Trump Accuses Biden Of What He Himself Did: Withholding Aid To Storm Victims

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump, who as president withheld hurricane aid to Puerto Rico and threatened to withhold wildfire assistance to California, on Monday falsely accused President Joe Biden of failing to help Hurricane Helene’s flood victims in western North Carolina and Georgia, having “left Americans to drown” in the South.

“He’s been calling the president, he hasn’t been able to get him,” Trump said of Georgia’s governor, fellow Republican Brian Kemp, in his remarks to reporters in Valdosta, a city in the southern part of the state.

It was a lie — refuted by Kemp himself earlier that day.

“The president just called me yesterday afternoon. I missed him and I called him right back,” Kemp told reporters. “And he just said, ‘Hey, what do you need?’”

That falsehood was the latest in a string of lies Trump has issued about the response by Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, to the Category 4 storm that came ashore late Thursday.

Just before flying to Valdosta, the coup-attempting former president posted on social media about western North Carolina: “I’ll be there shortly, but don’t like the reports that I’m getting about the Federal Government, and the Democrat Governor of the State, going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas. MAGA!”

He then posted an even more inflammatory claim, again with zero evidence of malfeasance: “They have left Americans to drown in North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and elsewhere in the South.”

And at the Valdosta Regional Airport, asked by a reporter if he had contacted Biden about the response, Trump, wearing his red campaign MAGA hat, answered, “No, I haven’t reached out to him. I think he’s sleeping right now, actually.”

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