On January 13th, 2018, Hawaii was falsely threatened with a nuclear bomb threat. Emergency alerts went to phones all over the states warning people about the threat saying, “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEE IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.” Men, women and children worrying about what was going to happen to their loved ones and fearing for their own lives for a matter of minutes before they were alerted through social media that the alerts were falsely reported and an employee just happened hit the wrong button.

A member of Congress, Tulsi Gabbard, was one of the first people to speak out about the incident after just a few minutes of getting the warning herself. She tried to calm down and break some confusion for the citizens of Hawaii.  “HAWAII – THIS IS A FALSE ALARM. THERE IS NO INCOMING MISSILE TO HAWAII. I HAVE CONFIRMED WITH OFFICIALS THERE IS NO INCOMING MISSILE.” A member of Congress, Tulsi Gabbard, tweeted. The White House sent out a statement a while after the alerts saying, “The President has been briefed on the state of Hawaii’s emergency management exercise. This was purely a state exercise.” Finally, hours after the false threats, President Donald Trump spoke out on twitter how he felt about the situation. “So much Fake News is being reported. They don’t even try to get it right, or correct it when they are wrong. They promote the Fake Book of a mentally deranged author, who knowingly writes false information. The Mainstream Media is crazed that WE won the election!” President Donald Trump tweeted.

People around the states weren’t happy about Trump’s late response. “Trump could have tweeted as soon as possible that the alert was a false alarm, sharing that information with millions of Americans immediately. He could have additionally shared information about what went wrong, and assured people that he would work to make sure that no such error happened again in the future. He could, at the very least, have sought to offer some emotional support to the people of Hawaii. He did none of these. He has, as of writing, done none of these.” Washington Post reporter, Philip Bump, said. His late response made people question his leadership after the false alerts to Hawaii.