, U.S. Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), about FEMA in the wake of hurricanes Helene and Milton.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warned last Thursday that federal employees, thousands of whom have been deployed to states including North Carolina and Florida to help with the response to the devastating storms, have received threats in recent days. Meteorologists have received angry messages from people convinced that weather experts and government officials "are creating and directing hurricanes," The Guardianreportedlast week.
"I have had a bunch of people saying I created and steered the hurricane, there are people assuming we control the weather," Katie Nickolaou, a meteorologist in Michigan, toldThe Guardian. "I have had to point out that a hurricane has the energy of 10,000 nuclear bombs and we can't hope to control that. But it's taken a turn to more violent rhetoric, especially with people saying those who created Milton should be killed."
President Joe Biden was driven to address Trump's lies about the hurricane response last week, saying the disinformation was "undermining confidence in the incredible rescue and recovery work that has already been taken and will continue to be taken."
Since Helene swept through a number of states late last month, catching communities in western North Carolina off-guard with devastating flooding, Trump has baselessly claimed that:
- Biden ignored a call for help from Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who denied Trump's claim;
- He received unspecified "reports" that North Carolina officials were "going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas";
- Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, spent "all her FEMA money" on housing for undocumented immigrants; and
- FEMA is providing only $750 to people who lost their homes.
Riva Duncan, a former Forest Service official in hard-hit Asheville, North Carolina, told the Postthat locals have told FEMA employees who have arrived with aid to to help with repairs, "We don't want your help here."
"It's terrible because a lot of these folks who need assistance are refusing it because they believe the stuff people are saying about FEMA and the government," Duncan told the newspaper. "And it's sad because they are probably the ones who need the help the most."
In the town of Chimney Rock in Rutherford County, FEMA has shifted to working in secure areas in fixed locations instead of going door to door to assess community needs, the Post reported, "out of an abundance of caution."
Matt Ortega, a web developer in Oakland, California, said the impact of Trump's baseless claims about the hurricane response mirror that of his earlier lies about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, where schools and government business ground to a halt in recent weeks due to bomb threats stemming from claims that Haitian people were stealing neighbors' pets and eating them.
"Trump and Republicans' FEMA lies [incur] a debt, just as they did in Springfield," said Ortega. "The people who pay it are children whose schools are closed due to bomb threats in Springfield and recovery aid workers when militias are 'out hunting FEMA.'"
===
an 10 24
Revealed: Bundy collaborator fueled FEMA conspiracy in Hurricane Helene aftermath
Clockwise from upper right: Ammon Bundy, Ryan Bundy, Brian Cavalier, Shawna Cox, Pete Santilli, Jon Ritzheimer, Ryan Payne, Joe O'Shaughnessy
Jordan GreenandRaw StoryOctober 14, 2024
Only 30 minutes after billionaire Elon Musk began publicly accusing the federal government of blocking his company from delivering the satellite internet components to the disaster zone in western North Carolina, another extraordinary claim popped up on X.
“NC State Police issue statement that they will start arresting any federal employees trying to hinder rescue operations,” an Arizona man named Joseph O’Shaughnessy wrote on X Oct. 4.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, quickly disputed the claim from Musk, who owns both SpaceX and the social media platform X and would speak at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pa. the following day. But O’Shaughnessy’s claim piggy-backing off Musk's post added a new layer to manufactured intrigue: a potential clash between state and federal authorities in a region traumatized by the staggering loss.
The statement is completely false, and it comes from someone with a history of armed confrontation with the FBI and other federal agencies. O’Shaughnessy served prison time for his role in the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon in 2016 and was also charged in the standoff at Cliven Bundy’s ranch in 2014.
Prior to his involvement in the Bundy ranch standoff, O’Shaughnessy had been arrested for disorderly conduct, domestic violence and drugs, according to federal prosecutors.
“If you tie back to this guy, you’ll see that nothing reliable comes from that guy,” First Sgt. Christopher Knox, a public information officer for the N.C. State Highway Patrol, told Raw Story. “That’s not a trusted source of information. That information is not true in any way, shape or form.”
Knox pointed out that North Carolina doesn’t even have an agency called “NC State Police.” The claim is even more dubious if one considers that State Highway Patrol in North Carolina is under the command of Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, an ally of Vice President Kamala Harris. From a purely partisan standpoint, it is unlikely the two agencies would end up in an adversarial position with one another.
O'Shaughnessy responded to an inquiry from Raw Story by sending an AI-generated GIF of Trump dancing through a direct message on X.
While O’Shaughnessy’s post was quickly shot down by X users who pointed out that no such agency exists in North Carolina, it landed within a matrix of false claims by Trump allies that has created a mutually reinforced narrative, belied by the facts on the ground, that the federal government is abandoning the people of western North Carolina.
