Mike Johnson Shows His True Colors With Hurricane Victim Response

While executive branch figureheads float around the American South in the wake of Hurricane Helene promising relief, one Washington politico’s actions could actually make all the difference for thousands of victims—but he doesn’t seem to be doing a thing about it.

House Speaker Mike Johnson will not be calling the House back early to vote on emergency hurricane relief, reported Politico’s Olivia Beavers.

The speaker said that the damages from the storm have to be “tabulated” before Congress can pass supplemental aid to help the victims, adding that he believes the situation is weeks away from that being achieved.

Johnson will visit western North Carolina on Wednesday, a region that was devastated by Helene and its subsequent floods. More than 100 people died in the storm’s aftermath. Across the six states that the Category Four storm hit, at least 231 people have been reported dead, making Helene one of the deadliest recorded storms in U.S. history. Overall, Helene has been described by weather forecast offices as “one of the most significant weather events” to hit the area “in the modern era.”

More than 300,000 people remained without power in Georgia and the Carolinas by Sunday evening, with nearly half of those customers in North Carolina, reported CNN.

So far, President Joe Biden has deployed 1,500 troops to help with recovery efforts, alongside more than 6,100 National Guardsmen and 7,000 federal personnel. The Biden-Harris administration has also distributed more than $137 million in federal assistance to support the beleaguered region, the White House announced in a press release Sunday.

Meanwhile, Johnson has continued to undermine one of the federal agencies tasked with responding to the storm surge. In an interview with Fox News Sunday, Johnson elevated a false claim launched by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, insisting that the Biden administration had diverted emergency relief funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to aid immigration efforts.

“The streams of funding are different, that is not an untrue statement, of course,” Johnson told the conservative network. “But the problem is with the American people, see, and what they’re frustrated by, is that FEMA should be involved. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, their mission is to help people in times like this of natural disaster. Not to be engaged in using any pool of funding from any account for resettling illegal aliens who have come across the border. That’s what the Biden administration, Kamala Harris, and Secretary Mayorkas have been engaged in.”

In response, FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell told ABC News that the charge was “frankly ridiculous and just plain false.”

“This kind of rhetoric is not helpful to people,” Criswell said on Sunday. “It’s really a shame that we’re putting politics ahead of helping people.”

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene took a break from spreading lies about Hurricane Helene to dip her toe into a new conspiracy theory.

“Raw Milk does a body good,” wrote the Georgia representative on X Sunday afternoon, posting a photo of a large glass of milk. “Make America Healthy Again!”

The far-right has long touted their devotion to only drinking unpasteurized milk, which skips the process of killing off harmful bacteria and does not in fact do a body good. Greene’s post was hit was a massive fact-check in the community notes section of X, clarifying that “raw milk consumption is linked to a number of foodborne illnesses (e.g., Campylobacter, Cryptosporidium, E. coli, Listeria, Brucella, and Salmonella) that can result in serious complications and death.” X users added a long list of links with evidence of how dangerous drinking raw milk can be.

As Melody Schreiber reported for The New Republic in July, drinking unpasteurized milk can also put the consumer at an unnecessary risk for H5N1, or the bird flu. In states where it is legal to sell raw milk, there were 3.2 times more outbreaks of illness linked to the milk over a span of 20 years.

Dairy was a hot topic this weekend for Republicans, who only seem to be getting weirder, as Trump invited a QAnon conspiracy theorist to speak at his Butler, Pennsylvania, rally alongside Elon Musk on Saturday.

“We will protect your raw milk,” said Scott Presler of Gays for Trump, in attempt to court the Amish vote in the swing state.

In recent years, the deregulation of the dairy industry and shift away from pasteurization has turned into a new culture war for the right. How long until Trump tells his followers to drink it, like he told them to drink bleach?

This post has been updated.

House Speaker Mike Johnson tried to dodge a question from George Stephanopoulos about who won the 2020 election, a worrying sign for November’s coming election.

