The fallout from the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene is entering the political arena, with former president Donald Trump facing scrutiny for his comment that hurricane victims will be \u201cokay\u201d and for conservative proposals to end government weather forecasts.<\/p>\n
At a rally Friday in Walker, Mich., Trump said he was thinking of those in Alabama and other states hit by the storm, saying, \u201cWe\u2019re with you all the way, and if we were there we\u2019d be helping you. You\u2019ll be okay.\u201d<\/p>\n
KamalaHQ, the Harris campaign\u2019s X account, immediately shared the video clip with its roughly 1.3 million followers, suggesting that the former president was downplaying a deadly disaster and showing a lack of empathy.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ll be okay,\u201d the tweet read, along with the parenthetical note, \u201c(Dozens of deaths have already been reported)\u201d.<\/p>\n
On and off social media, the campaign and its supporters also hammered Trump for denying human-caused climate change, which scientists say is allowing hurricanes such as Helene to rapidly intensify. In addition, Harris allies highlighted that Project 2025 \u2014 the road map for a second Trump administration drafted by conservative think tanks in Washington \u2014 would privatize weather forecasting now done by federal agencies.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s supporters have argued that the Harris campaign took the \u201cYou\u2019ll be okay\u201d remark out of context.<\/p>\n
\u201cPresident Trump is traveling to Georgia to receive an update on the devastation from Hurricane Helene,\u201d Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in an email. \u201cWhere\u2019s Kamala? Oh, that\u2019s right, she is wining and dining with her radical left donors in San Francisco.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leavitt added, \u201cAs President Trump has repeatedly said, Project 2025 has nothing to do with him or his campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump has repeatedly denied knowing anything about the blueprint or the people behind it, even though many of its authors held senior roles in his administration and he has praised Project 2025\u2032s sponsor, the Heritage Institution. In 2022, Trump addressed a Heritage conference and said of their policy proposals, \u201cThey\u2019re going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Project 2025 describes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the parent agency of the National Weather Service, as \u201cone of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.\u201d The blueprint also argues that the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which has played a central role in responding to Helene, should cover less of the costs of disasters.<\/p>\n
Project 2025 would \u201ckill the National Weather Service (NWS) and \u2026 kill emergency disaster funding for state\/local govts,\u201d the Lincoln Project, a group formed by disaffected Republicans, wrote on X. \u201cTrump\u2019s not just stupid, he\u2019s dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n
The plan does not propose eliminating NWS, which provides weather and climate forecasts and warnings for the United States and its territories. Rather, the plan suggests that the agency \u201cshould fully commercialize its forecasting operations\u201d like outlets such as AccuWeather and the Weather Channel.<\/p>\n
Some former Trump administration officials say they don\u2019t share Project 2025\u2019s vision for federal weather agencies, nor would they expect Trump to embrace them during a second term.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is 0% chance that anything in Project 2025 related to NOAA or weather will ever be considered or implemented,\u201d Ryan Maue, a meteorologist who briefly served as NOAA\u2019s chief scientist under Trump, wrote on X.<\/p>\n
Project 2025 says little about the National Hurricane Center, another office within NOAA that provides lifesaving storm forecasts. The document suggests that the White House should \u201creview the work of the National Hurricane Center\u201d and that \u201cdata collected by the department should be presented neutrally, without adjustments intended to support any one side in the climate debate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump has repeatedly called climate change a \u201choax.\u201d During a news conference in New York on Thursday, he argued that \u201cnuclear warming\u201d poses a greater threat to humanity than global warming, echoing comments he made during an August conversation with billionaire Elon Musk.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat [Democrats] should start mentioning is nuclear warming because we\u2019re in grave danger,\u201d the former president said. \u201cThat\u2019s the warming you\u2019re going to have to be very careful with.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is unclear what Trump means by \u201cnuclear warming.\u201d He could be referring to the possibility of nuclear war with Russia, which experts say would actually cool the planet\u2019s climate.<\/p>\n
During his first term, Trump faced criticism for his handling of major hurricanes. In 2018, he casually tossed rolls of paper towels into a crowd in San Juan, Puerto Rico, after the island was devastated by Hurricane Maria a year earlier.<\/p>\n
In a 2019 incident that became known as Sharpiegate, Trump used a marker to modify a NOAA forecast map and incorrectly suggest Hurricane Dorian could affect Alabama. An investigation later found political influence led NOAA to release a statement backing Trump\u2019s false claim and undermining its own forecast.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrump has made it crystal clear that he will respond to climate disasters exactly the same way he did during his presidency,\u201d Pete Jones, rapid response director at the liberal strategic communications firm Climate Power, said in an email.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The fallout from the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene is entering the political arena, with former president Donald Trump facing scrutiny for his comment that hurricane victims will be \u201cokay\u201d and for conservative proposals to end government weather forecasts. At a rally Friday in Walker, Mich., Trump said he was thinking of those in Alabama […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":10314,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}