As the death toll rises and nearly a quarter million people remain without power or running water a week and a half after Hurricane Helene paved a path of destruction across the southeastern United States, another powerful storm is expected to hit the region. Is coming.
storm milton, Now a very dangerous Category 5 storm is going to make landfall in Florida on Wednesday evening.
There are four weeks left until Election Day in November and Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Trump are locked in a bitter margin-of-error confrontation in the race to succeed President Biden in the White House, and in two of the toughest states. with. From Helen – North Carolina and Georgia – one of seven key battlegrounds that will likely determine the outcome 2024 elections – The politics of federal disaster relief are once again front and center on the campaign trail.
Trump has been attacking the vice president and his boss over the federal response to Hurricane Helene for more than a week. Harris hit back on Monday, accusing Trump of spreading “a lot of falsehoods and disinformation.”
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Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump on Monday, Sept. 30, 2024, in downtown Valdosta, Ga., hit by Hurricane Helene. Chase speaks outside the Whyte furniture store while visiting. (AP Photo/Ivan Vucci)
former President There have been repeated allegations that Biden and Harris have been incompetent in handling the rescue and recovery efforts.
Trump claimed last week, “At the federal level this is going down as the worst and most mismanaged ‘hurricane’ ever seen.”
On Monday, he argued in a social media post that the administration’s hurricane response was “the worst rescue operation in American history.”
And Trump’s running mate, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, In a “Fox & Friends” interview on Monday, he alleged that the administration’s efforts were “incompetence of the highest order.”
The Trump campaign, in announcing that Vance would hold a town hall in Greensboro, North Carolina, on Thursday, argued that Harris “has completely left North Carolina behind in the wake of the devastation following Hurricane Helene.”
And in a clear call for votes, the former president claimed that “Kamala has virtually abandoned North Carolina!!! Drop her like she dropped you – Vote for President Donald J. Trump. MAGA2024!”
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Trump repeatedly made baseless claims as he targeted Biden and Harris — one of them being that Georgia’s Republican Governor Brian Kemp was unable to reach Biden when Helen first tore through the Peach State. Kemp later confirmed that he had already been in contact with the President.
Despite the former president’s untruths, he bested Biden and Harris by surveying the area damaged by last week’s hurricane two days earlier.
put the optics chairman and Vice President on Defense, and he has been forced to repeatedly correct the record.
President Joe Biden and North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper welcome first responders after touring areas affected by Hurricane Helene at the airport in Greenville, SC, on Wednesday, October 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
The White House has publicized the efforts of FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) to assist hard-hit states. Biden made back-to-back trips to the Southeast last Wednesday and Thursday as he stopped in the four hardest-hit states, and Harris also made two trips To survey the damage.
Meeting with Democratic and Republican politicians from the region last week, Biden emphasized that “in a moment like this, we put politics aside, at least we should put it all aside. In our – There are no Democrats or Republicans, there are only Americans – our job is to help as many people as we can, as quickly and as well as possible.”
Trump – along with his aides – has repeatedly aimed to link the hurricane response to the burning issue of border security, as he claimed that FEMA funds for rescue and relief efforts in North Carolina were being diverted to undocumented migrants. Being used in support.
The Harris campaign hit back, saying Trump and Vance and their allies “are pushing debunked lies about the Hurricane Helen response.”
Sen. Thom Tillis, a top Republican from North Carolina — said on a Sunday talk show when asked about the allegations that “I believe we have to keep focused on rescue operations, recovery operations, cleanup operations, and we There’s no need for any of these distractions on the ground.”
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks on Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, in Augusta, Ga. People welcomed by Hurricane Helene in Washington, D.C., while Augusta Mayor Garnett Johnson looks on at right. (AP Photo/Caroline Caster)
Harris on Monday called Trump’s actions “extraordinarily irresponsible.”
“It’s about her. It’s not about you. And the reality is that FEMA has a lot of resources that are available to people who desperately need them right now, and resources that are going to help people get back on their feet. “We are about helping to stand up, rebuild and create space to go,” Harris stressed.
But longtime Republican strategist David Kochel said Trump was “too aggressive” in his initial quick trip to the storm-damaged area.
“I think they put a lot of pressure on him to try to do something,” Kotchel, a veteran of several GOP presidential campaigns, told Fox News. “He’s putting out a line there that they don’t care, they’re not doing anything and I think they’re reacting to it.”
Now, with Hurricane Milton impacting Florida, the Biden administration highlighted its efforts in a release titled “Federal assistance for Hurricane Helen exceeds $210 million, FEMA doubles response as Hurricane Milton strengthens “As it heads toward Florida’s Gulf Coast.”
As Biden declared a state of emergency in Florida on Monday, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said during a news conference that 5,000 National Guardsmen have been deployed to his state, with another 3,000 on the way.
“We got what we wanted from the feds,” DeSantis said. “Whatever we asked for, the President has approved…I am grateful for that…Whatever we have asked from President Biden, he has approved.”
This is not the first time that a tropical storm has affected a presidential race.
Then-President George H.W. Bush took political blow to FEMA’s disorganized efforts to provide relief in Florida from Hurricane Andrew, which devastated the then-prime battleground state just weeks before Election Day.
Fast forward a decade and his son – then President George W. Bush – enjoyed a political surge in Florida during his 2004 re-election, possibly thanks to his aggressive response to Hurricane Charley in August that year.
Bush escaped injury largely thanks to his handling of the Sunshine State, but his administration’s handling of the hurricanes suffered a major blow the following year due to its poor response to Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana.
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When he ran for re-election in 2012, then-President Barack Obama’s aggressive response in dealing with Superstorm Sandy – which struck the Eastern Seaboard just days before the election – likely propelled him to victory.
Trump faced criticism in his first year in office as Puerto Rico struggled to recover from a powerful hurricane. The president was criticized for throwing paper towels into the crowd when he stopped at an relief center during a hurricane-related visit to the island.
But the incident — which occurred three years before his re-election effort — overshadowed his response to the COVID crisis, the worst pandemic to hit the world in a century.
