After citing a House GOP report noting that the FEMA/migrant lie is false, Fox's Maria Bartiromo dishonestly suggests it still could be true
A Fox reporter debunked the network's lie about migrants and FEMA resources. Watch Maria Bartiromo dishonestly try to move the goalposts to keep it alive.
Published
On the evening of October 8, Fox reporter Chad Pergram posted that Fox had obtained a fact sheet authored by Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee which debunked narratives that had been pushed by Fox and Republicans about Federal Emergency Management Agency funding:
Fox has obtained a fact sheet assembled by the majority side of House Appropriations Committee about disaster aid.
It says that FEMA “has enough funding in the short-term to address immediate needs for both Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton.”
It also declares there is “no funding connection between” the migrant shelter program and the Disaster Relief Fund. It adds there is “no intermingling of funding between these two programs.” It adds that “the only connection is that both programs are administered by FEMA.”
On the morning of October 9, Fox anchor Maria Bartiromo hosted Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA), also of the House Appropriations Committee. Clyde proceeded, at Bartiromo's urging, to undermine what Pergram had reported, suggesting the opposite was true. Bartiromo in particular pointed to a 2022 video of White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre to suggest FEMA money was being inappropriately used on migrants.
USA Today had also debunked the claims made about FEMA's emergency food and shelter program, discussing Facebook posts that cited the same clip of Jean-Pierre:
The post’s use of the phrase “FEMA emergency money” and its mention of “current hurricane damage” asserts a connection between the disaster spending and funding used for immigrants. But this conflates multiple FEMA programs, which have funds appropriated from different sources for use in specific ways.
When asked for evidence to support the claim, the Facebook user shared a September 2022 clip of White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre referencing FEMA’s emergency food and shelter program as a means of assistance after dozens of migrants were flown to Martha’s Vineyard with false promises of jobs and housing. But that program has nothing to do with the disaster relief fund. Its stated purpose is to provide the homeless with food and shelter.
In a statement posted to its website, FEMA stated that “no money is being diverted from disaster response needs." And White House spokesperson Angelo Fernandez Hernandez posted to X, formerly Twitter, that the Disaster Relief Fund is “completely separate from other grant programs administered by FEMA.”
Watch the full segment with Clyde below.