Old Trump footage mischaracterized as Hawaii disaster response
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on August 17, 2023 at 23:06
- 3 min read
- By Natalie WADE, AFP USA
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"THE PEOPLE'S PRESIDENT, sometimes showing UP does more than any words," says text over an August 16, 2023 TikTok post with #hawaii and #maui in its caption.
A post sharing the same clip on Twitter, which is being rebranded as "X," says: "The People's President, Donald J. Trump and our Beautiful First Lady Melania Trump, checking up on the people of Maui after the #MauiFires."
Blazes decimated the historic seaside town of Lahaina on Maui in early August, killing at least 110 people in the deadliest US wildfires in more than a century. The Washington Post and other US media have reported that fallen power lines from the state's main utility may have triggered the first flames.
The disaster has inspired misinformation and conspiracy theories about the tragedy, with some falsely claiming the government intentionally set the fires.
Posts sharing the video of Trump are similarly inaccurate.
A reverse image search surfaced the footage in local news articles about Trump's March 2019 visit to the town of Beauregard, Alabama after a tornado killed 23 people. The Associated Press originally published the video on YouTube (archived here).
Republicans have criticized President Joe Biden for his delayed response to the fires. In a video published August 14 on X, Trump called it "disgraceful."
The president and First Lady Jill Biden on August 21 will "meet with first responders, survivors, as well as federal, state, and local officials" on Maui, the White House said in a statement (archived here). Biden has declared the fires a major disaster (archived here), freeing up federal aid.
As of August 17, Trump had not made any announcements about visiting Hawaii on his website (archived here) or social media accounts (archived here and here).
AFP has debunked other claims about the Hawaii wildfires here.
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