“You Wouldn’t Know It from the Lies Being Told”: Lawmakers Counter Trump’s Hurricane Claims
(Brendan SMIALOWSKI)
As Donald Trump and his allies, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), continue to push false narratives about the federal response to Hurricane Helene, other lawmakers like Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC) are striving to set the record straight with facts.
In a column published Wednesday, MSNBC’s Hayes Brown highlighted the ongoing misinformation campaign, stating, “While FEMA has been rightly criticized for years as ineffective, slow, and overly bureaucratic, the lies that the Republicans are pushing are different.”
Brown pointed to claims such as “FEMA will run out of money before the end of the year because it gave that money to migrants,” describing it as an attempt “to sow distrust among people trying to rebuild their lives, potentially disrupting the flow of information about which areas need help the most.”
However, Brown underscored that there have been positive changes within FEMA. “The good news is that FEMA put new rules in place this year to lower the hurdles for receiving disaster relief,” he wrote. These changes include providing immediate cash assistance for emergency expenses and streamlining support for those whose insurance coverage falls short, told Scripps News.
According to Brown, these improvements have enabled President Joe Biden’s administration to “get aid to Helene survivors more quickly than past policies would have allowed.”
Despite these efforts, Brown emphasized the challenges in countering the misinformation spread by Trump and his supporters. “You wouldn’t know it from the lies being told by Trump and other right-wing agitators,” he said, highlighting the stark contrast between the facts on the ground and the narratives being circulated by certain political figures.
The column serves as a reminder of the importance of accurate information in disaster response and the impact that misinformation can have on communities trying to recover. As lawmakers like Rep. Edwards continue their efforts to dispel these myths, the focus remains on ensuring that accurate information reaches those in need of aid.
