The Media Research Center’s Jorge Bonilla — defender of lies that benefit Donald Trump’s campaign — huffed in an Oct. 3 post:
Part of what makes the Regime Media the Regime Media is their propensity to hide stories that cast the Regime in an unfavorable light. One such story is the announcement, made by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that, with a month remaining, FEMA lacks the funds to make through hurricane season.
[…]Portions of the Carolinas have been obliterated, many persons remain unaccounted for, and the agency in charge of backstopping state assistance is out of money? That’s terrible. And yet, despite having ample time to include this in their hurricane coverage, none of ABC, CBS, NBC did so during their evening network newscasts.
NewsMax did, though.
Of course Newsmax did — like Bonilla and the MRC, it’s part of the Trump Regime Media. He continued:
Now why wouldn’t the Regime Media want to highlight the need for additional hurricane relief funding at such a critical juncture? Because that might expose the American public to the fact that FEMA has spent approximately $1 billion dollars in Shelter Services funding of illegal migrant housing over the last couple of years.
[…]The article cites research done by Oilfield Rando, who works in the energy industry and researches government waste, such as…FEMA dropping $183K on a diversity, equity, and inclusion study.
It is unclear which is more infuriating: FEMA’s overall mismanagement or the Regime Media suppressing the story so as not to damage the Regime’s electoral prospects. In all likelihood, they are waiting for a Trump-negative angle with which to report the story- that is, to “Trumpwash” prior to publication.
Bonilla gave us no reason an anonymous rando who calls him/herself Oilfield Rando should be trusted on anything simply because that mysterious person spouts right-wing-friendly narratives. As it turns out, not only is this claim false, it ignores the fact that Trump himself raided FEMA money for migrant-related purposes, as the Washington Post documented:
There’s no evidence that any money from the disaster fund was used to help migrants.
“These claims are completely false,” DHS said in a statement Thursday night. “As Secretary Mayorkas said, FEMA has the necessary resources to meet the immediate needs associated with Hurricane Helene and other disasters. The Shelter and Services Program (SSP) is a completely separate, appropriated grant program that was authorized and funded by Congress and is not associated in any way with FEMA’s disaster-related authorities or funding streams.”
Trump has a habit of assuming other politicians act in the same way as he would. So we wondered why he would accuse Biden of raiding the FEMA disaster fund to handle undocumented migrants.
It turns out that’s because he did this. In 2019, the Trump administration, in the middle of hurricane season, told Congress that it was taking $271 million from DHS programs, including $155 million from the disaster fund, to pay for immigration detention space and temporary hearing locations for asylum seekers who had been forced to wait in Mexico. “The U.S. is facing a security and humanitarian crisis on the Southern border,” the administration said in its notice that it was redirecting the funds.
Bonilla concluded by whining: “It isn’t too much to ask for the so-called ‘mainstream media’ to act as journalists and ask these questions, as opposed to acting like courtesans and sycophants. Especially when lives are literally at stake.” Yet it’s apparently too much to ask for Bonilla to tell his readers the full truth instead of acting like a pro-Trump courtesan and sycophant.
Bonilla returned for an Oct. 9 post complaining that the media called out Trump’s lies about FEMA’s response to the hurricane:
Now that former President Donald Trump has made a series of statements regarding the federal response to Hurricane Helene, elements of the Regime Media have found their angle with which to cover the recovery. The real scandal is not the slowness of response or hurricane emergency funding shortfall, but Trump’s statements. The story of Hurricane Helene recovery is in the process of being Trumpwashed.
[…]It took about a week, but the Regime Media have stepped up and made Trump’s statements the real scandal. Consider how ABC World News Tonight covered a single sentence where Trump quotes someone else, and makes that into the scandal:
Bonilla, being a loyal Trump Regime Media denizen, then sought to justify Trump’s lie that there was “no FEMA” response:
That single sentence from Trump took over a minute to frame as “dangerous misinformation.” But the fact is that there were and remain many individuals with grave concerns over the early response to Helene. There is still an indeterminate number of bodies to be recovered from the muck and water. And there is zero doubt that, were a Republican president today, the Regime Media would be covering these response deficiencies onsite.
Bonilla then whined: “Here, again, the purpose of this story is to forward a narrative of competence, which would be untruthful. And, as I foretold, Trump’s statements are the story of Helene recovery, instead of the people.” Bonilla isn’t exactly demonstrating competence by defending Trump’s lies.
Tim Graham joined in bashing the media for calling out Trump’s lies in his Oct. 9 podcast:
Now that Trump has slammed Team Biden’s slow response to Hurricane Helene, media outlets have claimed the real scandal is not the FEMA response or the emergency funding shortfall, but Trump’s statements. ABC ran footage from The View of Kamala Harris saying criticism of FEMA is “the height of irresponsibility, and, frankly, callousness.”
That’s amazing. Because when George W. Bush, then, it was the liberal Democrat media that was easily defined as the irresponsible, callous opportunists.
