The Republican candidate for the presidency of the United States, Donald Trump, has seen in the disaster caused by the hurricane Helene an opportunity to campaign. The former president traveled this Monday to one of the areas affected by a storm that has left nearly 140 dead, according to provisional counts. There, he decided to launch lies against the president, Joe Biden, and the vice president, Kamala Harris, his rival in the presidential elections on November 5, to try to take political advantage of the catastrophe.
Respect for the truth has never been one of Trump’s virtues, who resorts to lying naturally and insistently based on his political interests. This time, however, some were so obvious that his own coreligionists had to correct him. The former president came to say that Biden had ignored the disaster and had not offered any response. The reality was the opposite.
Trump stated upon arriving in Valdosta (Georgia) that President Biden was “sleeping” and was not responding to the governor of Georgia, Republican Brian Kemp, whom he said was “calling the president and has not been able to speak to him.” He repeated the same statement at an event with reporters after being informed that Kemp had said he had spoken to Biden, proof that Trump was fully aware of his lie.
“The president called me yesterday afternoon and I didn’t see the call and I called him right away and he said, ‘Hey, what do you need? And I told him, you know, we have what we need, we will work through the federal process,” Kemp said when asked about his conversation with Biden. “He offered me that if we needed other things we could call him directly, which I appreciated,” he added in an appearance before the press.
Biden complained on Monday about Trump’s words: “He’s lying, and the governor told him he was lying,” he said. The White House has recapitulated some of the statements of the governors of the six states affected by the natural disaster to try to expose the former president’s lies.
“Last night I spoke with President Biden and Vice President Harris,” Roy Cooper, governor of North Carolina, the state most affected by the torrential rains, said on CNN on Monday. “They promised me their full support. It’s going to be a tremendous effort in the short term, but if we look at it in the long term, with hundreds of roads destroyed and communities wiped off the map, we have to make sure that we get in there, that we rebuild smartly, and that we do it correctly. a more resistant way. But right now we are focusing on saving lives and getting supplies to people who desperately need them,” added the Democratic politician.
The governor of South Carolina, Republican Henry McMaster, spoke along the same lines. “We are talking and dealing with FEMA [la agencia de emergencias]. (…) President Biden called yesterday afternoon,” he said in a press conference. “We have the entire team on the field. Everyone, everyone who is available. Even some who normally don’t go out on the field, they are all on the field now. “So we have a great team and a great, because of the experience, we have a great working relationship with all of these different companies and entities,” he added.
“I am incredibly grateful for the quick response and cooperation of the federal FEMA team.” [la agencia de emergencias]”said Glenn Youngkin, the Republican governor of Virginia. “The team has been deployed. Our Emergency Declaration was processed expeditiously over the weekend, and was finalized yesterday,” he added in a press conference.
Trump also spread the lie on his social network, Truth, that the federal government and the Democratic governor of North Carolina were “doing everything possible not to help people in Republican areas.”
Georgia and North Carolina, two of the States affected by the tragedy, are also two of the decisive States in the elections on November 5. The Republican Trump has a minimal advantage over Harris in those districts, but the situation is more of a technical tie. In North Carolina, the scandal that the Republican candidate for governor defined himself as a “black Nazi” on a pornographic network in which he also said other atrocities may contaminate the presidential election. The difference is so small that the response to the storm Heleneor any other factor can tip the balance. If Trump managed to convince voters with his lies that the president and vice president have ignored the catastrophe, he would have a lot to gain.
Biden was at his beach house in Rehoboth Beach (Delaware) over the weekend and from there he was making calls, but perhaps his political instincts were not very fine in this regard. This Monday, when asked if he should not have been in charge of the response from the White House, he became upset: “I was in charge. Yesterday I was on the phone for at least two hours and the day before yesterday as well. I directed. It’s called a telephone.” And then, in the afternoon, again, when they asked him if he regretted not having returned to the White House sooner: “Come on now. Stop playing, will you? It’s 90 miles from here. “I was on the phone all the time,” he replied.
Evelyn Hockstein (REUTERS)
Biden explained that the important thing was not where he was leading from, but how to get the aid there as quickly as possible. “It’s hard to get it from point A to point B. It’s hard to get it if the roads are washed out. There’s no ability to land, there’s no ability to get trucks, and there’s no ability to get a whole range of things,” he said.
About 140 dead
The president and vice president have preferred to delay their visits to the affected areas so as not to interfere in the relief and rescue efforts with all the logistics that a presidential trip entails. Biden hopes to travel this Wednesday, although he has not yet announced his specific plans.
Rescuers are still scouring the mountains of western North Carolina, the hardest hit area, for survivors and the dead days after the remnants of Hurricane Helene caused catastrophic damage across the southeastern part of the country and left behind what those responsible politicians have described as an apocalyptic landscape.
The number of fatalities rose to almost 140 people on Tuesday, reports the Associated Press. Residents in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains have been lining up for food and water, searching for cell phone signals after the storm inundated the region. Emergency workers have been clearing roads, restoring power and reaching those still stranded.
HeleneIt made landfall Thursday in northwest Florida as a Category 4 hurricane, with sustained winds of up to 140 miles per hour. Its entry into the continent occurred through a relatively sparsely populated area, the so-called Big Bend, and in which massive evacuations had been carried out due to the memory of the hurricane. Ian2022. Turned into a storm, it entered Georgia and then into the Carolinas and Tennessee. With a lower speed of movement, its incessant torrential rains overflowed streams and rivers and flooded entire towns.
HeleneIt has become one of the deadliest hurricanes recorded in the United States in the last half century. He Katrinatops the list, with at least 1,833 victims of the storm and subsequent flooding. The hurricane Ianwhich hit southeastern Florida in 2022, caused about 150 direct and indirect fatalities. The tragic deadly list of the hurricane Heleneapproaches that of Ian andIt is already longer than that of Irmawhich caused 92 deaths in September 2017.
