The Latest: Harris, Trump shift plans after Hurricane Helene's destruction
Hurricane Helene is shifting the presidential candidates’ plans this week.
Democratic nominee Kamala Harris is cutting short a campaign visit to Las Vegas to return to Washington for briefings. Republican candidate Donald Trump is heading to Georgia to see the storm’s impact.
Hurricane Helene’s death toll is more than 100 people and rising, with some of the worst damage caused by inland flooding in North Carolina.
In addition to being humanitarian crises, natural disasters can create political tests for elected officials, particularly in the closing weeks of a presidential campaign.
Presidents typically avoid racing toward disaster zones so they don’t interfere with recovery efforts. The White House said Harris would visit impacted areas “as soon as it is possible without disrupting emergency response operations.”
President Joe Biden spoke about his administration’s response to Hurricane Helene and plans to visit areas affected by the storm later this week.
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A GoFundMe campaign launched by former president Donald Trump to help the victims of Hurricane Helene has raised more than $1 million.
The website calls the effort “an official response for MAGA supporters to offer their financial assistance to their fellow Americans impacted by Hurricane Helene” and promises that all donations will be directed to those who have been impacted by the devastation.
Trump earlier Monday paid a visit to Valdosta, Georgia, and said he had brought with him supplies, including fuel, that will be distributed by the Christian relief group Samaritan’s Purse.
Former President Trump criticized the Biden administration’s response to the widespread devastation caused by Hurricane Helene, even as his supporters have called for cuts to federal agencies that warn of weather disasters and deliver relief to hard-hit communities.
As president, Trump delayed disaster aid for hurricane-devastated Puerto Rico and diverted money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency in order to finance an effort to return undocumented migrants to Mexico. And Project 2025, backed by Trump supporters, would restructure FEMA to limit aid to states and says that the National Weather Service, which provides crucial data on hurricanes and other storms, “should be broken up and downsized.”
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President Biden criticized Trump for “lying” about federal contacts with Georgia officials during the response to Hurricane Helene. Trump falsely claimed during a Monday tour of the damage that Biden hadn’t been in touch with the state’s Republican governor. “He’s lying, and the governor told him he was lying.”
“I don’t know why he does this,” Biden continued. “I don’t care about what he says about me, but I care what he what he communicates to people that are in need. He implies that we’re not doing everything possible. We are. We are.”
State election officials in North Carolina are gathering information about options available to voters in the counties hardest hit by Hurricane Helene and plan a press conference for Tuesday.
Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said during an emergency board meeting on Monday that she will be providing more information, including details on how voters could declare “natural disaster” as their reason for not being able to provide a photo ID.
The board met Monday to approve a resolution granting counties flexibility for holding weekly meetings required under state law to review absentee ballots. These meetings are required to begin every Tuesday between now and Election Day, officials said. The resolution passed unanimously.
The White House on Monday pushed back against an assertion by Donald Trump that President Joe Biden has been unresponsive to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
Trump earlier on Monday praised Kemp for doing a “very good job” but said he was “having a hard time getting the president on the phone.” Trump added both Biden and the federal government are “not being responsive”
White House Karine Jean-Pierre during her daily press briefing noted that Kemp himself told reporters that he spoke to Biden on Sunday and that the president asked him what Georgia needed.
The president’s homeland security adviser, Liz Sherwood-Randall, said that Biden made clear that he offered Kemp “anything” Georgia needed for its response to the storm and remains available to the governor.
“So, if the governor would like to speak to the president again, of course, the president will take his call,” Sherwood-Randall said.
Donald Trump repeatedly spread falsehoods Monday about the federal response to Hurricane Helene despite claiming not to be politicizing the disaster as he toured hard-hit areas in south Georgia.
Trump criticized Vice President Kamala Harris for “campaigning and looking for money.” He also levied attacks against the federal government for being “non-responsive” to the disaster, claiming Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has been struggling to get President Joe Biden on the phone. This is despite the White House announcing that Biden spoke by phone on Sunday night with Kemp. And North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper. Kemp, meanwhile, expressed appreciation on Monday for federal response to the storm.
ATLANTA — Dexter Sharper, a Democratic state representative whose district includes most of Valdosta, didn’t journey downtown to see Trump Monday. He said he was sitting in his truck outside his powerless home, charging his cell phone while trying to coordinate ways to get hot meals to people who also lack electricity.
“To me, it’s a non-factor whether Donald Trump is here or if any of those people are here,” Sharper told the Associated Press by phone.
He praised both Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and U.S. Rep. Austin Scott and Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff for visiting Valdosta, saying they helped bring needed aid.
“I’m helping ensure that there’s going to be a bipartisan effort to help Georgia get all the funds we need so we can get back to normal,” Sharper said. “it’s nonpolitical with us.”
ATLANTA — Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and U.S. Rep. Rick Allen, both Republicans, did not attack the federal response Monday morning at a news conference in hard-hit Augusta.
“Just know that we will work in a bipartisan way on disaster relief in this state with our federal, state and local partners,” said Kemp, who has often been the subject of attacks by Trump before the former president and Kemp recently patched things up.
