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Washington CNN —
Another natural disaster, another series of false claims from President-elect Donald Trump.
For years, Trump has littered his statements on California wildfires and other disasters with inaccurate assertions. He did it again on Wednesday as wildfires raged in Los Angeles County.
Here is a fact check.
Trump claimed on social media Wednesday that President Joe Biden is leaving him “NO MONEY IN FEMA.”
Facts First: Trump’s claim is false. Though FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund was depleted last year by a series of major disasters, Biden signed a bill in December that replenished the fund. “The current balance of the Disaster Relief Fund is approximately $27 billion,” FEMA told CNN in an email on Wednesday. That sum may well prove inadequate to meet the needs created by every disaster that ends up happening this year, but it’s not “no money.”
The December bill approved $29 billion in new money for the Disaster Relief Fund – Biden had asked Congress for $40 billion – plus billions more in other new disaster-related funding.
“Thanks to Congress’s recent passage of a disaster supplemental, FEMA has the funding and resources needed to respond to the needs of California,” the agency said in the Wednesday email.
Trump made similar false claims about FEMA being out of money in the wake of Hurricane Helene in the fall.
Trump blamed Democratic California Gov....
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