Column: Trump lies about FEMA. Elon jumps for joy. Meanwhile, Mother Nature storms

Hello and happy Tuesday. There are 28 days until the election, and the MAGA lies are spinning faster than Hurricane Milton.

Milton, you may have heard, has grown to a Category 5 monster that is set to hit Florida on Wednesday. It could be more damaging than Hurricane Helene, which devastated six states including Georgia and North Carolina just a few days ago. Already, Florida authorities are urging people to evacuate.

Without a doubt, there will be damage and our federal government will respond. Federal authorities have already deployed thousands of National Guard troops and millions of dollars in aid to states hit by Helene.

But that’s not how Donald Trump is telling it, of course.

You’d think with that comb-over Trump would want to avoid high winds, but instead he’s jumping into a whirlwind of whoppers with the enthusiasm of Elon Musk on a rally stage.

Let’s jump in ourselves — belly buttons covered, please.

Donald Trump visits a furniture store in Valdosta, Ga., damaged by Hurricane Helene.

(Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images)

Another woman MAGA hates: Mother Nature

First, a reminder that climate change is real, and is increasingly becoming a political issue as it drives people from their homes, collapses our insurance model and creates what I am dubbing climate poverty — the multigenerational inability to recover after losing everything to a natural disaster.

We are short-memoried creatures, so many of us not affected by last year’s worst hurricane, Idalia, will have forgotten she caused 12 deaths and $3.6 billion in damage — and sparked now-common conversations (for some, anyway) about the growing consequences of climate change not just in our forests or along our coasts, but in every neighborhood where tornadoes, floods or other natural disasters are becoming more common and more fierce.

Just ask Sanibel Island, which Idalia leveled in 2023 and which is now under an evacuation order for Milton, while still cleaning up from Helene (which so far is responsible for the deaths of 230 people) — you can deny science all you want, Mother Nature does not care.

Trump seemingly does not care either, about truth or recovery.

Trump (with the help of his newest best buddy Musk, sorry JD) wasted no time in pivoting from lies about the immigrant community in Springfield, Ohio, (so last week!) to falsely claiming that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is not helping hurricane survivors; is giving disaster relief funds to migrants instead; is only helping Democrats; is seizing land. You get the idea.

“The GREAT people of North Carolina are being stood up by Harris and Biden, who are giving almost all of the FEMA money to Illegal Migrants in what is now considered to be the WORST rescue operation in the history of the U.S. On top of that, Billions of Dollars is going to foreign countries! NORTH CAROLINA HAS BEEN VIRTUALLY ABANDONED BY KAMALA!!!”

That’s Trump Monday on Truth Social. The grammar police in me have to point out: Billions of dollars are going. Are! Not is. But it’s a nonsensical fear-mongering statement, so I don’t know why I care. But I do.

More to the point, “It’s frankly disappointing that we’re having to deal with this narrative and the fact that there’s a few leaders that are having a hard time telling the difference between fact and fiction is creating an impedance to our ability to actually get people the help they need,” FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

It’s gotten so bad, FEMA had to set up an entire “rumor response” web page.

Election chaos

You could chalk this up to the MAGA lie of the week, but with such a short time until the election (and early voting already underway in some places) the rancor, confusion and fear Trump is causing could have an effect.

The nucleus of Trump’s FEMA bashing, somewhat predictably, is about immigration — specifically the claim that FEMA money is being diverted from helping U.S. citizen disaster survivors to undocumented immigrants at the border.

Like many Trump lies, this one grew out of a fact, like a tumor off a healthy cell.

FEMA does run a program for migrants, in conjunction with U.S. Customs and Border Protection. It’s called the Shelter and Services Program and in 2024 it received about $640 million from its own funding bucket, entirely separate from disaster relief money.

The program gives grants to outside agencies to help migrants who have crossed the border, both to save lives and help border communities that just don’t have the resources to help the thousands of people who enter the U.S. without documentation each year. Yes, folks — our immigration system does need fixing.

But — as he did with Springfield — Trump is doubling and tripling down on these lies even as some Republican governors and lawmakers in affected states confirm that FEMA is on the ground in a big way and aid is available. This year, FEMA received $35 billion in funding for disasters — but that’s not enough.

The Musk factor

Adding to the chaos, Musk promoted a rumor on his cesspool social media site X that volunteers were being hampered by federal authorities and that airspace was being closed so help couldn’t get in. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg actually had to speak with Musk personally to quash that one.

It turns out that during a disaster, it’s common for federal authorities to take over handling airspace because it gets complicated fast with so many agencies and private parties all wanting to help. That’s a lot of helicopters, planes and even drones zipping around. So, no — the U.S. government wasn’t stopping aid, just avoiding crashes.

But the damage from all those lies is done. Aside from the confusion it has caused for survivors, this particularly vicious and racist bit of propaganda — that Kamala Harris is helping immigrants over U.S. citizens — has embedded itself in swing state psyches. People believe that we are out of money because the border is out of control.

But the truth is much scarier, though you won’t find a MAGA politician willing to admit it.

In 2023, the U.S. experienced a record number of disasters that cost more than $1 billion — 28 in all. FEMA warned it was running out of money that year, too.

This year, by August, we had 19 billion-dollar events, not counting the recent hurricanes, and with a relatively mild fire season.

We are running out of disaster relief money because climate change is causing more and worse disasters. That is a reality we need to plan for — but I’ll leave you with this.

Project 2025, which Trump claims to know nothing about, calls for privatizing FEMA and doing away with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which tracks hurricanes.

What could possibly go wrong?

What else you should be reading:

The must-listen: “Call Her Daddy” podcast with Kamala Harris
The L.A. Times special I: Will an influx of Californians into Arizona tilt the battleground state’s politics?
The L.A. Times special II: In the heart of Appalachia, a distant cousin of JD Vance leads an opposing “authentic hillbilly” movement

Stay Golden,
Anita Chabria

P.S. The Harris campaign is not letting the lies go unchecked. Here’s its response: Clips of Republican governors saying they are receiving federal aid:

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