Former President Donald Trump has accused Gov. Roy Cooper of blocking aid to victims of Helene in western North Carolina on his Truth Social site.
Last week, Trump wrote, "It has just come out, the Democrats in Washington and the Democrat governor's office of North Carolina were blocking people and money from coming into North Carolina to help people in desperate need."
Paul Specht of WRAL joins WFAE's Marshall Terry to discuss this claim.
Marshall Terry: What was Trump referring to with this post?
Paul Specht: We don't know exactly. Members of his campaign did not respond to us, or they responded but then didn't follow up with any evidence, so he never cited anything specific.
So we had to use sort of context clues to determine that he may have been referring to a post on a right-leaning website the day prior. The story is on a website called National File and they obtained emails from Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina, sent by what appears to be managers offering guidance to employees on how to donate. And there's a couple of them, a couple of emails I should say, that are highlighted in the story. One says that Blue Cross is coordinating all disaster response efforts to the governor's office and they've asked us to spread the following message:
"Please do not travel to western N.C. to deliver donations. Volunteers spontaneously bring home-cooked meals or view the devastation. The roads are impassable and rescue and recovery operations are ongoing."
There's another one as well, but that sort of summarizes what Blue Cross was getting at that went on to encourage employees to make donations and volunteer with agencies that were already designated to coordinate relief efforts, so this website thought that these emails were proof that Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper was blocking aid. In reality, this has been the guidance sort of across the board and the same day and then days prior to this email there were tweets by the North Carolina Department of Transportation and other groups saying consider all western North Carolina roads closed, do not come here unless you're part of the recovery efforts.
Terry: How has Blue Cross Blue Shield responded to this?
Specht: They say the story is not only false, but the entire premise that they aren't helping, or that they would hesitate to help, is outrageous. That was their statement to us.
Terry: Well, you can argue whether the government's response has been enough in western North Carolina. But what has that response looked like? As far as the numbers go?
Specht: By Sept. 29, the state or its agencies here had already restored power to more than half a million North Carolina customers, 550 members of the North Carolina National Guard had been deployed along with 100 vehicles and 11 aircraft. There were 24 shelters that had already opened up to serve up to 940 victims. Search and rescue teams had already conducted hundreds of rescues by this point. More than 1,600 employees and contract crews for DOT were already working on the roads and the federal government by that point had already granted Cooper's request for a federal major disaster declaration. So before this email even went out, help was there.
Terry: So how did you rate this claim by Trump?
Specht: We rated this claim pants on fire. That's because it's sort of an outrageous assertion that Democrats in Washington or in North Carolina had blocked aid from coming to North Carolina. There's obviously room for a legitimate discussion about, you know, the pace and the scope of the government response. However, it's completely different to claim that Democrats were blocking assistance. That's just not what happened.
