CNN —
Long before the outer portions of Hurricane Milton hit Florida’s coast, political battles over the massive storm were already heating up.
A potential natural disaster of this magnitude—which could be the monster caused by climate change that scientists have long feared—should be immune from political opportunism.
But in the final weeks of a presidential election featuring an unrelenting candidate like Donald Trump, nothing escapes partisanship, and the aftermath of Milton’s fallout is one of the former president’s maelstrom of misinformation. This may be the next entrance.
The political impact of a hurricane typically occurs only after the strong winds have passed. This time, the sparring started early, in part because President Trump pushed so hard to use last week’s Hurricane Helen for his own political gain.
For Vice President Kamala Harris, this storm provides a dangerous spotlight that could show she can successfully navigate a media moment in a presidential context. It could demonstrate her ability to express sympathy for victims and her ability to manipulate federal agencies. But if federal rescue efforts fail after the storm is expected to make landfall late Wednesday or early Thursday, it could haunt her until next month’s election. Even if the federal government’s efforts are successful, testing Harris will be complicated by the likelihood that President Trump will fabricate a story that suggests she failed.
This explains why the Democratic nominee tried to rise up from the storm with President Trump, telling reporters Monday night that the former president was spreading misinformation about government aid. “It’s about him, it’s not about you,” the vice president told ABC’s “The View” on Tuesday. “This is not about partisanship or politics for any particular leader, but perhaps “It’s a problem for other leaders,” he added.
Government officials reinforced the vice president’s message Tuesday. FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell warned on CNN News Central that President Trump’s comments are making people fear the government won’t help them. And the White House has launched an account on the social media platform Reddit to identify and combat misinformation.
President Joe Biden may be dealing with the last major national emergency of his term. There was a heightened sense of crisis on Tuesday morning when foreign trips to Germany and Angola were postponed. No president can afford to be overseas during a national emergency. Biden’s first task will be to fulfill the president’s core duty of keeping the American people safe. But he certainly wants to avoid repercussions at home, as unresolved wars in the Middle East are likely to undermine his foreign policy legacy. It could also cast a shadow over his final days in office and damage his chosen successor, Harris.
President Trump has repeatedly shown that there is no situation he will not exploit for political gain. He used Hurricane Helen to strengthen his case that the Biden-Harris administration is a bunch of incompetent rabbles unable to meet the basic needs of the American people. It’s the same way he accused Harris of contributing to a national crisis marked by rampant crime and immigration, and which he claims is on a glide path to World War III. Trump’s criticism is satire. He has created a classic alternate reality for his fans and conservative media echo chambers, even though the country is plagued by problems such as persistently high food prices and a strained asylum system.
President Trump used the same tactic during Hurricane Helen, falsely accusing Democrats of ignoring Republican areas. The former president falsely said Biden was ignoring calls from Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. He also falsely claimed that Harris was unable to help storm victims because she had exhausted the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s budget to house illegal immigrants. And President Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, misled the nation by claiming that the federal government was only providing $750 in aid to people who lost their homes. Some of Mr. Trump’s claims were debunked by Republican leaders in Georgia and Tennessee. But from Trump’s perspective, it doesn’t matter whether his claims are nonsense or not. It’s all about penetrating voters who may not know the nuances of federal relief efforts, but who may take away from Harris’ unappealing image.
President Trump has argued that both Harris and Biden are mentally defective and unfit for the office of president. He rejected Democratic claims that he was politicizing hurricane season after rushing to battleground North Carolina to make false claims about the administration’s incompetence. “No matter what I do, they’re going to say, oh, that’s political,” the former president told FOX’s Laura Ingraham on Monday. “If I do something good, no matter what I do, they’re going to say, ‘Oh, he did it for politics.’ So they can’t get there much earlier than me.” Trump’s own ad hoc leadership after the hurricane could also come back to haunt him.
The Harris campaign on Monday sought to revive memories of Harris’ checkered disaster management record, debuting an ad featuring two former Trump administration officials, Olivia Troy and Kevin Carroll, that showed the former president once campaigning for Democratic state parties. He claimed that the government tried to withhold disaster relief funds from the government.
And Harris used the looming storm as a prism to criticize Trump’s character and push her case that Trump is a “dishonest man” who poses a major threat if re-elected. On ABC’s “The View” on Tuesday, she accused him of “putting myself above the needs of others.” Harris added: “He has the ability to be sensitive to the suffering of others but understand that the role of a leader is not to tear people down, but to lift them up, especially in times of crisis.” “I’m concerned that there is a real lack of empathy on a very basic level,” he added. ”
Still, Trump’s maneuver is the latest sign of his advantage over Harris, even though he has a presidential record of his own to defend — as a non-incumbent, he has personal They can afford to criticize the administration’s performance without taking responsibility for it.
Stormy politics is shaped by the memory of two disasters. The failure to respond to Hurricane Katrina, which hit New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in 2005, helped derail President George W. Bush’s second term. And President Barack Obama’s better handling of Hurricane Superstorm Sandy, which hit the East Coast in 2012, helped him defeat Republican Mitt Romney in that year’s election. Sandy is best remembered for hugging President Obama as then-New Jersey Governor Chris Christie called for maximum federal aid for the state. This angered many Republicans. And Christie continued his decision to put his duty above politics during subsequent Republican presidential campaigns.
One key political player unlikely to make the same choice is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. He may have future national political ambitions after an unsuccessful bid for the 2024 Republican nomination. Mr. DeSantis faces a similar dilemma to Mr. Christie. Despite his disdain for the president and vice president, he says he needs to work seamlessly with a Democratic administration to serve the state’s interests. And his future political considerations probably won’t survive the failure of the relief effort, as they did with Harris. Like Harris, DeSantis got into hurricane politics long before Milton arrived. White House officials told CNN they rejected her calls about the hurricane. He denied the allegations but was not spared a rebuke from the vice president.
Mr. DeSantis started on a political path that required him to deal with Mr. Biden, a lame duck, but did nothing to boost Ms. Harris in a way that might anger Mr. Trump. “It’s selfish of her to try to screw up something like this when we’re doing a good job,” DeSantis said Monday night. “I’ve been through storms under both President Trump and President Biden, and I’ve worked well with both. She’s the first to try to politicize the storm, and she’s simply trying to politicize her election.” She’s just doing it for the cause. She’s trying to get some sort of advantage,” the Florida Republican complained.
Unlike Harris, Biden had kind words for DeSantis, saying on Tuesday that the governor had been “cooperative.”
“I said no. I said, ‘You’re doing a great job. Everything is going well. I appreciate it,'” Biden said.
But the president also took out political insurance against future complaints from Florida Republicans that they didn’t get what they wanted from the White House. “I literally gave him a personal phone number to call,” Biden said.
