Trump falsely claims Biden used FEMA funds for migrants — something Trump did himself
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump has been spreading false claims about the Biden-Harris administration’s response to Hurricane Helene, including the baseless claim that the administration is using Federal Emergency Management Agency money to house illegal migrants. Some of Trump’s allies, including Elon Musk, have been amplifying those claims.
Those claims are not true. But ironically, Trump attempted something similar to what he falsely claims the Biden/Harris administration is doing when he was president.
Back in 2019, Trump used money from FEMA’s disaster fund for migrant programs at the southern border. In August 2019, the Trump administration told Congress it intended to shift $271 million in funding from DHS — including $155 million from FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund — to pay for detaining and transporting undocumented immigrants and temporary hearing locations for asylum-seekers.
According to a FEMA monthly report, $38 million was given to Immigration and Customs Enforcement in August of that year.
At the time, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer called it “backwards and cruel” to divert FEMA money at the start of hurricane season.
“Congress appropriated these funds to meet the American people’s priorities and I strongly oppose this effort to undermine our constitutional authority,” Schumer said at the time.
The White House has been hitting back at the misinformation, stressing that funding for migrant services is run through a separate spigot at Customs and Border Patrol and is not related to FEMA’s disaster recovery efforts. FEMA has also created a fact-checking page on its website.
As for the Harris campaign, they’re letting the Biden administration take the lead on combating misinformation, while amplifying the official response.
But the vice president called Trump out Monday afternoon for pushing falsehoods.
“There’s a lot of mis- and disinformation being pushed out there by the former president about what is available, in particular, to the survivors of Helene,” Harris said. “And, first of all, it’s extraordinarily irresponsible. It’s about him. It’s not about you.”
(CHICAGO) — Vice President Kamala Harris raised $82 million the week of the Democratic National Convention, bringing her total haul since launching her candidacy last month to $540 million, her campaign said.
The sum is buttressed by nearly $40 million raked in during and after Harris delivered her acceptance speech at the convention on Thursday night, campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said in a statement, which noted the campaign crossed the half-billion-dollar mark moments before she took the stage.
The hour after the vice president’s remarks was the campaign’s best fundraising hour, O’Malley Dillon said.
The total reflects what was raised between the campaign, the Democratic National Committee and their joint fundraising committees.
In addition to growing its financial war chest, a third of which was from new donors last week, the Harris campaign also saw its foot soldiers sign up for nearly 200,000 volunteer shifts during the convention—more than any other week, O’Malley Dillon said, with 90,000 shift sign-ups coming Thursday and Friday.
“We head into September with a virtual army of volunteers ready to do the hard work of talking to their neighbors, friends and colleagues,” O’Malley Dillon wrote in the memo. “Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s battleground infrastructure remains incredibly sparse.”
“The Convention was a galvanizing moment for the Harris-Walz coalition throughout the country, energizing and mobilizing volunteer and grassroots donors alike,” she later added, saying they will use the resources to reach voters “while Trump is focused on very little beyond online tantrums and attacking the voters critical to winning 270 electoral votes.”
(WASHINGTON) — Former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley pushed back against criticism from former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney on Haley’s support for former President Donald Trump despite previous comments saying she found him unfit for office.
In an exclusive This Week interview on Sunday, ABC News co-anchor Jonathan Karl asked Cheney about Haley saying she’s on “standby” to campaign for Trump after the former South Carolina governor openly opposed him in the Republican primaries.
Cheney, who last week endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, told Karl, “I can’t understand [Haley’s] position on this in any kind of a principled way. I think that, you know, the things that she said, that she made clear when she was running in the primary, those things are true.”
During the Republican presidential primary, Haley said Trump lacked focus and that “chaos follows him.” Months later, Haley said she would vote for Trump despite her disappointment with him.
Reacting to Cheney’s remarks, Haley told Fox and Friends Monday morning, “I respect her decision, but she can’t say my decision is not principled. It actually is.”
“We can either vote based on style or we can vote on substance. I’m voting based on substance,” she continued. “I’m looking at the fact we can’t live the next four years like we did the last four years. This is no contest.”
Seeking to contrast Trump with Harris on the economy, border and energy, Haley added, “We should be very clear, if you don’t like him, say you don’t like him, but you can’t say that his policies are worse than Kamala Harris’.”
Haley also directly criticized Trump and running mate Sen. JD Vance when asked about the “gender gap” with women supporting Harris more than Trump.
