MSNBC Host Says Biden ‘Deeply Afraid’ Trump Supporters Will Put Selves ‘In Harm’s Way’ Over Trump Lies As Milton Devastates
MSNBC host Jonathan Lemire said that President Joe Biden and his officials are worried Trump supporters are being put “in harm’s way” by former President Donald Trump’s hurricane lies.
Trump and his allies in the media and politics have been spreading misleading information and outright lies about the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other Biden administration responses to the devastating Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton. Biden lashed out at the misinformation during a briefing on Milton preparedness Wednesday.
On Thursday morning’s edition of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Lemire told his co-hosts that the lies have prompted concern inside the White House that Trump could influence his followers to mistrust relief efforts and refuse help:
WILLIE GEIST: You expect it from a back bencher who Conspiracy theorists from George.
MIKE BARNICLE: Really, though?
WILLIE GEIST: From her? Yes, I do, actually. From her. You can expect those conspiracies. But from a leading presidential candidate, it’s beyond dangerous.
MIKE BARNICLE: This is the leading presidential candidate and during his term in office tried to alter the map the hurricane came from because I disagreed, because the path the actual path of the hurricane disagreed–.
WILLIE GEIST: Changed it with a Sharpie.
MIKE BARNICLE: Yeah. Yeah. And Marjorie Taylor Greene. I mean, what can you say about that? What can you say? I mean, you have people in this country who actually listen to her and find some credibility, perhaps in something she says there are people like that. It’s beyond belief. It’s beyond description. It’s beyond even us talking about it. It’s like crazy-land.
JONATHAN LEMIRE: And it’s another way of chipping away at American institutions. And I know some Biden officials I spoke to yesterday just deeply afraid that the Trump supporters who listen to Trump and his crazy claims aren’t going to then heed the calls from state and local federal officials because they’re not going to believe.
And they think that’s going to be political. And they might stay and put themselves in harm’s way or refuse to get that federal aid from FEMA and the like. We saw that in western North Carolina after Helene fears it could happen here again in Florida.
Watch above via MSNBC’s Morning Joe.