The Southeast is still recovering from Hurricane Helene’s devastation, while Florida faces a Category 5 hurricane in Milton. For some reason, Kamala Harris, the Democrat nominee for president and Vice President, decided that now was the time to engage Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Just like her choice of running mate, Kamala Harris made a bad decision.
This is the background:
NBC published a report Monday citing anonymous sources that DeSantis refused to accept calls from Harris about the recovery efforts following Helene. DeSantis denied the claim, saying he hadn’t received a phone call from Harris. He also said he had been busy.
Then, Harris, apparently hungry, decided to dine on her foot and accuse DeSantis of playing politics in a crisis.
DeSantis responded to the question by calling Harris a delusional fool on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program Monday night. He noted that he had dealt with President Donald Trump as well as President Joe Biden regarding storms that hit his state and that they worked well together.
As if to exclaim DeSantis’ response, Biden sent out a Twitter stating that he had spoken with DeSantis and that everything was going well between the administration, the governor, and Tampa Mayor Jane Castor in terms of preparation for Milton.
DeSantis also spoke with the hosts of Fox & Friends Tuesday morning about the hurricane and preparations made in advance of the expected landfall late Wednesday/early on Thursday.
He wasn’t shy when asked about Harris’ comments that characterized his behavior as selfish, and about political gamesmanship.
Governor DeSantis slams Kamala on her phone call bs! pic.twitter.com/TmDDqm3N5k
— Karli Bonne’ 🇺🇸 (@KarluskaP) October 8, 2024
“Well, I think she should look in the mirror. We’ve been on an emergency footing for two weeks straight — around the clock, 24/7. We’ve been working — my office, our Division of Emergency Management — helping people prepare for Hurricane Helene, helping effectuate rescues of people after Hurricane Helene, helping people pick up the pieces of their lives after Helene, and then have to also turn around and prepare for major impacts and maybe even more impacts from Hurricane Milton, be able to have rescue personnel ready to help people, and then, of course, help with the power restoration — all these things to do.”
So, that was my only focus. I have not focused on Kamala Harris. I didn’t realize she had tried to contact me. Kamala, it’s not all about you. It’s all about the people in Florida. My focus is where it should be. I can tell that I worked on hurricanes both under President Trump and Biden, and neither tried to politicize the issue. She’s never called on any storms since she was vice president, until now. Why is she suddenly trying to jump in and insert herself, when she has never shown interest before? We know that politics is the reason to make her election campaign look better.
“I don’t have time for these games of politics. We will continue to prepare for and respond to one of the worst storms to ever hit the United States. She says that focusing on your own people’s safety is selfish. I think she should look in the mirror.”
DeSantis responded:
“Every request that we have made, I’ve spoken to the President and the FEMA director. Harris isn’t even part of the chain. She is not involved in this. The idea that I would be worried about her while I was focused on my task is, quite simply, absurd.”
“Yes, we have received answers to all our requests. We have marshaled every state resource that is available to us. We are prepared for a robust response but also for a large amount of damage. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers. We know we will be hit by the storm, but we hope to pray that it is weak and does the least damage.”
DeSantis could teach Kamala Harris how to be a real leader, while she is busy trying to slam “anyone” who claims to be a leader.
