The heightened tension with FEMA's response to Helene has been fueled in recent days by misinformation, amplified in part by former President Trump. Kamala spent all her FEMA money, billions of dollars on housing for illegal migrants. [00:00:15] The head of FEMA calling those claims categorically false and promising that the agency's work will not stop. Unfortunately, thanks to misinformation like what you just heard from former President Donald Trump, [00:00:30] there are now additional reports of armed people who are threatening relief workers who are just trying to do their jobs, provide relief, provide help after the devastating impact of the hurricanes that we just recently [00:00:46] saw, Helene and Milton now, for example, in Carter County, Tennessee, a woman by the name of Tracy Elder witnessed a scary incident involving some armed individuals who were kind of like ganging up on relief workers. [00:01:03] So elder is president and founder of the International Alliance of Community Chaplains. Her group has been working in disaster relief for more than 20 years, and she's currently running the donation center in the area. So she told local news that she found herself between FEMA workers [00:01:22] and a group of angry armed citizens who seem to think that FEMA was taking donations away from their community rather than helping their community. So she says that they were all armed, open, carrying, not guns drawn, [00:01:39] but they had surrounded them, meaning the FEMA workers. And there was a lady there that was yelling and threatening them. Now, during this confrontation, elder called 911 because she said they like were being very threatening and just not rational at all. [00:01:56] But luckily she was eventually able to like, de-escalate the situation. She said that she listened to their grievances about FEMA and explain to them that, you know, her organization is different from FEMA, not associated with them, and that she's just there to help, [00:02:14] like everyone there is, trying to provide relief and help the community. People just need to be heard. And then some of that does take a skill that doesn't take a confrontation. I said, hey, I hear you. You can say there's no volunteers, but I'm standing right in front of you, [00:02:32] honey, I'm here and we're helping. I don't care what their beef is with FEMA. That's not my job. My job on the ground is to take care of folks here. So, like, think about how unjust this whole situation is, John, because these are people who have literally dedicated their lives to doing this job, [00:02:52] to providing relief when people are in real crisis as a result of these natural disasters, and they get rewarded for the help that they're providing with crazy threats. Thanks to political demagogues, thanks to lies, disinformation. [00:03:10] And look, if you want to have a debate or a conversation about FEMA not being resourced enough for American citizens and how it's unjust to provide resources for migrants, instead, we've talked about this a billion times. [00:03:26] There's two different funds dedicated for two different things. You can't take money out of one fund for the other thing. We've talked about this, but I do also understand where the frustration comes from, because there have been a lot of natural disasters in this country in recent years [00:03:43] where Americans haven't been made whole. Right? Whether it's the wildfires in Maui, the campfire in California in 2018, like there's been a lot of disastrous situations where Americans are still struggling. They still don't have their homes, they still didn't get insurance [00:03:58] to pay out their claims. And people are understandably furious about that. However, directing your ire or your anger toward relief workers who are literally there to help you on the ground makes no sense to me, [00:04:14] and I'm glad that she was able to cut a deescalate the situation, but with absolutely no help from Trump and unfortunately, the Republican Party. Yeah. Look, there's there's always been conspiracy theories around, you know, natural disasters, things like that. [00:04:30] The issue isn't that now there are conspiracies and there weren't before. I think that that's a thing. It's that they're no longer just on the fringes, like they're all over right wing media. They're all over elected officials, Republican congresspeople, [00:04:47] the literal former president of United States telling absolutely deranged lies over and over and over again, no matter how many times it's debunked. Like that is far more persuasive to millions of Americans than just random videos on TikTok, Alex Jones or whatever. [00:05:02] Like, it's so much worse now. And a lot of the cases they know, they know that they're lying. They know. Like, maybe Marjorie Greene doesn't know any better. She's barely capable of coherent, rational thought. But Donald Trump knows that these are lies. And when, like, you talk about, like, what's so strange to me [00:05:18] is you have all these people who are trained to think like, we're going to be denied what we need. This money that we desperately deserve is being given to Guatemalans or whatever. And in the in the meanwhile, they don't seem bothered at all about the fact that, like, for instance, [00:05:34] every single congressional Republican in Florida voted against additional funds for hurricane preparedness. Yeah, exactly. They don't care. They don't care at all. Or like they think, oh my God, Kamala Harris isn't going to give us the money because we're in like a red area. [00:05:49] And not only can you fact check that by saying, hey, by the way, Donald Trump, like two years ago, was talking about how California shouldn't get aid for the wildfires. Like that might be old news. He just again said that this weekend. I know. So like should it be political or should it not? [00:06:06] But again, the issue is that whenever you try to bring like a standard, when your assumption is that things should not be