Trump Tries to Use Helene Response in Appeal to North Carolina Voters

Donald Trump castigated the federal government’s response to Hurricane Helene, repeating unsubstantiated claims that relief funds were spent on undocumented migrants instead of storm victims as the Republican nominee seeks to turn out voters in battleground North Carolina.
“In the wake of this horrible storm, many Americans in this region felt helpless and abandoned and left behind by their government,” Trump said Monday at a campaign stop in Asheville, North Carolina, which was subsumed by historic levels of flooding following Helene in late September and early October.
Trump sought to make the storm an election issue in his bid against Vice President Kamala Harris, falsely claiming that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was unable to help residents of the swing state, because the funds had been spent on helping migrants instead.
“A lot of the money is gone. They don’t have any money,” Trump said, citing claims that have been widely debunked. “They’ve spent it on illegal migrants. Many of them are murderers. Many of them are drug dealers.”
Western North Carolina residents have already received $129 million in FEMA funds, and more than 6,200 people have received temporary housing through the agency, according to a statement Monday from North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper.
Trump’s return to the state coincides with an effort to turn out North Carolina’s nearly 1.3 million registered voters who live in counties affected by the storm. North Carolina has implemented emergency measures for those displaced by the storm to make it easier to vote, including allowing them to have absentee ballots sent to them in temporary housing and vote at any voting site around the state.
Trump’s remarks came at the first of three planned stops in North Carolina on Monday as he focuses on a key state with just over two weeks until Election Day and polls showing him and Harris locked in a tightly competitive race.
Trump has criticized President Joe Biden and Harris, claiming that the administration should have done more to help those hit hard by the deadly storm, which tore through a number of US southeastern states, including the 2024 battlegrounds of North Carolina and Georgia.
The former president has promoted unfounded claims that Americans whose homes had been destroyed were only being offered $750 in federal aid and claimed that federal funds that would have been used for disaster relief were stolen to provide housing to undocumented migrants, conflating it with a separate program.
Biden and Harris have hit back at Trump, accusing him of spreading misinformation that threatened recovery efforts.
The storms, though, became a major political test for the candidates and for Biden, with the three revising their schedules and visiting affected areas. Trump and Harris have both sought to convince voters they would be best positioned to handle such a disaster as commander-in-chief. Biden also postponed planned trips to Germany and Angola to deal with the response to Hurricane Milton, which hit Florida on the heels of Helene.
Governors and local officials from affected states have praised the administration’s response and broadly pushed back against online conspiracy theories and misinformation about the aid available and the efforts being taken by FEMA.
Earlier: Harris Says Trump, DeSantis Playing Politics With Hurricane
Trump carried North Carolina in both of his first two White House campaigns — but only narrowly in 2020 over Biden — making it a major target for Democrats. The RealClearPolitics average of polls shows Trump with only a half percentage point advantage over Harris in the state.
Trump is holding a rally focused on economic issues this afternoon in Greenville, North Carolina, and then an event with faith leaders and his former Housing Secretary Ben Carson in the state. Carson has also been crucial in helping Trump ramp up his outreach to Black male voters, a key Democratic bloc whose support for Harris has softened over broad economic anxiety.
The former president has touted an agenda focused on renewing expiring tax cuts, securing fresh reductions and benefits, including proposals to exempt tipped wages, overtime pay and Social Security benefits from taxes, and lowering the corporate tax rate.
He has claimed his tariffs will rebuild domestic manufacturing and spur job growth in the US, while dismissing claims from most economists that they will exacerbate the high prices that have fueled voter discontent about the economy.
Harris has outlined her own vision for an “opportunity economy” — one she says would fund new investments in industries and build up the middle class. She’s pledged to support investments in manufacturing and small businesses and to help build the sectors that would “define the next century.”
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