The following piece is an opinion and does not reflect the views of The Eagle and its staff. All opinions are edited for grammar, style and argument structure and fact-checked, but the opinions are the writer’s own.
From Tuesday, Sept. 24 to Sunday, Sept. 29, Hurricane Helene, a Category 4 hurricane, hit Honduras, multiple regions in eastern Mexico, the Cayman Islands and Cuba before ravaging the southeastern United States, namely Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. Then, just 11 days later, Hurricane Milton, which made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane, hit some of the same regions. Hurricane Milton killed an estimated 28 people, with six still missing, while Helene killed an estimated 252 people, with 93 still missing. Despite the urgency of relief efforts, conspiracies have obstructed effective government responses and public trust.
In the aftermath of these destructive and devastating hurricanes, misinformation, disinformation and conspiracy theories perpetuated by conservative politicians have flooded the internet. These false narratives range from Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s claims of the government controlling the weather, a historically antisemitic trope, to former President Trump accusing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) of prioritizing aid to immigrants in the U.S. over citizens. Rather than focusing on helping the thousands of people displaced by this hurricane, FEMA and mainstream media have had to focus on combating baseless conspiracy theories.
One of the biggest claims that caught traction was Greene’s weather conspiracy. In a now-deleted tweet on Oct. 4, the congresswoman wrote, “Yes they can control the weather. It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.” Other far-right figures, like InfoWars host Alex Jones, claimed in a tweet on Oct. 9 that hurricanes are “The Federal Government’s Secret Weather Weapons.”
The allegations from popular figures in the Republican party are selfish and irresponsible rhetorics that shift the focus away from the real and incredibly urgent need for climate relief efforts. These theories are also incredibly demeaning to the meteorologists, scientists and response workers who risked their lives to document these disasters and save the abandoned public. There have even been reports of meteorologists receiving threats from people who believe this rhetoric that Greene and Jones are spreading. When the party's loudest voices amplify blatantly false claims about climate disasters, the American public suffers as understanding and trust in vital institutions like FEMA is diminished. As that trust erodes, people may refuse evacuation orders, fewer resources could be allocated to emergency agencies and lives could be needlessly endangered — all because of lies that create confusion and distrust in essential disaster response systems.
This discourse is part of a larger pattern of falsehoods that Trump has exacerbated over his years in the public eye, particularly ones that harm marginalized groups. During the hurricanes, Trump falsely claimed that FEMA’s funds, allocated specifically for disaster relief, were instead used on immigrants. On Oct. 3, at a rally in Saginaw, Michigan, Trump said, “The Harris-Biden administration says they don’t have any money [for hurricane relief]. … They spent it all on illegal migrants. … They stole the FEMA money just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them.” Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan echoed these claims on X on the same day, writing, “The Biden-Harris administration took more than a billion tax dollars that had been allocated to FEMA for disaster relief and used it to house illegal aliens. Now, they’ve abandoned American hurricane victims in North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and Tennessee.”
Trump and allies like Jordan used the hurricanes as opportunities to exploit marginalized communities with hateful rhetoric and xenophobia. These actions are the last things politicians should be doing in a time of severe crisis in the country. To make things very clear, FEMA has not redirected any disaster relief fund to immigrant housing. It has only spent money on relief efforts. FEMA has even had to waste its time creating a “Hurricane Rumor Response” program to combat these narratives. A natural disaster should never be politicized like this.
Politicians spreading misinformation instead of rallying support for relief undermine FEMA’s ability to provide aid effectively and create dangerous divisions. By creating resentment and fueling false fears, they discourage communities from supporting each other, and critical relief funds may be stretched thin as FEMA and other agencies are forced to counter disinformation instead of prioritizing on-the-ground recovery.
The disinformation spread by Trump is also a huge threat to democracy, especially in an election year as contentious as this one. Social media platforms like X, especially under the leadership of Elon Musk, have left this misinformation unchecked and festering on the internet. The lack of content moderation on sites like X has made identifying the lines between facts and falsities much more challenging. Although some argue this is a principle of free speech, I argue that this is nothing but a threat to democracy, especially when people without solid media literacy believe things at first glance.
Simply put, a misinformed public cannot engage in informed decision-making. When people are constantly bombarded with falsehoods ranging from hurricane recovery efforts to immigration, it becomes harder and harder for citizens to stay well-informed. This lack of reliable information allows the public to be manipulated by powerful political figures, subjecting people to a constant cycle of lies and mistrust. We should not constantly be in a battle for truth.
Alana Parker is a junior in the School of Public Affairs and School of Communication and the assistant opinion editor for The Eagle.
This article was edited by Rebeca Samano Arellano and Abigail Turner. Copy editing done by Luna Jinks, Nicole Kariuki and Ella Rousseau. Fact checking done by Luna Jinks and Sasha Dafkova.
