Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump makes brief remarks as he arrives at Valdosta Regional Airport to visit areas affected by Hurricane Helene in Valdosta, Georgia, on September 30, 2024.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump traveled to hurricane-ravaged Georgia to speak and help distribute supplies, a day after he used the devastating storm as a political attack on Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.
Trump insisted his motivation for Monday’s visit to the southern city of Valdosta was apolitical.
“We’re not talking about politics right now,” Trump told reporters outside the heavily damaged facade of a building that had housed dozens of furniture vendors.
But his presence in the key electoral battleground was compounded by his recent remarks slamming Harris for not immediately traveling to the hurricane-hit area.
Trump also appeared to disparage President Joe Biden by falsely claiming that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, was “calling the president [but] he didn’t manage to get him.”
But said Kemp Biden had called him on Sunday.
“The president just called me yesterday afternoon,” the governor said earlier Monday. “I missed him and I called him right back. And he said, ‘Hey, what do you need?’
Trump in Valdosta also said he recently spoke with billionaire Elon Musk Tesla and the CEO of SpaceX, regarding the use of Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite Internet service, to help restore communication in the region.
The Department of Homeland Security said Monday it had already provided 40 Starlink satellite systems to aid communications and recovery in North Carolina.
Trump’s event was coordinated with Samaritan’s Purse, a Christian relief group founded by Franklin Graham, the son of influential evangelical leader Billy Graham.
The short trip to Georgia came as Harris canceled scheduled campaign stops in Las Vegas to return to Washington, D.C., for a briefing with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Biden, meanwhile, said earlier Monday that he and Harris hope so travel to hurricane-affected areas; after they can ensure that their presence will not disrupt emergency response efforts. He later said he expects to make a trip Wednesday or Thursday.
People throw buckets of water outside a house as roads and homes flood near Peachtree Creek after Hurricane Helene brought heavy rain overnight to Atlanta on September 27, 2024.
Megan Varner | Getty Images
The hurricane’s death toll has risen to 116 since it made landfall as a Category 4 storm in northern Florida on Thursday night, according to an NBC News count.
At least 25 people were killed in Georgia, Kemp said Monday morning. Deaths have also been reported in Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.
Torrential rain, wind and flooding have left millions without power and entire cities — including hundreds of miles inland, such as Asheville, North Carolina — have been submerged under feet of water.
On Sunday, Trump attacked Biden and Harris in politically charged terms for their response to Hurricane Helene.
“They’re raising a lot of money from bad people, fundraising events with their radical left-wing crazy donors, when large parts of our country have been devastated by this massive hurricane and are underwater with many, many dead,” Trump said on the campaign trail. rally in Erie, Pennsylvania.
“He should be here. He should be down in the area where he should be. That’s what he’s getting paid for, right? That’s what he’s getting paid for,” Trump said.
The Harris campaign and its allies had already attacked Trump for his comments about Hurricane Helene at a rally in Michigan on Friday, when he told those affected by the hurricane: “We’re with you all the way and if we were there . , we’d help you and you’d be fine.”
A Harris campaign social media account quickly shared that quote to suggest Trump was downplaying the disaster. By Monday morning, the clip had racked up more than five million views on social media platform X, according to the site’s tally.
Trump allies said the video was taken out of context and defended his remarkssaying he offered comfort to storm victims.
But some of the former president’s opponents drew parallels between the quote and Trump’s insensitive responses to past natural disasters, including dropping paper towel rolls to a crowd of people who survived a hurricane in Puerto Rico in 2017.
