Speaker Johnson Blasts Biden-Harris Admin’s ‘Failed’ Leadership After Helene Devastation

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) slammed the Biden-Harris administration’s response to Hurricane Helene during an interview with The Daily Wire’s news podcast “Morning Wire.”

Johnson said Republicans’ criticism of the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) is “fair,” adding that the “utter lack of leadership” from President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has “failed the American people.” More than 200 people were killed in the destruction of Hurricane Helene, which made landfall in northern Florida before moving across parts of Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina in late September.

“We still have people in need of rescue and supplies and water, food, and medicine. And it’s inexcusable that the executive branch of the federal government has just failed in this effort,” Johnson told Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley in an interview that will air on Tuesday morning.

The Republican House speaker also discussed FEMA’s funding, saying the agency had around $22 billion for “immediate disaster response,” adding that Congress would act quickly to allocate more money for disaster relief after states assess the damage caused by Helene. Johnson slammed FEMA for “taking its eye off the ball” and focusing on other issues.

Since the fall of 2022, FEMA-administered programs have spent $1.4 billion to address the illegal immigration crisis that has swelled under the Biden-Harris administration, The New York Post reported. The Biden-Harris administration says that the funding it has used for illegal immigrants comes from a different FEMA pile than the funding used for hurricane response.

Whistleblowers have also accused FEMA of misappropriating funds and keeping “hundreds, if not thousands, of service members” waiting on the ground without orders following Helene.

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“Under Mayorkas’ leadership at DHS, they’ve been engaging in things that are not their job. Listen to the acronym, it says what FEMA is about. It’s supposed to be the Federal Emergency Management Agency. They should be focused on helping Americans recover from disasters and not straining resources that go to other programs, like catering to illegal aliens,” Johnson said.

“This is one of the reasons that we impeached Mayorkas. He’s the first sitting cabinet secretary in the history of the United States to be impeached by the House,” he added. “Chuck Schumer in the Senate let it die, but [Mayorkas] deserved it. I mean, this is inexcusable. The American people are outraged by it, and so are House Republicans and Senate Republicans.”

Johnson told “Morning Wire” that he spoke to Mayorkas after SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said some of his engineers were being prevented from delivering Starlink to affected areas for internet connection.

“I talked with Elon and then I called the Secretary of Homeland Security myself, and I said, ‘Get it straight.’ And they did within a couple of hours,” he said. “So Starlink’s being delivered.”