At a rally in Wisconsin Sunday, former President Donald Trump, shown here during the Sept. 10 debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, made repeated false statements about federal aid to Hurricane-stricken states. (Win McNamee | Getty Images)

Former President Donald Trump lied about Hurricane Helene relief efforts during a campaign rally in Juneau Sunday afternoon. 

At the rally, which partially overlapped with Sunday’s Green Bay Packers game, Trump claimed that the administration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris has not given residents of affected states enough aid after the storm caused catastrophic damage across the southeastern part of the country. 

“As our citizens are suffering from a catastrophic hurricane — I mean, this hurricane has been a bad one — Kamala Harris has left them stranded,” Trump said during the rally. 

Trump and other Republicans have been falsely claiming that the White House has not provided enough relief and that money from FEMA has been diverted to be given to immigrants. The Washington Post reported this week that’s not true and that Trump, when he was president, had diverted $155 million from the FEMA disaster relief fund to be used for immigration detention centers and temporary hearing locations for asylum seekers. 

Trump has claimed that the federal government is only giving $750 to survivors of the hurricane. One federal program, Serious Needs Assistance, does provide that amount to survivors but it’s only an initial aid meant to help cover the costs of immediate needs such as groceries, baby formula and medical supplies. A number of other programs and relief efforts supported by the federal government are ongoing. 

A Saturday statement from the White House outlines the relief efforts, noting there are more than 6,400 federal employees on the ground and $110 million has already been spent supporting the recovery efforts. 

“We are sparing no resource as we work to ensure communities across the Southeast have prompt access to Federal resources that will enable them to both purchase essential items and begin their road to recovery and rebuilding,” the statement said. “Unfortunately, as our response and recovery efforts continue, we have seen a large increase in false information circulating online related to the federal response to Hurricane Helene. A number of scam artists, bad-faith actors, and others who want to sow chaos because they think it helps their political interests are promoting disinformation about the recovery effort, including ways to access critical and live-saving resources. This is wrong, dangerous, and it must stop immediately.” 

Republican officials in states affected by the hurricane have called for an end to the “political posturing.” U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said the false claims hurt the aid efforts. 

“The last thing that the victims of Helene need right now is political posturing, finger-pointing, or conspiracy theories that only hurt the response effort,” Tillis said in a statement.