Biden flubs again as he claims hurricane relief workers ‘received death penalties’ due to misinformation

WASHINGTON, DC: It seems President Joe Biden had another one of his "senior moments" on Thursday, October 10.

During a speech about relief efforts amid Hurricane Milton, the 81-year-old president ended up saying something that raised more than a few eyebrows. While addressing the nation, he accidentally claimed that hurricane relief workers had “received death penalties” because of misinformation.

Of course, what he meant to say was death threats, but he made the same error twice in a row. Awkward, right?

Joe Biden and Donald Trump's Hurricane Milton feud

President Joe Biden was speaking for the first time about the impact of Hurricane Milton which had just hit Florida causing widespread damage. He praised the relief workers who were on the front lines risking their lives to help others, but then he appeared to slip.

“Our fellow Americans are putting their lives on the line to do this dangerous work and receive death penalties—some received death penalties yesterday as a result of recklessly irresponsible, relentless disinformation and outright lies that continue to flow,” Biden said.

The President's comments come on the heels of his administration facing criticism for their handling of disasters — most notably Hurricane Helene, which has been called the deadliest storm to hit the US since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Biden’s team has been dismissing much of the backlash and attributing it to misinformation. But the controversy didn’t stop there.

Biden took a moment during his speech to point fingers at former President Donald Trump. “Mr President Trump, former President Trump, get a life, man!” he said on Thursday. “Help these people.”

“The public will hold him accountable,” Biden warned while calling on the press to do the same. "You better in the press hold him accountable, because you know the truth.”

Trump, of course, wasn’t going to sit and take it. The former president fired back, accusing Biden’s administration of neglecting Republican-heavy areas like western North Carolina after Hurricane Helene struck.

Trump even claimed he had to personally call up Elon Musk to get his Starlink satellites deployed in the region to restore internet access—a move Biden later took credit for.

FEMA and the migrant controversy

Things got even more heated when Donald Trump pointed out FEMA’s spending on illegal immigrants, just as Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas admitted last week that hurricane relief funds were running low.

This had many people up in arms, but the White House quickly fired back saying the funds in question were actually approved by Congress for migrant assistance.

The administration has been working overtime to cast Trump’s accusations as misleading or exaggerated. Biden’s team has repeatedly insisted that unfounded criticism is dangerous because it could scare victims away from seeking the federal support they desperately need.

Although there were some issues with FEMA’s initial response to Hurricane Helene — particularly in places like western North Carolina and Georgia — not all the stories flying around on social media have held up under scrutiny. There were rumors that FEMA was confiscating goods or blocking private aid efforts, but these claims didn’t exactly pan out.

In fact, the White House has doubled down on the idea that a lot of the criticism surrounding their response has been based on misinformation.

North Carolina GOP Rep Chuck Edwards was initially furious with FEMA’s slow response but later admitted that many of the more dramatic stories like FEMA seizing goods were simply untrue.

“I’m extremely disappointed that it took FEMA more than three days to make it into the district. Our storm was over about 10 am on Friday [Sept. 27] … And we saw no significant presence from FEMA until Tuesday [Oct. 1],” Edwards told the New York Post.

“I believe it was just absolutely inept that it took so long to get federal resources here to help the people of western North Carolina when, as best I can tell, we had two days warning that we were going to have a catastrophic weather event,” he said.

“Now we’ve moved into what I’m going to call the clunky response, where we see a strong presence from FEMA. We see a strong presence from the National Guard and the Department of Defense. It’s been a bit clunky in understanding who’s in charge and who’s doing what,” he added.

However, Edwards was quick to clarify that many of the accusations circulating online didn’t hold water.

“I’ve seen all the social media posts that accuse FEMA of turning people back and confiscating goods and that sort of thing. I get a number of calls and a number of texts making the same accusations," he said. "When I personally get those, I track them back as far as I possibly can to a credible source. I’ve not been able to confirm a single one of those.”