Jake Tapper on Monday blasted former president Donald Trump for baseless allegations that FEMA has been giving money to “illegals” instead of to victims of Hurricane Helene.
“Sounds a lot like what we heard from officials in Springfield, Ohio, after Trump and Vance falsely claimed that Haitian migrants were eating their neighbors’ cats and dogs,” he said on CNN.
While speaking in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, according to Tapper, the GOP candidate “falsely suggested that there is meager assistance for Americans who lost everything but their lives from Hurricane Helene; that they were not being offered much by the federal government.”
The “Lead” host then played a video clip from one of the rallies in which Trump said, “They send hundreds of billions of dollars to foreign nations, and you know what they’re giving people [here]? 750 bucks. They’re offering them $750 to people whose homes have been washed away.”
Tapper added that $750 check “would be shocking if it were true that that’s all that the federal government was offering these disaster victims.” He went on to explain that it’s “just one form of assistance to help people cover essential items like food and water and other emergency supplies in the short term.”
Plus, the CNN personality wasn’t the only one fact-checking Trump about the issue: Over on Fox News, Laura Ingraham also clarified that the $750 is for “immediate needs.”
Tapper further called out Trump for claiming that FEMA has given “over a billion dollars to illegal migrants” and now doesn’t have the funds to cover the devastation in several states hit by Helene.
“When you listen to folks on the ground in the community in North Carolina, where my mom is from, it sounds a lot like what we heard from officials in Springfield, Ohio, after Trump and Vance falsely claimed that Haitian migrants were eating their neighbors’ cats and dogs,” Tapper said.
“This same misinformation, these lies about FEMA, also a distraction, hindering recovery efforts, taking away from the real problem, hundreds dead, dozens missing, communities that will need to be rebuilt from the ground up,” he continued.
North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican who has previously backed Trump, countered the candidate’s claims, saying that federal resources are still flowing to the western part of the state. Tapper also cited Republican governor of South Carolina Henry McMaster, who last week said that the federal response to Helene has “been superb.”
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