Republicans, especially Donald J. Trump and his enablers on Fox News, have repeated lies about FEMA funding while Americans are suffering. It’s gotten so bad that FEMA set up a Hurricane Rumor Response page.
In an interview with Fox News Sunday, House Speaker Mike Johnson said over calls to bring Congress back to fast-track emergency funding for hurricane victims, “We’ll be back in session immediately after the election.” Well, Mike, Congress holds the purse strings, and 175 Republicans have voted against funding FEMA in 2021, so now would be the time.
Still, even though answers to hurricane relief are easily Googleable, Maria Bartiromo shamelessly went there, saying, “How is it possible that FEMA is out of money?” Also, note that she ties in foreign aid with hurricane relief, a big talking point with the right wing.
“Biden is urging Congress to come back, approve more funding for FEMA by the end of the year,” she told Arkansas Rep. French Hill. “Vice President Harris is still under fire for promising to send $157 million to Lebanon. Yeah, Lebanon. While residents of at least six states in America are struggling to recover from Hurricane Helene.”
“Okay, you’re watching pictures of them hanging from trees,” she added. “They’ve lost everything because of these storm surges. How is FEMA out of money?”
Hill fact-checked her on air to her stupid face.
“FEMA is not out of money,” the Arkansas Republican said. “And this was made clear by the inspector general report saying that Mayorkas has access to nearly $8 billion of funding from the FEMA disaster relief funds accumulated since 2012.”
“Plus, as I’ve said, and as Mike Johnson has said, Congress is ready to replenish that as soon as we get back to Washington,” he continued. “They have the money to take care of Florida, take care of North Carolina, take care of Georgia, and they need to get about delivering it and listening to what their governors are asking and meeting those governor’s requests.”
“But is that money frozen for some reason?” she asked.
“This is where the inspector general says no, Congress’s staff says no, they have access to the funding,” he said. “But Mayorkas has used this, I guess, for political purposes.”
“What about the money from FEMA used for illegal migrants?” Bartiromo asked.
“It’s out of a completely different account, though, not connected to the hurricane relief,” Hill said. “But the point still stands: FEMA is not a migrant recovery agency. We want them 100% focused on protecting Americans in natural disasters and other emergency conditions and the fact that the Biden administration has left the border open is a disaster, a national security threat, a threat to our public health and public safety but it’s not the role of FEMA.”
A new budget year just started on October 1st. FEMA is not out of money.
Poor Maria:(
