Maui fires death toll hits 111 as 60 survivors found in single home: Live updates

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre pushed back on accusations that President Joe Biden failed to address the Hawaii wildfires saying Mr Biden “has been talking about this.”

Ms Jean-Pierre joined CNN host Phil Mattingly on Wednesday morning to speak about Mr Biden’s efforts in Hawaii, hours after she confirmed that the President and First Lady Jill Biden would visit Maui on Monday.

As soon as Ms Jean-Pierre joined the show, Mr Mattingly asked why Mr Biden chose not to address the wildfires in Hawaii for a week. He claimed Mr Biden spoke about the fires for the first time on Tuesday during a speech in Milwaukee.

Ms Jean-Pierre sharply responded to Mr Mattingly’s accusations with, “I would disagree with that.”

“When I was with [the President] out there in Utah, he was there to talk about the PACT Act…. at the top of his remarks he talked about what was going on in Hawaii and how we were moving forward with the federal whole of government response. So he has been talking about this,” Ms Jean-Pierre said.

When Joe Biden announced the federal government’s latest aid package to families left homeless by the Maui wildfires on Monday, a seemingly innocuous turn of phrase sent conspiracists into meltdown.

“We’re laser-focused on getting aid to survivors,” the president wrote, apparently unaware of the bogus claims circulating on social media of space lasers being used to deliberately start the wildfires that swept through Maui on 8 August.

Since the wildfires started in Hawaii earlier this month, nonsense conspiracy theories about ‘space lasers’ have been rampant on social media but one of the weirdest phenomena related to the tragedy is currently happening on Amazon.

A book called Fire and Fury: The Story of the 2023 Maui Fire and its Implications for Climate Change by Dr Miles Stones has attracted a lot of interest in recent days thanks to it largely being published just two days after the fires began on August 8th.

The book, which comes in at a whopping 44 pages, is currently listed as a ‘bestseller‘ in the Natural Disasters section of Amazon and is available on Kindle and in paperback editions.

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President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden will visit Maui, Hawaii on Monday 21 August to meet with first responders, survivors and officials– nearly two weeks after devastating wildfires ravaged parts of the island.

Days after Mr Biden faced backlash from individuals who believed the President did not have enough of a public-facing approach to addressing the wildfires, the White House announced the trip.

“In Maui, the President and First Lady will be welcomed by state and local leaders to see firsthand the impacts of the wildfires and the devastating loss of life and land that has occurred on the island, as well as discuss the next steps in the recovery efforts,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre wrote in a statement.

Hawaii governor Josh Green vowed “to keep the land in local people’s hands” after the deadly wildfire incinerated the historic Maui community.

Mr Green said at a Wednesday news conference that he had instructed the state attorney general to work toward a moratorium on land transactions in Lahaina, which he acknowledged will come with legal challenges.

“My intention from start to finish is to make sure that no one is victimized from a land grab,” Mr Green said.

“People are right now traumatized. Please do not approach them with an offer to buy their land. Do not approach their families saying they’ll be much better off if they make a deal. Because we’re not going to allow it.”

When Joe Biden announced the federal government’s latest aid package to families left homeless by the Maui wildfires on Monday, a seemingly innocuous turn of phrase sent conspiracists into meltdown, writes Bevan Hurley.

As with nearly every traumatic event, from natural disasters to school shootings, fake theories that sprung up immediately online followed a familiar narrative of climate change denial, government cover-up and in some cases antisemitic tropes.

Some suggest the United States military set off the blaze, or that it was part of an “elite land grab” possibly spearheaded by Oprah Winfrey herself.