O’Shaughnessy’s post was reshared 18,000 times, including Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who has a long history of promoting conspiracy theories despite a professional background that requires an ability to separate fact from fantasy astutely.
Before joining the Trump administration, Flynn held the highest military intelligence position as head of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, re-shared O’Shaughnessy’s post, writing: “Finally, some good news!”
Flynn, who has persistently used his X account to push apocalyptic messages about the impending breakup of the United States, has also pushed misinformation related to the disaster. During an Oct. 4 interview with right-wing influencer Benny Johnson, Flynn said there were “reports” about “illegals” raping children, while describing the flood-ravaged region as a “warzone.”
Flynn also could not be reached for comment for this story.
Johnson, who interviewed Flynn on his show, was recently employed by a media company alleged by federal prosecutors to be a front for a Russian influence operation. Johnson and other conservative influencers linked to the company have said they were victims of the scheme. During his interview with Flynn on Oct. 4, Johnson echoed many of the same themes as his guest during his opening monologue for the segment, claiming that the federal government has “chosen” immigrants over Trump supporters.
“Our federal government has left you to die in whatever small, inconsequential town that you come from because you are a Trump voter, because you support MAGA, because you are America first,” he said.
Flynn wasn’t the only one who greeted O’Shaughnessy’s bogus claim about a state law enforcement agency challenging the federal government.
Gianna Miceli, who co-hosts a podcast that promotes sovereign citizen ideology, enthused: “Now we have a jurisdiction war happening! What a great time for people to learn some lessons about who is the government and who is not.”
“Exactly,” O’Shaughnessy responded.
In another reply to O’Shaughnessy’s thread, Miceli falsely claimed: “FEMA is a private for-profit corporation. It is not government.”
O’Shaughnessy’s false claim that a state agency in North Carolina is threatening to arrest federal agents in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election fits a pattern with not only his involvement in the 2014 Bundy ranch standoff and 2016 Malheur occupation, but also the effort to overturn the 2020 election.
Bundy ranch, Malheur occupation and Stop the Steal 2020
O’Shaughnessy was described in a federal indictment in response to the Bundy ranch standoff as a “mid-level leader and organizer of the conspiracy who, among other things: organized gunmen and other followers; led gunmen and other followers in the assault and extortion of federal law enforcement at the impound site; organized protection for members of the criminal enterprise; and organized armed patrols and security checkpoints.”
Similarly, federal prosecutors would later describe O’Shaughnessy as a “mid-level organizer” of the Malheur occupation. In a video interview during the occupation, according to the criminal complaint, O’Shaughnessy said: “I’m right now in the process of trying to set up a constitutional security protection force to make sure these federal agents and these law enforcement don’t just come in here like cowboys.”
O’Shaughnessy pleaded guilty to conspiracy to impede federal officers for his conduct during the Malheur occupation, but the government dismissed charges in the Bundy ranch case. O’Shaughnessy was sentenced to time served, and reportedly spent one year and nine months in custody for the two cases.
O’Shaughnessy has described Roger Stone, a political consultant and longtime confidant of Trump, as a “hero and a mentor.” Like Flynn, Stone was pivotal in mobilizing a pressure campaign to overturn the 2020 election. Immediately following the 2020 election, Stone privately strategized with Flynn, the Washington Post reported.
O’Shaughnessy’s Instagram account shows that he was with Stone during a dinner in Florida with Stop the Steal organizer Ali Alexander in November 2020. Another post shows dated Dec. 11, 2020, the eve of the pro-Trump Jericho March rally in Washington, D.C. includes a photo that shows Stone drinking with InfoWars conspiracy trafficker Alex Jones.
It is unclear what, if anything, O’Shaughnessy discussed with Stone, Jones and Alexander when they met on those two occasions.
A false claim that evolved out of Elon Musk’s dustup with FEMA
In his false post about state law enforcement threatening to arrest their counterparts last week, O’Shaughnessy appears to have taken a cue from Nick Sortor, a right-wing videographer who spent the past week in the Asheville area delivering Starlink terminals while producing media assailing the federal government response to the disaster.
In an Oct. 3 X post, Sortor thanked Musk and SpaceX “for bringing us another truckload of Starlinks. A photo in the post shows an officer wearing a North Carolina State Highway Patrol uniform holding a box labeled “Starlink,” while a video shows police vehicles that appear to be providing an escort for Sortor down a winding mountain road.
The following day, Sortor replied to Musk’s post accusing FEMA of preventing his engineers from allowing him to deliver supplies. In his reply, Sortor appears to reference the State Highway Patrol, while using the same misnomer that O’Shaughnessy would later use.
