No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Trump, Republicans band together to weaponize hurricane relief effort

Episode Date: October 6, 2024

Republicans weaponize the hurricane response, which signals major implications for the election moving forward. Brian interviews Secretary Pete about Trump lying about the hurricane relief effort to help himself politically, how he and the rest of the administration solved the port strike, and the huge jobs report from this past week. And North Carolina Supreme Court justice Allison Riggs joins to discuss abortion rights, fair maps, and what’s at stake in one of the most important swing states in the country this year.Support Allison Riggs: https://www.riggsforourcourts.com/Shop merch: https://briantylercohen.com/shopYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/briantylercohenTwitter: https://twitter.com/briantylercohenFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/briantylercohenInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/briantylercohenPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/briantylercohenNewsletter: https://www.briantylercohen.com/sign-upWritten by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going to talk about how Republicans are weaponizing the hurricane response and what it means for the election moving forward. I interview Secretary Pete about Trump lying about the hurricane relief effort to help himself politically, how he and the rest of the administration solve the port strike and the huge jobs report from this past week. And I'm joined by the state Supreme Court Justice in North Carolina, Alison Riggs, to discuss abortion rights, fair maps, and what's at stake in one of the most important swing states in the country this year. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. Hurricane Helene made landfall this past week

devastating a number of states in its path the response from the federal government has been swift but even so, it has been completely dwarfed by just the sheer amount of disinformation being peddled by the right. Even for someone like me who just spends an unhealthy amount of his life online, I have never encountered the sheer quantity

like the deluge of disinformation and misinformation as I've seen surrounding this hurricane which will have major implications in the near future and I'll get to that in a moment But first, just for the sake of rebutting some of this deluge of disinformation out there, I want to turn your attention to the most pervasive lie, and it's being spread by the person more responsible for lying than anyone else in America. Death and destruction that we haven't seen maybe ever.

It's a real bad one that they have to get people there because they don't have people there. They don't have the people. Kamala wined and dined in San Francisco and all of the people in North Carolina, no helicopters, no rescue. It's just what's happened there is very bad. They're offering them $750 to people whose homes have been washed away. That the federal government is completely MIA, only offering $750 and just calling it a day.

First off, the $750 is the first grant given by FEMA. It's intended just to get you money immediately so that you have instant cash to buy necessities. Food, drinks, diapers, formula, toiletries, medicine. It's the same amount for everyone. That amount is also, by the way, an increase from the $500 of initial funds that was distributed during the Trump administration. But from there, FEMA is meeting with those impacted on an individual basis to determine how much to allocate for repair costs, which goes up to $42,500. The Biden-Harris administration has also approved a 100% federal cost share for emergency response activities in Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina. They've approved major disaster declarations for Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee.

They've directed the Defense Department to deploy up to 1,000 active duty soldiers to support response efforts. In all, more than 5,300 federal personnel are on the ground supporting the response. More than $20 million in individual assistance has been provided to thousands of survivors. FEMA has shipped over 9 million meals, 11 million liters of water, 260,000 tarps, and 150 generators. all of which is to say, this notion that the government is just handing out 750 bucks and washing their hands of the situation is a lie peddled by people who are looking to help themselves politically. But to the second point that Trump is making, that the federal government is just MIA, here are Republican officials who have made it abundantly clear that that's not even close to being the case. I just spoke, the president just called me yesterday afternoon. I missed him and called him right back.

And he just said, hey, what do you need? And I told him, you know, we got what we need. We'll work through the federal process. He offered that if there's no other things we need just to call them directly, which I appreciate that. We have been, Sean, I have to say, working well with FEMA. They, in fact, were moving very quickly over the last few days for us. And getting these resources has been critically important. I too want to thank the entire team.

I mean, our communities, our citizens in the communities are certainly very resilient as the governor's Our private partners, volunteers, I mean, obviously our local, our state and our government and our federal government all working together. Just a lot of hard work going on just across the state. This storm left a tremendous amount of devastation, but the personal, but the response efforts by all involved have been phenomenal. So to President Biden, thank you for coming. Thank you for paying attention to our needs. I think we've had good working relationship between the federal government. Not for nothing, but if Lindsey Graham, if Glenn Yonkin, if Brian Kemp had the opportunity to shit on the Biden-Harris administration for being MIA, don't you think they would in October of an election year?

