Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas appeared via satellite for the daily White House press briefing on Thursday. He was there to answer questions regarding the federal response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton.
Mayorkas was asked whether or not he felt FEMA is perpetually “underfunded” as an agency. Mayorkas gave a diplomatic but laser sharp answer directed at the do-nothing Republicans in Congress.
“Let me take a step back and widen the aperture of that question, if I may,” Mayorkas began. “A continuing resolution is not a stable way to fund the federal government.”
He was clearly referring to Republican dysfunction in Congress which has led to a series of continuing resolutions to keep our government funded.
“The disaster relief fund, and the funding of it, should be completely nonpartisan and apolitical. This is a fund that provides much-needed relief to individuals regardless of party,” Mayorkas went on. “And I have said publicly, many a time since Hurricane Helene first hit in late September, that when our brave individuals—and I say ‘our’ meaning not just federal, but federal, state, and local—reach into flooded waters to save an individual, they are not asking about that individual’s party affiliation. They are rescuing a fellow human being, and we need to be funded accordingly.”
Republican Speaker Mike Johnson has already refused to commit additional disaster-relief funding in the wake of Hurricane Helene, let alone call the House back into session. Meanwhile, GOP luminaries like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is claiming someone controls the weather (she was not clear whether she meant Democrats or “elites,” but it’s certainly not Mother Nature) while voting against basic funding for FEMA, just before Helene hit.
Like many current government officials, Mayorkas has had to spend an inordinate amount of time debunking dangerous misinformation pushed by Donald Trump and other GOP officials concerning FEMA’s response to Hurricane Helene and now Milton in Florida.
Mayorkas has long been a target of GOP ire, and he has accorded himself well by dropping fact-bombs at Republicans’ expense any chance he gets.