On Sunday morning, Johnson was asked on ABC if he could “unequivocally” say that Joe Biden won and Donald Trump lost in 2020. His answer was less than forthcoming.

“See, this is the game that is always played by mainstream media with leading Republicans. It’s a gotcha game,” Johnson said. “You want us to litigate things that happened four years ago when we’re talking about the future. We’re not gonna talk about what happened in 2020, we’re gonna talk about 2024 and how we’re gonna solve the problems for the American people.

“I think this thing, this game that’s played all the time, I’m not gonna engage in it,” Johnson added.

Johnson is echoing every Republican who wants to curry favor with Trump. J.D. Vance, Trump’s running mate, refused to answer a similar question during last week’s vice presidential debate and was called out by Tim Walz, who called it a “damning nonanswer.” (After being hounded by a comedian later in the week, Vance confessed that he believes Trump won the election.) Trump’s campaign staff refuses to answer the question too, as do many Republicans such as Senator Tom Cotton, who dodged it on Sunday’s Meet the Press. 

These signals from leading Republicans don’t bode well for next month and could signal more serious efforts to undermine unfavorable results, just like in 2020. In a worrying sign, pro-Trump election deniers are working as election officials in key swing states and are already disrupting the voting process in places like Georgia. They could cause further problems if they don’t get the results they like.

President Joe Biden isn’t convinced that there’ll be a fair and free election in November given Donald Trump’s recent rhetoric, and his violent political history.

Making his first appearance in the White House briefing room since he took office in 2021, Biden pointed to the Republican ticket’s avoidance of committing to a peaceful transfer of power as the reason for his concern.

“The things that Trump has said, and the things that he said last time out when he didn’t like the outcome of the election, were very dangerous,” Biden said, adding that JD Vance has made similar statements in recent days. “So I’m concerned about what they’re going to do.”

Earlier Friday, Vance refused to answer whether he agreed with Trump that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged.” The day before, he was caught by comedian Jason Selvig admitting that he believed Trump won that election. The caught-on-tape confession emerged days after the Ohio politico refused to answer a direct line of questioning from vice presidential debate moderators about whether he would challenge this year’s election results.

“Look, what President Trump has said is that there were problems in 2020, and my own belief is that we should fight about those issues, debate those issues peacefully, in the public square, and that’s all I’ve said, and that’s all that Donald Trump has said,” Vance said, without making mention of any of the multiple instances in which Trump has publicly defended his supporters who ransacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6.

Later in the debate, Vance still refused to yield, even during a heated back and forth with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who noted that former Vice President Mike Pence’s decision to certify the election results was the reason why Vance was on the stage instead of the Indiana politician.

“Where is the firewall if he knows he can do anything, including taking an election, and his vice president’s not going to stand to it?” Walz asked on Tuesday. “That’s what we’re asking you, America. Will you stand up? Will you keep your oath of office, even if the president doesn’t?”

“So, America, I think you’ve got a really clear choice on this election of who is gonna honor that democracy and who is gonna honor Donald Trump,” Walz said.

In a leaked recording, Donald Trump joked about the death of a man at one of his rallies, during a dinner with donors in August.

The Guardian reports that Trump flew to Aspen on a jet once owned by Jeffrey Epstein (his usual jet had engine trouble) for the dinner on August 10, which guests had to donate between $25,000 and $500,000 per couple to attend. The publication obtained a 12-minute recording of Trump’s speech at the dinner. 

At one point, Trump spoke about surviving an assassination attempt at a Butler, Pennsylvania, rally in July, where a gunman killed firefighter Corey Comperatore and injured two other Trump supporters while trying to shoot the former president. He said that members of his Mar-a-Lago club sought to make a contribution to Comperatore’s widow. 

“I said absolutely, and they gave me a check for a million dollars. That’s a lot of money. Maybe even more impressively, we put out a GoFundMe, and we raised more than $6 million for the group that got hurt, which is essentially three people,” Trump said.

