A day after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene claimed “they” can “control the weather” — and posted a map of Hurricane Helene damage overlaid with electoral preferences, suggesting the deadly disaster will help Democrats in November — she appeared on one of the most high-profile stages in politics.
“This is our opportunity to take our country back,” Greene told a crowd in Georgia on Friday, where she campaigned alongside Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance.
She didn’t mention the weather again, instead focusing on more standard campaign trail fare. But those comments, which fed into baseless conspiracy theories online that the hurricane was part of some vast Democratic scheme to hurt GOP voter turnout, clearly didn’t harm her standing with Vance.
“She’s been a great friend of mine,” Vance said. “She’s a loyal person. And you guys have a hell of a congresswoman here in Marjorie.”
Greene’s rise in the Republican Party, despite spouting conspiracy theories like this one, is a microcosm of the GOP’s evolution in the Donald Trump era. As Trump and his allies enter the final weeks of the presidential campaign, their comments are often completely disconnected from reality, without concern for the consequences. Vance has repeatedly shared baseless claims about migrants eating pets, prompting national attention, bomb threats and chaos in Springfield, Ohio — a city in the state he represents in the Senate. And that was after a Springfield official told his staff the allegations weren’t true.
Vance also declined during the vice presidential debate to say whether Trump lost the 2020 election, which Trump did lose. Asked again, Vance was even more supportive of the lie Trump continues to spread — that it was stolen from him. “Yes,” Vance responded in a video this week when pressed if Trump had won that election. “Yep,” he reiterated.
(A spokesperson for Vance did not reply to a request for comment for this story.)
Claims about Hurricane Helene on the far right are many — and varied. Republicans have shared complaints about the federal government’s response, alleging it hasn’t been fast enough or that it is actively refusing to help people in conservative areas that were hit with severe flooding. Trump ally Stephen Miller, for example, wrote on Friday that “when Americans were dying in North Carolina, Kamala’s FEMA failed and abandoned them,” claiming immigrants used up disaster response resources. (FEMA has posted a page responding to the most common claims, including this one, which it denied.)
Local Republican officials are begging the national party to stop having such a loose relationship with the truth. On Thursday, a state senator in North Carolina pushed back on “conspiracy theory junk” about the FEMA response.
“It is just a distraction to people trying to do their job,” the senator, Kevin Corbin, added.
North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, another Republican, also defended the ongoing disaster response. “I’m out here to say that we’re doing a good job, and those who may not be on the ground, who are making those assessments ought to get on the ground,” he said on Friday.
Greene hasn’t offered evidence for her theory about weather control, but she wrote that it is “ridiculous” for “anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.”
Her office didn’t respond when NOTUS asked directly on Friday if she was asserting the hurricane was manufactured to hurt Republicans. Her staff also did not answer when asked who, specifically, she was referring to when she said “they” can control the weather.
The Chinese government does fire silver iodide rods into clouds to produce rain. There is no evidence a government is capable of using such technology to create a Category 4 hurricane. (Helene struck at the height of hurricane season.)
Greene’s posts haven’t elicited much pushback from other House Republicans. Spokespeople for House Speaker Mike Johnson didn’t answer when asked about it by NOTUS.
Democrats, at least, are willing to talk about it.
“Spreading lies during natural disasters is a special kind of evil,” said Sen. Brian Schatz, a Hawaii Democrat. “Don’t do it, don’t indulge it, don’t excuse it.”
—
Haley Byrd Wilt is a reporter at NOTUS.