The fact that they're not maybe suggests that the White House is doing its job. But for these purveyors of disinformation like Trump, like Elon Musk, who's been on an absolute tear spewing lies on Twitter to 200 million people prolifically, like the usual right-ring provocateurs, of that matters because the point is making people think that Democrats are dropping the ball. In fact, consider this. Them lying about there being no more FEMA funds because it all went to migrant housing is going to result in some people not even bothering to apply. Even though there are FEMA funds and any money through DHS that went to migrant housing is a completely different bucket and one has zero to do with the other. So those people won't even bother trying to get aid because that dude running to be the next president is so desperate to paint

Kamala in a bad light, that he'll make people think there aren't any relief funds left because something, something America first. But as I mentioned before, there are broader implications for what we're seeing right now. Keep in mind, the disinformation being spread about this hurricane and the federal government's response is so pervasive. They literally had to create a new FEMA web page just to debunk rumors. And even still, half the country is convinced of what Trump and Republicans are saying. Half the country thinks that Biden's on a beach somewhere, that Kamala is fundraising in L.A.

and that people in the hurricane's path were just given $750 and a pat on the head, all the while migrants are enjoying five-star hotel stays at the St. Regis. This is a test run for November. This is a test run for the deluge of lies that the right is going to spread about voter fraud, about vote dumps, about ballot harvesting, and it will run rampant on Twitter, where Elon will not only do nothing to prevent it, but he himself will spread it.

We simply do not have the means to take on the sheer windfall of lies that are going to happen surrounding the election. and Republicans are relying on that. So the onus is on all of us to get out ahead of this now and explain in no uncertain terms what to expect on election day. Like, for example, that in certain states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the Republican legislature's there again refused to pass a rule allowing election officials to count mail-in ballots until election day,

meaning the first votes counted will likely be election day ballots that will skew Republican, followed by mail-in ballots that will skew Democratic. So when the count goes from red to blue, that's not evidence of some nefarious scheme being perpetuated by Hugo Chavez and the left, it is simply those mail-in ballots getting tabulated from the major population centers. But because those Republicans in the legislatures in those states, they know that the national GOP is going to scream about late-night vote dumps, they purposefully kept their inefficient system as is

because it plays in the Trump's hands and the disinformation that the party will spread. Aside from PA in Wisconsin, we also shouldn't expect results from Arizona or Nevada on election day because the process to count mail ballots is laborious, thanks again to rules passed by Republicans. In Georgia, Republicans just passed a rule requiring hand recounts of all 5 million ballots, meaning that if that rule stands, it's being litigated right now,

but if it stands, we won't see Georgia's results by Election Day either. None of this is evidence of fraud or theft. It is simply how the process works given the rules passed by the officials in each state, or the legislatures in each state. But ultimately, the main rule is not to believe what you hear on the internet from these bad faith actors.

If you want to know who not to trust, just look for the people telling you right now that Kamala and Biden are screwing over hurricane victims. If we want to get back to a world where the truth matters again, the only way to do that is to repudiate the people spreading these lies at the ballot box by as wide a margin as possible. Next up are my interviews with Pete Buttigieg and Alison Riggs. Now we've got the Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg.

Thanks so much for taking the time. Thanks for having me on. I'm going to direct your attention to this moment from Trump in Michigan just this week. That's what's happening. They stole the FEMA money just like they stole it from a bank so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them this season. In the aftermath of the hurricane, Harrison Walls stole money from FEMA to give it to illegal immigrants so they would vote for them.

