In the United States, a deluge of disinformation from the Trump camp accompanies the hurricane disaster

Just twelve days after Helene, Hurricane Milton is expected with terror in Florida, in the Tampa region, on Wednesday October 9. There is not enough time to clear the debris before this new calamity, of a power not seen in a century, according to experts. While local and federal authorities are busy, Republicans are not remaining inactive. Donald Trump has made these repeated hurricanes a subject of controversy. The former president and his allies organized an online campaign of lies and disinformation, for electoral purposes, never before seen on such a subject. It aims to implicate the Biden administration for its supposed inaction. In key states, such as Georgia or North Carolina, nothing is negligible, twenty-eight days before the election, scheduled for November 5.

Faced with this crisis on multiple fronts, Joe Biden decided on Tuesday to cancel his trips for the coming days to Germany and Angola. During a meeting with his advisors, in front of a few journalists, the president called for an emergency evacuation of the population. He also blamed those who spread disinformation “to try to undermine the administration”. According to Joe Biden, this campaign « trompe » the population, thus incited to panic. “It’s ‘un-American.’ People are terrified. They know that their lives are at stake, everything they have worked for, everything they own, everything they cherish. »

L’expression “non-American” is a recurrence with Joe Biden, who used it to condemn Donald Trump’s comments about NATO. In the past, the latter has already twisted the facts on natural disasters, such as the wildfires in California, denying the climate crisis. But the change in scale is striking.

Trump accuses Biden of “sleeping”

Selon Donald Trump, “this is the worst response since Katrina”the hurricane that devastated New Orleans in 2005 and immensely weakened the president at the time, George W. Bush. In his memoirs, entitled Decision Pointshe wrote, a few years later: “The problem wasn’t that I made the wrong decisions; It was that I took too long to decide. » In summary, a simple “problem of perception, not reality”. It’s difficult not to think of this strange distinction, noting the slowness of the current administration in taking the political – and not humanitarian – measure of the event.

The 1^is October, at the White House, Joe Biden appeared before the press to comment on the passage of Hurricane Helene. The President had spoken with the governors concerned. He announced the deployment of 3,600 federal agents. Joe Biden said he intended to go there, but not right away. “I was told it would be disruptive if I did it now,” he explained, so as not to disturb the emergency services. The vice-president, for her part, cut short her stay on the West Coast to return to Washington and participate in a briefing of the emergency services. Kamala Harris also felt that it was better to wait a few days before going to the disaster areas.

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