wildly hypocritical in a tribal fashion, that's not persuasive to them because they think that things should be hypocritical in that way. [00:06:21] They want Donald Trump to like, screw California and those damn liberals. Never mind the fact that many of the people who are affected by these fires are Republicans and everything they they should suffer. We should get the money, even though it's the Republicans that are blocking them. The entire thing is horribly frustrating. There's a lot of Republican voters in California. [00:06:38] I mean, most of the population is concentrated in the big cities. But, I mean, there are huge, huge like areas of California that are super red anyway. But yeah, I mean, look, it is interesting, right? Because what Trump has been doing with the recent natural disasters [00:06:57] is projecting what his leadership would look like, you know, and it's causing chaos at a time when people need some just they need leadership and they need stability and he someone on the show or in our members comments today, [00:07:13] you know, referred to him as a narcissist. And it's so true because he seizes on these types of incidents and tragedies for political gain to spread gross lies that cause more chaos. He loves to demagogue. [00:07:29] And it's it's just it's meant to drum up more support for his presidency or his candidacy, I should say. And he doesn't care who gets hurt in the process. And that's not what a leader does. So elder said that once the group realized that FEMA wasn't taking donations [00:07:48] away from them and that the command center was in fact run by volunteers, they actually left. And then later they returned with supplies to donate. So, like that's important to just emphasize for a second. These are not bad people, guys. Okay. [00:08:04] So don't fall for the gross narrative that these are terrible people. Obviously they're not. And in fact, once they realized what was really going on, they came back and donated supplies. The local sheriff, Mike Fraley, suspects that the armed group came from North Carolina and other [00:08:23] sheriffs he's spoken to say that they've unfortunately been causing problems on both sides of the state line now because, bridges have also been absolutely destroyed as a result of the hurricanes. The area now, it's harder to get to the area. [00:08:40] It takes a longer drive from the sheriff's department. So in response to this incident, they're setting up a new command post that deputies will manned 24 hours a day to try to prevent more dangerous confrontations like this from happening. And, despite the confrontation, a FEMA representative says that they, will [00:09:01] still be in the region helping hurricane victims, which I'm happy to hear. That is what they're supposed to do. Now, I'm going to end with this in North Carolina. There was an armed man who threatened female workers. He was arrested. We had referenced this story earlier in the week, but I wanted you [00:09:18] to see some more details about it. Jacob Parsons was carrying a handgun and a rifle when he was taken into custody on Saturday. The 44 year old was arrested amid a wave of misinformation about FEMA operations and the storm disaster response over the weekend. [00:09:33] The agency says it evacuated and relocated staff members over safety concerns. This all comes on the heels of threats that are being made against FEMA staff. And over the weekend, as you mentioned, William Parsons was arrested in Rutherford County. He had a handgun and a rifle on him. [00:09:51] He was posted bond $10,000 and has since been released. But as a result, FEMA has made some operational adjustments, as they said, moving forward. Yeah, FEMA workers shouldn't feel like their lives are in danger [00:10:06] as they're simply doing their jobs, which is a great job. A job to to help people. But, you know, here we are in the age of disinformation, and it's it's just sick. By the way, I wanted to be clear about one other thing. I know I said earlier, you know, these are not bad people. [00:10:23] If you pull a gun on someone, a government worker, and you start threatening them for any reason, you are a bad guy. Don't do that. Now, the group earlier did not pull their guns or point their guns at any FEMA workers or anything like that. Unclear about the gentleman from North Carolina who got arrested. [00:10:42] He had a rifle and a handgun. I don't know if he pulled it on anybody, but he did get arrested for making the threats. He did. Any final word, John? Yeah, it's incredibly frustrating. I mean, obviously it's to to a far different level, but but it just reminds me of, you know, and we've been recently reporting on, the journalists [00:10:59] and aid workers killed in Gaza. Yeah. It's like we live in such dark times where almost everyone we see is a horribly selfish, horribly greedy, grifting person of a variety of different sorts. And yet there are still people doing thankless, you know. [00:11:18] Tasks, in very difficult, like going to areas of natural disasters. Going to. Literal war zones, trying to give people food, trying to give them aid. And the idea that they would be targeted, that their lives would be at risk. Should be so unacceptable. [00:11:34] And like, like you were talking earlier about. You know, if there's one murder or something by a migrant, well, then. Harris is gonna have to answer for it. But, like, so. So does Trump not have to? Answer for the results of the conspiracy theories that he's spreading, Marjorie. Like, no, they can just they can just do whatever they want. [00:11:52] There's no standards. So just do whatever you want. And the responsible people are the ones who face the most actual consequences. Yeah, it is incredibly frustrating, but I do want to also just quickly spare a thought for the brave men and women in news media who risk their lives [00:12:09] to report in the middle of a hurricane, because otherwise we would not know what the hurricanes look like. Thank you.