Then he described meeting Comperatore’s wife, Helen, and decided to make a joke about the whole thing.

“So they’re going to get millions of dollars, but the woman, the wife, this beautiful woman, I handed her the check—we handed her the check—and she said, ‘This is so nice, and I appreciate it, but I’d much rather have my husband.’ Now, I know some of the women in this room wouldn’t say the same,” Trump said.

The roomful of guests, who included casino owner Steve Wynn, businessman Thomas Peterffy, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Representative Byron Donalds, Representative Lauren Boebert, and former Senator Cory Gardner, broke out in laughter. Trump wasn’t done, though.

“I know at least four couples,” Trump said. “There are four couples, Governor [Abbott], that I know, and you’re not one of them. At least four couples here would have been thrilled, actually.”

It wasn’t the first time he had made that joke, as he had used it at least once before at an August 1 rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. But it definitely sounds more callous when one realizes that Comperatore was a working-class firefighter and Trump was joking at a private event full of wealthy donors and politicians. 

Trump also used disparaging and profane language to describe immigrants, at the dinner, even making up a false story about 22 people who supposedly were released from prison in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and came to the U.S.

“We said, ‘Where do you come from?’ They said, ‘Prison’. ‘What did you do?’ ‘None of your fucking business what we did.’ You know why? Because they’re murderers,” Trump said, adding, “I hate to use that foul language.”  

President Joe Biden gave a startling answer when confronted with concerns that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might be trying to influence the outcome of the U.S. presidential election.

Earlier this week, Senator Chris Murphy said there was a possibility that Netanyahu would not be willing to sign a cease-fire deal before our presidential election, potentially to try to “influence” the results.

During a White House press briefing Friday, Biden was directly asked about those concerns.

“Do you agree, do you have any worries that Netanyahu may be trying to influence the election, and that is why he has not agreed to a diplomatic solution?” asked CBS’s senior White House correspondent Weija Jiang.

“No administration has helped Israel more than I have. None, none, none. And I think Bibi should remember that,” Biden replied.

“And uh, whether he’s trying to influence the election, I don’t know,” Biden said. “But I’m not counting on that.”

The vague nonanswer follows previous reporting that Biden is well aware of Netanyahu’s possible angle to help Trump.

Biden has reportedly told confidants that he believed that Netanyahu never wanted a cease-fire deal and was hoping to prolong Israel’s deadly military campaign in Gaza, not only to save his own political career but to give Trump a hand in November’s election.

Biden’s inability to secure a cease-fire between Israeli and Palestinian leaders has become a political liability for Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, particularly in the battleground state of Michigan, which is home to the largest populations of Palestinian and Lebanese Americans in the country.

Despite concerns that the prolonged war could be giving Trump a boost, Biden and his administration have been unwilling to use any kind of leverage—including the billions of dollars in U.S. weapons sales or the billions in foreign aid—to compel Netanyahu to curtail Israel’s military actions in Gaza, which have killed more than 41,000 Palestinians. Israel has expanded its military actions to Lebanon, where it has killed hundreds of people in the last week alone.

Ohio Senator JD Vance skirted addressing Melania Trump’s startling abortion views on Friday. The Republican vice presidential nominee told a crowd in Lindale, Georgia, that he had no intentions of sparring with the former first lady over their staggeringly different perspective on the hot-button issue.

“I love Melania, I think she’s a great wife to the president, I think a great example of grace under an incredible amount of pressure, but Melania is entitled to her own views in the same way the people of Georgia are entitled to their own views,” Vance said. “And I don’t believe I have to attack or disagree or criticize anybody on this issue because our campaign is focused, again, on inflation, on securing the border, on making life more affordable, on bringing more jobs to the state of Georgia and the whole country.

“Look, I think she’s a smart person. I think she’s gonna express her views, and she’s entitled to do it. But it doesn’t change how I talk about this issue or how this campaign talks about the issue,” Vance added.

