Trump brings Hurricane Helene into 2024 campaign

By Kimberly Leonard

Former President Donald Trump is making Hurricane Helene into a campaign issue, planning a stop in storm-ravaged, battleground Georgia on Monday and criticizing the Biden administration’s response with just weeks left until the November election.

During a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, on Sunday, Trump accused President Joe Biden of “sleeping” at his beach house in Delaware and dragged Vice President Kamala Harris for holding fundraising events in California over the weekend “when big parts of our country have been devastated by that massive hurricane.”

At least 84 people have been killed from Hurricane Helene. The storm made landfall in Florida late Thursday, then moved into the interior Southeast, across the Southern Appalachians and into the Tennessee Valley. It caused millions of power outages and billions of dollars in property damage, with two electoral swing states — Georgia and North Carolina — among the most affected.

Later Sunday, Biden told Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell that he planned to visit “impacted communities” this week, “as soon as it will not disrupt emergency response operations.” And a White House official added that Harris, too, will go “as soon as it is possible” to do so without being disruptive.

Harris has been briefed by Criswell, according to the White House, and Biden has approved disaster declarations for numerous states and major disaster declarations for certain counties that will help provide temporary housing assistance, as well as grants and low-interest loans to help people with home repairs. Both urged the public to take the storm seriously ahead of landfall.

Harris released a statement expressing her condolences on Saturday and said she and the president “remain committed to ensuring that no community or state has to respond to this disaster alone.” Biden released a similar statement and cautioned that “the road to recovery will be long” but vowed to “be with you every step of the way” and to “make certain that no resource is spared” in rebuilding.

Harris opened her own Sunday night campaign rally in Las Vegas with an acknowledgment of the disaster.

“I know that everyone here sends their thoughts and prayers for the folks who have been so devastated by that hurricane and the ensuing events, in Florida, in Georgia, the Carolinas, and other impacted states,” she said.

Biden returned to the White House Sunday afternoon.

How elected officials respond to natural disasters and other similar crises can make or break their political futures as well as give them opportunities to show leadership or unity.” A post-election autopsy from Trump’s 2020 campaign pollster, for instance, blamed his handling of the Covid pandemic as key in his loss to Biden.

In the wake of Hurricane Maria in 2017, Trump received backlash as president following a visit to Puerto Rico, when he threw paper towels into a crowd of people at a relief center. The island territory struggled to get access to power for weeks, and Trump got in a high-profile fight with the mayor of San Juan who’d criticized the federal response.

Trump first built up his trip to the Helene-affected areas in a post on Truth Social on Sunday by wondering aloud why Harris was attending fundraisers in San Francisco and Los Angeles “when big parts of our country are devastated and under water — with many people dead.”

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ running mate, posted on X shortly after Trump’s rally that hurricane victims were “on my mind” and praised first responders. He added that “my heart breaks to see the devastation” in Asheville, North Carolina — where he’d been campaigning a week earlier — and “across the south.” Officials in Buncombe County, home to Asheville, said Sunday at least 30 people had died there.

During Sunday’s rally Trump revisited many of his favorite criticisms against his adversaries, including invoking deeply personal attacks toward Biden and Harris, calling them both “mentally impaired.” He said Democrats would have been better off with Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee, even though she though she is running significantly stronger in the polls against Trump, and played a video at his rally that mocked Harris’ laughter and revisited her past positions on illegal immigration.

The comments came even as many Republicans have urged Trump to focus on key issues in the final weeks before Election Day and with early voting underway in some states.

Biden has previously appeared with political adversaries following natural disasters, including touring the devastation alongside Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis after Hurricane Ian struck the state in 2022. The following year, after Idalia hit and DeSantis was running for the Republican nomination for president, he told the public that security measures for a presidential visit would be too disruptive to the recovery efforts.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) took the meeting with Biden instead. Scott, who is up for reelection in November and has been heavily involved in the storm response in Florida, on Friday criticized Harris for not being on the ground, before Trump had announced any plans to tour storm-torn areas. Harris’ campaign also hit Trump over the hurricane on social media, highlighting a clip from Sunday’s rally in which he mocked climate change.

Criswell has been at press conferences alongside DeSantis in Florida over the weekend. She was in Georgia on Sunday and is scheduled to be in North Carolina on Monday.