The two-term governor said he spoke directly to Biden on Sunday evening and has “been playing phone tag” with Harris.
“The president just called me yesterday afternoon and I missed him and called him right back and he just said ‘Hey, what do you need?’ And I told him, you know, we’ve got what we need, we’ll work through the federal process,” Kemp said. “He offered if there are other things we need just to call him directly, which I appreciate that. But we’ve had FEMA embedded with us since a day or two before the storm hit in our state operations center in Atlanta. We’ve got a great relationship with them.”
Kemp said the state has submitted a request for an expedited emergency declaration to get federal aid for governments and individuals. Normally, the federal government doesn’t start issuing aid until state and local governments have completed damage assessments. Kemp said FEMA acknowledged the request.
Allen, a five-term congressman who said a tree is “resting” on the roof of his home after the storm, also said storm relief would be bipartisan
“This is not a Democrat or Republican issue,” said Allen, who represents the Augusta area. “This is an American issue. This is a Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina issue.”
Trump says is he heading to Valdosta, Georgia, and bringing along “lots of relief material, including fuel, equipment, water, and other things” to help those struggling in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
Trump says in a post on his social media site that he will be joined by “Many politicians and Law Enforcement,” including evangelist Franklin Graham, whose organization, Samaritan’s Purse, has been helping with disaster relief, and Valdosta’s mayor.
He adds that he was going to stop into North Carolina, and has “lot of supplies ready for them,” but that he is postponing that part of his trip because “access and communication is now restricted” and so that local emergency management “is able to focus on helping the people most affected, and not being concerned with me.”
In typical Trump fashion, though, he also tried to exacerbate political fault lines, claiming, without evidence, that the federal government and the state’s Democratic governor were “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas.” There is no evidence that is the case.
Asheville, one of the hardest-hit parts of the state, is solidly Democratic, as is the rest of Buncombe County.
Ahead of Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate, the Trump campaign is lowering expectations that the former president’s running mate Ohio Sen. JD Vance to have a decisive performance, telling reporters in a teleconference on Monday that Walz is a seasoned politician who is nimble on the debate stage.
“Tim Walz is very good in debates, really good. He’s been a politician for nearly 20 years. He’ll be very well prepared for tomorrow night,” said Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Trump. He predicted the Democratic governor of Minnesota will be much more “buttoned up” than he is on the campaign trail and ready to defend his record, but said, “that’s not to say that JD Vance won’t be prepared tomorrow, or that somehow he isn’t up to the challenge.”
Miller was joined on the call by Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., who has been helping Vance prepare for the debate by playing Walz in debate prep sessions. Emmer said he has spent the last month reviewing all of Walz’s past debate performances, studying his mannerisms and policies, and declared that “JD Vance is prepared to wipe the floor with Tim Walz and expose him to the radical liberal he is.”
Harris says that when President Biden called and told her he was leaving the presidential race in July, it left her with some trouble sleeping.
“Everything was in speedy, speedy motion” and “I was not sleeping so well,” she said on an episode of the “All the Smoke” podcast.
She laughed and added, “I like to sleep.” She recalled that, the morning after that phone call, Harris said she wasn’t able to sleep. So she got up and started marinating a pot roast for her family.
“Everybody was asleep. I just got up and started cooking,” she recalled.
Vice President Kamala Harris says she’s been clear about her racial identity and background and doesn’t listen to questions about it raised by critics, including her presidential race opponent, Republican Donald Trump.
Asked about criticism about her identity on an episode of the “All the Smoke” podcast that was released Monday, Harris responded, “I don’t listen to it.”
“I’m really clear about who I am,” she said. “And if anybody else is not they have to go through their own level of therapy.”
Harris said she’s happy to discuss her identity more fully, but that really doing so would require an hours-long discussion about the role of race in America.
“My mother was very clear. She was raising two Black girls to be two proud Black women,” Harris said. “And it was never a question.”
Vice President Kamala Harris says of the infamous blind date where she met her husband, Doug Emhoff, “I just have a really bossy best friend.”
Set up by especially persuasive friends, Harris told an episode of the “All the Smoke” podcast that was released Monday that Emhoff picked her up for the date in a BMW. He immediately divulged, “I’m a really bad driver,” she recalled.
“I guess he was trying to create a little expectation,” Harris said.
She said the pair then went to Emhoff’s favorite restaurant where people who worked there “were like, ‘Hey Doug.’” She didn’t name the restaurant.
At the beginning of a rally in Las Vegas on Sunday, Harris said “we will stand with these communities for as long as it takes to make sure that they are able to recover and rebuild.”
Trump, speaking in Erie, Pa., on Sunday, described the storm as “a big monster hurricane” that had “hit a lot harder than anyone even thought possible.”
He criticized Harris for attending weekend fundraising events in California while the storm hit.
“She ought to be down in the area where she should be,” Trump said.
The White House said Harris would visit impacted areas “as soon as it is possible without disrupting emergency response operations.” She also spoke with Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, and she received a briefing from Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell while she was traveling.
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