Thursday morning, Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis briefed President Joe Biden on the fallout from Hurricane Milton while hammering Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton once again over her swipe at him earlier this week for allegedly not taking his call.
The governor of the Sunshine State chided the vice president for “not understanding what it means to respond to these natural disasters” and accused her again of politicizing the crisis.
“She has no role in this process. And I’ve been dealing with these storms in Florida under both [former President Donald] Trump and [President] Biden. Neither of them ever politicized it,” said DeSantis to CNBC’s “Squawk Box” hours after Milton made a Category 3 hurricane landfall.
“In fact [during] all of the storms I dealt with under this administration, although I worked well with the president, she has never called … She has never offered any support,” emphasized the Republican. “She’s trying to inject herself into this because of her political campaign.”
Earlier in the week, several reports emerged that the governor’s staff had turned down a Harris attempt to reach him late last month during Hurricane Helene’s aftermath, which made landfall on September 26.
When she was pressed about those reports Monday, VP Harris attacked DeSantis.
“People are in desperate need of support right now, and playing political games at this moment in these crisis situations — these are the height of emergency situations — is utterly irresponsible, and it is selfish,” Harris told reporters.
Governor DeSantis has insisted he did not know about the vice president’s initial attempts to reach him.
“I don’t have time for those games,” said DeSantis Thursday. “I don’t care about her campaign. Obviously, I’m not a supporter of hers. For her to say that my focus should be on catering to her rather than worrying about my own people just shows she doesn’t understand what it means to respond to these natural disasters.”
Over 3.4 million Floridians had lost electricity as of Thursday afternoon, per PowerOutage.us.
President Biden has commended Governor DeSantis
While Harris has sniped at DeSantis, President Biden has commended the governor for doing a “great” job preparing for Milton. The governor has returned the favor by crediting Biden publicly for giving his state everything he has asked for so far.
During the Thursday morning phone call, Gov. DeSantis explained that state officials are continuing to assess the extent of the hurricane’s damage, and the president vowed to continue green-lighting support from the federal government, per a White House readout.
Deanne Criswell, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) administrator, was also on the call.
“All I can tell you is I’ve talked to Governor DeSantis,” said Biden to reporters Wednesday. “He’s been very gracious. He thanked me for all we’ve done. He knows what we’re doing, and I think that’s important.”
Last week, the president toured Hurricane Helene damage in Florida but didn’t meet with DeSantis, who was holding a press conference around 300 miles away.
The vice president took time away from the campaign trail on Wednesday to attend a FEMA briefing on the hurricane. However, she only succeeded in raising concerns about appearing distracted on the call and blurting out, “It’s a live broadcast,” to an apparent member of her staff.
