One of the first questions former president Donald Trump would ask if a state needed disaster aid while he was in office was, “Are they my people?” according to Stephanie Grisham, who served as the White House press secretary under Trump from 2019 to 2020 and is now supporting Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign.
As the last weeks have shown, natural disasters, worsened by climate change, don’t discriminate based on how many registered Democrats or Republicans are in the state.
Harris said this week that she wanted to “personally take a look at the devastation, which is extraordinary.” She expressed admiration for how “people are coming together. People are helping perfect strangers,” according to the Associated Press.
Since Hurricane Helene hit the southeastern United States in late September, over 200 people have died, making it the fourth-deadliest hurricane to make landfall on the mainland since 1950.
Trump has visited areas impacted by Helene in recent days to survey the damage done—and to prop up unfounded conspiracies about the Joe Biden-Harris administration’s handling of disaster relief.
In a Monday Truth Social post, Trump announced he was traveling to the region and claimed that he doesn’t “like the reports that I’m getting about the Federal Government, and the Democrat Governor of [North Carolina], going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas. MAGA!” On Thursday, the former president also said that “Kamala spent all her FEMA money, billions of dollars, on housing for illegal migrants.” That’s not true. According to the Times, “no disaster funding has been spent on those shelters.”
During a Tuesday appearance in Augusta, Georgia, Harris announced that Biden approved the governor’s request for 100% federal reimbursement of local costs, adding, “I want to thank the local leaders for, together, creating a task force-like response, knowing that we are at our best when we work together and coordinate resources, coordinate our communications to the maximum effect for the community that has been impacted.”
As Trump spreads these unfounded theories, Republican governors across the region have presented a different tone.
Republican South Carolina governor Henry McMaster said at a Tuesday press conference that federal assistance had “been superb.” “Thank you to President Biden,” Governor Glenn Youngkin wrote in a press release, adding during a Monday address that he was “incredibly appreciative of the rapid response and the cooperation from the federal team at FEMA.” Bill Lee, Tennessee’s Republican governor, said that the “response was quick from the federal government.”
On Saturday, Harris is headed to North Carolina to continue monitoring the state of devastation in the southeast. Concurrently, Trump will be back in Butler, Pennsylvania, at the site of the first failed assassination attempt against him in July. Elon Musk, who endorsed Trump following the shooting, will reportedly also be in attendance. Trump has blamed Biden, Harris, and Democrats more broadly for both of the attempts on his life.
During the 2018 California wildfires, the deadliest in its history, Trump initially opposed sending federal monies to the state, per reporting from The New York Times based on two former administration officials. “But Mr. Trump shifted his position after his advisers found data showing that large numbers of his supporters were being affected by the infernos,” the Times’ Tim Balk writes.
Vice President Mike Pence’s homeland security adviser, Olivia Troye, said that at first, Trump instructed those in charge not to send “any money” to California. “We saw numerous instances — this was just one — where it was politicized,” Troye told the Times. “It was red states vs. blue states.”
“None of this is true and is nothing more than a fabricated story from someone’s demented imagination,” Steven Cheung, a campaign spokesman, said in a statement to the Times. “In and out of office, President Trump has shown up to provide aid and relief to Americans in the wake of natural disasters.”