ABC News host Martha Raddatz grilled Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance after he struggled to defend former President Donald Trump’s claim that FEMA was not helping red states recover from recent hurricanes.
“During Hurricane Helene, as we heard, former President Trump suggested the federal government was not only sending FEMA aid meant for the hurricane to migrants, but going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas,” Raddatz told Vance on Sunday.
“Well, Martha, what the president said is that fundamentally, FEMA aid is distracted by going to illegal migrants,” Vance replied. “I do think that we had a fundamentally incompetent, overly bureaucratic response to the hurricane.”
“He said they’re going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas,” Raddatz noted. “There is no truth to that.”
“So President Trump, former President Trump, is saying things that aren’t true about that money being withheld from Republican areas,” she explained.
Vance accused Raddatz of “confusing staging of resources from the rapid response of the U.S. military.”
“I’m much more worried about the incompetence of Kamala Harris’ administration that led to that more than I am the fact that Donald Trump allegedly said something wrong,” he opined.
“Senator Vance, I’m just gonna say that local officials, local officials, and FEMA officials say that is just flat wrong,” Raddatz pointed out.