Obviously, an outrageous lie. Can I have your response to what he said? And what has this administration and FEMA been doing to help? help people in the aftermath of the hurricane. Yeah, it's false. It's easy to prove that it's false. And without getting the campaign side of things, I can just tell you, this is an administration that has been on the ground from day one, actually before day one, pre-positioning people

to do what FEMA does best and what emergency responders do best, which is to help people in need. Now, the scale of the devastation here is colossal, which is exactly why it is so important that nobody be throwing around false statements or distract. people from the very real and urgent needs on the ground. I was at the FEMA Command Center, saw the work that's happening. Part of which, of course, is through our department trying to help restore roads, bridges, get people good to route information so that they can get emergency vehicles in

when the normal road or bridge has been washed out. All of us working together to solve problems for people and help them through this unbelievably shocking, devastating damage. Have we not already seen what the vilification of immigrants does? in the aftermath of Vance and Trump claiming that Haitians are eating dogs and cats? Doesn't this kind of rhetoric imperil the lives of innocent people? Look, again and again, we have seen problems created for communities by somebody trying to use them for political advantage.

And unfortunately, it has been true for hundreds of years that one of the most cynical things somebody can do is attack immigrants in order to try to score political points and to try to make literally anything into an excuse to attack immigrants. Most recently, a hurricane, but it doesn't matter what the issue is. A hurricane housing prices. Who knows? Whatever it is, all they're going to say is here's who you should blame.

Here's who you should hurt. When the real answer is, here's who we need to help and how can we get together and do. There's another lie that's kind of taken hold on right-wing media that all FEMA is doing is just handing people $750 and calling it a day. Can you speak on that? Yeah, so some internet lies are completely made up. Others start with some misunderstood fact and go from there. Probably the origin of that lie is that there are funds that get people an immediate check for help, about 700 bucks for things like food, diapers. But that doesn't mean that's all that they get. It means that it's the first most immediate source of support.

And what's extremely troubling, again, is to see this benefit that's going to people, this way of helping people somehow twisted and used for what I can only assume are political purposes. And look, none of this is helping the responders who are actually on the ground. It is extraordinary and inspiring what's happening. We are seeing first responders getting through to people, even as their own communities have been impacted. We're seeing extraordinary efforts coordinating different kinds of agencies, law enforcement, firefighters, the military troops, the President Biden deployed to the area to try to help.

I've seen amazing examples of what's being done. And by the way, when you get away from these internet lies and some of the most extreme voices, I've been really struck by how bipartisan our work with the states and the governors has been called several governors of impacted states. And you would never know listening to the call between me and a governor, which ones belong to the same political party as I did and which ones didn't. It's just about how to get stuff done. And anybody else commenting on this should be following that same spirit. What does it say that while the administration has been swift and thorough in dealing with this hurricane, that certain Republicans have used their time, not to help, but to immediately try and vilify you guys?

Like, that's what they're using, their political capital, their time, their resources on while people need help. Well, look, at any problem that Americans are facing, I think you look at it and you can either be somebody who asks, how can I help with this? or there are people who ask, how can I help use this? Or how can I use this instead of help? And the really unfortunate thing is there is so much distraction that takes away from the good work that is going on. And everybody can help. So if you're concerned about this and you're not sure what to believe, first of all, don't believe some dude on the Internet. Look for actual data from FEMA, from emergency responders, from local as well as federal authorities on what's going on.

and importantly on how to help. Unfortunately, even though some of this internet politicization is relatively new, people trying to use a natural disaster for their own benefit, that's not new. People always try to exploit tragedy, but the best way through that, the best way to put that in its place, is to stay in the line with those who are actually making

a positive difference on the ground, trusted sources, whether we're talking about trusted news sources, trusted official sources at every level of government, or trusted third party sources like the Red Cross, who everybody knows will tell you what is needed and how to help. Don't believe some dude on the internet should be like the theme of this election, the theme of our time right now. Another crisis that you dealt with was the port strike just this past week.

