Fox's Faulkner Absolutely Blasts VP Harris Over Comments on 'Equity' and Hurricane Relief
CORRECTION, Oct. 6, 2022: It was unclear what Vice President Kamala Harris was referring to when she said, “We have to address this in a way that is about giving resources based on equity.” While many thought she was speaking about hurricane relief, the White House and others said her comments were in response to the second part of the lengthy question she was asked and dealt with disparities in climate change impact. “The vice president was addressing a different subject: long-term climate resilience investments passed with strong bipartisan support,” Andrew Bates, White House deputy press secretary, told PolitiFact. Because of this, The Western Journal has revised the headline and some of the text in this article. A video of the full exchange has been added below, and the White House transcript can be found here.
Fox News host Harris Faulkner lit into Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday for her remarks about “equity” in response to a question about hurricane relief and disparities in the impact of climate change.
“[W]e have to address this in a way that is about giving resources based on equity, understanding that we fight for equality but we also need to fight for equity, understanding not everyone starts out in the same place and if we want people to be in an equal place sometimes we have to take into account disparities and do that work,” Harris said Friday during a Democratic National Committee Women’s Leadership Forum.
The Fox News host interpreted that to mean race would be a factor in how federal relief would be distributed to Floridians affected by Hurricane Ian.
“I will be really transparent here. Her husband is white and so is mine. She is biracial. I’m black. If our white husbands lost us, they would cry as hard as if a black husband lost his black wife,” Faulkner said on her show, “The Faulkner Focus.”
“It’s just that basic, so divide and conquer along the lines of politics is what this feels like, because as human beings, it is very hurtful,” she said.
“We all have our own path, and by the way so did Hurricane Ian,” Faulkner said. “So if he takes one of us away from someone who loves us, the hurricane didn’t pick me because I was black or pick her potentially because she was biracial, and the hurricane didn’t know that someone white might mourn us or someone black might mourn us.
“It doesn’t work that way, and those victims left behind don’t deserve something based on the color of their skin or the lack thereof.”
The Biden administration said that interpretation of Harris’ comments was inaccurate.
“The Vice President was addressing a different subject: long term climate resilience investments passed with strong bipartisan support,” a White House representative told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“Vice President Harris had already answered the interviewer’s first question, about the FEMA response to Hurricane Ian specifically, by emphasizing that we are urgently responding to all Americans hurt by the storm,” the representative said.
“She had explicitly moved on to answering … ‘long term goals’ for how to ‘address the climate crisis in the states’ – by mentioning the long term investments that Congress, with Republican support, specifically set aside for communities that are vulnerable because of a lack of infrastructure resources.”
“We’re going to support all communities. I committed that to the governor, I commit to you right here that all Floridians are going to be able to get the help that is available to them through our programs,” FEMA chairwoman Deanne Criswell said Sunday during an appearance on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
Hurricane Ian made landfall Wednesday near Fort Myers, Florida, causing extensive damage and flooding and killing dozens of people.
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A version of this article appeared on the Daily Caller News Foundation website.
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