Even Fox News Had to Fact-Check Team Trump’s Hurricane Lies
The lies Donald Trump’s campaign is spewing have become so extreme that even Fox News has started calling them out.
Trump’s attorney Alina Habba appeared on Fox News Tuesday to address the White House’s comments on Trump spreading misinformation about the federal government’s hurricane relief efforts.
“Let’s talk about facts,” Habba offered, but instead, she started to criticize Kamala Harris for appearing on the Call Her Daddy podcast. Habba then spread a gruesome piece of misinformation.
“There are still people missing, there are babies floating in the water, and we’re on podcasts? That’s what the Harris team is doing,” Habba claimed.
“Where did you see that report of a baby floating in the water?” interjected host Martha McCallum.
“We have absolutely heard there are children floating,” replied Habba, clearly unprepared to provide any evidence to support her talking point.
“There’s missing bodies, dead bodies, we know that. There are dead people, up to uh, 200 …” Habba sputtered as she tried to back up her baseless claim. “This is the problem. It’s not misinformation, it’s fact.”
Habba: There are babies floating in the water and we’re on podcasts?!?
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 8, 2024
MacCallum: Where did you see that report of a baby in the water?
Habba: We have absolutely heard there are children missing pic.twitter.com/cJ7vXj533j
Earlier Tuesday, FEMA director Deanne Criswell hit back at Trump’s repeated claims that there has been no on-the-ground presence in areas hit by Hurricane Helene and inadequate recovery aid, calling the accusation “completely false.”
But that hasn’t stopped Trump, who took to Truth Social Tuesday to brand the Biden administration’s response “THE WORST RESPONSE TO A STORM OR HURRICANE DISASTER IN U.S. HISTORY.”
On Monday, Trump made such extreme claims on Fox News that host Laura Ingraham repeatedly corrected him as he discussed federal hurricane relief.
Trump tried to criticize Harris’s response to Helene but kept coming up short when it came to actual reasons to complain. When Trump tried to whine that Harris was only offering $750 to victims, Ingraham had to interject that the funds were “for immediate needs.” When Trump said that Harris should go to the areas affected, such as North Carolina, Ingraham cut in to say that “she was there today, for three hours, I believe.”
Trump’s rampant lies have gotten so bad that even Republican lawmakers have had to start fact-checking the presidential nominee for their own party. Representative Chuck Edwards published a list Tuesday titled “Debunking Helene Response Myths.”
“FEMA is NOT only providing $750 to disaster survivors to support their recovery,” the release from Edwards’s office said, debunking Trump’s complaint. The list also clarified that FEMA had not diverted funding to the border or foreign aid and that the agency was not going to run out of money.