So what is the update in terms of where that stands right now? Well, thankfully, the ports are reopening as we speak. Goods are moving. And this is so important for our economy. it's even more important because of the disaster recovery, which is a point that we made to the parties, the companies, and the unions as they were working toward a deal, something President Biden mentioned. Through an extraordinary amount of effort, lots going on in the administration, midnight meetings, pre-dawn meetings, extraordinary shuttle diplomacy by our acting secretary of labor,

Julie Sue, talking to companies and the unions, as well as folks like me and White House officials involved. The bottom line is, there is now a tentative deal. and that represents a much desert and long-weighted raise in wages for these workers. These are folks who have not seen the kind of wage gains that most American workers have over the last decade. And if you just think about what it was like during COVID, obviously, to do a job like theirs, you know, you can't do that online, you can't do that from home. Many of them lost their lives. And now they want to participate in this enormous economic growth that's happened and the enormous profitability of the shipping industry.

But this deal gives them a chance to do that, and it brings an end to the strike and gets those goods moving again, because we count on obviously all of those ports to get so many things that we buy at the store and that we use in our everyday lives. While you and the Labor Secretary and the NEC director and the president were working on resolving this, here's what Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was doing. He took to Twitter, I'm going to put this on the screen, writing that Florida's ports are being impacted by the inaction of the Biden-Harris administration. and as a result, he was deploying the Florida National Guard and the Florida State Guard.

Can you talk about the contrasting strategies here that while you all were brokering an agreement, DeSantis decided to militarize the situation? Yeah, we were focused on solving the problem. There was an enormous amount of work going on, which led to the result of the strike coming to an end. And by the way, again, this is something that shouldn't have been political. President Trump and President Biden were paying saying pretty much the same thing, Vice President Harris, too, about the workers deserving a raise. So I was surprised by that. There wasn't enough time for that to become a major obstacle to solving the problem, but it certainly could have been. And I'm just surprised by the instinct, given how important these workers are, to want to send in a soldier. You know,

the governor has his authorities. He has his rights. But I got to say, if I were the governor of a state that had just been hit by a hurricane and I was deciding where to deploy the National Guard, I think I'd be sending them to something like a sandbag line, not to a picket line. What are the broader implications of this obsession by Republicans, a party that frames itself as small government, to constantly try and wield the military for political purposes, from Trump attempting to send the military in to seize voting machines during the election, to now DeSantis threatening to send the military in during this port strike? Yeah, one of the things that I always understood during my time in uniform was the principle of civilian authority over the military, but also the principle that your authorities were non-political. We weren't supposed to feel it as a unit or when we were deployed, whether the person at the top of the chain of command was a Democrat or a Republican. That's how it's supposed

to be. And there is a concern here, I think, of the politicization and certainly that these proposed uses for the military that have nothing to do with the military's actual mission, which is to keep the American people safe. And again, they're doing it right now. As President Biden, DOD, National Guard, so many have worked to get active duty troops on the ground to help save lives and get people whose suffering is difficult to describe, to get them back to normal. So I want to switch gears to the economy now. The jobs report was just released this past Friday. More than a quarter of a million jobs were added this past month, blowing past expectations. For my entire life, Republicans have beat their chest as these job creators, as the only political party that's going to create

jobs. And yet, we've got a Democratic administration right now that has added 16 million jobs compared to a net loss of three million jobs in the previous administration. What's the message to Americans who listen to these Republicans frame themselves as responsible stewards of the economy? Well, I think, again, you got to start with the facts and the actual problems we're trying to solve. One of the problems that I think most Americans, at least where I come from in the industrial Midwest, take very seriously, is the fact that we lost a lot of our manufacturing jobs. I woke up being, grew up, being told, you know, we're kind of done making things in this country. The previous administration talked about that a lot, but it didn't really change.

We had a manufacturing recession during the previous administration. But under this administration, we have jobs coming back to the Midwest in very traditional industries. I visited the steel plant that's making the steel for the rails that are going into the rail upgrades that we're doing across the country. I saw shipbuilding. Our department purchased a new training ship that was part of the story of how the Philadelphia shipyard came back to life. But also in newer fields like batteries and clean energy equipment materials, a lot of UAW workers are going to be getting jobs in some of the newer high. hybrid and EV factories building up, as well as the more traditional factories. We have this record job growth because of a policy of keeping those jobs on U.S. soil and growing them. And the rest is just talk, but talk is cheap, results are real, and the jobs results have been

