Because the loss of life toll rises and roughly 1 / 4 of 1,000,000 folks stay with out energy or operating water per week and a half after Hurricane Helen tore a path of destruction by the southeast United States, one other highly effective storm is bearing down on the area.
Hurricane Milton, now an especially harmful Class 5 storm, is heading in the right direction to slam into Florida Wednesday night.
With 4 weeks to go till Election Day in November and Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Trump locked in a bitter margin-of-error showdown within the race to succeed President Biden within the White Home, and with two of the hardest-hit states from Helene — North Carolina and Georgia — among the many seven key battlegrounds that may possible decide the result of the 2024 election – the politics of federal catastrophe aid are as soon as once more entrance and heart on the marketing campaign path.
Trump has been attacking the vp and her boss over the federal response to Hurricane Helene for nicely over per week. Harris, on Monday, fired again, accusing Trump of pushing “a whole lot of mis and disinformation.”Â
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Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks exterior the Chez What furnishings retailer as he visits Valdosta, Ga., a city impacted by Hurricane Helene, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Picture/Evan Vucci)
The previous president has repeatedly charged that Biden and Harris have been incompetant of their dealing with of rescue and restoration efforts.
“It’s happening because the WORST & MOST INCOMPETENTLY MANAGED ‘STORM,’ AT THE FEDERAL LEVEL, EVER SEEN BEFORE,” Trump claimed final week.
On Monday, he argued in a social media publish that the administration’s storm response was “the WORST rescue operation within the historical past of the U.S.”
And Trump’s operating mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, charged Monday in a “Fox and Associates” interview that the administration’s efforts have been “incompetence of the best order.”
The Trump marketing campaign, in saying Vance would maintain a city corridor Thursday in Greensboro, North Carolina, argued that Harris “utterly left North Carolina behind within the wake of devastation post-Hurricane Helene.”
And in a blatant pitch for votes, the previous president claimed that “NORTH CAROLINA HAS BEEN VIRTUALLY ABANDONED BY KAMALA!!! DROP HER LIKE SHE DROPPED YOU – VOTE FOR PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP. MAGA2024!”
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Trump’s repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims as he is focused Biden and Harris – amongst them that Republican Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia had been unable to succeed in Biden when Helene first tore by the Peach State. Kemp later confirmed that he had already been in touch with the president.
Regardless of the untruths from the previous president, he did beat Biden and Harris to the scene, surveying the storm-damaged area two days earlier than they did final week.
The optics put the president and vp on protection, and so they’ve been pressured to repeatedly appropriate the file.
President Joe Biden and Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina greet first responders after touring areas impacted by Hurricane Helene, on the ariport in Greenville, S.C., Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Picture/Susan Walsh)
The White Home has publicized FEMA’s [Federal Emergency Management Agency] efforts in aiding the hard-hit states. Biden made back-to-back journeys to the southeast final Wednesday and Thursday, as he stopped within the 4 hardest hit states, and Harris additionally made two journeys to survey harm.
Huddled with Democratic and Republican politicians from the area final week, Biden emphasised that “in a second like this, we put politics apart, not less than we must always put all of it apart. We have now right here — there are not any Democrats or Republicans, solely People — our job is to assist as many individuals as we will, as shortly as we will, and as totally as we will.”
Trump – alongside together with his allies – has repeatedly aimed to tie the storm response to the flamable subject of border safety, as he claimed that FEMA funds for the rescue and aid efforts in North Carolina have been being diverted to assist undocumented migrants.
The Harris marketing campaign, firing again, mentioned that Trump and Vance and their allies have been “pushing debunked lies about Hurricane Helene response.”
A prime North Carolina Republican – Sen. Thom Tillis – requested in regards to the fees, mentioned on the Sunday discuss reveals that “I imagine that now we have to remain centered on rescue operations, restoration operations, clearing operations, and we do not want any of those distractions on the bottom.”
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris greets individuals who have been impacted by Hurricane Helene in Augusta, Ga., Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, as Augusta Mayor Garnett Johnson watches at proper. (AP Picture/Carolyn Kaster)
Harris, on Monday, known as Trump’s actions “terribly irresponsible.”
“It is about him. It is not about you. And the truth is that FEMA has so many sources which can be out there to of us who desperately want them now, and sources which can be about serving to folks get again on their toes and rebuild and have locations to go,” Harris emphasised.
However longtime Republican strategist David Kochel famous that Trump had been “very aggressive” together with his preliminary fast journey to the storm-damaged area.Â
“I feel he put a whole lot of stress on them to attempt to do one thing,” Kochel, a veteran of quite a few GOP presidential campaigns, advised Fox Information. “He’s on the market pushing a line that they don’t care, they’re not doing something, and I feel they’re reacting to it.”
Now, with Hurricane Milton bearing down on Florida, the Biden administration highlighted their efforts in a launch headlined “Federal Help for Hurricane Helene Exceeds $210 Million, FEMA Prepares for Twin Response with Hurricane Milton Strengthening because it Strikes Towards Gulf Coast of Florida.”
As Biden declared a state of emergency in Florida on Monday, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida mentioned throughout a information convention that 5,000 Nationwide Guardsmen had been mobilized in his state, with one other 3,000 on the way in which.
“We have now gotten what we want from the feds,” DeSantis mentioned. “The president has accredited what we requested for….I’m grateful for that.. Every part we’ve requested for from President Biden, he’s accredited.”
That is removed from the primary time {that a} tropical storm has impacted a presidential race.
Then-President George H.W. Bush took a political hit over FEMA’s disorganized efforts to supply aid in Florida from Hurricane Andrew, which pounded the then-key battleground state weeks earlier than Election Day.
Quick-forward a decade and his son – then-President George W. Bush – possible loved a political bounce in Florida throughout his 2004 re-election because of his aggressive response to Hurricane Charley, which hit in August of that yr.
Bush was narrowly re-elected, thanks largely to carrying the Sunshine State, however his administration’s picture in dealing with storms took a significant hit the following yr, over the botched response in Louisiana to Hurricane Katrina.
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As he ran for re-election in 2012, then-President Barack Obama’s aggressive response in coping with Superstorm Sandy -which slammed into the Jap Seaboard days earlier than the election – possible boosted him to victory.
Trump, in his first yr in workplace, confronted criticism as Puerto Rico struggled to get well from a strong storm. The president was pilloried for throwing paper towels to the group as he stopped by a aid heart throughout a storm-related go to to the island.
However the incident – which passed off three years earlier than his re-election effort – was vastly overshadowed by his response to the COVID disaster, the worst pandemic to hit the globe in a century.
Get the most recent updates from the 2024 marketing campaign path, unique interviews and extra at our Fox Information Digital election hub.
