As Hurricane Milton approached the Florida coast in early October 2024, online users shared a rumor claiming former U.S. President Donald Trump was offering free lodging to his supporters fleeing the storm.
The Associated Press reported Oct. 9 that numerous Florida counties were under mandatory evacuation orders as Milton approached the state. The website FloridaDisaster.org offered further information regarding evacuation assistance, shelters and more.
Users on Facebook, Threads, TikTok and X all shared the rumor with the text, "BREAKING: Trump offers free lodging at any of his timeshares (including Mar-a-Lago) to all displaced Trumpers as Milton approaches." (Many of the users posted the claim in jest.)
In perhaps the most prominent example, the X account @theliamnissan — a user who posts humorous content making light of Trump and his supporters — posted (archived) a screenshot of the post with that text from the user @gailendavid and said, "Wow, that's so generous." The post from @theliamnissan received more than 4,800 likes and 80,000 views.
However, the truth was that @gailendavid's original post contained text that was cropped out of the screenshot posted by @theliamnissan. The original post continued, "Note: Let's see how Trump likes it when misinformation flows his way for a change."
In other words, this rumor was simply made up. As such, we rated the claim as false.
Trump Housing 275 Linemen in Miami
In a separate matter, the Florida's Voice news website reported that Trump's son Eric Trump posted (archived) on Oct. 9 — hours away from Milton making landfall — that the Trump National Doral Miami resort was hosting 275 linemen from Florida Power & Light, a utility company. The post did not mention whether or not the linemen were staying free. We called the resort but could not yet reach anyone who might answer that question about cost.
For further reading, we previously reported about another false rumor circulating prior to Milton making landfall — that an audio clip featured an official with the Federal Emergency Management Agency saying the organization planned to execute 70,000 to 80,000 people.