CNN Anchor Spars With Republican Over Trump Pushing ‘A Lot Of Lies’ On Hurricane Response

CNN anchor Abby Phillip checked former California Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado on Friday for dismissing Donald Trump’s “plainly false insistence” about the Biden administration’s response to Hurricane Helene.

Phillip pointed to clips of the GOP nominee who, at campaign events this week, falsely claimed that the federal government is offering “no help” because its spending money on immigrants instead of relief for those impacted by the deadly storm.

“They stole the FEMA money just like they stole it from a bank,” the former president claimed at a rally in Saginaw, Michigan on Thursday.

“They’re missing a billion dollars that they gave to migrants coming into our country,” he told a crowd in Fayetteville, North Carolina on Friday.

Phillip gave a blunt assessment of the clips.

“If you can believe it, none of that is true,” she said. “That was a lot of lies in a few seconds.”

Maldonado, who was once considered for a Trump administration role and served as California lieutenant governor under Arnold Schwarzenegger, proceeded to claim that he doesn’t see Trump “politicizing this storm.”

“He is down there showing that he’s a leader,” Maldonado said.

“But he’s claiming that Biden is withholding aid because these people are presumptively Republicans, that’s just patently false,” Phillip replied.

Some GOP officials in areas impacted by the hurricane have either shut down claims of a poor federal government response or encouraged people to “put aside the hate for a bit and pitch in to help.”

Maldonado, in response to Phillip, described Trump as “raising the flag” to say states impacted by the hurricane “need a lot of help.”

“The one thing that you can’t accuse him of not being is a leader and during these storms, Abby —,” Maldonado said.

“I mean, lieutenant governor, with all due respect, he is lying. He is lying,” Phillip interjected.

“I don’t see him as not being consistent with the facts,” Maldonado said.