Carlos Giménez: Marjorie Taylor Greene needs her ‘head examined’ for weather-control claims

U.S. Rep. Carlos Giménez is bashing peddlers of misinformation ahead of Hurricane Milton’s expected landfall Wednesday, and he gave an especially strong shove to one of his more conspiracy theory-prone colleagues.

Quote-sharing an X post by Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene in which the far-right Georgia Republican wrote, “Yes they can control the weather. It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done,” Giménez fired off a zinger.

“Humans can’t create or control hurricanes,” he wrote. “Anyone who thinks they can, needs to have their head examined.”

Giménez’s comment came as he and several other Florida Republicans try to tamp down lies that could cost lives as the dangerous storm bears down on the state’s Gulf Coast two weeks after Hurricane Helene hit it at Category 4 strength.

“Whenever there’s a disaster, I think we should all come together, give out the right information and help people,” Giménez told CNN. “There’s no place for misinformation, especially when it’s on purpose at times like this.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis told reporters Wednesday, “We live in an era where if you put out crap online you can get a lot of people to share it. And you can monetize that. That’s just the way it is. … But if you are hearing something that’s just outrageous, just know that in the state of Florida none of that stuff would ever fly.”

Christina Pushaw, who has worked in various communication capacities for DeSantis’ administration and presidential campaign, shared a few examples of misinformative social media posts on X before offering her take on the issue.

“If you wouldn’t believe a New York Times story based solely on ‘anonymous sources’ (and I wouldn’t), you shouldn’t believe engagement-baiting posts like these that make outlandish claims without evidence,” she wrote Wednesday morning.

“Likewise, you shouldn’t believe every tiktok video of someone crying in their car. Anyone can post anything for engagement; there’s no way to verify if they’re telling the truth. Natural disasters like hurricanes are prime topics for online engagement-farming because people are paying attention to it.”

Others, including some of the above-mentioned politicos, have added to the problem.

Ex-President Donald Trump, who reportedly floated withholding disaster aid from California because of the state’s Democratic slant, has repeatedly asserted that the federal government is deliberately neglecting Republican-leaning areas and providing emergency aid funding to migrants instead of using it on disaster response.

“(Vice President) Kamala (Harris gave) billions of dollars on housing for illegal migrants, many of whom should not be in our country,” he told rallygoers in Michigan last week.

During a Fox News interview Sept. 30, he said, “They’re being treated very badly in the Republican areas. They’re not getting water. They’re not getting anything.”

Data from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) shows 84% of the $210 million in post-Helene funding the agency approved is for states that swung for Trump in 2020. Republican officials in those states have also praised how fast the federal government responded to their needs. DeSantis was not among them.

Other GOP notables from Florida have repeated and expanded on Trump’s lies. Last week, U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of St. Petersburg posted a video on X in which she said FEMA lacks funding because it sent disaster dollars to cities and organizations to provide shelter and services to illegal immigrants.

FEMA does provide funding for migrant housing; however, that tranche is separate from the one the agency uses for disaster relief. The reason FEMA may face funding issues down the line is that Congress has not approved additional funding for it.

U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz, a Parkland Democrat, has filed multiple bills to fix the issue. That includes legislation last week to earmark $10 billion for FEMA relief efforts and $5 billion for related endeavors by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Another bill he filed Tuesday would clear $8 billion in loans to hurricane-hit small businesses.

To expedite those and other emergency proposals, Moskowitz and U.S. Sen. Rick Scott — a former Republican Governor who has also tried to pass legislation to refill FEMA’s coffers — called on congressional leaders to bring Senators and Representatives back to Washington to ensure disaster funding is available.

Moskowitz also joined in on the mass ridicule of Greene’s post about weather control, which has since received a community note clarifying that while small-scale weather manipulation is possible, such as with cloud-seeding, weather patterns in general are naturally occurring and cannot be controlled, nor can hurricanes and other large storms be created artificially.

In a quote-post, Moskowitz combined the ridiculousness of Greene’s recent claim with her penchant for antisemitic views, including her support of the QAnon conspiracy theory and suggestion that a 2018 California wildfire was caused by “lasers or beams” from “space solar generators” in a scheme involving then-Gov. Jerry Brown, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and the Rothschild family, a frequent target of antisemitic conspiracy theories.

That assertion is now frequently referred to in shorthand and countless memes as “Jewish space lasers.”

Moskowitz wrote simply, “The ‘they,’” referring to Greene’s, “Yes they can control the weather.” Below, the two words, he posted a GIF from the religious epic, “The Ten Commandments,” showing Charlton Heston as Moses parting the Red Sea.