Ahead of the release of her upcoming memoir, Melania, the former first lady posted a video to her X account defending the “individual freedoms” of women to do what they wish with their bodies while championing abortion access. In an interview with Fox News on Thursday, Donald Trump confessed that he had encouraged her to “write what you believe” with regard to the new book.

The sudden, casual flip has left the rest of the conservative machine, including Vance, in a bind. Abortion has become a losing issue for Republicans nationwide. The Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn abortion access proved disastrous for Republicans that November, resulting in major losses in districts where abortion was a key talking point. Postelection, at least some members of the conservative party had a stunning reversal, with GOP consultants referring to the turning tide on the issue as a “major wake-up call.”

But much of the Republican Party, especially the MAGA movement, has refused to give it up. Vance, for one, has previously likened abortion to murder and has supported efforts to strip abortion access away from women. In 2023, the Ohio politico called for a “minimum national standard” on abortion restrictions, and his run for U.S. Senate in 2022 included language on his website that described him as “100 percent pro-life.”

JD Vance couldn’t conjure a response Friday when asked about Donald Trump’s repeated claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged.

Trump has long claimed that he “won” the 2020 presidential election, and that the process was “rigged,” making similar statements in nearly every campaign stop four years later.

Vance, who finally said Thursday that he too believes Trump won that election, was speaking in Lindale, Georgia, the next day, when he was asked to respond to the former president’s statements. 

“Senator, would you use that specific term, ‘rigged’?” asked one reporter. “You have said in the past you have concerns about election integrity … and going forward, and do you concur with the president that the 2020 election was rigged?”

Vance responded with his typical hostility.

“So, I’m from Ohio, I’m not from the South. But I think, I think in the South there is a phrase that really works: Bless your heart,” Vance replied.

“First of all, we’re focused on the future,” Vance said, skating past the question. “If you look at what President Trump says, what I say, we are focused on the future.”

In Vance’s nonanswer, how he intends to get to the future that he and Trump have planned is painfully clear: by once again undermining the results of the presidential election.

During Tuesday’s vice presidential debate, Vance gave a similarly “damning nonanswer” when asked whether he believed Trump had won in 2020, claiming that he was “focused on the future.”

“Look, what President Trump has said is that there were problems in 2020, and my own belief is that we should fight about those issues, debate those issues peacefully, in the public square, and that’s all I’ve said, and that’s all that Donald Trump has said,” said Vance. Two days later, he finally said loud and clear that he believes Trump won that election.

Earlier this week, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer brushed off concerns about the Republican reaction to the last election, claiming that only the liberal media was still focused on the election conspiracy. One of Trump’s top advisers, Corey Lewandowski, also flailed in response to the question of who won in 2020, claiming that Americans no longer “care” about that election. It seems not only that Trump still cares, but that he’s obsessed with 2020.

Trump’s comments about the 2020 election have taken on a new light this week, as the election approaches a month away. Earlier this week, an unsealed filing from special counsel Jack Smith alleged that Trump planned to declare victory no matter the results of the 2020 election and plotted to challenge the results, even when he was repeatedly told he had no evidence of any election fraud.

A new report from the Financial Times says that Harris and her campaign have been reaching out to corporate executives and business leaders for their support against Donald Trump, and that the vice president may be succeeding.

Harris has met with several executives during her campaign, including Karen Lynch of CVS, Ryan McInerney of Visa, Charles Phillips of Infor, and Greg Brown of Motorola, according to the Times.

A number of executives announced on Friday the formation of Business Leaders for Harris to raise money for the vice president. These include LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, billionaire tech and health care entrepreneur Mark Cuban, Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, and Ken Chenault, the former CEO of American Express who now heads a private equity firm. Chenault was even given a prominent speaking spot at the Democratic National Convention in August.

Two finance executives who spoke to the Times said that Harris told them that they expect her to make appointments to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission who weren’t as tough as the agencies’ current respective heads, Gary Gensler and Lina Khan—both of whom have been remarkably succesful at reorienting their departments to go after corporate consolidation and crack down on malfeasance. Maryland Governor Wes Moore, another Harris ally, has also suggested that Harris would be friendlier to big business.

