Sec. Pete Buttigieg on FEMA disaster relief
3 Video Views·Oct 9, 2024
From the beginning, the entire Biden-Harris administration has been working with local and state partners to support affected communities. At USDOT, we’re focused on restoring transportation systems to support recovery and rebuilding efforts.
There's another lie that's kind of taken hold on right-wing media
that all FEMA is doing is just handing people 750 bucks and calling it a day.
Can you speak on that?
Yeah, so some internet lies are completely made up.
Others start with some misunderstood fact and go from there.
Probably the origin of that lie is that there are funds that give people an immediate
check for help, about 700 bucks for things like food, diapers.
But that doesn't mean that's all that they get.
It means that it's the first, most immediate source of support.
And what's extremely troubling, again, is to see this benefit that's going to people,
this way of helping people, somehow twisted and used for what I can only assume are political
purposes.
And look, none of this is helping the responders who are actually on the ground.
It is extraordinary and inspiring what's happening.
We are seeing first responders getting through to people,
even as their own communities have been impacted.
We're seeing extraordinary efforts coordinating different kinds of agencies,
law enforcement, firefighters, the military troops that President Biden deployed to the area
to try to help.
I've seen amazing examples of what's being done.
And by the way, when you get away from these internet lies and some of the most extreme
voices, I've been really struck by how bipartisan our work with the states and the governors has
been called by several governors of impacted states.
And you would never know, listening to the call between me and a governor, which ones
belong to the same political party as I did and which ones didn't.
It's just about how to get stuff done.
And anybody else commenting on this should be following that same spirit.