One day after Hurricane Milton cut a trail of destruction across Florida, the death toll is rising and millions of people remain without power or running water.
Recovery efforts in Florida have reached a fever pitch, with no let-up in the war of words between President Biden and former President Trump Milton and the federal government's response to Hurricane Helen, which struck the Southeast two weeks ago.
Trump continues to accuse Biden and Vice President Harris With the administration's attack efforts slow and ineffective, the president has struck back once again.
“Vice President Harris and I are in constant communication with state and local officials. We are giving them everything they need,” Biden emphasized on Thursday.
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President Biden speaks and updates the impact and ongoing response to Hurricane Milton in the South Court Auditorium of the White House complex on October 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Election Day is less than four weeks away, with Harris and Trump locked in a narrow-margin-of-error showdown in the race to succeed Biden in the White House, and Helen's two hardest-hit states – North Carolina and Georgia – among the seven key states of battlegrounds that will likely determine the outcome of the 2024 elections, the policy of federal disaster relief is once again on the campaign trail and is front and center.
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Trump has been turning up the volume for nearly two weeks.
“The worst response to a storm or hurricane disaster in US history,” Trump said in a social media post on Tuesday.
“The worst hurricane response since Katrina,” the former president charged Wednesday, as he pointed to the highly flawed initial federal response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which was widely criticized for being slow and ineffective.
Trump continued the attack at a campaign event in Michigan on Thursday. He praised southern Republican governors for doing a “fantastic job” responding to the storm and argued that “the federal government, on the other hand, hasn’t done what it’s supposed to do, especially in North Carolina. They let these people suffer unjustly, unjustly.” “
The former president has repeatedly falsely claimed that FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) diverted funds intended for humanitarian aid and spending on undocumented immigrants in the United States, while also turning up the volume on his inflammatory rhetoric on the combustible issue of illegal immigration. .
“You know where they put their money: illegal immigrants are coming,” Trump said at Wednesday’s rally, as a crowd of MAGA supporters cheered.
Desantis and Harris exchange fire at Hurricane Call
Hours later, Biden backtracked, accusing the Republican presidential nominee of leading an “attack of lies.”
Biden complained that the rhetoric from Trump and other Republicans was “beyond ridiculous” and “has to stop.”
President Biden speaks with Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Dean Criswell at Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport in Greer, SC, on October 2, 2024, to assess the damage caused by Hurricane Helen. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
On Thursday, while giving an update on federal hurricane response efforts, Biden told reporters that Trump “needs to get a life, help these people.”
And he argued that “the public will hold him (Trump) accountable” for making false claims about FEMA’s ability to help storm victims.
Carolyn Levitt, national press secretary for the Trump campaign, responded to the criticism in a statement to Fox News on Thursday, saying Trump is “working hard every day to save this country from the mess that Biden and Kamala have gotten themselves into.”
And Trump's son, Eric, highlighted in a social media post that the family has opened one of its hotels in Florida to more than 200 electricians who are helping after the storm.
Trump last week also launched a GoFundMe campaign for victims of Hurricane Helen in Georgia, which has raised more than $7 million to date.
But his criticism of the federal response was also criticized by Harris.
Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Harris arrives at LaGuardia Airport on October 7, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Jacqueline Martin)
“This is not the time for us as Americans to point fingers at each other,” the vice president said in an interview Wednesday with the Weather Channel. “Anyone who considers themselves a leader should really be in business right now to give people a sense of confidence that we are all working together and that we have the resources and power to work together on their behalf.”
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Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis The Florida native, who spoke with Biden on Thursday morning after the storm, appeared to praise the administration's storm efforts.
“I spoke to the president this morning,” DeSantis said during his round-the-clock briefing. “He said he wants to be useful. And so if we have a request, he said, send them to him and he wants to help us get the job done. Therefore, I am grateful to be able to collaborate with federal, state and local governments. and Working together to put people first.”
Fox News' Cyril Clarke and Matteo Cina contributed to this report.
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