“Let me know where the blockades are and we’ll have the NC State Police move them out of the way,” Sortor wrote. “Already did it once, which is one reason why we have an escort now. FEMA has zero jurisdiction.
“Trust me,” he added. “They’re not going to win this one.”
Twenty-four minutes later, O’Shaughnessy made his post claiming that the “NC State Police” were prepared to start arresting federal agents.
Challenged to substantiate his claim, O’Shaughnessy responded to one detractor by writing, “Calm down stranger danger, my boys were one of the 1st on-scene to bring aid…. I am the source.”
O’Shaughnessy didn’t identify his “boys” on the ground in North Carolina, but on Sunday he praised Sortor for delivering the Starlink terminals, writing, “And everyone, please follow @nicksortor. He’s the one who made it happen.”
Manufacturing a fake turf war between FEMA and state law enforcement doesn’t help the residents of western North Carolina, Christopher Knox, the State Highway Patrol spokesperson, told Raw Story. Instead of relying on dubious accounts on X, Knox recommended that people seek information about the recovery effort from trusted sources such as the NC Department of Public Safety.
“There’s a lot of people hurting and a lot of people looking for resources,” Knox said. “We hate that there’s stuff out there slowing the response. Getting people to the right sources is a big goal of the state of North Carolina.”
NOW READ: The Purge is real: Inside the GOP's 2024 playbook to disenfranchise voters
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Officials have begged people to not spread misinformation about Hurricane Helene. YouTube has monetized it.
10/10/24 1:02 PM EDT](https://www.mediamatters.org/google/officials-have-begged-people-not-spread-misinformation-about-hurricane-helene-youtube-has)
Watch MSNBC'S Chris Hayes debunk the “stone cold lie” being “spread by Fox News” about FEMA funding
10/09/24
10/09/24
- ### Sean Hannity defends his debunked commentary about FEMA's response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton
10/09/24 mma
===
10/09/24 2:00 PM EDT
10/09/24 mma
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mma 1 024
10/09/24
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an 10 24
US Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-North Carolina) on Tuesday issued a scathing rebuke of the misinformation and disinformation spreading across social media regarding the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) response to Hurricane Helene.
CBS News correspondent Scott McFarlane posted to X a screenshot of a letter the North Carolina congressman published to his website, debunking a list of myths repeated by Donald Trump and parroted by others online amid the hurricane's devastating impact on the Tar Heel State.
"Over the past 10 days, I have been proud of how our mountain communities have come together to help one another," the letter reads. "We have seen a level of support that is unmatched by most any other disaster nationwide; but amidst all of the support, we have also seen an uptick in untrustworthy sources trying to spark chaos by sharing hoaxes, conspiracy theories, and hearsay about hurricane response efforts across our mountains."
READ MORE:**Damning reports detail Trump’s willingness to 'exploit major disasters' for political gain**
The Republican lawmaker continued, "While it is true, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s response to Hurricane Helene has had its shortfalls, I’m here to dispel the outrageous rumors that have been circulated online."
CBS News notes, "Some of the most bizarre conspiracy theories that have spread online claimed politicians manipulated the weather to target Republicans areas in the battleground state and that the federal government was trying to seize land in the town of Chimney Rock to mine lithium."
In his letter, Edwards debunked eight myths, including:
*1. Hurricane Helene was NOT geoengineered by the government to seize and access lithium deposits in Chimney Rock."
Edwards also emphasized, "Nobody can control the weather," before debunking seven more myths, including:
*2. Local officials are NOT abandoning search and rescue efforts to bulldoze over Chimney Rock.
*3. FEMA is NOT stopping trucks or vehicles with donations, confiscating or seizing supplies, or otherwise turning away donations.
*4. FEMA has NOT diverted disaster response funding to the border or foreign aid.
*5. FEMA is NOT going to run out of money.
*6. FEMA cannot seize your property or land.
*7. The FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] is NOT restricting access to airspace for Helene rescue and recovery operations.
*8. FEMA is NOT only providing $750 to disaster survivors to support their recovery.
Edwards went on to explain, "The initial $750 provided to disaster survivors is an immediate type of assistance called Serious Needs Assistance that may be made to individuals in need as soon as they apply for FEMA assistance."
READ MORE:**Top NC newspapers blast Trump’s federal hurricane response lies**
The North Carolina leader added, "The $750 is an upfront, flexible payment to help cover essential items like food, water, baby formula and medication while FEMA assesses the applicant’s eligibility for additional funds. This award is just the first step of a longer process to provide financial assistance to disaster survivors in need of federal support.
