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This is an adapted excerpt from the Oct. 10 episode of “All In with Chris Hayes.”
On Thursday, former President Barack Obama took aim at Donald Trump over his hurricane disinformation. During a speech in Pittsburgh, Obama called Trump “a guy who will just lie … to score political points.”
“The idea of intentionally trying to deceive people in their most desperate and vulnerable moments,” the former president continued. “My question is, when did that become OK? I’m not looking for applause right now. I want to ask Republicans out there, people who are conservative who didn’t vote for me — I have friends who disagree with me on every issue — when did that become OK?”
That dynamic is here again, in the wake of Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Trump is pushing dangerous lies that he thinks will get him back into the Oval Office.
It is shocking to see just how far and wide the lies surrounding Hurricanes Helene and Milton have penetrated. But it becomes slightly less shocking when you consider how right-wing forces — and one politician in particular — have spent the better part of a decade eroding the trust relationships Americans share with their elected officials, civil servants, scientists and even with one another.
It’s exactly what we faced in Trump’s first term during the Covid-19 pandemic. He flailed wildly for an angle to the pandemic that would make him look better — that was always the north star, day in and day out. Trump downplayed the dangers of the disease and pushed quack lies about medical cures. He suggested scientists and public officials wanted to take your freedom and actively undermined confidence in life-saving vaccines. In the end, thousands of Americans died who didn’t have to, victims of lies pushed by Trump and many of his supporters.
And now that dynamic is here again, in the wake of Helene and Milton. Trump is pushing dangerous lies that he thinks will get him back into the Oval Office.
That’s making life hard for the Republicans who support Trump but also want to save their constituents’ lives.
Just look at the mental gymnastics being performed by Rep. Ana Paulina Luna, a far-right Republican whose district was slammed by both Helene and Milton. On Thursday, she tried to reassure residents the government was on their side.
“Just got off the phone with [President Joe] Biden,” she posted on X. “He is personally overseeing that FEMA does not create problems with the debris removal and is supportive of the 15 Billion in FEMA funds ONLY FOR Hurricane victims.”
But where would Luna’s constituents have gotten the idea that FEMA doesn’t have the needed resources and isn’t coming to help them? Maybe from a video she posted last week, full of false claims.
“North Carolina’s underwater, 1,000 people missing,” Luna said in the video. “While in Pinellas County we had 11 deaths and we have the majority of our residents that aren’t gonna be able to come back to their homes because they’re completely destroyed. You have Mayorkas, the Biden-Harris administration and radical leftists in Washington, mostly in the Democrat Party, [giving] illegals $1.1 billion in housing assistance.”
The disinformation isn’t just an accident or a byproduct of Republican politics: It’s central to their entire political project.
"And the administration says it’s OK, we’ll give you $750,” she continued. “Meanwhile, they send our tax dollars overseas to fund countries that don’t need it and they give it to illegal immigrants.”
All of that is a lie. FEMA is fully funded. They are not taking money from disaster relief to house migrants. And the $750 in aid is just an immediate start to the aid that storm victims will receive.
But that was Luna last week, spreading gross and racist lies about storm aid and now, this week, she’s trying to walk it back and reassure the people she represents in Congress that the government will help them.
The disinformation isn’t just an accident or a byproduct of Republican politics: It’s central to their entire political project. They want to cut people off from trusting relationships with public agencies, with media, with experts and create an alternate universe in which reality is whatever the great leader says it is.
It’s wildly dangerous. It claimed lives in the pandemic. And it’s risking lives in disaster areas today.