The editorial board of a prominent newspaper in North Carolina has issued a sharp rebuke to Donald Trump and other Republicans for exploiting the devastating effects of Hurricane Helene to spread misinformation that is hampering recovery efforts.
The editorial board for The Charlotte Observer, the largest circulated paper in both North Carolina and South Carolina, did not hold back in condemning Trump and his allies’ response to the tragedy.
“This is not a situation to capitalize on for political gain. But former President Donald Trump has politicized the situation at every turn, spreading falsehoods and conspiracies that fracture the community instead of bringing it together,” the paper’s editorial board wrote.
Trump and some Republicans have accused Democrats of malfeasance in the wake of the storm, directing their ire primarily at North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, falsely saying they went “out of their way to not help people in Republican areas,” and telling locals that the Biden White House has “left Americans to drown,” the board detailed.
Trump wrongly claimed, for example, that Biden avoided speaking to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) about the damage that Helene has wrought upon the state; Kemp later corrected this falsehood, noting that he had in fact spoken with the president. Trump also errantly stated that Harris, his Democratic opponent in the presidential election, used FEMA dollars to secure housing for undocumented immigrants instead of helping victims of the storm.
Ironically, Trump himself diverted FEMA dollars away from disaster recovery efforts as president, shifting those funds toward his anti-immigration schemes instead. Trump also threatened to withhold FEMA spending to help Californians facing wildfires in 2018 because the state had more Democratic voters than Republican ones — and only relented after a White House aid showed him how many people in those areas were Republicans, an incident that is being emphasized now in a new ad from the Harris campaign.
Recovery efforts in the southeastern part of the U.S. have been inadequate, but not nearly as bad as Trump has made them out to be, The Charlotte Observer editorial board said.
Rather than being “the worst response in the history of hurricanes,” as Trump has described it, the editorial board noted that, “by every indication, state and federal agencies have been working to help people in need.”
“It may not be enough, because this is one of the worst disasters our state has ever seen. … But the people of North Carolina have not been left out to dry,” the board said.
The board recognized that other Republicans, including Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who is running to become North Carolina’s next governor, have also taken advantage of the tragedy. Robinson has accused Cooper and Biden of not doing enough to prepare for Helene, and has “used the tragedy for photo ops and posts on social media and predicted he will be called a ‘hero’ for his efforts to help victims,” the board wrote, “despite the fact that he missed a key vote to declare a state of emergency in preparation for the storm.”
Trump, Robinson, and others have exploited the disaster for political gain, the paper’s editorial board said, adding:
This is not a campaign opportunity. The most unhelpful thing any politician — or anyone else — can do right now is spread misinformation and tell people that their government isn’t doing anything to help them.
“Sowing the seeds of political division is always an unnecessary and tiresome endeavor,” the board concluded. “But doing so in times of great need, when unity is paramount, is particularly shameful.”
Hurricane Helene resulted in the deaths of at least 232 people across six U.S. states. North Carolina accounts for nearly half of those deaths, with 117 people dead due to the storm.
The devastation was made much worse by Republican state lawmakers’ efforts to deregulate housing at multiple junctures over the past two decades, a New York Times analysis found.
PBS News also reported that disinformation from Trump and his allies is shifting precious time and energy away from recovery efforts.
“Disinformation after a hurricane or other natural disaster can discourage people from seeking critical assistance when they need it most,” the White House said in a brief this week.
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