As Kamala Harris traveled back to Washington to be briefed on the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Donald Trump descended on a storm-ravaged swing-state community on Monday — and couldn’t resist his impulse to make the trip political .
Standing in front of piles of bricks blown off a furniture store in Valdosta, Georgia, Trump repeated his false claim that President Joe Biden would not get on the phone with the state’s Republican governor — despite Gov. Brian Kemp saying he would be away for a while talked to the president. day earlier and appreciated the federal assistance his state has received.
And Trump, addressing reporters gathered in Georgia ahead of his Monday afternoon stop, predicted that Biden was “asleep,” and criticized Harris for “campaigning somewhere, looking for money” a day earlier — when Trump himself gathered in Pennsylvania – and called her running mate “Tampon Tim.”
Even Trump seemed to recognize — at least when reading from pre-written comments — that this was not the right time or place.
“As you know, our country is in the final weeks of closely fought national elections. At a time like this when a crisis strikes, when our fellow citizens are crying out in distress, none of that matters,” Trump said as he read from sheets of notes. “We are not talking about politics now. We all need to come together and solve this.”
But he refused to follow that statesman’s tone on Monday. And for all the political benefits Trump appears to have reaped from showing up first at disaster sites — such as his visit to East Palestine, Ohio, early last year, when Biden failed to go — his tendency is to take every opportunity exploit to his rivals were also on full display. In the wake of a hurricane that hit the swing states of North Carolina and Georgia, that was also indirectly the more measured personality Harris is trying to project in a neck-and-neck race.
While Trump spoke in Georgia and criticized her absence from the disaster zone, Harris was on her way back to the East Coast after a three-day swing west. She canceled several informal campaign events in Las Vegas on Monday to return to Washington early to attend a meeting with federal emergency management officials on Monday evening.
“We will do everything in our power to help communities recover,” she said at FEMA headquarters.
Although she received a briefing from FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell on Sunday, she will not visit the areas affected by Helene until she is told it will not impact emergency response operations, said a White House official granted anonymity to discuss the matter. to speak freely about vice. the president’s plans. On Monday she promised to be on site ‘as soon as possible’.
Biden said he would visit North Carolina on Wednesday.
When asked if he found it disruptive that Trump was in Georgia on Monday, he said he had “no idea.” But he also said traveling to the crash site too early would have been a distraction.
“We’re giving them everything we have,” he told reporters. “We work hard.”
Although Trump suggested Sunday night that Harris “should be in the area” where the storm hit, two former FEMA directors said in interviews Monday that it was better to wait before visiting North Carolina.
“The president wants to get in there as quickly as possible,” said Craig Fugate, a former FEMA administrator under Barack Obama. “We had to make the judgment in many cases: ‘Yes, we’re at a point where it’s stable enough that its arrival won’t cause any disruption.'”
“People showing up during disasters, it should be about the people we help and the survivors, not about them. I see a lot of disaster tourism, it’s on both sides of the aisle, it’s the private sector and other types of celebrities,” he added. “You always have to put this in context: does the visit contribute to the recovery of the survivors, or is it about you?”
Trump, who said he would “also make a stop in North Carolina” as he planned the visit to Georgia, acknowledged that emergency services there were already under pressure to help victims of the historic flooding. In a Truth Social post earlier Monday — amid a flurry of posts criticizing Harris for a “STAGED” photo of her receiving a FEMA briefing and criticizing the “Witch Hunt” against him by New York Attorney General Letitia James — Trump again tried to stoke partisan flames by falsely claiming that the Biden administration and North Carolina’s Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, were “going out of their way not to help people in Republican areas.”
Flanked by Franklin Graham, the son of the Rev. Billy Graham and chairman of the Christian aid group Samaritan’s Purse, Trump on Monday touted the supplies he brought to Valdosta, including water, gas and other materials.
“I brought a lot, a lot of carts of raw materials,” Trump said as he shook hands with a small crowd gathered outside the remains of Chez What Furniture Store. “Just about anything you can think of, and Franklin Graham is here. and he helps us divide everything.”
It was unclear whether the products were all supplied by Samaritan’s Purse, or whether Trump or his campaign had purchased any. Spokespeople for both the Trump campaign and Graham’s organization did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Other elected officials, including the mayor of Valdosta, stood by Trump during his appearance there.
Trump’s visit to Valdosta was a far cry from his usual rally-style campaign stops. He spoke to what appeared to be a small crowd of supporters and reporters, although there were clear signs that the Secret Service had already spent time at the site before his arrival: Some of the fallen rocks were arranged in a small knee pit. -high wall in front of him, similar to the small, black-curtain-draped walls the Secret Service has erected for him at other recent events following the July shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Still, David Paulison, who led FEMA under former President George W. Bush, questioned the usefulness of Trump’s trip to Georgia.
“President Trump is coming, I’m not sure how that helps because he has no power right now. But if people are very supportive of him, then maybe it’s good for him to be there too and talk to people who support him,” he said. “That’s not bad. But it does eat up resources on the ground. You have to deal with it wisely.”