extraordinary. Well, it seems like the perfect place to leave off. Secretary Buttigieg, thanks so much for taking the time. Thank you. Glad I got to speak with you. Now we've got the North Carolina Supreme Court Justice up for re-election. this year at Justice Allison Riggs. Thank you so much for taking the time. Thank you so much for having me, Brian. So there's obviously a lot of attention on North Carolina this year, but there's also a lot of attention across the country on state Supreme Court races. Why is it so critical that we focus our attention on the Supreme Court in North Carolina? What's at stake in your state immediately? Well, I'll say it's not just my state. The U.S. Supreme Court has taken

actions in recent years that have made state Supreme Courts even more important. First, the U.S. Supreme Court punted on the question of partisan gerrymandering. They said federal courts can't do anything about it, but state courts acting in interpreting state constitutions maybe can. So the issue of gerrymandering, at least partisan gerrymandering, is squarely in front of every state court at best, if it's going to be a problem that's addressed. The other issue that has increased the stakes for state Supreme Court races is that in overturning Roe v. Wade in 22, overturning 50 years of precedent, the U.S. Supreme Court said they were sending the issue of abortion and reproductive freedom back to the states, which means not only are state legislatures changing laws,

but state Supreme Courts are being asked to decide what kinds of reproductive freedoms women enjoy state by state. So nationally, state Supreme Courts are more important, than they've ever been. Here in North Carolina, we have seen since 2022, a conservative takeover of our courts and a lot of changed action when it comes to our rights. And we are working very hard this year

to help North Carolinians see that the courts can be a place where rights are protected and granted, not chipped away at. And so we know that issues from public education to voting rights to invests, to environmental justice to justice system reform. These are all issues that our North Carolina Supreme Court is going to be squarely dealing with,

but it's gonna take us a minute to dig ourselves out of the hole that we've dug ourselves into. And we are right now working to win back our courts in the 2028 election before the next round of redistricting. We cannot flip our courts this year, but if we don't hold my seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court, We can't win back our courts before the next round of redistricting.

So as far as reproductive rights are concerned, what's the state of abortion rights in North Carolina right now? So there's since Dobbs, there's been some movement. There's no case currently pending in front of me. We have a gubernatorial candidate running on changing his story from time to time, but essentially running to totally ban abortion. And the question for North Carolina voters is, you know, who's going to stand up for women and their ability to protect their own health care? So my opponent is someone who served on the Court of Appeals, and he signed on to an opinion last year since withdrawn that said life begins at conception. That's the same legal logic that when the Alabama Supreme Court issued it, women lost access to health care. IVF treatments mid-cycle. So if they had eggs retrieved, hormones injected, mid-cycle. So the question for North Carolina voters is, who can you trust with your reproductive freedom? Maya Angelou said when someone

shows you who they are, believe them the first time. My opponent is someone that I think we cannot trust particularly in light of attacks on reproductive freedoms coming from other branches of government. Why is this issue important to you especially? Do you have a personal stake in this issue? I do. I'm the youngest woman to ever serve on the North Carolina Supreme Court and the only woman of childbearing age on any of our appellate courts. So as a matter of a principle, I think directly affected people should be at the table when decisions are made. And don't you want a woman who knows what this feels like to have her body be the subject of debate? Second, because I'm newlywed. My husband and I met a little bit later in life, and we hope to start a family, but I'm 43 years old,

and so that's not guaranteed. I'm a high-risk pregnancy could very well suffer miscarriage and need emergency treatment. To get pregnant, I may need access to IVF and other reproductive health care across the South in particular. We're seeing women die because doctors are afraid to provide them emergency health care when they are losing a pregnancy. So this is life and death for my family and for so many other families across North Carolina. And I hope to be a voice for them, letting them grow and take care of their families in safety and in peace. Another issue that I focus on especially heavily that I think has major implications for the entire country is fair maps. and you had mentioned that before.

