The Media Research Center worked hard to defend Donald Trump spreading the highly exaggerated, if not outright false, claim that FEMA was running out of disaster relief money because that money was supposedly going to “illegal aliens” (it wasn’t). Donald Perkins spent an Oct. 16 post complaining that those lies were being fact-checked:
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has been exposed for running a vast government censorship enterprise and yet he made a new call to fact-check views that taint the image of the department he oversees.
Sec. Mayorkas joined CBS host Margaret Brennan on the Oct. 13 edition of Face the Nation following the tumult of Hurricane Milton. During the show, Mayorkas ranted about the threat of so-called misinformation about the DHS’s response to the recent hurricane disasters. “Well, I’ll tell you what we need. We need individuals, elected officials, people who have the platform to really debunk this false information and we are not having enough of that and I find that to be incredibly irresponsible,” he said.
Brennan teed up Mayorkas for his rant against alleged misinformation with her question about “dangerous misinformation being amplified online,” She asked Mayorkas, “Are you concerned when you see this and how widespread it is that it is a preview of what is to come with the upcoming US election as well, an attempt to manipulate people.”
Mayorkas responded by saying that he was “incredibly concerned,” defining disinformation as “false information deliberately spread to impact people’s behavior” and claiming the issue is “extremely pernicious.”
The so-called “false” information Mayorkas referred to included online outrage aimed at the DHS-led FEMA response to Hurricane Milton. For example, X owner Elon Musk took to his platform to highlight a message from a SpaceX engineer warning him about FEMA’s misdeeds. “The big issue is FEMA is actively blocking shipments and seizing goods and services locally and locking them away to state they are their own. It’s very real and scary how much they have taken control to stop people helping.”
But Musk provided no actual evidence that “FEMA is actively blocking shipments and seizing goods and services,” and Perkins cited other no verification of Musk’s claim. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg denied any such blocking has happened, accusing Musk of spreading misinformation.
The same day, Mark Finkelstein complained that a CNN commentator pointed out how “statements Trump has made have made people distrustful [of] FEMA” and that “The reason why this began, with the hurricane disinformation about FEMA and everything, is because Donald Trump is talking about it.” He didn’t defend Trump, perhaps knowing there is no defense for Trump’s lies.
Curtis Houck continued the fact-check whining in an Oct. 22 post:
ABC’s Good Morning America delivered another remarkably partisan 2024 reports on Tuesday’s show, panning former President Trump for “debunked,” “false,” and “increasingly incendiary rhetoric” about FEMA aid, immigration, and “transgender rights” and fawning over Vice President Kamala Harris making an “aggressive push” and “inroads with suburban conservative voters.”
Co-host and former Clinton official George Stephanopoulos declared in a tease that Trump spent Monday “campaigning in North Carolina, pushing false claims about the hurricane relief response while Vice President Harris barnstorms three battleground states with former top Republican lawmaker Liz Cheney, talking about abortion, trying to make inroads with suburban conservative voters[.]”
ABC’s Rachel Scott — who has religious-like hatred for Trump — sneered that “in the final stretch, Donald Trump using increasingly incendiary rhetoric to attack Vice President Kamala Harris and still pushing false claims about the administration’s response to the hurricane.”
With a chyron bellyaching about “heated rhetoric,” Scott huffed that Trump “push[ed] false and debunked claims that the federal government diverted disaster funds to undocumented migrants” and “refused to condemn” the “disinformation” that’s “led to violent threats against FEMA workers.”
Is Houck cheering violent threats against FEMA workers? Seems like it — which seems disgusting. Houck is clearly giving Trump a pass for his lies.