Knox County, Tennessee, Mayor Glenn “Kane” Jacobs said that false claims about the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) response to Hurricane Helene are “counterproductive” to officials’ recovery efforts in states hit by the storm last week.
“To my knowledge, FEMA, TEMA [Tennessee Emergency Management Agency], nor anyone else is confiscating supplies,” Jacobs, a WWE Hall of Famer and GOP Tennessee delegate wrote on X (formerly Twitter) early Friday morning. “Please quit spreading those rumors as they are counterproductive to response efforts.”
The statement comes as former President Donald Trump continues to push unsubstantiated claims that FEMA funding was given to undocumented migrants, leaving the agency with “no money.” The White House has said that such claims are “absolutely false.”
Trump repeated the accusations during a rally in Georgia on Friday, claiming that “a billion dollars was stolen from FEMA to use it for illegal migrants, many of whom are criminals, to come into our country, and FEMA is now busted.”
Reached for comment on Friday, Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt doubled down on the former president’s accusations.
Flood damage is seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on Tuesday in Bat Cave, North Carolina. A Republican mayor in Tennessee is asking people to stop spreading false claims about the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s response to Helen.
Sean Rayford/Getty Images
“Kamala Harris stole $1 billion from FEMA to pay for illegal [immigrant] housing, and now there’s nothing left for struggling American citizens,” Leavitt told Newsweek. “President Trump is leading during this tragic moment while, once again, Kamala leaves Americans behind.”
The claims have also been pushed by allies of Trump, including his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and Texas GOP Governor Greg Abbott. However, while FEMA distributes money to support government agencies and nonprofits that assist migrants in the United States, that money does not come out of FEMA’s budget.
FEMA has also denied claims spreading online that the agency is asking for cash donations and turning away volunteers on the ground. The agency wrote on its webpage dedicated to fact-checking such rumors, “FEMA does not and will not ever take donations from survivors and rumors of FEMA armed guards stopping vehicles with donations or taking donations from organizations are absolutely false.”
Jacobs, a supporter of Trump, said in his X post on Friday, “If everyone could maybe please put aside the hate for a bit and pitch in to help, that would be great.”
North Carolina state Senator Kevin Corbin released a statement Thursday denying the “conspiracy theory junk that is floating all over Facebook” about emergency response efforts to Helene, including that “FEMA is stealing money from donations, body bags ordered but government has denied, bodies not being buried” or that the “government is controlling the weather from Antarctica.”
“PLEASE help stop this junk,” added Corbin, a Republican. “It is just a distraction to people trying to do their job.”
“Folks, this is a catastrophic event of which this country has never known,” his statement said. “It is the largest crisis event in the history of [North Carolina]. The state is working non-stop.”
Over 200 people have died throughout the Southeast because of Helene, the Associated Press reports, and search and rescue operations are continuing in rural areas hit by high floodwaters and hurricane-force winds. In Tennessee, state authorities are investigating an incident at a plastics factory near the town of Erwin, where 11 people were swept away by floodwaters. Five of those workers have been rescued as of Wednesday. Two of them were confirmed dead.
FEMA had asked for $33.1 billion in the 2025 fiscal year budget that began on October 1, although Congress approved $20 billion in relief funding as part of a stopgap measure passed last week as lawmakers continue to work on next year’s funding. Several Republican lawmakers voted against extending FEMA’s funding as part of the stopgap bill’s vote on September 25.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said on Wednesday that FEMA has enough funding to meet the “immediate needs” of communities hit by Helene but that the agency “does not have the funds to make it through the season.”
