The White House credited Donald Trump with preventing hurricanes this weekend — and the press corps that routinely treats government claims as gospel suddenly discovered skepticism.
On Saturday, the White House rapid response account tweeted "Thank you, President Trump!" after influencer Chris Martz noted that no Atlantic hurricanes had formed by Sept. 12, a first in the satellite era since 1966 and the longest such stretch since at least 1941. Martz, who identifies as a "politically incorrect" meteorologist, framed it as a race: if no hurricanes form by Sept. 21, it would be the first time since 1914.
The Daily Beast was quick to note that "there is no evidence Trump has anything to do with the Atlantic's unusually quiet hurricane season." NOAA attributes the calm to El Niño, a climate pattern that strangles tropical storms before they intensify. University of Miami hurricane expert Brian McNoldy told PBS: "I don't think anyone really foresaw it being this quiet."
The hurricane claim is absurd. But the same White House communications shop has been busy elsewhere. According to Newsweek, it branded journalist Aaron Rupar a "sick, deluded freak" for posting a photo of Trump aide Natalie Harp at a Dublin welcome function with the caption "Look who made the trip to Ireland!" The White House account wrote that Rupar is "a sick, deluded freak (in his 40s) who sits behind a keyboard and posts creepy things like this." A taxpayer-funded office attacking a private citizen for posting a publicly available photo — Newsweek framed it as a social media dust-up, not an abuse of official resources.
And per the Atlanta Black Star, this same operation has been building knockoff video games on the White House website — a Tetris-style "Build the Wall" game, a Zelda clone called "The Legend of Trump" — that got pulled after copyright holders objected. Tetris stated it "was not involved in the creation" and takes "copyright infringement very seriously." The Atlanta Black Star notes the administration has repeatedly used copyrighted songs and characters without permission, removing them only after artists demand it.
The establishment press rightly mocks the hurricane claim. But where's that skepticism when government claims serve the narrative? The same outlets that fact-check weather credit treat intelligence community claims, foreign policy justifications, and agency press releases as received wisdom. The question isn't whether Trump controls the weather. It's who gets to decide which government claims face scrutiny and which get a pass — and why the answer always seems to depend on who's in power.
