With a second powerful hurricane in less than two weeks bearing down on Florida, President Biden on Tuesday canceled an upcoming international trip in order to oversee federal storm preparations and response efforts.
As the death toll rises and nearly 200,000 people remain without power or running water over a week and a half after Hurricane Helen tore a path of destruction through the southeast United States, Hurricane Milton – an extremely dangerous Category 5 storm – is on course to slam into Florida on Wednesday.
“Given the projected trajectory and strength of Hurricane Milton, President Biden is postponing his upcoming trip to Germany and Angola in order to oversee preparations for and the response to Hurricane Milton, in addition to the ongoing response to the impacts of Hurricane Helene across the Southeast,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement on Tuesday.
The president was scheduled to leave for Berlin on Thursday, followed by a stop in Angola before returning home on Oct. 15. The trip would have marked Biden’s first stop on the African continent during his tenure as president.
EYE OF THE STORM: BACK-TO-BACK HURRICANES IMPACT HARRIS-TRUMP PRESIDENTIAL RACE
President Biden, center, delivers remarks on the federal government’s response to Hurricane Helene and preparations for Hurricane Milton in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024 in Washington, D.C. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Speaking with reporters on Tuesday, the president called Milton a potentially “devastating” storm that could be one of the worst to hit Florida in a century. He also urged anyone under an evacuation order to “evacuate now, now, now.”
“It’s a matter of life and death,” Bien emphasized.
Biden also said he spoke on Monday with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, adding that the conservative governor had been cooperative and that he gave his personal phone number to DeSantis.
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When asked about the federal storm response, DeSantis said during a news conference on Monday that “we have gotten what we need from the feds… the president has approved what we asked for… I’m thankful for that.”
“Everything we’ve asked for from President Biden, he’s approved,” DeSantis highlighted.
The governor reiterated those comments Tuesday morning in an interview on “Fox and Friends.”
“Every request that we’ve made – I’ve been in contact with the president, I’ve been in contact with the FEMA director,” DeSantis highlighted. “All of our requests have been answered.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis holds multiple storm preparation news conferences on Oct. 7, 2024, as Hurricane Milton bears down on Florida. (Office of Florida governor)
While DeSantis has complimented the president’s actions, he has taken aim at Vice President Kamala Harris. The Democrats’ presidential nominee on Monday – reacting to reports that the governor had refused to take her calls regarding federal storm efforts – described him as “selfish.”
When asked about the dispute, DeSantis argued in his “Fox and Friends” interview that “my focus has not been on dealing with Kamala Harris. I saw the news report. I didn’t know that she tried to contact me. But I’d also say it’s not about you, Kamala. It’s about the people of Florida. My focus is exactly where it should be.”
“I’ve worked on these Hurricanes under both President Trump and President Biden. Neither of them ever tried to politicize it. She’s never called on any of the storms we’ve had since she’s been vice president until apparently now. Why all of a sudden is she trying to parachute in and inject herself when she’s never shown any interest in the past? We know it’s because of politics. We know it’s because of her campaign. I have zero time to entertain these political games,” DeSantis charged.
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The war of words appeared to be triggered by reports from NBC and later ABC News on Monday afternoon that the Florida governor was not taking calls from Harris regarding storm recovery efforts, citing unnamed aides to the governor who said the calls seemed political in nature.
When asked a couple of hours later, DeSantis said he was not aware Harris was trying to reach him.
“I didn’t know that she had called. I’m not sure who they called. They didn’t call me,” he said. “It wasn’t anything that anybody in my office did, in terms of saying it was political.”
Speaking around the same time, as she departed the nation’s capital for New York, the vice president took aim at DeSantis.
“People are in desperate need of support right now and playing political games at this moment in these crisis situations…is just utterly irresponsible, and it is selfish,” Harris charged. “It is about political gamesmanship, instead of doing the job that you took an oath to do, which is to put the people first.”
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris arrives at LaGuardia Airport on Monday Oct. 7, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
However, DeSantis, pushing back in his Fox News interview, argued that “Harris is not even in the chain of command. She has no role in this. The idea that I should be…worrying about her when I’m focused on the task at hand is quite frankly absurd.”
When asked if his vice president has been helpful as the federal government deals with back-to-back dangerous hurricanes, Biden nodded and told reporters “yes.”
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Harris, speaking on Tuesday on the popular daytime program “The View,” said, “I have called and talked with, in the course of this crisis, this most recent crisis, with Democrat and Republican governors…. So, obviously, this is not an issue that is about partisanship or politics for certain leaders, but maybe it’s for others.”
With four weeks to go until Election Day in November and Harris and former President Donald Trump locked in a bitter margin-of-error showdown in the race to succeed Biden in the White House, and with two of the hardest-hit states from Helene — North Carolina and Georgia — among the seven key battlegrounds that will likely determine the outcome of the 2024 election – the politics of federal disaster relief are once again front and center on the campaign trail.
Trump, for a week and a half, has been repeatedly attacking Biden and Harris over the federal response to Hurricane Helene, and making unproven claims.
On Monday, Harris clapped back, accusing Trump of pushing “a lot of mis and disinformation.”
Fox News’ Nick Rojas contributed to this story.