Someone needs to let Fox's Dana Perino know that one of the people spreading lies about FEMA aid to hurricane victims was sitting right next to her when she feigned ignorance on where the dangerous misinformation came from.
Here's the former Bush spokes-liar turned Fox "news" regular on this Wednesday's The Five, pretending she has no idea how all these lies about what aid people are entitled to started.
DANA PERINO (CO-HOST): The media does this interesting thing where they'll take one little thing and pretend that's the entire story, as if Republicans spreading misinformation is the entire story of this hurricane response. Meanwhile, you have people who are like, "Is my government coming to help me? Is anyone coming to help me?" Thankfully, there are people on the ground there and they're getting more resources in. But it was slow, and I think that the more that they try to rub the spot on the wall, the worse it gets for them from the Biden administration.
On the $750 issue, it wasn't Trump that said it. I don't know who started it. But one of the problems with that, that Mayorkas said this morning to ABC News is that if people think they're only going to get $750 total and that's it, then they might not even come to FEMA at all for help. And that's not what they want. The $750 is an initial thing for immediate needs, and then you can apply for more, but there's a lot of red tape.
Sorry Dana, but "the media" isn't doing anything to distort this story. If anything, they're not spending enough time calling out the liars who are endangering people's lives.
And, as Media Matters also reported, it's not just Trump and Republican politicians, but also right wing media, which includes Fox, and includes Jesse Watters who was sitting right next to Perino during the segment, who are pushing these dangerous lies.
- Fox News personalities grossly misled viewers about federal aid that Helene survivors are entitled to
Fox’s misleading coverage of $750 payment was “one of the more dishonest omissions ever seen on Fox News – which is saying something.” Mediaite columnist Michael Luciano wrote of the misleading attack by Fox hosts Sean Hannity, Jesse Watters, and Laura Ingraham. Watters and Ingraham aired misleading clips from a speech by VP Kamala Harris suggesting that $750 was the only benefit survivors were entitled to, while Harris continued explaining that it was just the start of substantial federal aid. Hannity described the aid efforts in similarly dishonest terms:
To wit, on Thursday, Laura Ingraham and Jesse Watters aired a clip of Vice President Kamala Harris speaking in hurricane-ravaged Georgia the previous day. As Harris spoke on Ingraham’s show, the Fox News chyron read, “Kamala: Here’s $750 that’ll do the trick.”
…
As X/Twitter super-poster Acyn Torbai noted in the video below, Fox News actually carried Harris’s speech live the previous day. The vice president explained that the $750 is just the beginning of the assistance available to impacted residents. [Mediaite, 10/3/24]
After cutting off the video of Harris in Georgia before her promise of “tens of thousands more dollars” in aid, Fox host Laura Ingraham claimed that all victims are “getting right now is a $750 check … from the federal government — the government you’ve been sending taxes to your entire life.” She asked, “Did Joe and Kamala care more about the millions of illegals coming across our border than the people struggling in the storm-ravaged Southeast?” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 10/3/24]
Fox host Jesse Watters lamented that Vice President Harris is “tossing a few hundred bucks at people who lost everything.” He continued, “$750. Democrats sent checks for thousands of dollars during COVID. Thousands. None of those people had their homes swept away by floodwaters.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 10/2/24]
Watters told Fox News guest and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy that “Kamala Harris throwing $750 at people who lost everything — their homes, their family, their cats, their dogs, everything” is “insulting.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 10/2/24]
Watters scoffed: “$750 per person in America after you lost your entire home, all of your belongings, and you have no food, power, or water.” He complained, “When American citizens — the ones who were born here and pay taxes — deserve help, Biden and Harris are saying, ‘Ah, sorry, we give it all away to the people who broke into the country.’” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 10/3/24]
Sean Hannity blamed FEMA’s lack of funds on its provision of “free food, housing, health care, education, sex-change surgeries, debit cards, four-star hotels” to undocumented immigrants while Helene victims get “a lousy … $750.” “They've been completely abandoned by your border czar, who prioritized her unvetted illegal immigrants over the American people.” [Fox News, Hannity, 10/3/24]
On his radio show, Hannity claimed that Hurricane Helene victims are receiving “a mere $750 one-time payment from FEMA because they gave all of it to Harris-Biden unvetted illegal immigrants.” He continued, “What about the people whose entire lives have been upended here? And that’s all you’re going to offer them? Is a mere 750 bucks a week after the event happened?” [Premiere Radio Networks, The Sean Hannity Show, 10/3/24]
Fox anchor John Roberts complained that the $750 payment would not be effective. He said, “If they really wanted to help people out, they’d be going up and down the street with hundred dollar bills and handing them out to folks that need to buy things immediately, and, as well, doing everything that they can to get supplies to them.” [Fox News, America Reports, 10/3/24]
Someone wake me up when these dangerous liars are sued out of existence. They continue to be a threat to our democracy with these lies that constantly go unchecked.
