Senator Ted Budd (R-NC) joined Mornings With Maria on Fox Business Thursday and blasted the Biden administration over its recent handling of natural disasters, including both the hurricane in his state of North Carolina and the fires in Los Angeles.
Panelist Lee Carter asked Budd, “One of the things I’m so, so interested in your take on the different treatment that your district is getting than California and nothing against the people in California. They’re going through what they’re going through, but the amount of attention that they’ve got and the federal support that they’ve gotten seems to be such a contrast to what you’re talking about.”
“These people who can’t get stay in hotel rooms and the amount of attention that you’ve gotten. Let’s talk about that, the broken system of FEMA and HUD, and what we need to do to better support your community going forward. Can you talk at all about the different treatment there seems to be in different districts?” Carter asked.
“Yeah, my heart absolutely breaks for these individuals in California. I know individuals 1 or 2 degrees away. They’re having to vacate their homes. My heart is absolutely broken for them. But you think about the politicization of the Biden administration, and he’s committed on his way out the door to dump billions and billions of dollars into something he’s not even going to be around to administer. And then he barely even comes in to support western North Carolina. It’s like pulling teeth to get his support there,” Budd replied.
“There’s lack of clarity from FEMA. They tell people one thing and they kick him out in the middle of a snowstorm. And these people, I mean, they weren’t his voters, but they certainly are in a large propensity in California. And they’ve accumulated decades and decades of bad leadership that has led to something that could be controlled. But you can’t control a hurricane in western North Carolina. You can’t control a hurricane that dumps up to 40 inches of rain in the mountains. So it’s absolutely different, that one could have been prevented with good government. One could not. And we’re going to get North Carolina back on track and hopefully California will as well. But again, hopefully they’ll realize the lesson of bad leadership over and over at a local and a state level,” Budd concluded.
Following hurricane Helene ravaging parts of North Carolina, including deep blue Ashville, North Carolina’s other Senator, Thom Tillis (R-NC), praised FEMA’s response and slammed critics as “clueless.”
As for Budd’s claim that the LA fires could have “been prevented with good government,” the debate continues to rage on the topic. Many critics of the argument point to the perfect storm of natural accelerants that led to the disastrous fires: extreme drought conditions following unusually heavy vegetation growth created abundant fuel on the ground, while historically strong winds quickly spread the fire and severely hindered firefighting efforts. Others argue that LA area officials had plenty of warning regarding the dangerous conditions on the ground and did little to clear the brush or build protective fire barriers to at-risk communities.
Watch the clip above via Fox Business.
