Fox’s Maria Bartiromo Gets Corrected On the Spot By a House Republican After She Pushes False Claim That ‘FEMA is Out of Money’
Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo was corrected on the spot by Rep. French Hill (R-AR) after she attempted to push the false claim that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was “out of money.”
Misinformation about FEMA and its relief response to Hurricane Helene has been widespread over the past week, pushed by former President Donald Trump, his campaign and MAGA Republicans. There are several false claims circulating that range from misrepresenting how disaster funding works to claiming that the emergency relief funding has been spent already by the Biden administration on housing immigrants.
In an interview with Hill on Fox Business, attacking President Joe Biden, Bartiromo said that FEMA “running out of money” was beside the “wide open border” as “the biggest failure of this administration.”
She continued: “[Department of Homeland Security] secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is warning that FEMA is out of money. A FEMA administrator doubled down on that yesterday.”
“You are an elected official,” the host said. “You know where and how the money is spent.”
“How is it possible that FEMA is out of money?” Bartiromo ranted. “Biden is urging congress to come back, approve more funding for FEMA by the end of the year. Vice President Kamala Harris is still under fire for promising to send $157 million to Lebanon. Yeah, Lebanon, while residents of at least six states in America are struggling to recover from Hurricane Helene. They lost everything because of the storm surges. How is FEMA out of money?”
Hill paused and offered a blunt response: “FEMA is not out of money and this was made clear by the inspector general report saying Mayorkas has access to nearly $8 billion of funding from the FEMA disaster relief funds accumulated since 2012.”
He continued: “Plus, as I’ve said, as [House Speaker] Mike Johnson has said, congress is ready to replenish the funding as soon as we get back to Washington. They have the money to take care of Florida, take care of North Carolina and take care of Georgia. They need to get about delivering it and listening to what their governors are asking and meeting those governors’ requests.”
Confused, Bartiromo pressed: “But… But is that money frozen for some reason?”
Hill surmised that Mayorkas was “using” the disaster “for political purposes” and slammed the government official as “incompetent.”
“I don’t think anyone in congress has any confidence in Mayorkas or what Mayorkas says,” the congressman added.
Continuing to push her initial claim that FEMA was short on resources, the host circled again: “What about the money from FEMA used for illegal migrants?”
Hill then debunked this claim, explaining that he believed other agencies, such as the Health and Human Services Agency, should be fully entrusted to manage resources for migrant issues.
He told the host: “It’s out of a completely different account, though, not connected to the hurricane relief. But the point still stands, FEMA is not a migrant recovery agency. We want them 100% focused on protecting Americans in natural disasters and other emergency conditions and the fact that the Biden administration has left the border open is a disaster, a national security threat, a threat to our public health and public safety but it’s not the role of FEMA.”
Watch above on Fox Business.
