President Biden, making calls with elected officials in Florida on Wednesday evening, as powerful and extremely dangerous Hurricane Milton crashed into the state.
And the president also speaking with Democratic and Republican senators from the states hard hit by Hurricane Helene, which tore a path of destruction through the southeast nearly two weeks ago.
“I directed my team to do everything we can to save lives and help communities before, during, and after the hurricane — the one that has just passed and this awful one that’s about to hit,” Biden said at the end of a long day overseeing the federal response to the storms.
And the president stressed that “my most important message today is for those who are in impacted areas, please, please listen to your local authorities, follow all safety…instructions and evacuation orders. This is serious, very serious.”
BIDEN CANCELS OVERSEAS TRIP AS MILTON BEARS DOWN ON FLORIDA
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the federal government’s response to Hurricane Helene and preparations for Hurricane Milton in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
With less than four weeks to go until Election Day in November and Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Trump locked in a narrow 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 again front and center on the campaign trail.
Trump for nearly two weeks has repeatedly attacked Biden and Harris and accused them of being incompetent in steering the federal efforts in responding to the back-to-back deadly hurricanes.
EYE OF THE STORM: BACK-TO-BACK HURRICANES IMPACT HARRIS-TRUMP PRESIDENTIAL RACE
“The worst hurricane response since Katrina,” the former president charged on Wednesday as he pointed to the much-maligned initial federal response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which was heavily criticized for being slow and ineffective.
Trump, speaking at a campaign rally in battleground Pennsylvania, lobbed another political bomb at Harris, arguing that “She just led the worst rescue operation in history in North Carolina…the worst ever, they say.”
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Riverfront Sports, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024, in Scranton, Pa. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson) (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
And the former president once again made false claims that FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) diverted money intended for disaster relief and spent it on undocumented migrants in the U.S. as he turned up the volume on his inflammatory rhetoric over the combustible issue of illegal immigration.
“You know where they gave the money to: illegal immigrants coming,” Trump said as the crowd of MAGA supporters loudly booed.
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A couple of hours earlier, as the president and vice president received their latest briefing from FEMA and other federal agencies on storm preparations in Florida and relief efforts across the Southeast, Biden said that “we have made available an unprecedented number of assets to deal with this crisis, and we’re going to continue to do so until the job is done.”
Biden also took aim at Trump, accusing him of leading an “onslaught of lies.”
The president charged that the rhetoric from Trump and other Republicans was “beyond ridiculous” and that “it’s got to stop.”
Harris, who in July replaced Biden atop the Democrats’ 2024 ticket, had a similar message during an interview Wednesday on the Weather Channel.
“This is not a time for us to just point fingers at each other as Americans,” Harris said. “Anybody who considers themselves to be a leader should really be in the business right now of giving people a sense of confidence that we’re all working together and that we have the resources and the ability to work together on their behalf.”
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But earlier this week, Harris and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida traded verbal fire over whether he ignored hurricane-related calls from her.
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris greets people who were impacted by Hurricane Helene in Augusta, Ga., Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, as Augusta Mayor Garnett Johnson watches at right. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
The vice president called DeSantis “selfish,” and the governor accused Harris of playing “political games.”
“Natural disasters present perils and promise for presidential hopefuls,” longtime Republican strategist Colin Reed, a veteran of multiple GOP presidential campaigns, told Fox News.
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Reed noted that “for the incumbent, it’s an opportunity to demonstrate competence and steady leadership and prove that their government is able to function at a core level during a time of peril.”
Brandon Marlow walks through surge waters flooding the street after Hurricane Milton came ashore in the Sarasota area on October 09, 2024, in Fort Myers, Florida. People are waiting to assess the damage after the Cat 3 hurricane came ashore. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
But it doesn’t always play according to the script for an incumbent president.
Then-President George H.W. Bush took a political hit over FEMA’s disorganized efforts to provide relief in Florida from Hurricane Andrew, which pounded the then-key battleground state weeks before the 1992 election.
Fast-forward a decade and his son – then-President George W. Bush – enjoyed a political bounce in Florida during his 2004 re-election thanks to his aggressive response to Hurricane Charley, which hit in August of that year.
Bush was narrowly re-elected, thanks in large part to carrying the Sunshine State, but his administration’s image in handling storms took a major hit the next year, over the botched response in Louisiana to Hurricane Katrina.
As he ran for re-election in 2012, then-President Barack Obama’s aggressive response in dealing with Superstorm Sandy -which slammed into the Eastern Seaboard days before the election – likely boosted him to victory.
Reed argued that “without a real role to play in the response to Helene and now Milton, Vice President Harris is betwixt and between, wary about being seen as too close to a deeply unpopular administration but also well aware that its failures will be seen as her failures and political baggage to carry the next three weeks.”