Trump lies put aid workers at risk
Julia Conley for Common Dreams
A progressive policy group in North Carolina was among those expressing alarm on Sunday as news spread that federal emergency workers were forced to evacuate an area hit hard by Hurricane Helene late last month after officials warned that "armed militias" were "hunting" hurricane response teams.
But the news didn't come as a shock to Carolina Forward, an
independent think tank, considering that it came after weeks of lies from
Republican presidential nominee Donald
Trump about the Biden administration and the Federal Emergency
Management Agency's (FEMA) response to the hurricane.
"This is what MAGA does," said Carolina Forward on social media.
"Eventually, their lies have real world consequences."
As The Washington Postreported Sunday evening, a U.S. Forest Service official sent an urgent message to other federal agencies involved in the recovery on Saturday afternoon, saying FEMA had advised all federal responders in Rutherford County, North Carolina "to stand down and evacuate the county immediately."
National Guard troops in the area, said the official,
"had come across x2 trucks of armed militia saying there were out hunting
FEMA."
The message was verified by two federal officials.
Emergency responders moved to a "safe area" and paused their work in Rutherford County, where they had been delivering supplies and clearing trees from roads in order to help search-and-rescue crews.
"Let's be clear: Armed militia are terrorizing FEMA
rescue workers and causing important work to stop because Donald Trump spread
lies and disinformation about the hurricane. This is on the Republican
candidate for president with help from Elon Musk," said media critic Jennifer Schulze,
referring to the billionaire owner of X who has used the social media platform
to amplify Trump's lies. "Shameful and disqualifying."
Fox News affiliate WGHP reported Monday
that a man was charged with threatening FEMA workers in Rutherford County. The
suspect was identified as William Jacob Parsons, who was armed with a handgun
when he was arrested. Investigators said he acted alone.
The forced pause in the work is just the latest example of
the measurable impact of statements made by Trump and his running mate, U.S. Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio),
about FEMA in the wake of hurricanes Helene and Milton.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warned last
Thursday that federal employees, thousands of whom have been deployed to states
including North Carolina and Florida to help with the response to the
devastating storms, have received threats in recent days. Meteorologists have
received angry messages from people convinced that weather experts and
government officials "are creating and directing hurricanes," The
Guardianreported last
week.
"I have had a bunch of people saying I created and
steered the hurricane, there are people assuming we control the weather,"
Katie Nickolaou, a meteorologist in Michigan, toldThe Guardian. "I
have had to point out that a hurricane has the energy of 10,000 nuclear bombs
and we can't hope to control that. But it's taken a turn to more violent
rhetoric, especially with people saying those who created Milton should be
killed."
President Joe Biden was driven to address Trump's lies about
the hurricane response last week, saying the
disinformation was "undermining confidence in the incredible rescue and
recovery work that has already been taken and will continue to be taken."
Since Helene swept through a number of states late last
month, catching communities in western North Carolina off-guard with
devastating flooding, Trump has baselessly claimed that:
- Biden
ignored a call for help from Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who
denied Trump's claim;
- He
received unspecified "reports" that North Carolina officials
were "going out of their way to not help people in Republican
areas";
- Vice
President Kamala Harris, the Democratic
presidential nominee, spent "all her FEMA money" on housing for
undocumented immigrants; and
- FEMA
is providing only $750 to people who lost their homes.
Riva Duncan, a former Forest Service official in hard-hit
Asheville, North Carolina, told the Post that locals have told
FEMA employees who have arrived with aid to to help with repairs, "We
don't want your help here."
"It's terrible because a lot of these folks who need
assistance are refusing it because they believe the stuff people are saying
about FEMA and the government," Duncan told the newspaper. "And it's
sad because they are probably the ones who need the help the most."
In the town of Chimney Rock in Rutherford County, FEMA has
shifted to working in secure areas in fixed locations instead of going door to
door to assess community needs, the Post reported, "out
of an abundance of caution."
Matt Ortega, a web developer in Oakland, California, said
the impact of Trump's baseless claims about the hurricane response mirror that
of his earlier lies about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, where schools and
government business ground to a halt in recent weeks due to bomb threats
stemming from claims that Haitian people were stealing neighbors' pets and
eating them.
"Trump and Republicans' FEMA lies [incur] a debt, just
as they did in Springfield," said Ortega. "The people who pay
it are children whose schools are closed due to bomb threats in Springfield and
recovery aid workers when militias are 'out hunting FEMA.'"