Politics
NEW: North Carolina Mayor Reveals Kamala Harris’ Major Lie On FEMA Assistance
A North Carolina mayor whose daughter’s house was flattened in last week’s historic hurricane is blaming Vice President Kamala Harris for lying about FEMA efforts to help make residents whole.
Derek Roberts, the mayor of Newland, presides over just 719 residents, according to the 2020 census, but his daughter is one of those he is fighting for in an ongoing battle with FEMA. Speaking with Fox News on Tuesday, the small-town executive claimed his kin’s request for a $750 relief payment was denied by the disaster relief agency. “My daughter, whose house got completely wiped out – she has no flood insurance – meets with a FEMA person, applies for everything, doesn’t get the $750 that Kamala says she’s supposed to get. Gets approved for $300 for personal items. What is that gonna do?” Roberts asked in outrage.
Sean Hannity has been among the conservative critics chronicling locals’ meager efforts to save their communities following a devastating blow from Hurricane Helene. More than a week after the storm made landfall along the southern half of the East Coast, federal officials are still struggling to keep up with the deluge of relief requests by Roberts’ daughter and tens of thousands of others. Earlier this week, Blaze TV’s Glenn Beck claimed to have spoken with FEMA sources who say they’ve seen officials more interested in shutting down makeshift helicopter rescue runs than exploring all options for saving those still stranded in modest mountain towns.
“Her entire first floor is literally wiped out,” Roberts continued as he described his adult daughter’s ordeal. “Everything hauled everything off. So where is FEMA?” The little money she was given, Roberts added, wouldn’t even have replaced “what was in her refrigerator” when Helene hit.
WATCH:
🚨 #BREAKING: North Carolina Mayor’s very own daughter applied for Kamala’s $750 FEMA payment and was DENIED.
No relief for Hurricane Helene victims. pic.twitter.com/7b767NmxrZ
— HustleBitch (@HustleBitch_) October 9, 2024
In a cruel twist of fate, Mother Nature will soon be sending a second, record-breaking hurricane known as Milton to many of the same hard-hit areas of the American South. President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced plans to delay overseas travel and hunker down in preparation for Milton, an acknowledgment of the political damage being done to Harris and Democrats’ fortunes as a result of perceived mismanagement. The timing is an unfortunate distraction for the vice president just as she branches out to begin a week of unscripted interviews in mostly friendly news outlets, though she has struggled in those settings to answer basic questions. Concern over her management of FEMA will only toughen those interviews.
Alejandro Mayorkas, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary, has publicly stated that FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the entire storm season, an admission conservatives have pounced on as they cite exorbitant spending on the nation’s migrant crisis. In a letter to Mayorkas, Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-FL) wrote about his stunned reaction to Mayorkas’s previous admission that FEMA “does not have enough funds to make it through the [hurricane] season.”
“My office has been in contact with whistleblowers in numerous emergency-management functions at the federal, state, and local levels, and they all point to the same critical mismanagement issues,” Gaetz writes. “FEMA has wasted taxpayer funds, misappropriated funds, and left other federal, state, and local responders without deployment orders on the ground. As reported and further confirmed by my office, hundreds, if not thousands of service members were deployed by the Department of Defense to North Carolina and have sat idle, waiting for FEMA. We have confirmed FEMA employees deployed, on the clock, awaiting orders in hotels. FEMA pre-disaster aid was withheld, exacerbating the emergency. It is also public that NGOs have purchased airline tickets for migrants through the use of FEMA funds.”