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rww
10/09/2024
by
As millions of Americans deal with the devastating floods brought by Hurricane Helene, and Floridians prepare for the potentially catastrophic Hurricane Milton, far-right activists are disputing whether the storms are an instrument of God’s wrath or a deep state weather weapon. Scientists have long warned that climate change and warming sea water temperatures will bring increasingly powerful and destructive storms, but that explanation doesn’t seem to hold much water for the “climate change is a hoax” crowd.
On Tuesday, the MAGA prayer warriors at Intercessors for America posted a question on IFA’s Facebook page: “Is there a biblical reason for the storms we are seeing?” IFA wrote that while it may or may not be the cause of the storms, “it is well worth us asking God, how have we offended you?”
IFA linked to a post by William Koenig suggesting that Helene and earlier destructive hurricanes were the results of “the God of Israel’s fury and wrath” over United Nations and U.S. pressure on Israel to cede control of “covenant land.” In the case of Helene, Koenig wrote, “The storm began as Israel’s enemies were preparing their scathing anti-Israel speeches to the United Nations General Assembly while the Biden administration was continuing to work on an Israeli-Hamas ceasefire deal and was exerting pressure on Israel to comply.” Koenig has previously made similar claims about midwestern flooding in 2019 and the outbreak of COVID-19—though he also claimed that COVID-19 was God’s judgment for the U.S. being “so pro-LGBT.”
Some IFA readers responded by posting prayers of repentance. But IFA’s comment section also showed that many of the prayer warriors have embraced another conspiracy theory raging through MAGA world: that the hurricanes are not natural disasters at all, but evidence of weather modification by the U.S. government.
“How can they be Biblical when they are man made,” asked one commenter?
“EVIL Governmental reasons…It’s called weather manipulation,” wrote another, who claimed that “they” will “do WHATEVER it takes to stop this election, or at least eliminate red voters…”
One commenter merged the explanations a bit, writing, “I believe this is a storm being manipulated by evil people who are being influenced by demonic spirits.”
Several commenters mentioned HAARP, which stands for High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program, which studies the ionosphere, one layer of the Earth’s atmosphere. But the conspiracy theory that HAARP is a weather modification program that can steer storms into specific targets has become so widespread that news outlets have devoted resources to debunking it.
As WIRED magazine reported, claims that shadowy government figures were manipulating the storms for political reasons—which recently got a boost from MAGA Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene—tap into antisemitic conspiracy theories.
U.S. religious-right leaders have long opposed U.S. support for any Middle East peace plan that would involve “land for peace” agreements. A decade ago, Pat Robertson warned that God would “come against this nation” with natural disasters if it supported any division of “God’s land.” In 2019, New Apostolic Reformation figure Lance Wallnau was invited to the White House for a briefing on Jared Kushner’s Middle East peace plans; Wallnau responded by mobilizing his followers to send Trump a message opposing any land-for-peace deal and warning that U.S. support for such a deal would bring “a curse on our country.”
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mma
It takes a bubble
Hurricane Helene shows the catastrophic consequences of the right-wing echo chamber's support for Donald Trump's lies
Written by Matt Gertz
Published 10/08/24
Former President Donald Trump’s deadly lies about the federal response to Hurricane Helene — and soon, inevitably, Hurricane Milton — depend on the impermeability of the right-wing information bubble.
President Joe Biden has directed an ongoing federal and state response to the swath of death and destruction Hurricane Helene left on the southeastern United States, an effort which includes tens of thousands of personnel helping victims across several states.
Trump’s Helene response has been characterized by conspiracy theories and grievance-mongering for political gain.
The Biden administration won plaudits from GOP elected officials across the region, but Trump falsely claimed the federal government abandoned the public. Americans affected by the storm can access a robust program of federal assistance, but he falsely claims they could only get $750 in aid. The White House stressed there’s plenty of FEMA funds to respond to both Helene and Milton — and Republicans are reportedly the ones blocking additional funding — but Trump falsely claims Vice President Kamala Harris blew “all her FEMA money” housing immigrants.
The former president, through these deranged fabrications, is trying to win votes in the coming election. He is summoning an alternate reality in which Biden and Harris are blithely unconcerned with the fates of millions of victims because many of those victims are Republicans and they instead prioritize immigrants. And he is doing so despite his own record as president of allegedly withholding disaster aid for political reasons.
The only reason this strategy is remotely plausible is that the right-wing media ecosystem is willing to play along with it. The news sources Republicans rely on, from MAGA influencers to Fox stars, have bolstered Trump’s lies at every turn. The result is that right-wing audiences are bombarded with falsehoods from within an echo chamber.
The MAGA media ecosystem responds in this same fashion to every news event because its function isn’t to report on what is happening. Instead, right-wing pundits offer a scapegoat — immigrants, Jews, journalists, teachers, trans people, Democrats, anti-Trump Republicans — in order to hold their audience’s attention, make money, and support the GOP’s core agenda of tax cuts for rich people and abortion bans.
