EXCLUSIVE: Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is criticizing the Biden administration’s response to Hurricane Helene while warning the price tag for its recovery could be “one of the most expensive” the U.S. has seen.
“There were some pretty ominous projections, and so Congress acted appropriately,” Johnson told Fox News Digital Friday evening, noting lawmakers freed up roughly $20 billion in immediate funding for FEMA in last month’s short-term federal funding bill. “But, so far, [President Biden, Vice President Harris and Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas] have failed in that response.”
Johnson said he was “alarmed and disappointed” by Biden officials’ comments immediately after the storm suggesting FEMA was too low on funds to deal with Helene’s wrath.
Mayorkas said “we are meeting the immediate needs” of the hurricane earlier this week but said “FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season.”
Biden suggested earlier this week he may want Congress to return for an emergency session to pass a supplemental disaster aid bill.
“They are scrambling to cover their egregious errors and mistakes. And there’s an effort to blame others or blame circumstances when this is just purely a lack of leadership and response,” the speaker said. He noted Mayorkas said in July that FEMA was “tremendously prepared” for weather crises this year. Fox News Digital reached out to the White House and DHS for comment.
Johnson also argued lawmakers could not act until an assessment by state and local authorities produced projections of how much needs to be allocated.
“I don’t think those estimates could conceivably be completed until at least 30 days — until after the election, and that’s when Congress will be back in session again,” he said.
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The Republican leader is no stranger to hurricanes. He noted his native Louisiana is still dealing with the damage from Hurricane Katrina today, but his prediction was dire when asked about the cost of recovery after Helene ravaged the Southeast, killing more than 200 people.
He said it could be “one of the most expensive storms that the country has ever encountered.”
“It affects at least six states — a broad swath of destruction across many, many areas — and I think that’s why it’s going to take a while to assess,” Johnson said.
“As soon as those numbers are ready, Congress will be prepared to act,” Johnson vowed at another point.
“I certainly hope the administration is working overtime right now to … help get them prepared.”
As part of immediate response efforts, Johnson has toured areas in Georgia and Florida pummeled by the storm and is poised to visit hard-hit North Carolina in the coming days, he said.
Criticism over FEMA’s response has prompted some conservatives to accuse the Biden administration of diverting disaster aid funds toward supporting illegal immigrants at the border through the Shelter and Services Program (SSP), which was allocated roughly $650 million in the last fiscal year.
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Both the White House and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have vigorously denied any link between disaster aid and SSP beyond both being administered by FEMA and have said claims of any disaster relief dollars being used to support migrant housing services are false.
“No disaster relief funding at all was used to support migrants’ housing and services. None. At. All,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates said in a memo on Friday. “In fact, the funding for communities to support migrants is directly appropriated by Congress to CBP, and is merely administered by FEMA. The funding is in no way related to FEMA’s response and recovery efforts.”
Johnson did not give a definitive answer when asked about the concerns echoed on the right, but he accused Mayorkas of mismanaging DHS.
“There is a lot of controversy about the nonsense that the Mayorkas Department of Homeland Security has engaged in. With their … dangerous open-borders policy and then the relocation efforts of taking illegal aliens and transporting them around the country,” Johnson said. “We have been working every day, House Republicans, to stop the madness.
“And, so, what happened is that FEMA, because it’s a division of DHS, it’s very clear that they should be focused on helping Americans recover from disasters and not straining resources that go to other programs that are catering to illegals.”
When pressed on whether DHS was able to divert congressionally appropriated funding for disaster aid into SSP, Johnson said, “There are different programs that have different funding.”
He pointed out that House Republicans are seeking to defund the SSP program in the current federal funding discussions for fiscal year 2025.
“We are doing everything within our power to prevent these abuses of the law and abuses of taxpayer dollars from the White House and the Democratic Party,” Johnson said.
Fox News Digital’s Adam Shaw contributed to this report