Vice President Kamala Harris criticized former President Donald Trump on Monday over false claims he has made talking about disaster relief for victims of Hurricane Helene.
Harris told reporters that there’s a lot of “disinformation being pushed out there by the former president about what is available, in particular to the survivors of Helene,” from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“It’s extraordinarily irresponsible. It’s about him; it’s not about you,” Harris said. “And the reality is that FEMA has so many resources that are available to folks who desperately need them now and resources that are about helping people get back on their feet and rebuild and have places to go.”
A Trump campaign spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Monday night.
Trump last week amplified a false claim about FEMA’s disaster funds, saying they were being distributed to migrants who entered the U.S. illegally.
“They stole the FEMA money, just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them this season,” Trump said at a rally in Saginaw, Michigan.
NBC News has reported that Trump and his allies were conflating a more than $20 billion fund exclusively set aside for disaster relief and a separate program established under direction from Congress in 2022 to distribute funds from Customs and Border Protection to help U.S. communities provide services to migrants released by the Department of Homeland Security.
FEMA has also responded, saying its emergency response money “has not been diverted to other, non-disaster related efforts.”
Trump spread false claims about the agency at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where he said the federal government was providing disaster victims only $750, a claim FEMA has disputed, describing the initial sum as a payment to help cover essentials and emergency supplies while it reviews survivors’ eligibility for more funds.
FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell referred to Trump’s comments as “just plain false” and “a truly dangerous narrative” in an interview Sunday with ABC News.
“It’s really a shame that we’re putting politics ahead of helping people, and that’s what we’re here to do,” Criswell said.
The storm, which made landfall in Florida on Sept. 26, became the deadliest on record since Hurricane Katrina in 2005 as the death toll rose to 230.