Graham then played whataboutism by complaining about criticism of President George W. Bush’s response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The next day, Graham grumbled some of about Trump’s lies being called out:
ABC, CBS, and NBC evening news shows all led into the impending arrival of Hurricane Milton by promoting President Biden and Vice President Harris trashing Donald Trump for spreading hurricane “misinformation.” Only NBC allowed the view that the Federal Emergency Management Agency might not be doing a stellar job after Hurricane Helene.
ABC’s World News Tonight sounded more like “KJP News.” They ran a fifty-second soundbite of Biden ripping Trump as “un-American,” when soundbites are typically less than ten. There was no clip of anyone else. Then anchor David Muir turned to KJP clone Mary Bruce to repeat the messaging for more emphasis:
[…]CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell had the same spin: “President Biden is not pulling any punches today, calling out what he says is reckless and harmful disinformation about the federal government’s hurricane response, and he has made it clear, he blames former President Trump, today calling his lies un-American.”
Graham, however, refused to concede that Trump was lying. He then tried to spin the lie about FEMA money going to “illegal aliens”:
Reporter Nikole Killion aired a clip of Trump saying, “You know where they gave the money? To illegal immigrants coming in.” She said “But even before Trump set foot in his home town, Biden fact-checked the former President.” Biden said “Former President Trump has led this onslaught of lies.”
Then Killion turned to Trump supporters in MAGA gear who said FEMA is giving money to settling illegal aliens (true), and Killion told them “You believe those claims, even though FEMA has said they’re not true.” FEMA disaster-relief money wasn’t diverted to illegal aliens, but FEMA is spending a lot of money on “emergency” support for them.
Curtis Houck tried to downplay the lies about FEMA as “vague”:
Thursday’s White House press briefing appropriately had a central focus of late Wednesday’s landfall of Hurricane Milton on Florida’s Gulf Coast and tornadoes across the state, but the partisan shills chose to ask a slew of questions emphasizing about this vague “misinformation” campaign they claim has had catastrophic consequences in the south as somehow on part with apocalyptic physical devastation and incalculable loss of life and fortune.
CNN’s Kayla Tausche first went there with this question to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who obviously went along with angry but also vague claims:
[…]The worst behavior came from Disney’s resident North Korean news lady for the Biden-Harris regime, Mary Bruce:
[…]Ah, yes, Mary. Definitely put FEMA workers at the center of one’s pity, not those who lost everything in Helene and/or Milton.
Given that FEMA and other disaster relief personnel were receiving threats as a result of those lies, some concern is warranted — unless, of course, the MRC hates government employees so much that it believes they deserve to be violently threatened.
Graham returned to grouse some more in an Oct. 13 post that Trump and Republicans were being held to account for their hurricane misinformation:
The Friday night pundits on the PBS News Hour worried out loud about how Kamala Harris is slipping, and David Brooks upset Jonathan Capehart by saying it was a “major mistake” for Harris to say she’d do nothing differently than Biden. But at the end, they came back around to screaming about hurricane disinformation from the Republicans.
Anchor Geoff Bennett touted a “great piece” on misinformation attacking the Republicans. Bennett began with a bizarre tweet from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene implying nefarious people can control the weather:
Of course, Graham had to spin away Greene’s conspiracy theory with a little whataboutism:
PBS pretends only strange Republicans tout weather-control conspiracies, when right in Washington DC, they never noticed in 2018 when Democrat city councilman Trayon White warning during a snowfall of the “climate control” of the Rothschilds (Jewish bankers). If PBS had an actual conservative pundit, they could point out Democrat disinformation, or rebut Warzel. But you have two pundits who just want to bash Trump and MTG the Weather Girl all day and into the weekend.
Graham apparent;ly doesn’t see the difference between a local city councilman and a sitting U.S. congreswoman. Nevertheless, he wrote a post the next day downplaying those threats against FEMA because they could be considered to be incited by Trump:
Both CBS Mornings and NBC’s Today pounced on a Washington Post story which promoted an email alleging there was an “armed militia” speaking darkly of “hunting FEMA.” Both CBS and NBC connected this alleged threat to clips of Donald Trump speeches.
Washington Post reporter Brianna Sacks, whose bio proclaims she “explores how climate change is transforming the United States through violent storms, intense heat, widespread wildfires, and other forms of extreme weather,” promoted the usual Anonymous Sources making unproven claims:
[…]The story came with a clip of Trump saying “Kamala spent all her FEMA money, billions of dollars, on housing for illegal migrants.”
On CBS, reporter Nicole Sganga didn’t even admit the shaky sourcing.
Graham didn’t admit the shaky sourcing behind the Trump’s false FEMA smear. Instead, he peddled more Katrina whataboutism: “The networks reviled FEMA as an inefficient gang of bunglers under President Bush after Hurricane Katrina, and now they surround FEMA like a journalistic Secret Service, decrying how this phantom of Trump-inspired ‘armed militias’ is ruining government efficiency.” Well, those armed militias weren’t exactly helping government efficiency, are they?