This incentive structure is universally toxic. But when it collides with issues like disaster relief, the consequences can turn deadly. Before, during, and after a hurricane, people on the ground need credible information about what to do, what help is available, and how to get it. Right now, the sources many victims depend on for news are lying to them.
Hurricane misinformation is plaguing the response to Helene. Local media outlets, federal and state officials, and emergency responders all are desperately trying to swat down rumors and falsehoods — some promoted by the former president. Republican officials in affected areas are begging the people pushing “conspiracy theory junk” to stop lying and pitch in instead.
“The scale of the misinformation — and simply the number of posts and the eyeballs that each of those are being given online, particularly on [X] — that is what is different and truly scary,” a North Carolina state official told Politico. “This has felt like you're in the Thunderdome, and people are just piping this noise in. They create this great confusion. It creates chaos and a crisis moment where you need people to be able to work together and come together.”
The calamity hearkens back to the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, when Trump and his media allies first downplayed the potential impact of the deadly virus, then promoted unproven and ultimately ineffective medications as a “miracle cure.”
And it bodes ill for the coming election if Trump loses, when all the same figures will have the same incentives to help him deny and subvert the results.
Related
Right-wing media lies about the federal response to Hurricane Helene}:
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if apply fema they will take your property, also musk
'This has to stop': FEMA administrator begs Trump to knock off 'completely false' rumors
an 10 24
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Two pro-Trump officials pushed conspiracy theory that Hurricane Helene was done through weather “manipulation”
Georgia GOP official Kandiss Taylor also alleged that Helene was created or manipulated “to keep Mark Robinson from that governorship”
Written by Eric Hananoki
Published 10/08/24 mma
Far-right commentators Kandiss Taylor and Lucretia Hughes, respectively officials for the Georgia Republican Party and pro-Trump group Veterans for America First, pushed fringe conspiracy theories about Hurricane Helene, including claiming that it “could have been done by the government” through weather “manipulation” and as a “land grab” to steal lithium.
On her podcast, Taylor also claimed that the hurricane was created or manipulated “to keep Mark Robinson from that governorship because he understands … the Constitution” and that “terrifies every single establishment politician in this country.”
Numerous conspiracy theories have circulated about Hurricane Helene and have included claims that the government somehow created or manipulated the hurricane through weather modification or weather control. (Media Matters reported yesterday that Clay Clark, a Trump event organizer and close friend of Eric Trump, also pushed the “weather manipulation” conspiracy theory.)
Taylor is the elected District 1 chairwoman of the Georgia Republican Party, a “key” post in the state. She has met with former President Donald Trump and is helping his election efforts in Georgia.
Taylor has a history of making antisemitic remarks: She complained that Jewish people are “controlling everything” and alleged that “we have some Marxist trash using our R who pander to the Jews.”
Hughes is a national ambassador for Veterans for America First, a right-wing group that’s supporting Trump. The group recently said that Hughes will “speak with President Trump” at an upcoming event. The Trump campaign has touted her endorsement and listed her as part of its Gun Owners for Trump coalition. Turning Point USA, a key Trump campaign ally, also lists Hughes as one of its “activist partners.”
The two appeared on Taylor’s October 5 program, where they promoted conspiracy theories about Hurricane Helene. (Taylor’s show airs on the Stew Peters Network, an outlet led by Hitler-praising Holocaust denier and Taylor’s “best friend” Stew Peters.)
Hughes began by calling the hurricane “a land grab,” saying, “I'm so angry with all of this. This is not the United States that I grew up in. This is the United States that has gotten into bed with the global society, trying to rip us off for our sovereignty and get illegal land grabs at the same dang old time.” Taylor responded by stating: “Yeah, lithium specifically. I'm so disgusted with North Carolina and what's going on there.”
Taylor later said that the hurricane “could have been done by the government if they'd been doing the weather manipulation, which we know there were acts passed. There's been things printed and done in the legislation for weather modification. So how do we know, how do we know that all their manipulation didn't cause this?”
The government has not controlled Hurricane Helene through weather manipulation and has not attempted to steal lithium from North Carolina through this tragedy.
Further into the program, Taylor bizarrely claimed that “the whole thing in North Carolina” was somehow done “to keep Mark Robinson from that governorship.”
