PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Vice President Kamala Harris continues her media blitz in this last month before the election. There are significant concerns about misinformation circulating about Hurricane Helene relief efforts and the need for more federal funding pressing with the arrival of Hurricane Milton.
Congressional reporter Scott MacFarlane joined KYW Newsradio's Michelle Durham with the latest from Capitol Hill.
Michelle Durham: Let's start with Harris and the media blitz ...
Scott MacFarlane: Including a phone call she just made into CNN live on the air during their Hurricane Milton coverage, trying to push back on this dangerous misinformation being perpetuated about FEMA, about the storm and about the federal response to Hurricane Helene and preparations for Hurricane Milton.
There has been so much disinformation about FEMA that it was a Republican member of Congress from North Carolina [Chuck Edwards] writing an open letter to his constituents, saying the government does not control the weather, Helene was not an effort by the federal government to seize your land.
The White House continued these efforts to stop the conspiracy theories, and Vice President Harris did so today, too. But this comes on the heels of about 72 hours of interviews by the vice president on "The View," late-night shows, on Howard Stern — trying to get her message out, too, that she is fighting for votes, fighting to win this election, and doing so while also contrasting herself with former President Trump.
I understand that there are significant concerns on the hill and, frankly, all levels of government about the misinformation with Helene, and I guess it's just time to reiterate that the federal funds for FEMA are not used for anything else.
Scott MacFarlane: Yeah, two big issues here. First of all, yeah, the administration is trying to push back on another conspiracy theory, that money that should go to the victims in North Carolina was instead rerouted to help undocumented migrants. Simply untrue. And they're just trying to get rid of that conspiracy theory.
But at the same time, there's concern that any of these suspicions and cynical views of government may dissuade people from evacuating in Florida, and that was a concern the White House press secretary mentioned today here at the podium at the White House.
But when it comes to money — this is actually a secondary concern — that some of the disaster relief money is now running low, it's being depleted, including for the Small Business Administration, which helps businesses recover from storm damage. They're going to run out of money by the end of this month, and the White House is calling on Congress to come back and get some emergency aid passed to avoid it running completely barren. That's something they would have to do earlier than expected, before the election.
Absolutely, because we have Milton now approaching, and so it's more pressing than ever.
Scott MacFarlane: FEMA says it will have enough money. It has enough left to handle both Milton and what it's doing with Helene. But it's that secondary pot of money, that Small Business Administration, money where they don't have enough necessarily, to get through all of Milton. Somebody in Congress is going to move on some of this before November.