Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, and Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis have engaged in a public back-and-forth the last two days over response efforts to Hurricane Helene and preparations for Hurricane Milton.
In the latest salvo in a series of jabs between the two this week, Harris appeared to insinuate politics was behind the Florida governor’s reported decision not to take her phone call as Hurricane Milton prepares to slam into his state as it still recovers from Hurricane Helene, which has left more than 227 people dead in the Southeast.
“I have called and talked with in the course of this crisis, this most recent crisis, Democrat and Republican governors – called, taken the call, answered the call, had a conversation,” Harris said during an appearance on ABC’s “The View” on Tuesday morning when asked about DeSantis not taking her call.
“So, obviously, this is not an issue that is about partisanship or politics for certain leaders, but maybe it is for others,” the vice president continued.
Harris noted that Hurricane Milton looks to have the potential to be particularly powerful and impactful, adding that the reason she called DeSantis was to see “what Florida has received” in preparation.
“We have to have an agreement that at some point, we all need to work together to combine resources, especially federal, state and local resources around these kind of disasters,” Harris said. “And I think it’s a shame that that hasn’t happened.”
Harris’ comments came just hours after DeSantis, in an interview on Fox News Tuesday morning, said he did not know that Harris tried to contact him and accused the vice president of making the storms about herself.
“My focus has not been on dealing with Kamala Harris, I saw the news report, I didn’t know she tried to contact me,” DeSantis said. “But I’d also say: it’s not about you, Kamala, it’s about the people of Florida.”
The Florida governor, who ran against former President Donald Trump for the Republican nomination for president earlier this year, went on to note that he has dealt with destructive hurricanes under both the Trump and Biden administrations and “neither of them ever tried to politicize it.”
“She has never called on any of the storms we’ve had since she’s been vice president until apparently now,” DeSantis continued, referring to Harris. “Why all of a sudden is she trying to parachute in and inject herself when she has never shown any interest in the past? We know it’s because of politics, we know it’s because of her campaign.”
DeSantis added that he is in touch with President Joe Biden and the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and all of his requests from the federal government in regards to the recovery from Helene and preparations for Milton have been met.
Biden and DeSantis spoke over the phone on Monday, according to the White House. Giving an update on the federal government’s responses to the storms on Tuesday, Biden told reporters that he gave DeSantis his personal phone number to contact him if the state needs anything.
“There was a rough start in some places but every governor, every governor from Florida to North Carolina, has been fully cooperative and supportive and acknowledged what this team is doing,” Biden said.
Biden and DeSantis received significant attention when they stood next to one another to tour damage in Florida from Hurricane Ian in 2022, but the governor did not join the president last week when he came to do the same thing in the wake of Hurricane Helene.
The back-and-forth between the vice president and Florida governor was sparked by a report by NBC News on Monday that DeSantis was not taking calls from Harris about the storm recovery. Shortly after the report, DeSantis denied that he purposely dodged her call, saying he wasn’t aware she had tried to contact him.
Asked about the report on Monday afternoon, Harris said a decision to ignore her calls was “utterly irresponsible,” “selfish” and “about political gamesmanship.”
"People are in desperate need of support right now and playing political games with this moment, in these crisis situations, these are the height of emergency situations, it's utterly irresponsible, and it is selfish," she told reporters while leaving for New York City on Monday.
DeSantis later told Fox News on Monday night that the vice president's comments were "delusional."
"She has no role in this process," he said.
In her appearance on “The View” on Tuesday, Harris also had pointed remarks for Trump, who has baselessly claimed that Biden is withholding disaster assistance to GOP-dominant areas and charging, without evidence, that money belonging to the Federal Emergency Management Agency to aid recovery has been spent on migrants in the U.S.
Harris referred to the comments as the “height of irresponsibility and frankly callousness.”
“The idea that somebody would be playing political games for the sake of himself,” Harris said of her GOP opponent. “He puts himself before the needs of other – I fear that he really lacks empathy on a very basic level, to care about the suffering of other people and then understand the role of a leader is not to beat people down — it’s to lift people up."