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Donald Trump helped spread a conspiracy theory on Monday that people currently suffering from the devastation of Hurricane Helene are being intentionally ignored because they’re Republican. The former president made the unfounded claim in a post on Truth Social and X, shortly before swooping in for a photo-op in Georgia with preacher Franklin Graham on Monday afternoon.
Trump tweeted about visiting the state, claiming that he’s personally bringing “lots of relief material,” to the state, including fuel and equipment, though it’s unclear exactly what that entailed. Trump, a serial liar, often takes credit for things he simply didn’t do.
“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!” Trump tweeted Monday.
We are now heading to Valdosta, Georgia, in order to pay my respects and bring lots of relief material, including fuel, equipment, water, and other things, to the State. Many politicians and Law Enforcement will be there. We’ll be saying hello to Franklin Graham, Burt Jones,…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2024
Trump’s claims are cynical, self-serving, and dangerous at a time when people on the ground are really suffering. At least 120 people in six states have died in the flooding, according to the Associated Press. Over 100 of those dead are in North Carolina, where roughly 600 people are still unaccounted for, according to Gov. Roy Cooper.
Trump is helping elevate baseless conspiracy theories in an effort to boost his popularity before the presidential election on November 5, including the ridiculous claim that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were eating cats. But he didn’t just invent this conspiracy theory about aid being denied to Republicans. The unfounded claim has been percolating online for the past 24 hours, with far-right influencers claiming that help is somehow being denied based on political affiliation.
One influencer with over 2 million followers, known as Matt Wallace, even suggested the hurricane itself was intentionally missing the counties that voted for President Joe Biden in 2020. Conspiracy theorists are fond of the idea that Democrats literally control the weather and natural disasters of all kinds.
“The storm seemed to almost methodically miss the bluest parts of those crucial swing states, while simultaneously ravaging the red parts. What a crazy coincidence!” Wallace tweeted.
“There were a few notable exceptions, like Ashville [sic] (which is about 60% blue), but besides that, the larger blue cities seemed to almost all get ‘lucky’ together,” Wallace continued. “If I was a conspiracy theorist, I might assume that this is a big part of the reason why Biden and Kamala are still prioritizing aid to illegals over aid to citizens impacted by the storm. I would also wonder if it was all be design.”
This took me a long time to make!
I created map showing the path of destruction of Hurricane Helene with an overlay of the 2020 election results…
The storm seemed to almost methodically miss the bluest parts of those crucial swing states, while simultaneously ravaging the red… pic.twitter.com/PrzKAn3PMb
— Matt Wallace (@MattWallace888) September 30, 2024
A short time later Wallace tweeted a video of helicopters in the sky with the caption, “CONCERNS ARE RISING THAT WW3 IS ABOUT TO START AS MASSIVE MILITARY DRILLS CONTINUE IN URBAN AREAS.” The video is actually from South Korea a few weeks ago and involved practice for a military parade, according to Reddit.
Another conspiracy theorist shared a tweet with LibsofTikTok suggesting that other disasters were part of some pattern that may involve weather control. A number of far-right influencers said there were government conspiracies during other disasters such as the devastating fires in Maui, Hawaii and the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. And Asheville (or “Ashville” as they frequently misspell it) is now part of that conspiracy lore.
Screenshot of a tweet by conspiracy theorists linking the flooding in North Carolina with other disasters.
One conspiracy theorist with over 400,000 followers named @Prolotario1 tweeted on Sunday that maybe Trump’s scheduled remarks in Georgia on Monday were important, suggesting that maybe Trump would take power before the next presidential term begins on January 20, 2025, a popular belief among QAnon adherents.
“Donald Trump has already started his transition team months early before next year as he wants to be ready on day one,” the influencer claimed. “So he is definitely geared up to get things going prior to January. Let’s see what he has for us tomorrow.”
Verizon suffered from an outage in several major cities Monday, which also fueled conspiracy theories on social media. The QAnon folks were convinced that the outage might be related to Election Day (ED) and throwing the election for Harris in some fraudulent manner.
“Is Verizon a trial run for ED? Shut off communications on ED and at 4am declare Harris the winner?” the account @RealCalvin1 tweeted.
Everything seems to come back to politics and invisible forces working against Trump if these conspiracy theorists are to be believed. To be clear, the disaster in North Carolina is harrowing and thousands of people are suffering across the southern U.S. right now as homes and businesses remain flooded. The mayor of Asheville, Esther Manheimer, talked with CNBC’s Squawk Box on Monday about the challenges and the assistance that’s being provided in North Carolina with three out of four major highways into Asheville currently blocked.
“We have support from outside organizations, other fire departments sending us resources, the federal government as well. So it’s all-hands-on-deck, and it is a well-coordinated effort but it is so enormous,” Manheimer said.
“I can’t even describe to you. And as the rivers recede and you can see all of the degree people’s homes in the river just decimated, cars overturned. It’s hard to understand the scope of what it will take to go through and check every part of our community,” Manheimer said.
The governor has asked anyone who wants to help to donate to the North Carolina Disaster Relief Fund, which is managed by the United Way of North Carolina. But no matter what Trump says, there’s no effort to deny Americans recovery resources based on political affiliation.
