Kristi Noem Cries 'Fake News' Amid Reports Of FEMA Failures After Texas Floods
HuffPost
A New York Times report found thousands of calls to FEMA went unanswered after the Department of Homeland Security laid off call center workers.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem rejected criticism of her agency’s flood response in Texas as “fake news” during a Sunday appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Noem pushed back against a New York Times report that found thousands of calls to FEMA’s disaster assistance line went unanswered in the days following the flood, in part because the Department of Homeland Security had allowed call center contracts to lapse.
“It’s discouraging that during this time, when we have such a loss of life and so many people’s lives have been turned upside down, that people are playing politics,” she told host Kristen Welker, calling the investigation “false reporting.”
Documents reviewed by the Times showed that nearly two-thirds of calls to FEMA’s disaster assistance line went unanswered on July 6 and 7. Still, Noem insisted the story needed to be “validified,” appearing to create a hybrid with the words “validated” and “verified.”
She also dismissed accounts from FEMA whistleblowers as “anonymous attacks” aimed at politicizing the situation.
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