John Jefferson
Vice President Kamala Harris took aim at Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida on Monday for reportedly not taking her calls regarding federal storm relief efforts as a second powerful hurricane bears down on Florida.
“People are in desperate need of support right now and playing political games at this moment in these crisis situations…is just utterly irresponsible, and it is selfish,” Harris charged on Monday. “It is about political gamesmanship, instead of doing the job that you took an oath to do, which is to put the people first.”
The vice president’s comments came a couple of hours after reports from NBC and later ABC News that the Florida governor was not taking calls from Harris regarding storm recovery efforts, citing unnamed aides to the governor who said the calls seemed political in nature.
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Asked about ther reports at a hurricane news conference, DeSantis said he wasn’t aware Harris was trying to reach him.
“I didn’t know that she had called. I’m not sure who they called. They didn’t call me,” he said. “It wasn’t anything that anybody in my office did, in terms of saying it was political.”
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Asked again about the report, the governor reiterated “I didn’t know that she had called.”
The dispute comes as Hurricane Milton, now an extremely dangerous Category 5 storm, is on course to slam into Florida Wednesday evening.
Milton is bearing down on Florida as the death toll rises and roughly a quarter of a million people remain without power or running water a week and a half after Hurricane Helen tore a path of destruction through Florida, Georgia, South and North Carolina, Tennessee, and parts of Virginia.
President Biden made stops last week in the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida to survey storm damage from Hurricane Helene. While Biden was in Florida, DeSantis was holding a separate press event across the state in another area damaged from the storm.
“We were in Florida, we invited the governor of Florida to come, it was his decision not to attend,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday. “The president has reached out around Hurricane Helene. He reached out. It is up to the governor, it is really up to the governor.”
The White House said hours later that the president held separate calls with DeSantis and Tampa Mayor Jane Castor “to get a firsthand report on recovery efforts for Hurricane Helene, and to discuss preparations for Hurricane Milton.”
According to the White House, Biden urged the governor and the mayor to “call him directly if there is anything that can be done to further support the response and recovery efforts.”
Asked about the federal response, DeSantis said during his news conference that “we have gotten what we need from the feds….the president has approved what we asked for….I’m thankful for that.”
“Everything we’ve asked for from President Biden, he’s approved,” DeSantis highlighted.
With four weeks to go until Election Day in November and Harris and former President Trump locked in a bitter margin-of-error showdown in the race to succeed Biden in the White House, and with two of the hardest-hit states from Helene — North Carolina and Georgia — among the seven key battlegrounds that will likely determine the outcome of the 2024 election – the politics of federal disaster relief are once again front and center on the campaign trail.
Trump, for a week and a half, has been repeatedly attacking Biden and Harris over the federal response to Hurricane Helene. Harris, on Monday, clapped back, accusing Trump of pushing “a lot of mis and disinformation.”
Fox News Nick Rojas contributed to this story.
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