What are the implications for Fair Maps as far as the state Supreme Court is concerned in North Carolina right now? Yeah, well, this is an issue that I've spent my career focusing on, too. I was a voting rights attorney before joining the bench. I spent 15 years fighting gerrymandering in all its forms, racial partisan,

violations of the Voting Rights Act. I did a lot of work combating partisan gerrymandering. I actually argued the case in the United States Supreme Court, common cause v. Rocha, where the Supreme Court declined to enforce the federal constitution in protecting voters' ability to cast votes in districts that were not predetermined from before they went to the ballot box.

So I then also argued the case in the North Carolina Supreme Court, Harper v. Hall, where a previous court, a court with a justice-minded majority, said that extreme partisan gerrymandering violates North Carolina, as constitutional guarantee of free elections. Free elections means, doesn't just mean no cover charge. It, of course, means that as well. But it means unrestricted, unhindered, unrigged. And then I knew the day after the November 22 elections,

that despite the fact that we'd won that landmark case that we'd gotten fair maps for the first time in a long time in North Carolina, that that decision was likely to fall by the way. wayside. And unfortunately, I was right. And the North Carolina Supreme Court overturned to that decision. We had new maps drawn for the 24 elections, congressional and state legislative. Our congressional map right now, we are represented by seven Democrats and seven Republicans in Congress, and we are a very purple, very 50-50 state. We think it is likely after these elections that it'll be

either 10-4 or 11-3 Republican Democrat. So there's no case pending in front of me right now, but obviously North Carolina is a state where redistricting historically has been litigated every cycle. And we know that we will have a new census in 2030. North Carolina is growing rapidly. And it is, I am committed to making sure

that we have people on the bench who are willing to enforce the Constitution without fear or favor, because unless we have a multiracial, participatory, inclusive democracy where voters are picking their representatives rather than politicians picking their voters, our democracy doesn't work. And I believe that in a cycle where more states have adopted fair maps, where it's gone in that direction, North Carolina is one of, if not the only states that has backslid. to the extent that it has. Another reason that North Carolina is in the news, in case you thought you would get away without having to discuss Mark Robinson in this interview, is because of what he said in his

recent comments. So I guess, first off, what was your reaction to hearing some of what he said? It was more ugly, more hateful, but this is what we have heard from Mark Robinson for years. This is who that man is, and it's who Republicans picked to leave. lead their ticket. But what we have seen in North Carolina since then is a lot of folks, you know, deleting their pictures with Mark Robinson, but refusing to disavow him. And if you are not willing to say plainly without qualification that racism, sexism, anti-Semitism and hate have no place in our government, not in our executive branch, not in our legislative branch,

and not in our judicial branch, you do not have the character to lead. You are, do not have the character to lead. You are unfit to serve the people of this state. Justice Riggs, how can we help your campaign? North Carolina. The races are going to be 50-50, maybe not the gubernatorial race, but every other one is going to be down to the wire. All of my polling is within the margins. Folks can go to my website. It's Riggs4 Our Courts.com and donate. You can go to my website and see my ad. My ad is about reproductive freedom and fighting for families like mine and other. North Carolinians, we need to get that ad on as many screams across North Carolina as possible.

And we are going to be raising resources to the very last minute to get that message across so that when North Carolinians go into the ballot box and vote, they understand that their power is up and down the ballot and that they have the power to make North Carolina a place where women can live, thrive, families can make important decisions for themselves. And this is a North Carolina worth fighting for. Well, I should note for people who've been voting to other races across the country, these national races obviously are important, but your dollars go a lot farther in smaller races that often get overlooked. So very important to donate if you have the opportunity to. I'll put the link in the post description of this video and in the show notes of

the podcast. Justice Riggs, thank you so much for taking the time. and best of luck on the campaign trail. Thank you so much, Brian. Really grateful for you. Thanks again to Secretary Pete and Justice Riggs. That's it for this episode. Talk to you next week. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen.

Produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, and interviews edited for YouTube by Nicholas Nicotera. If you want to support the show, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app and leave a five-star rating in a review. And as always, you can find me at Brian Tyler Cohen on all of my other channels, or you can go to Briantellercoen.com to learn more.

Thank you.