As President Biden spends a second straight day surveying harm and getting briefed on restoration and aid efforts within the storm-damaged Southeast, he is as soon as once more coming beneath political assault from former President Trump.
Because the dying toll from Hurricane Helene climbs to shut to 200 folks, with a whole lot nonetheless lacking, hundreds of thousands nonetheless with out energy or working water, and harm estimated within the billions, Trump took to social media on Thursday morning to color Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris as incompetent.
“Kamala and Sleepy Joe are universally being given POOR GRADES for the way in which that they’re dealing with the Hurricane, particularly in North Carolina,” Trump charged in a social media publish. “It’s happening because the WORST & MOST INCOMPETENTLY MANAGED ‘STORM,’ AT THE FEDERAL LEVEL, EVER SEEN BEFORE.”
Trump, who’s locked in a margin-of-error race with Harris with lower than 5 weeks to go till Election Day in November, has been attacking the vp and her boss over the federal response to the highly effective storm for almost per week.
BIDEN, HARRIS INSPECT DAMAGE IN HURRICANE-RAVAGED SOUTHEAST IN WAKE OF TRUMP VISIT
Former President Trump visits Valdosta, Georgia, a city impacted by Hurricane Helene, on Monday. (AP Photograph/Evan Vucci)
And with two of the hardest-hit states — North Carolina and Georgia — among the many seven key battlegrounds that can doubtless decide the end result of the 2024 presidential election, the hurricane has turn into front-and-center within the White Home race.
Trump this previous weekend accused Biden of “sleeping” at his seaside home in Delaware because the storm blasted the Southeast.
NORTH CAROLINA RESIDENTS FIGHT FOR THEIR SURVIVAL
Talking with reporters as he arrived in Valdosta, Georgia, on Monday to survey storm harm and convey aid help, the previous president charged that “the federal authorities isn’t being responsive.”Â
And Trump falsely claimed that Biden had not spoken with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a conservative Republican.
Pushing again towards the political assaults, Biden has famous that he was on the cellphone with federal, state and native officers all through the weekend and returned to the nation’s capital on Sunday afternoon to observe storm rescue and aid efforts.
“We had over 1,000 federal personnel, together with search and rescue groups, on the prepared on the bottom earlier than it hit,” the president stated on Tuesday. “Over the previous a number of days, I have been in common contact with the governors, the mayors, the county officers, and all of the affected areas. That features Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama and Virginia.”
Biden emphasised that his administration has despatched “each accessible useful resource that we’ve at our disposal to the affected area” and pledged “we’ll be there till this work is completed.”
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Greater than half of the deaths from the storm are in North Carolina, the place total communities within the western a part of the state have been demolished by fast-moving waters.
Because the floodwaters from the storm receded, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper lamented that, within the western a part of his state, “communities have been wiped off the map.”
President Biden and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper greet first responders after touring areas impacted by Hurricane Helene on Wednesday. (AP Photograph/Susan Walsh)
The president on Wednesday was in North Carolina, the place he surveyed harm from a helicopter flight over town of Ashville, one of many hardest hit areas. Biden additionally visited a rescue command middle within the state earlier than additionally stopping in neighboring South Carolina.
“My high precedence is to make sure the communities devastated by this hurricane get the assistance and assist they want as shortly as attainable,” Biden instructed reporters Tuesday as he spoke throughout a Cupboard assembly specializing in the federal response.
Forward of his journey to the area, the president green-lighted the usage of as much as 1,000 energetic responsibility troops to assist aid efforts.
Huddled with Democratic and Republican politicians from the area on Wednesday, Biden emphasised that “in a second like this, we put politics apart, no less than we must always put all of it apart. We’ve right here — there aren’t any Democrats or Republicans, solely Individuals — our job is to assist as many individuals as we are able to, as shortly as we are able to, and as completely as we are able to.”
Trump on Sunday attacked Harris for attending “fundraising occasions along with her radical left lunatic donors” in California over the weekend. And he argued that Harris “must be down within the space” the place the storm brought on destruction.
On Monday throughout his cease in Georgia, Trump repeated the dig, saying, “The vp, she’s out someplace campaigning in search of cash.”
The White Home has highlighted that the vp over the weekend was on the cellphone with federal, state and native officers.Â
Harris stated on Saturday that she and the president “stay dedicated to making sure that no group or state has to answer this catastrophe alone.”
On Monday, Harris visited Federal Emergency Administration Company headquarters in Washington, D.C., the place she obtained a briefing on aid and rescue efforts.
“We are going to do every little thing in our energy to assist communities reply and recuperate,” she vowed.
Harris on Wednesday traveled to Georgia to survey the impacts of the storm and obtain an on-the-ground briefing and supply updates on the federal response.
“We’re right here for the lengthy haul,” Harris instructed residents in Augusta. “There’s a variety of work that’s going to wish to occur over the approaching days, weeks, and months, and the coordination that we’ve devoted ourselves to will probably be long-lasting to get households, to get residents, to get neighborhoods again up and working.”
Harris was initially scheduled to participate Wednesday in a marketing campaign bus swing by way of central Pennsylvania, one other key battleground state, along with her working mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
With the vp headed to Georgia, Walz headlined the bus tour, which got here the day after he confronted off within the vice presidential debate towards Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio.
Throughout his Monday cease in Georgia, Trump highlighted, “I’ve come to Valdosta with giant semi-trucks, lots of them full of aid help. A tanker truck stuffed up with gasoline, a few massive tanker vans stuffed up with gasoline, which they can not get now. And we’ll be working to distribute it all through the day.”
And a GoFundMe web page arrange by the Trump marketing campaign earlier this week has raised over $4 million up to now for storm victims.
“I am dedicated to touring to the impacted areas as quickly as attainable, however I have been instructed that it will be disruptive if I did it proper now. We is not going to try this on the danger of diverting or delaying any of the response property wanted to take care of this disaster,” Biden instructed reporters on Monday.
And Harris stated on Tuesday, “I plan to be on the bottom as quickly as attainable — however as quickly as attainable with out disrupting any emergency response operations, as a result of that should be the very best precedence and the primary order of enterprise.”
Vice President Kamala Harris greets individuals who have been impacted by Hurricane Helene in Augusta, Georgia, on Wednesday as Augusta Mayor Garnett Johnson, proper, appears on. (AP Photograph/Carolyn Kaster)
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However the optics of Trump’s Monday cease in Georgia might have put some political stress on Biden and Harris.
Longtime Republican strategist David Kochel stated Trump had been “very aggressive” along with his fast journey to the storm-damaged area.Â
“I believe he put a variety of stress on them to attempt to do one thing,” Kochel, a veteran of quite a few GOP presidential campaigns, instructed Fox Information. “He’s on the market pushing a line that they don’t care, they’re not doing something, and I believe they’re reacting to it.”
The response by elected officers to pure disasters can influence their political standing.
President George W. Bush was closely criticized in the summertime of 2005 for his preliminary response to Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans.
And Trump confronted criticism early in his White Home tenure as Puerto Rico struggled to recuperate from a robust storm. The president was pilloried for throwing paper towels to the gang as he stopped by a aid middle throughout a storm-related go to to the island.
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