“I think it’s because Donald Trump and JD Vance need to change the way they speak about women. You don’t need to call Kamala dumb. She didn’t get this far, you know, just by accident — she’s here. That’s what it is. She’s a prosecutor,” Haley said. “You don’t need to go and talk about intelligence, or looks or anything else. Just focus on the policies. When you call even a Democrat woman dumb, Republican women get their backs up too.”
Last month, Trump said he’s “entitled” to the personal attacks aimed at Harris — because he doesn’t respect her and doesn’t “have a lot of respect for her intelligence.”
Haley reiterated that Trump should ditch those attacks to focus on substance.
“The bottom line is, we win on policy. Stick to the policies, leave all the other stuff. That’s how he can win,” Haley said.
Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., shared details of how he is helping GOP vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance prepare for his upcoming debate on Tuesday with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
Majority Whip Emmer, the third-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, was invited to stand in for Walz, Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, to help Vance prepare to take on the governor’s “folksy” personality.
Speaking exclusively to “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz on Sunday, Emmer said he’s spent the last month analyzing Walz’s previous debate performances.
“I’ve known Tim probably since he was first elected almost 20 years ago, and I worked with him directly for four years, I spent the last month just going back, all of his old stuff, to get his phrases down, his mannerisms, that sort of thing,” Emmer said. “My job was to be able to play Tim Walz so JD Vance knows what he’s going to see.”
Asked by Raddatz if he has participated in any mock debates yet and has officially played Walz, Emmer said he didn’t want to get ahead of Vance in sharing those details.
“The debate is on Tuesday night, so I’ll let your viewers decide that, I’m not going to get ahead of JD and the team,” Emmer told Raddatz. “If they want to talk about exactly what we did when we did it. How many times they can do that. For me, I did my job or have been doing my job in helping JD see what it is he’s going to be dealing with on Tuesday night.”
Emmer praised Vance, saying the Ohio senator will do a “great job” on Tuesday night and that “he’s got the issues on his side.”
“Vance could talk about the economy that Donald Trump fixed and that Harris and Biden broke. He can talk about the border that Trump fixed and they broke. He can talk about peace and stability around the world, which they don’t even have a clue [about]; they’ve caused all of this disruption,” Emmer said. “Once he understands that Tim Walz is just going to try and deflect and go into this folksy whatever, he’ll hold him accountable.”
As Vance heads into Tuesday night’s debate, he continues to struggle with his favorability numbers in national and state polling.
A recent AP-NORC poll found that Walz is viewed more favorably among registered voters than Vance.
In the poll, Walz has a 42% favorability rating among registered voters while Vance is at 27%. Along partisan lines, Walz also has better numbers — he has a 72% favorability rating among Democrats while Vance is at 51% among Republicans.
Pressed by Raddatz about what Vance needs to do to change Americans’ perception of him, Emmer rejected the polling.
“I think JD is very likable, and I think he’s well-liked, and I don’t buy into these snapshot polls that are being done for a specific reason,” Emmer said. “Once people get to know who [Walz] is and they know what his policies are, he’s more radical than Kamala Harris, people do not like him once they get to know him and JD will expose that on Tuesday.”
At his rally Saturday night in Prairie du Chien, Wis., Trump disparaged Harris’ mental acuity.
While attacking Harris over the situation at the southern border, Trump said: “Joe Biden became mentally impaired. Kamala was born that way. She was born that way. And if you think about it, only a mentally disabled person could have allowed this to happen to our country.”
Asked if he agrees with or approves of that language, Emmer did not answer directly.
“I think Kamala Harris is the wrong choice for America. I think Kamala Harris is actually as bad or worse as the administration, that we’ve witnessed for the last four years, Martha,” he said.
Pressed again by Raddatz if he agrees with Trump’s description, Emmer said, “I think we should stick to the issues.”
“The issues are, Donald Trump fixed it once. They broke it. He’s going to fix it again. That – those are the issues,” he said.
On Friday, Harris visited the southern border for the first time in more than three years, where she announced several border policies she would pursue as president, including barring migrants who illegally cross the border from reentering the country for five years and enacting stricter criminal penalties for repeat offenders.
When asked if he opposes these policies that Harris is proposing, Emmer argued that Harris has had several years to act on the border issue and is only taking action now because of how critical the issue is for voters heading into the election.
“This is too little too late. Nobody can believe her because her actions have said something completely different for four years.”