On top of that, Harris’s brother-in-law and close adviser, Tony West, is the CEO of Uber, a company whose reliance on independent contractors and opposition to worker organization has drawn the ire of labor unions. In fact, the Teamsters’ surprising decision not to endorse Harris may have been influenced by West’s proximity to her.

Harris and Gensler’s stances on antitrust policy and workers’ rights have drawn praise from the left. Khan has become something of a progressive favorite for her pro-worker policies as head of the FTC, and Harris courting executives who dislike her will not go over with pro-labor voters. While not as popular, Gensler has taken on the crypto industry and ticked off business executives with new financial disclosure rules. It remains to be seen whether Harris will back them and continue with President Biden’s policies.

Executives at Trump Media & Technology Group have been forced out in the wake of internal allegations that the company’s CEO, former California Representative Devin Nunes, is mismanaging the company.

Several sources that spoke anonymously with ProPublica believed that the forced exits, which include Chief Operating Officer Andrew Northwall and Chief Product Officer Sandro De Moraes, were retaliation for a “whistleblower” complaint regarding Nunes that was sent to the company’s board of directors.

Nunes, a Trump loyalist, has helmed the company since it launched in 2021. Trump Media has generated practically no revenue, and its singular major property, Truth Social, has failed to attract the interest of the general market or become even close to a competitor of platforms like X (formerly Twitter) or Threads.

As its chief executive, Nunes had penned a TV streaming deal to bring cable content onto the site and, for no clear reason explained by the company, traveled to the Balkans to meet with the prime minister of North Macedonia.

Four Trump Media employees were sent packing after the company enlisted a lawyer to investigate and interview the alleged misconduct, reported ProPublica. Alongside Northwall and De Moraes, the company also reportedly let go a human relations director and a product designer. An unidentified source said that the cohort were granted severance pay in exchange for their silence about the situation.

On Thursday, Northwall publicly announced his departure on Truth Social, writing that he had “decided to resign from [his] role at Trump Media” and that he was “incredibly grateful” for the opportunity.

A spokesperson for Trump Media completely brushed off the allegations of retaliation in a statement to ProPublica claiming that the story “utterly fabricates implications of improper and even illegal conduct that have no basis in reality.”

“This story is the fifth consecutive piece in an increasingly absurd campaign by ProPublica, likely at the behest of political interest groups, to damage TMTG based on false and defamatory allegations and vague innuendo,” the statement said, adding that “TMTG strictly adheres to all laws and applicable regulations.”

The report is just another sign that one of Trump’s financial assets may not last for much longer. One of the largest shareholders of the shaky company offloaded its stock as soon as insider-trading restrictions were lifted last month, dumping 11 million shares worth somewhere between $128 million and $170 million. Trump Media fell dramatically in the days following lock-up expiration, with shares spiraling to a fraction of their value at the company’s initial public offering in March.

Donald Trump—who owns roughly 57 percent of the company, with 115 million shares—has insisted he has no intention of selling off his stock, though doing so could be a quick and easy profit for the legally hamstrung Republican presidential nominee. Choosing to do so, however, would devastate investors’ confidence in the Trump-led company and could spell the end for Truth Social.

Trump Media has been criticized as another iteration of a long line of grifts this year as the former president has fought off numerous legal charges that have added up to half a billion dollars in expenses and debt. Other Trumpian hustles included launching a remarkably ugly sneaker, an equally hideous line of watches, and NFT trading cards of himself dressed in superhero costumes and astronaut suits. He also made some quick cash on a limited edition, $60 God Bless the USA Bible co-promoted by “God Bless the USA” singer Lee Greenwood, and stamped his name on a new cryptocurrency platform headed by his two sons, Eric and Don Jr., that even Trump’s allies have criticized as a “huge mistake.”