Republicans in Congress are leaving Helene victims hanging

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On Thursday evening, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia tweeted, “Yes, they can control the weather. It’s ridiculous for someone to lie and say it’s not possible.”

This is not at all surprising to Greene, the right-wing agitator and conspiracy theorist who once pondered the possibility that Jews could control space lasers to start forest fires. The more surprising aspect is that it reflects the Republican Party's general approach to Hurricane Helene: Instead of doing their job and offering concrete help to those suffering from the devastation, Republican lawmakers are falling into conspiracy theories and, like everything else , in scaremongering about illegal immigrants.

As In Washington On Thursday, some Republicans like Sen. Rick Scott of Florida joined President Joe Biden in response to Helene. In fact, even Senator Lindsey Graham took a break from his feud with Biden and greeted his former friend this week.

Similarly, a bipartisan group of senators sent a letter to Senate leaders Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell, as well as the chairmen of the Senate Budget Committee, calling for a supplemental Helene aid package. That group included Scott and fellow Florida native Marco Rubio; Graham and fellow South Carolinian Tim Scott; Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee; Democratic Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock; and Democratic Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner of Virginia.

Blackburn and Scott are up for re-election and know they can't leave anything to chance. And despite his conservatism, Tillis has also been focused on getting results.

But these Republicans are in the minority. Rather, House Speaker Mike Johnson all but said Congress would not act during a speech at the New York Stock Exchange earlier this week.

“Congress has previously provided FEMA with the resources it needs to respond, so we will ensure these resources are allocated appropriately,” he said. In other words, don't expect anything special, even if you need it

Biden responded to the speaker's comments with a clear message: “We can't wait… People need help now.” The president also rightly emphasized that much of the money in previous disaster relief bills went to Republican-leaning areas rather than Democratic-leaning ones . In other words, he didn’t ask for money for “his” voters. He simply thought of the suffering of the Americans.

But the fact that the areas hardest hit by Helene are fairly Republican-leaning may be the reason for the delay in aid. Johnson is trying to defend his narrow Republican majority, and that includes vulnerable incumbents in places like California, New York and New Jersey, which are as far from the storm damage as you can imagine. Many of the areas affected by Helene are already Republican-leaning and are in no danger of losing due to gerrymandering, even if Congress botches the response.

To put it bluntly, it also might not help Democrats trying to maintain their one-seat majority if everyone had to come back and vote on additional aid. Reconvening the Senate would upset Jon Tester of Montana, the most vulnerable incumbent. And worse, it could actually make Rick Scott look good and help him win re-election.

During his speech, Johnson said, “Amidst the uncertainty and confusion that these tragedies bring, one thing is certain: after disasters like this, we truly see the best of America.”

Unfortunately, he didn't talk about his own conference or the presidential candidate he supports. Donald Trump spent this week falsely claiming that Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster relief funds went to housing undocumented immigrants.

“They stole the FEMA money just like they stole it from a bank to give to their illegal immigrants who want to vote for them in this election,” he said in Saginaw, Michigan.

Trump's claim is not only completely untrue, but also represents the height of hypocrisy, considering that he himself diverted money from FEMA's disaster relief fund in 2019 to fund immigrant detention centers for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

But this is what the Republican Party has become. Much like Senator JD Vance kept coming back to immigration during the vice presidential debate, demonizing migrants seems to be the only solution they seem to have to win this election.