Video
CitationFrom the October 5, 2024, edition of Jesus. Guns. And Babies
KANDISS TAYLOR (HOST): I really did think about this, Lucretia. Like the whole thing with North Carolina, I know though it’s a grab for the land — land grab and they want the lithium. But I also believe they don't want the voters turning out that are all around Asheville. Those Republican, red voters. They didn't, they are trying their best to keep Mark Robinson from that governorship because he understands — oh, I feel the Holy Spirit — he understands the Constitution. He understands state sovereignty. He understands we are the United States of America. And as a state, we're sovereign. As a state, we should be able to function on our own. As a state, we can push back. We're joined because we choose to be. But a state has sovereignty, and Mark understands that. And it terrifies every single establishment politician in this country.
Toward the end of the show, Hughes added to the weather manipulation subject by stating:
LUCRETIA HUGHES: That's so scary, to know they can manipulate our weather. To know they have the equipment and the satellite images and the satellite stuff to do it. To know that 5G is a real thing. Knowing that HAARP antennas is literally up there in the Arctic right now. I don't understand how people not know when you can type in seeding a cloud, or rain cloud machines, and there are video after video of them turning on a big old machine. And it's huge. And next thing you know, smoke just start coming out this machine and it spits clouds, spits clouds. And they keep it on for about one or two hours and all of it just goes up in the air. He said about, he said, “I give it a day. It’s going to be two states over.” The United States has patents in the patent office for them been doing this for decades now. Decades, y'all. This ain't new.
Taylor replied by saying, “It’s not new, and we're just learning about it because they didn't want us to know about it.”
===
[## Fox networks falsely accused striking dockworkers of holding up hurricane relief
10/04/24
https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-networks-falsely-accused-striking-dockworkers-holding-hurricane-relief)
mma
October 8, 2024, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends
STEVE DOOCY (CO-HOST): Today is Tuesday. It is exactly four weeks before the election, and there's a brand new New York Times poll — came out, an hour and 14 minutes ago. And Kamala Harris has a slim lead. And once again, we've been talking about the polls. They are neck and neck. She's up by three. They were tied in mid-September. It is now 49 to 46.
That is why we're seeing more of her, and we've been talking a little bit about how she's trying to get ahead with the storms and stuff like that. That's one of the reasons why over the weekend, she was out, and the administration was promoting the fact that this administration has sent a hundred and fifty-sevel million dollars to Lebanon. Now that's one thing. But it comes as the same time that there are tens of thousands of Americans struggling, and the federal government doesn't have enough money for them. Peter Doocy asked some very basic questions about how lopsided that is. So let me get this straight. We got money for Lebanon. We don't have money for people in North Carolina. If you miss it, here is this extraordinary interchange.
...
AINSLEY EARHARDT (CO-HOST): She's missing what he was trying to ask. He was just saying why can we give all this money to Lebanon and without Congress's permission, but yet Congress has to come back to give money to our Americans in North Carolina and in Florida. That's all he was saying, and she's saying you don't want Congress to come back. No.
LAWRENCE JONES (CO-HOST): Ainsley, she knows exactly what he's saying. She being intentionally obtuse, pretending like she doesn't understand there are people, I just got back from there — they are frustrated that they are not getting the resources at a faster rate. I know they say FEMA is there, but the people aren't seeing them. That's the bottom line. People are not seeing them on the ground. They are seeing Samaritan's Purse. The country is a giving country. But when they see other people getting resources before them, they get pretty hot about it. And there's dead bodies still having to be dragged out right now, which is sad. There's no government agency on the ground that's doing, those are private organizations that are doing the work. And so for Peter to ask the question that most Americans that are in this tragedy are feeling, and for her to reject it as disinformation, you don't like the question but it's not disinformation.
BRIAN KILMEADE (CO-HOST): We're also watching everyone cover for this administration, The New York Times, the Washington Post, almost every network is not acknowledging the fact that they've taken a week to ask the military to get involved.
JONES: Yes.
KILMEADE: These are hard-to-reach areas, it's different than Florida is going to need. These are hard-to-reach areas. You needed the army, they are literally one hour away and you waited a week. Don't say you didn't need them because you called them last Thursday when you could have had them in country, in the state working on Monday.
CBS News reports (emphasis added):
Only $1.6 billion remains in a federal program to help small businesses impacted by hurricanes and natural disasters — enough funding for only a few more weeks without emergency intervention by Congress. Multiple Biden administration and congressional sources told CBS News there are concerns funding will be depleted by the end of this month.
The remaining pot of funding in the Small Business Administration's disaster loan fund is being severely strained by the damage of Hurricane Helene, CBS News has learned, and the Small Business Administration has received at least 3,000 applications every day since Hurricane Helene struck the Southeast. One administration official said there is not sufficient money to last until Congress' scheduled return to Washington after the November elections.
Congress failed to include additional funding for the disaster fund when it passed a short-term spending bill to fund the federal government in September. Although there is optimism that sufficient money remains to help offset the costs of the Federal Emergency Management Agency until Congress returns during the week of Nov. 12, there are growing concerns that the Small Business Administration disaster money will run dry.
