consoler-in-chief.
Megan Messerly
Wed, October 2, 2024 a
Kamala Harris, surveying the wreckage of Hurricane Helene in a swing state on Wednesday, offered a glimpse of how she might fulfill the role of consoler-in-chief.
Against a backdrop of felled trees in Augusta, Georgia, the vice president telegraphed solidarity as she spoke about the assistance the administration is providing to communities devastated by the severe weather that tore through the southeastern United States last weekend. She thanked local emergency responders for stepping up, even as their homes and communities have been destroyed.
The Democratic nominee's approach offered a stark contrast to the overtly political posture Donald Trump took during his visit to Valdosta, Georgia earlier this week, when he accused President Joe Biden and his administration for failing to deliver the aid needed by the community. It's a sentiment even the state's Republican governor did not share, and during her visit on Wednesday, Harris praised Gov. Brian Kemp for his leadership.
“We are here for the long haul,” Harris promised those who had gathered in Augusta’s Meadowbrook neighborhood. “There's a lot of work that's going to need to happen over the coming days, weeks, and months, and the coordination that we have dedicated ourselves to will be long-lasting to get families, to get residents, to get neighborhoods back up and running.”
Her remarks, which did not mention Trump, followed a briefing from local officials at the Augusta Emergency Operations Center. She also met with affected families and business owners and visited a distribution center where she handed out food. The Augusta events were coordinated through the White House, not her campaign.
The storm has offered an opportunity for both candidates to demonstrate their leadership chops to voters a little more than a month out from Election Day. Trump took a different tack when he deviated from his prepared remarks on Monday, suggesting that Biden was “sleeping,” criticizing Harris for attending fundraisers in California and a rally in Las Vegas during the early storm recovery efforts and calling her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, “Tampon Tim.” He also repeated a false claim that Biden hadn’t spoken with Kemp — even though the governor himself said that he had and that he appreciated the federal disaster assistance.
It mirrored the posture Trump often took during his presidency and has taken as a candidate: using the spotlight to criticize his opponents rather than turn the public attention on the communities affected by a disaster. In a Truth Social post on Monday, Trump again tried to politicize this latest disaster by falsely claiming that the Biden administration and North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper were “going out of their way not to help people in Republican areas.”
Harris, meanwhile, scuttled several informal campaign events in Las Vegas earlier this week to return to Washington for a briefing at FEMA’s headquarters. And her campaign on Wednesday sent out a fundraising email directing supporters to contribute to the disaster relief effort.
The vice president has said she plans to visit North Carolina, a state deeply affected by flooding, mudslides and other devastation from the storm, in the coming days — as soon as she can do so without impacting disaster response operations — but spoke with Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer on Tuesday, according to the White House. Biden was in the Carolinas on Wednesday to survey the hurricane damage, taking a helicopter tour of hard-hit Western North Carolina.
Trump is scheduled to attend a Friday evening rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina. It’s unclear whether he also plans to visit areas affected by the storm as part of that trip.
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