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A top advisor to Donald Trump has now accused Fox News of running “literal propaganda” for airing a Hurricane Milton safety update from the president and federal officials.
Chris LaCivita, a GOP strategist and advisor to the Trump campaign, tweeted a photo of the channel airing an update on the storm from Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Officials from FEMA, the Coast Guard, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service also attended the call.
“@FoxNews just as bad as every other “cable news” network …running literally propaganda and @KamalaHarris TV ads disguised as a news conference,” LaCivita wrote on X.
The call was not a Harris campaign event nor propaganda, but instead an update on safety information ahead of Milton, a storm set to bring historic destruction to Florida when it makes landfall on Wednesday night.
During Biden’s hurricane update, Secretary Mayorkas railed against the rampant misinformation being spread about disaster safety.
“Mr. President, Madame Vice President, if I can just pick up on the important phrase, ‘the words matter,’ I want to thank you for the strength and moral clarity with which you have been speaking to back down false information that is being spread,” Mayorkas said.
“That false information is only hurting survivors in need of help and it is also hurting the first responders who are so bravely risking their lives to deliver that help to the survivors,” he continued.
The former president and his allies have repeatedly spread misinformation, particularly regarding last week’s Hurricane Helene and the incoming Milton.
Trump falsely claimed last week that federal disaster funds were stolen and given to “illegal immigrants” as Hurricane Helene slammed the southeastern US.
“They stole the FEMA money, just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them this season,” Trump said at a campaign event in Michigan on Thursday.
He went on to say that there is only $750 available for people impacted by hurricanes.
“They’re offering them $750 to people whose homes have been washed away,” Trump said on Saturday. “And yet we send tens of billions of dollars to foreign countries that most people have never heard of. They’re offering them $750. They’ve been destroyed. These people have been destroyed.”
FEMA has debunked this claim on their website, noting that the $750 payment is just one type of aid – known as Serious Needs Assistance – that survivors can apply for.
Trump’s allies have also false information about the weather while communities have been hit by multiple storms. Right-wing lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene claiming “they” can control the weather after Hurricane Helene killed more than two dozen people in Georgia, her home state.
While she did not clarify who “they” was at the time, Biden later said the idea the federal government controlled the weather was “beyond ridiculous”.
The Independent has contacted the Trump campaign and Fox News for comment.