CBS specifically notes that the Republican senator from Florida Rick Scott is among those asking Congress to reconvene immediately:
An aide to Sen. Rick Scott, a Florida Republican, told CBS News that Scott spoke with President Biden about the need for Congress to swiftly reconvene and approve new federal aid to respond to Helene's destruction.
“While I know from my experience with previous hurricanes that FEMA and SBA damage assessments take time, I am today urging Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to immediately reconvene the U.S. Senate when those assessments are completed so that we can pass the clean supplemental disaster funding bill and other disaster relief legislation,” Scott said in a news release.
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alexa fail?
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The good, the bad, and the ugly of Sunday morning political shows’ coverage of Hurricane Helene misinformation
Impacted states are pleading for bad actors to stop spreading deliberate misinformation
Special ProgramsClimate & Energy
Written by Allison Fisher
Published 10/07/24 mma
Misinformation related to the ongoing response to Hurricane Helene, which has created widespread devastation across six states and left at least 232 dead, is disrupting relief operations, and a number of local and state officials are calling on bad actors and the Trump campaign to stop spreading the lies.
The Sunday morning political shows attempted to address this hurricane misinformation with varying degrees of success. With the exception of Fox News Sunday, all the shows rightly pointed out the threat misinformation and unfounded conspiracy theories pose to the response efforts while flagging some of the most prevalent lies polluting these efforts.
The most prevalent misinformation has centered on the distribution of Federal Emergency Management Agency aid, specifically the false claims that federal assistance is limited to $750 per affected individual and that FEMA funds are lacking due to spending on immigrant assistance. Bad actors have also pushed an overarching falsehood that the response has been a failure.
Both ABC and CBS hosted good-faith actors who debunked the falsehoods while also confirming that the federal efforts have been strong. CNN and NBC hosted bad actors who refused to acknowledge the misinformation and continued to push the false claim that the federal efforts have been a failure even in the face of repeated fact checks by the anchors.
Even though the misinformation appears to be constructed to attack the response of the Biden-Harris administration, none of the networks provided the context that former president Trump has a track record of doing what he accused the federal government of, such as withholding hurricane disaster relief to North Carolina and Puerto Rico allegedly for political reasons or the recent revelations that Trump “refused to approve disaster aid for California after deadly wildfires in 2018 because of the state’s Democratic leanings.”
Material to misinformation around the adequacy of FEMA funds is the fact that Republicans, just days before Hurricane Helene made landfall, voted down additional FEMA funds requested by the White House, and House Speaker Mike Johnson has declined Biden’s request to convene Congress to consider a special relief package for impacted states. However, these facts were also absent from the coverage.
The good: ABC, CBS focused on misinformation and officials’ explanations that it can hamper recovery efforts
ABC’s *This Week* foregrounded an interview with FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell by reporting that “in North Carolina, they are still working to survey the damage and to reach survivors as a wave of misinformation from the former president and his allies hampers the recovery effort.”
They added: … “In the wake of Trump's various claims, FEMA launching an anti-rumor tool this week to combat those messages, with local officials calling on people to ignore online falsehoods. … Law enforcement is monitoring threats towards public officials prompted by disinformation and conspiracy theories, including specific individuals linked to FEMA and other recovery agencies.”
Video
CitationFrom the October 6, 2024, edition of ABC's This Week
In the interview, ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos asked Criswell whether they had the resources they needed. She responded:
“Absolutely, George. We, again, we moved resources in before this storm happened. We embedded our staff in the state to work side by side so we could quickly employ those resources to where they were needed, and as we continue to see how long we're going to have to provide this level of sustained support, we will continue to do that.”
Criswell also lamented about the misinformation that “we're putting politics ahead of helping people,” while emphasizing the danger. “I need to make sure I can get the resources to where they’re needed, and when you have this dangerous rhetoric like you're hearing, it creates fear in our own employees,” she said.
On CBS’*Face the Nation*, moderator Margaret Brennan reported that a North Carolina state senator had been “posting on Facebook asking people to stop conspiracy theory junk” and asked Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), “Who or what is fueling that kind of misinformation and do you think it is harming recovery efforts?” He responded in part:
“Many of the observations are not even from people on the ground. I believe that we have to stay focused on rescue operations, recovery operations, clearing operations, and we don't need any of these distractions on the ground. It’s at the expense of the hard-working first responders and people that are just trying to recover their life.”
Brennan also questioned Tillis on the misinformation that Trump and others in right-wing media are spreading, such as falsely claiming that money intended for hurricane relief was being diverted to immigrants.
