“The acting head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was joking when he said he was not aware the US had an official hurricane season, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which houses FEMA, said in a statement,” says the lede to a Tuesday article at The Hill.

“The acting head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was joking when he said he was not aware the US had an official hurricane season, according to a statement from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which houses FEMA,” says the second paragraph of the article. Not making that up, lol. Here’s a screenshot of a very likely prime example of AI slop.

“Their response comes after Reuters reported that Richardson, who has been in the position since early May, baffled employees with the sentiment at a recent briefing. The outlet said it was unclear to staff members whether the remark was meant to be taken ‘literally, as a joke, or in some other context,'” says the next paragraph, the AI engine or maybe Bangladeshi content farm laborer forgetting to include Acting FEMA Director David Richardson’s first name in the article-ish piece meant to be DHS’s response to staffers questioning his competence after the replacement for his too pro-FEMA predecessor made it clear to them he didn’t know hurricane season was a thing.

“‘Despite meanspirited attempts to falsely frame a joke as policy, there is no uncertainty about what FEMA will be doing this Hurricane Season,’ a spokesperson for DHS, which houses FEMA, said in a statement to The Hill.” Hold on, DHS “houses” FEMA? Get the fuck out. You know that specific phrasing wasn’t really sinking in the first two times it appears in the article, but now? Damn.

“‘FEMA is laser focused on disaster response, and protecting the American people,'” the spokesperson continued, adding that FEMA, under Richardson, is ‘activated in preparation for Hurricane Season,'” The Hill pasted in from the email DHS had sent to them earlier this morning.

Not really going to lament the decline in quality in the house that John Solomon built because you already know how this sentence is going to end. It’s more that The Hill’s team were kind of assigned a specific task by the Trump Administration, to help conduct some damage control after a damning scoop by a far more reputable news organization, to curry favor with the Orange Overlord and the dog murderer by helping to push back against a perception of incompetence by the acting FEMA director and they just kind of exacerbated it with their own incompetence. Like The Hill had to be about the ninth choice on the list of “mainstream” outlets that would print the “it was a joke” statement after CNN, NBC, the Washington Post, etc passed on it. The level of professionalism of both the Trump DHS and The Hill truly gushes from every word of this effort.