Whatever you think of Brian Stelter, you have to applaud his refusal to let MAGA lies about Hurricane relief go unchallenged and uncorrected.
Republican T.W. Arrighi did his best to promote right-wing lies on CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins Friday night: lies that recovery money is going to immigrants instead of citizen hurricane victims and lies that the Biden administration is not helping victims as much as it could and should because they’re in red states. Never mind that Trump based decisions on disaster-relief on politics when he was in the White House. And never mind that MAGA world is politicizing tragedy and trying to camouflage it by playing conservative victims.
Arrighi attempted to put “we’re just asking legit questions” lipstick on the pig.
ARRIGHI: A lot of people are looking and saying, ‘We’re throwing all of this money to all of these new waves of migrants coming in, to a lot of different projects, throughout this country, to Ukraine and whatever.’ We can debate each of those individually, that’s fine.
But right now, the only policy proposal on the table, from the Harris agenda is $750 a family, and people think that’s paltry.
Stelter was not having any of it. “It’s not true,” he said. “Why do you say it? It’s not true.” As Arrighi tried to argue, Stelter said, “Survivors are going to get thousands of dollars. … Why did you lie just now?”
Arrighi tried to justify himself, “No, what I’m saying is this. I’m putting the point on this. When people are talking of money—”
“Then why did you say it?” Stelter asked. “You screwed up.”
Arrighi continued with a condescending, “Brian, Brian, I’m not saying money will not reach it. I’m saying what the political reality is. People in North Carolina are upset. They see tons of money going elsewhere. And there isn’t an immediate reaction from the federal government. That’s all I’m saying.”
When Stelter countered with the facts, Arrighi said, “Brian, Brian that is completely not the story that people are hearing.”
Stelter shot back by pointing out that “lies on social media” are “distorting people’s minds.” He added, “I think what frustrates me, Kaitlan, is we’re seeing the best of humanity in the Carolinas and Georgia. We’re seeing the worst of humanity on the internet.”
Then he listed some of the MAGA lies designed to politicize the tragedy and spread poison just at the time that unity is most needed.
It’s always about political power for people like Trump and his followers. Even when a North Carolina Republican state senator says the disinformation is impeding recovery efforts to help the very people folks like Trump and Arrighi claim to care about.
