Fact Check

Was Hillary Clinton Caught on Tape Laughing About Irma's 'Wiping Out All of Those Florida Hillbillies?'

A disreputable web site fabricated a story about the Democratic presidential nominee and MSNBC host Rachel Maddow.

Published Sept. 20, 2017

 (a katz / Shutterstock.com)
Image Via a katz / Shutterstock.com
Claim:
Hillary Clinton made fun of hurricane Irma victims and called them "Florida hillbillies."

The web site AsAmericanAsApplePie.org published a story in September 2017 that painted former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as behaving callously toward victims of hurricane Irma:

While filming a segment for The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, Hillary Rodham Clinton was nabbed on tape saying the most awful thing imaginable about Hurricane Irma and its potential victims:

“To be honest, Rachel, it would probably be good for the country if Irma were to just wipe every Florida hillbilly off the map. I mean…they live in trailers by the water, right?”

The remark was allegedly captured on tape by a "true patriot" sound engineer who vowed to hold on to it unless he needed to "save the country" or himself.

The story is fabricated, as is every story on the site. Its Facebook page includes this disclaimer:

Nothing on this page is real. It is a collection of the satirical whimsies of liberal trolls masquerading as conservatives. You have been warned.

The same disclaimer also appears verbatim on the Facebook page for another fake news site, TheLastLineofDefense.org, and the two web sites appear to be related.

As American As Apple Pie also has another, more vaguely-worded, disclaimer on its web site:

When no one can trust the lying fake news liberal media anymore because they hate us and guns and Harley Davidson and meat and OUR president, As American as Apple Pie is here to be your beacon of something you can kinda rely on sometimes, but not really because only God can control our fate in this crazy, twisted world. God Bless America and Amen.

We called a phone number listed on As American As Apple Pie's Facebook page and got this voicemail message:

Thank you for calling the Crazy Shiksa Bakery. We'll call you back if you leave your name and your number when we're not busy.

[audio mp3="https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2017/09/092017-As-American-For-Apple-Pie-message.mp3"][/audio]

Arturo Garcia is a former writer for Snopes.