"Fox & Friends" continued pushing false claims about president Joe Biden's response to Hurricane Helene hours after the network officially debunked them.
Chad Pergram, senior congressional correspondent for Fox News, reported Tuesday night that the network had obtained a fact on disaster aid sheet assembled by the Republican majority on the House Appropriations Committee that showed the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had enough funding to address the short-term needs for both Helene and Hurricane Milton.
"It also declares there is 'no funding connection between' the migrant shelter program and the Disaster Relief Fund," Pergram reported. "It adds there is 'no intermingling of funding between these two programs.' It adds that 'the only connection is that both programs are administered by FEMA.'"
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Donald Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance, as well as their GOP allies, have been claiming that FEMA was unable to provide relief to hurricane-ravaged states because funding had been diverted to immigration and diversity programs, although those falsehoods have been debunked over and over, and Fox News hosted conspiracy theorist Miranda Devine to peddle them some more.
"How many assassination attempts does there have to be on the former president before you people stop calling him a threat?" said host Steve Doocy. "[Kamala Harris] said that question was dangerous. It's not a dangerous question, they were using that word, and so it's just one of those things they are trying to shut people down by saying, 'Oh, you're dangerous, you are spreading misinformation, mister.'"
Davis, a longtime News Corp. employee from Australia who has been laser-focused on Hunter Biden's business dealings, argued that presenting Trump as a threat to democracy was a threat to free speech, and then repeated the claims that Pergram had knocked down hours earlier.
"One that they have freely wielded before," Davis said. "We have seen them threaten social media, and social media therefore has censored people whether it's about Covid-19 or rude moments about the first lady or Hunter Biden's laptop. They censored American speech, now what they're saying is if you dare raise any embarrassing fact like the fact that FEMA was handing out money to illegal migrants instead of keeping it for hurricane victims like the fact that [White House correspondent] Peter Doocy mentioned in that question that Karine Jean-Pierre labeled misinformation that the administration has no problem bringing out $160 million to Lebanon for humanitarian relief, but says it needs to go Congress to give hurricane victims relief, and it's all about, you know, this idea that Biden and Harris that is why it is so dangerous to them politically."
The vice president announced $157 million in additional assistance to Lebanon, bringing the total over the last year to $385 million, as Israeli troops make an incursion into its neighbor's borders, while FEMA has already spent more than $210 million on Helene relief, and the president may call lawmakers back to Washington for an emergency session to approve additional disaster aid.
"Giving all that money to Lebanon at the same time when there is a problem getting more money to hurricane victims is a bad look," Doocy said, and, obviously, [Jean-Pierre] was angry at that question because right after she answered it she stormed out of the room."
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