President Donald Trump, after being criticized for his untrue statements that Alabama was in the path of Hurricane Dorian, displayed an altered version of an official government map of the storm’s path — promoting what appears to have been someone in the White House’s casual violation of federal law.
Trump exaggerated the path of Hurricane Dorian — with a marker
The president previously got in trouble for claiming Alabama was in Dorian’s path.
Dylan Scott covers health for Vox, guiding readers through the emerging opportunities and challenges in improving our health. He has reported on health policy for more than 10 years, writing for Governing magazine, Talking Points Memo, and STAT before joining Vox in 2017.
Weather reporters and experts noticed the alteration on a White House video of Trump discussing the storm, which has killed seven people in the Bahamas and is likely to cost the Caribbean country billions of dollars.
In it, the black marker half-circle extends the actual forecast of the storm’s path into the southeastern corner of Alabama. Weather.com’s Kait Parker noted this was also a “very outdated” graphic.
Speculation quickly turned to whether Trump had been trying to cover for his claim that Alabama would be hit by the hurricane (which, to be clear, is heading up parallel to the East Coast). The National Weather Service office in Birmingham apparently felt the need to clear the matter up 20 minutes later.
The Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang wondered whether Trump had been using the map to rationalize his mistake and also pointed out issuing false or altered official weather forecasts is a violation of US law:
Altering official government weather forecasts isn’t just a cause for concern — it’s actually illegal. Per 18 U.S. Code 2074, which addresses false weather reports, “Whoever knowingly issues or publishes any counterfeit weather forecast or warning of weather conditions falsely representing such forecast or warning to have been issued or published by the Weather Bureau, United States Signal Service, or other branch of the Government service, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ninety days, or both.”
We do not, however, yet know who actually did the altering. Trump is just pointing to it in the White House video.
In reality, Dorian is now moving up the East Coast, parallel to the Floridas. It remains possible the storm will hit the Carolinas, and there will be serious rain and wind along the coast from the storm, but it appears for now the Bahamas has ended up hit the hardest. Vox has covered some of the most effective ways to give to charity to help people there.
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