Trump turns Hurricane Helene aftermath political

As Kamala Harris traveled back to Washington to be briefed on the Hurricane Helene aftermath, Donald Trump on Monday descended on a swing-state community ravaged by the storm — and couldn’t resist his impulse to make the trip political.

Standing before piles of bricks blown off a furniture store in Valdosta, Georgia, Trump repeated his false claim that President Joe Biden wouldn’t get on the phone with the state’s Republican governor — despite Gov. Brian Kemp saying he had spoken to the president a day earlier and appreciated the federal help his state has received.

And addressing reporters who assembled in Georgia ahead of his Monday afternoon stop, Trump predicted that Biden was “sleeping,” criticized Harris for having been “out somewhere campaigning, looking for money” a day earlier — when Trump himself was rallying in Pennsylvania — and referred to her running mate as “Tampon Tim.”

Even Trump seemed to acknowledge — at least when reading from prewritten remarks — that it wasn’t the time or place.

“As you know, our country is in the final weeks of a hard-fought national election. At a time like this when a crisis hits, when our fellow citizens cry out in need, none of that matters,” Trump said as he read from sheets of notes. “We’re not talking about politics now. We have to all get together and get this solved.”

But he refused to stick to that statesman’s tone on Monday. And for all the political benefits Trump has seemed to reap for being the first to show up at disaster sites — such as his visit to East Palestine, Ohio, early last year, when Biden had failed to go — his penchant for using any opportunity to smear his rivals was also on full display. Indirectly, so, too, in the aftermath of a hurricane affecting the swing states of North Carolina and Georgia, was the more measured persona Harris is seeking to project in a neck-and-neck race.

As Trump spoke in Georgia and criticized her absence in the disaster zone, Harris was on her way back to the East Coast following a three-day swing out 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 Monday evening.

“We will do everything in our power to help communities recover,” she said at FEMA’s headquarters.

While she received a briefing on Sunday from FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell, she won’t visit the areas impacted by Helene until she is told doing so won’t impact emergency response operations, said a White House official granted anonymity to speak freely about the vice president’s plans. On Monday, she promised to be “on the ground as soon as possible.”

Biden said he would visit North Carolina on Wednesday.

Asked whether he thought it was disruptive to have Trump in Georgia on Monday, he said that he had “no idea.” But he also said that traveling to the disaster site too soon would have been a distraction.

“We are giving them everything we have,” he told reporters. “We’re working hard.”

Though Trump suggested Sunday night that Harris “ought to be down in the area” where the storm hit,” two former FEMA directors in interviews Monday said it was better to wait to visit North Carolina.

“The president wants to get in there as soon as they can,” said Craig Fugate, former FEMA administrator under Barack Obama. “We were, in many cases, having to make that judgment call: ‘Yeah, we’re at a point where it’s stable enough that them coming in is not going to be a disruption.’”

“People showing up during disasters, it ought to be about the people we’re helping and the survivors, not about them. I see a lot of disaster tourism, it’s both sides of the aisle, it’s private sector and other celebrity types,” he added. “You should always put this in context, is the visit contributing to the survivors’ recovery, or is it about you?”

Trump, who said he “was also going to stop into North Carolina” as he planned the Georgia visit, acknowledged that emergency services there were already strained helping 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 bashing the “Witch Hunt” against him by New York Attorney General Letitia James — Trump again tried to stoke partisan flames by falsely claiming the Biden administration and North Carolina Democratic Gov. 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 president of the Christian aid group Samaritan’s Purse, Trump on Monday touted the supplies he had brought to Valdosta, including water, gas and other materials.

“I brought a lot with us, many, many wagons of resources,” Trump said as he shook hands with a small crowd gathered outside the remains of Chez What Furniture Store. “Just about everything you can think of, and Franklin Graham is here and he’s helping us to distribute everything.”

It was unclear whether the products were all provided by Samaritan’s Purse, or if Trump or his campaign 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 with Trump during his appearance there.

Trump’s visit to Valdosta was far from his usual rally-style campaign stops. He spoke in front of what appeared to be a small crowd of supporters and reporters, though there were obvious signs that the Secret Service had already spent time at the site before his arrival: Some of the fallen bricks had been arranged in a small, knee-high wall in front of him, similar to the small, black-curtain-draped walls Secret Service have put up in front of him at other recent events following the July shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Still, David Paulison, who ran FEMA under former President George W. Bush, questioned the utility of Trump traveling to Georgia.

“President Trump 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 also and talk to people that support him,” he said. “That’s not bad. But it does eat up resources on the ground. You’ve got to be judicious with it.”