BREAKING: North Carolina Governor Josh Stein BLASTS Trump for holding compensation for sick Camp Lejeune families hostage to Republican election victories – calls his threat “FOUL!”
Democratic Governor Josh Stein slammed Donald Trump for suggesting that families devastated by the Camp Lejeune water contamination disaster won't get their money unless Republicans win the midterm elections.
“To condition doing the right thing by sick North Carolinians on who wins the election is foul,” Stein declared. “Real leaders fight for the people, not for power.”
The outrage followed Trump's remarks Tuesday night at a rally in Greenville, where he boasted that his administration had delivered $1 billion in settlements to veterans and their families harmed by decades of contaminated drinking water at the Marine Corps base.
Trump then promised to direct the Justice Department to settle the remaining legitimate claims as quickly as possible – IF Republicans win control of Congress.
“If we don't win, there's no money,” Trump told the crowd. “If we do win, you're getting it.”
Except Congress ALREADY passed the Camp Lejeune Justice Act in 2022, as part of the PACT Act, and President Joe Biden signed it into law. Qualifying settlements are paid through the Treasury's permanent Judgment Fund, which does not depend on Republicans winning an election.
The victims don’t need Trump to invent a compensation program – they're waiting for the government to resolve claims that have been pending for years.
And the suffering behind those claims is heartbreaking.
Consider the family of Mary Freshwater (photo, with daughter Lori), who lived at Camp Lejeune in the late 1970s and early 1980s. She lost two infant sons to devastating birth defects, later suffered a miscarriage involving twins, and died of leukemia in 2013.
Lori Freshwater spent years pursuing compensation for her mother's death. Last month, she accepted a $400,000 settlement, although other claims involving her family remain unresolved.
“There will never be true justice for our losses,” Lori said. “There can't be.”
Her family is far from alone. More than 408,000 claims had been filed by mid-September, and more than 400,000 remained unresolved. The federal government had paid approximately $872 million to fewer than 3,000 claimants.
Federal judges have already ordered the parties to develop a broader settlement framework by October 30.
Andrew Bates, a former Biden administration spokesman and adviser to Democratic Senate candidate Roy Cooper, also condemned Trump's remarks, calling them “an anti-patriotic thing for the president to say.”
The law authorizing compensation is already on the books. The permanent fund for paying qualifying settlements already exists.
What remains unresolved is how quickly hundreds of thousands of families will receive answers and compensation.
For people who have endured decades of illness, loss, and waiting, that distinction is anything but academic.
Their claims deserve to be resolved on their merits, regardless of who controls Congress.
Trump's behavior, once again, is shameful.