Tillis expressed disapproval of the administration’s border policy but capitulated that it was not impacting the hurricane response, saying: “We have the resources that we need. We're going to have to go back and pass more resources. We could have a discussion about the failure of this administration's border policies and the billions of dollars it’s costing. But right now, not yet is it affecting the flow of resources to Western North Carolina.”
“It has not been a factor, to be clear,” Brennan emphasized.
### The bad: CNN, NBC brought on Trump campaign spokesperson Lara Trump and Sen. Tom Cotton, and both spread misinformation
On CNN’s State of the Union, anchor Dana Bash tried to fact-check Trump’s misinformation in an interview with Lara Trump, but the Trump campaign spokesperson persisted in her false claims.
Bash brought up specific misinformation spread by the right-wing media and Trump, including that “FEMA is only offering $750 to Americans who have had their homes destroyed.”
“That's not true,” she clarified. “He's also echoing conspiracy theorists online who falsely claimed that the administration is redirecting disaster money for undocumented immigrants.”
In response, Trump doubled down on the false claims and repeatedly insisted that there is a relationship between the migrant crisis and the hurricane response, falsely claiming, “You have migrants being housed in luxury hotels in New York City. We have paid so much money from our tax dollars into the crisis that didn't need to happen. We could redirect money to help people immediately on the ground.”
Video
CitationFrom the October 6, 2024, edition of CNN's State of the Union
While Bash repeatedly fact-checked Trump’s response, she still provided a platform for the Trump campaign to push hurricane response lies and create the impression that the federal government’s relief efforts have been lacking.
Similarly, on NBC’s*Meet the Press* anchor Kristen Welker questioned Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) about hurricane misinformation, stating, “We know former President Trump has made, quite frankly, a series of baseless claims, including that the Biden administration is intentionally withholding aid from where Republicans live, also saying that FEMA funds are being redirected to migrants. Both those claims have been debunked. They’re false.”
Cotton twice claimed that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is calling the response “lackluster,” even after Welker corrected that Kemp “said we got what we needed.”
Cotton also falsely claimed that it took days to deploy helicopters and claimed that “there's not enough money left in the fund” while suggesting that the reason is because billions of dollars have been spent to put up migrants “in hotels and give them room service and maids.”
Welker fact-checked his response, saying, “Those funds are coming from a different federal fund, not from disaster relief, just to be clear. And what DHS Secretary Mayorkas said is that it has the money it needs for now, but not necessarily through the end of the year for future hurricanes.” But Cotton doubled down, saying:
“It is true that FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security have been spending billions of dollars on migrants. … I would note that this administration seems to have no problem finding money when they want to spend it on their priorities. When they need hundreds of billions to pay off student loans for graduate students in gender studies programs, they somehow find it. When it's trying to get helicopters to deliver food and water and cellular service and life-saving medicine into the mountain valleys, they somehow can't seem to find the money.”
Welker reiterated that the funds are different and that millions have already been distributed to those impacted.
In his newsletter, media critic Oliver Darcy asked about Cotton, “Why do news networks continue to invite the dishonest GOP senator on to abuse their platforms in the first place?”
Darcy was referring to Cotton continuing to lie about the 2020 election, but the point stands for his refusal to set the record straight on FEMA funding as well. Darcy went on to add:
As Jake Tapper — who also recently invited Cotton on his program — said years ago in the aftermath of the insurrection, “If you’re willing to lie about [the election], what else are you willing to lie about? And why should my viewers listen to you?”
### The ugly: Fox News Sunday glossed over misinformation and aired an inaccurate Trump statement without context
Fox News Sunday’scoverage of Hurricane Helene failed to cover the ongoing issue of misinformation altogether, instead focusing on the two presidential candidates’ recent comments on recovery efforts, reporting that Vice President Kamala Harris returned this week to North Carolina and “pledged ongoing federal support” and “former President Trump has said the current administration has done a lousy job.”
The show punctuated the statement with a clip of Trump saying: “They are doing the worst job on a hurricane than any administration has ever done.”
Video
CitationFrom the October 6, 2024, edition of Fox News Sunday
This is false: While the storm, made worse by climate change, is among the most deadly to hit the United States mainland, the response started even before the storm made landfall and is ongoing.
The Biden administration has approvedfederal assistance for multiple states, including Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Virginia, and Georgia. On September 29, the White House released an updated fact sheet detailing the administration's “continued response efforts to Hurricane Helene,” noting that tens of thousands of state and federal personnel are helping victims across several states. This includes 50,000 personnel helping to fix power outages, 3,300 personnel allocating federal resources and helping with search and rescue operations, and 200 medical responders providing health services.
On October 2, Biden approved deployment of up to 1,000 active-duty soldiers to support the delivery of food, water, and other critical commodities to impacted communities.
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