The View co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin ripped her onetime boss former President Donald Trump for spreading “misinformation” to “scare” hurricane victims in North Carolina.
“There’s so much misinformation and disinformation this election cycle. It’s actually scary,” Farah Griffin said on Monday.
She added, “And now they’re being lied to about: ‘There isn’t relief for you.’ There’s actually been a downtick in volunteers because volunteers think there’s not enough funding for them to be able to help the efforts.”
The former Trump White House communications director’s comments were in reaction to the opening video montage of the show segment that featured clips of the Republican presidential nominee and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), criticizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency for claiming to be running out of money for hurricane relief.
Biden Homeland Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas had warned reporters last Wednesday that the agency doesn’t have enough funding to last through hurricane season.
When this news came about FEMA’s dwindling relief funds as numerous states were still conducting rescue-and-recovery efforts following Hurricane Helene, the discussion about FEMA’s spending on immigration resettlement became a lightning rod political issue.
Farah Griffin went on to blame Trump for a “downtick in volunteers” because “volunteers think there’s not enough funding for them to be able to help the efforts.”
She also said that the Trump campaign’s messaging is forcing FEMA to use its resources to “have this live blog that’s debunking myths in real time.”
FEMA put up a response page on its website to attempt to fact-check issues about the agency’s Hurricane Helene aid and who qualifies for aid and to debunk all matters surrounding the hurricane season funding.
“It’s just distracting from the efforts to save lives and here’s what I’ll say: Donald Trump’s doing this because of politics. North Carolina is a battleground state,” Farah Griffin said.
The View co-host added, “Right now, he wants to scare North Carolina voters into supporting him — thinking the Biden-Harris administration isn’t helping them.”
“He just day in and day out demonstrates why he’s so unfit for office,” she said.
Co-host Whoopi Goldberg also tore into Trump’s statements that FEMA money was going to migrants.
“Not a dime of disaster relief has gone to resettling migrants or anybody else,” Goldberg said, calling Trump’s claims a “bald-faced lie.”
“I just don’t know what else they can possibly blame on immigrants,” co-host Ana Navarro chimed in. “Are they going to blame immigrants for Donald Trump having five pieces of hair left on his head? It’s just the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen.”
FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said on Sunday that the recent criticism of her agency was “dangerous.”
“It has a tremendous impact on the comfort level of our own employees. … When you have this dangerous rhetoric like you’re hearing, it creates fear in our own employees,” Criswell said on ABC’s This Week.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) also clapped back at NBC host Kristen Welker on Sunday when she asserted that it was not true that “the idea that FEMA funds are being redirected to migrants.”
“It is true that FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security have been spending billions of dollars on migrants,” the senator said. “We just passed a short-term spending bill, very common for the [Biden-Harris] administration to come and ask for permission to move money between funds, especially to prepare for emergencies. This administration seems to have no problem finding money when they want to spend it on their priorities.”
Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC) attempted to blame “a relentless vortex of disinformation” by “bad actors and platforms like X” on Sunday.
“We need to work together to rebuild and recover from a catastrophic disaster like this one — and spreading false information to sow chaos hurts real people. Politicians, billionaires and grifters who peddle lies during a time of crisis should be held accountable,” Cooper wrote on the X platform.
“Your incompetence is fact, not disinformation,” a social media user shot back.
The former president was not deterred on Monday in continuing to criticize Vice President Kamala Harris for the handling of the hurricane recovery.
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“The GREAT people of North Carolina are being stood up by Harris and Biden, who are giving almost all of the FEMA money to Illegal Migrants in what is now considered to be the WORST rescue operation in the history of the U.S. On top of that, Billions of Dollars is going to foreign countries! NORTH CAROLINA HAS BEEN VIRTUALLY ABANDONED BY KAMALA!!! DROP HER LIKE SHE DROPPED YOU – VOTE FOR PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP. MAGA2024!” he wrote on his platform Truth Social.
Trump had to postpone his planned Univision town hall in Miami on Tuesday with Hurricane Milton forecast to hit Florida this week.