Listen to Support it, WNYC Studios. Brian Lear on

on WNYC now return to our climate story of Week, which we're doing on the show every Tuesday

all this year.

Today, Climate and the Politics of Hurricanes.

After Hurricane Helene hit the Southern United States last month. A wave of conspiracy theories flooded

social media about the storm and the response by the Federal Emergency Management Agency or FEMA.

The misinformation was fueled, as we know, by Republican candidate for President

Donald Trump.

Since Hurricane Helene made landfall on September 24th, Trump has been falsely claiming,

repeatedly, that FEMA money is being redirected

from Americans who have been devastated by the back-to-back hurricanes to migrants.

A new CBS poll from over the weekend shows on Trump's claim that FEMA's hurricane funds are going to people in the US illegally.

83% of his supporters say that is certainly or probably true among Harris supporters 90% think those claims

are certainly or probably false. On this program we try to balance coverage and

debunking of false things that Donald Trump and others say without

giving oxygen to conspiracy theories, but this particular wave of misinformation is having

very real world consequences, so we're

deciding to cover it in our climate story of the week.

In an email to his constituents on Wednesday, a Republican Congressman Chuck Edwards,

represents the hardest hit part of North Carolina,

wrote, quote, these conspiracy theories,

while certainly frustrating, have done more harm

...