Fox turned a disaster story into a political one
Fox treated Hurricane Helene as a recurring national story, airing 491 segments across the year in a steady drumbeat of coverage that kept the storm and its victims visible. More than two-thirds of that coverage aired during the immediate aftermath of Helene's landfall: 336 segments, or 68%, aired between September 26, 2024, and October 10, 2024, a surge that set the narrative frame for the year ahead.
Early segments in late September and early October 2024 focused on the scale of destruction and the human cost: families displaced, rescues under way, and volunteers stepping in where official aid lagged. But the tone of coverage hardened almost immediately. During those first two weeks, 71 segments criticized or misinformed about FEMA’s response, and another 71 segments targeted the Biden administration’s handling of the disaster.
Scenes of loss and relief were reframed through blame, as Fox falsely asserted that the federal government failed to mobilize resources, federal assistance was limited to $750 per victim, and FEMA lacked the necessary funds to respond to Helene due to spending on immigrant assistance.
By the time Helene coverage slowed, the story’s political meaning had already calcified. Throughout the course of the next year, Fox no longer needed to constantly repeat its early attacks for the frame to hold: Every mention of FEMA delays or local frustration reinforced the idea of Democratic failure.
Fox omitted climate change from the story
To reframe Hurricane Helene, Fox first omitted the role global warming played in driving the storm's historic destructivity. Across 491 segments, not a single one connected the storm to climate change, even as climate scientists highlighted how it contributed to Helene’s record-setting rainfall and historic flooding. By isolating the disaster from its climate context, Fox turned what should have been a story about systemic risk into one about political failure.
Fox misinformed about FEMA under Biden while ignoring Trump’s mismanagement
In Fox's coverage, the absence of a climate explanation left institutional failure as the dominant storyline, and FEMA became a focal point.
In 2024, Fox cast FEMA as a politically corrupt agency that was misdirecting aid and shortchanging victims, and then folded those supposed failures into a story of Biden administration incompetence.
In October 2024, Fox hosts Jesse Watters and Sean Hannity repeatedly claimed the administration had depleted hurricane relief funds by giving aid to undocumented immigrants, with Watters repeating the charge across 5 consecutive broadcasts, and Hannity repeating it across 6.
In reality, politicians of both parties representing impacted areas praised the federal response and urged media outlets, politicians, and influencers to stop spreading false claims that were disrupting rescue efforts and endangering FEMA workers.
After Trump's inauguration on January 20, Fox aired 49 additional Helene segments. Of those, 19 criticized or misinformed about FEMA, which continued the earlier pattern under a new administration. The network recycled false claims such as FEMA’s funds had been diverted to migrants, but it folded these narratives into a broader portrayal of government paralysis, depicting FEMA as a sluggish, unresponsive bureaucracy, while avoiding scrutiny of Trump’s management of it.
Fox’s broader 2025 disaster coverage followed the same pattern. As reporting from other news outlets detailed staff cuts, leadership turmoil, and policies that delayed FEMA’s response to multiple disasters, Fox minimized, elided, or outright defended the Trump administration’s issues managing FEMA and its handling of disaster response, generally.
Fox demanded accountability from Biden, but not from Trump
From nearly the beginning of Helene coverage, Fox hosts and guests portrayed Biden and Harris as detached from storm victims and preoccupied with “illegal immigration,” "D.E.I., and equity." The network used FEMA's challenges as a conduit for political blame, translating early logistical setbacks into proof of executive failure. Holding a president accountable for disaster response is legitimate. However, Fox applied that standard selectively, distorting facts to vilify Biden while later exempting Trump from the same scrutiny.
Those early attacks combined frustration with recovery efforts that were complicated by the scale of the destruction and the remote and mountainous location of the impacted area fused with presidential blame, establishing a false narrative of Democratic mismanagement that would persist long after the storm.
By 2025, the frame had stabilized. Even after Trump took office, Fox continued to use it — airing 49 additional Helene segments, including 7 that still criticized or misinformed about the Biden administration's response to the storm, evidence that the mismanagement narrative outlasted his presidency.
The storyline remained the same, but its focus changed: Complaints about slow recovery and bureaucratic delays persisted, while responsibility shifted away from the new administration. In North Carolina, local officials and residents described an aid system with projects and reimbursements delayed, and rebuilding out of reach — problems Fox reported on without acknowledging that new Trump-era rules had helped cause them.
For example, a new “Defend the Spend” review, launched by the Department of Government Efficiency, and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s $100,000 approval rule stalled already-approved reimbursements for months, leaving counties without money to repair vital infrastructure.
By mid-September 2025, North Carolina had received only 9% of its requested aid, and FEMA had disbursed just $1.3 billion of $60 billion in total losses. Gov. Josh Stein and Attorney General Jeff Jackson publicly pressed for relief, citing Trump-era bottlenecks that were paralyzing recovery.
Fox’s coverage, however, rarely addressed these policy failures, in stark contrast to how other outlets treated the same facts. For instance, the May 28 episode of MSNBC’s All In juxtaposed Trump’s campaign promise to “slash every bureaucratic barrier” with FEMA’s letter denying North Carolina’s request for additional federal funding — a contradiction Fox left unaddressed.
