Tipsheet

Is This Really How POLITICO Covered Hurricane Milton's Threat to Florida?

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  October 08, 2024 9:30 PM

When it comes to Hurricane Helene ravaging the southeast and Appalachian regions of this country, we have seen quite the shameful response from the Biden-Harris administration. The mainstream media has been all too happy to go along defending the federal government, and POLITICO, per usual, has been among the worst.

Tuesday's morning of POLITICO focused on "The other storm threatening Florida." There's a measly paragraph about the actual effects on the storm, before we're treated to a whole bunch on rant about "misinformation." This is that "other storm" we're supposed to worry about:

As if it weren’t enough to prepare for sustained 150 mph winds and 15 feet of storm surge, government officials on the local, state and federal levels are also preparing for a fresh tide of misinformation driven by the approaching election.

Mixing hurricanes and politics, of course, is nothing new. What has been novel, and alarming to many observers, is the unabashed campaign by DONALD TRUMP to question the federal response led by President JOE BIDEN and VP KAMALA HARRIS — one that has been encouraged and amplified (often with fabricated stories and artificial AI images) on his ally ELON MUSK’s social media platform.

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Now, with Milton approaching, the White House is looking to play offense. Yesterday from the briefing room podium, press secretary KARINE JEAN-PIERRE made debunking the online rumor campaign a central message. We spoke separately with deputy ANDREW BATES, who decried conspiracy theories that “have the depraved effect of scaring innocent people who have lost homes and loved ones out of the financial help they are owed and divide communities when standing together is more important than ever.”

Behind the scenes, we’re told, the White House intergovernmental affairs team has been making hundreds of calls directly to state and local officials to communicate directly about what aid is needed and what efforts are underway to get help to where it is needed.

Down in Florida, meanwhile, there is serious dread as online lies threaten to compound an already dire situation. Those concerns, we’ll note, are playing out against a backdrop of more conventional political sniping.

Yesterday, after NBC’s Matt Dixon reported that Florida Gov. RON DeSANTIS has refused to take Harris’ calls about Helene recovery, the VP remarked that “anyone who calls himself a leader [should] put politics aside and put the people first.” That prompted DeSantis to fire back on Fox News last night, saying Harris “has no role in this” and “is trying to politicize the storm.” More from Kierra Frazier

But local leaders are more concerned at the moment about what’s coming online. Tampa-area Rep. KATHY CASTOR (D-Fla.) has previously spoken out about misinformation in other contexts, and she told Playbook she’s afraid the phenomenon is only going to get worse.

“The partisan political motivations behind disinformation campaigns are insidious,” she said. “Manipulating the facts and using a natural disaster to build political capital is a disgraceful tactic that risks delaying our communities’ recovery from these increasingly severe storms.”

Meanwhile, Milton is poised to hit Florida as a Category 5 storm, while POLITICO laments about "misinformation" and relies on so-called experts and Democratic lawmakers, including beyond these excerpts.

While POLITICO references Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) not taking a call from Vice President Kamala Harris, the governor has emphasized his priority is preparing his state for the storm and the aftermath. According to the governor, he didn't even know Harris tried to call him. DeSantis also stressed how Harris, despite being vice president for over three and a half years, has not tried to help until now, when she's the Democratic nominee for president. 

For all of the partisan shots that POLITICO aims to take at DeSantis, President Joe Biden posted about DeSantis from his X account on Monday night, and also offered praise for the governor when taking shouted questions from the press on Tuesday. 

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DeSantis had also shared that he's done well with both Presidents Trump and Biden in handling hurricanes during the time he's been governor. 

POLITICO looked to defend Harris in other ways, including when it comes to the $750 hurricane victims can apply for, while the Biden-Harris administration shows more care and concern for foreign countries, including in Lebanon, as Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken posted about last week.

Another Tuesday article, "'The worst I have ever seen': Disinformation chaos hammers FEMA," also looked to protect the heavily criticized agency. 

FEMA has prioritized defending itself from criticism as well as warning about "misinformation," just as the outlet looked to be doing earlier in the day. While Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas claimed just a few months ago that FEMA was supposedly "tremendously prepared," he's now more recently said that they are out of money for this hurricane season. The agency has been prioritizing "equity" and assisting illegal immigrants, as even POLITICO and White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre have admitted, despite now claiming otherwise.

Such a Tuesday morning Playbook comes as the outlet has also been looking to politicize the storms, even after they initially accused DeSantis and Trump of being the one to do so.

Doug P. at our sister site of Twitchy highlighted how POLITICO was criticized for a headline on how "Trump drags Hurricane Helene into 2024 campaign." More recently, they also put out a piece on how "Helene hit Trump strongholds in Georgia and North Carolina. It could swing the election."