AP Photo/Susan Walsh
Former president Donald Trump will appear Friday in Georgia, one of the states hardest-hit by Hurricane Helene, after spending the week falsely telling voters that the U.S. government is unable to fund the disaster response – claims the White House slammed in a memo as “poison.”
Without naming Trump, the Biden administration on Friday said Republicans are spreading “bald-faced lies” about the hurricane response and are “using Hurricane Helene to lie and divide us.”
The White House memo came the day after the Federal Emergency Management Agency launched a tool to dispel rumors about the disaster response that was clearly aimed at countering Trump’s claims. The memo said the falsehoods could keep hurricane victims from seeking the assistance they critically need.
“It is paramount that every leader, whatever their political beliefs, stops spreading this poison,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates wrote in the memo, adding: “This isn’t about politics – it’s about helping people.”
In a statement to The Washington Post, Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt repeated the claim, without providing evidence, that the federal government had no funding, and made the accusation that Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump’s Democratic rival for the presidency, “stole” money from FEMA, which handles disaster relief. Leavitt said Trump “is leading during this tragic moment.”
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