Kamala Harris and Donald Trump change plans after Hurricane Helene’s devastation

Hurricane Helene is changing presidential candidates’ plans this week.

Democratic candidate Kamala Harris cuts short a campaign visit to Las Vegas to return to Washington for briefings. Republican candidate Donald Trump travels to Georgia to see the effects of the storm.

Hurricane Helene Death toll Flooding has killed more than 100 people and is rising, with some of the worst damage caused by inland flooding in North Carolina.

Natural disasters are not only humanitarian crises but can also pose political tests for elected officials, particularly in the final weeks of a presidential campaign.

Presidents typically avoid rushing into disaster areas so as not to hamper recovery efforts. The White House said Harris would visit affected areas “as soon as practicable without disrupting the emergency response.”

President Joe Biden was scheduled to speak Monday morning about his administration’s response to Hurricane Helene. He plans to visit areas affected by the storm later this week, ensuring that relief efforts are not affected.

Valdosta representative says hurricane relief is apolitical:

Dexter Sharper, a Democratic state representative whose district includes most of Valdosta, did not travel downtown to meet Trump on Monday. He said he sits in his truck outside his powerless home, charging his cellphone as he tries to coordinate ways to provide hot meals to people who also have no power.

“To me it doesn’t matter if Donald Trump is here or if any of these people are here,” Sharper told The Associated Press by phone.

He praised both Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, U.S. Rep. Austin Scott and Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff for their visit to Valdosta, saying they helped bring needed aid.

“I am committed to ensuring that there will be a bipartisan effort to help Georgia get all the resources we need so we can return to normal,” Sharper said. “For us it’s apolitical.”

Georgia officials say they welcome the federal response and will work in a bipartisan manner on disaster relief:

ATLANTA — Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and U.S. Rep. Rick Allen, both Republicans, did not attack the federal response Monday morning at a news conference in hard-hit Augusta.

“Just know that we will work in a bipartisan manner with our federal, state and local partners on disaster relief in this state,” said Kemp, who has often been the subject of attacks from Trump before the former president and Kemp recently put things in order.

The two-term governor said he spoke directly with Biden and “played tag” with Harris on Sunday night.

“The president just called me yesterday afternoon and I missed him and called him right back and he just said, ‘Hey, what do you need?’ And I told him, you know, we have what we need, we’re going to work through the federal process,” Kemp said. “He offered to call him directly if we needed anything else, which I really appreciated. But we already had FEMA anchored with us at our state operations center in Atlanta a day or two before the storm. We have a great relationship with them.”

Kemp said the state has applied for an expedited emergency declaration to receive federal aid for governments and individuals. Normally, the federal government does not begin granting aid until state and local governments have completed damage assessments. Kemp said FEMA confirmed the request.

Allen, a five-term congressman who said a tree on the roof of his home was “resting” after the storm also said storm relief would be bipartisan

“This is not a Democratic or Republican issue,” said Allen, who represents the Augusta area. “This is an American problem. This is a problem in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.”

Trump says he’s going to Georgia with lots of relief material:

Trump says he is traveling to Valdosta, Georgia, and bringing “a lot of relief supplies, including fuel, equipment, water and other things” to help those struggling after Hurricane Helene.

Trump says in a post on his social media page that he will be joined by “many politicians and law enforcement officials,” including evangelist Franklin Graham, whose organization Samaritan’s Purse helps with disaster relief, and the mayor of Valdosta.

He adds that he planned to make a stop in North Carolina and has “a lot of supplies ready for them,” but that he is postponing that part of his trip because “access and communications are now limited” and local emergency management “is limited “. I can focus on helping the people most affected and not worry about myself.”

However, in typical Trump fashion, he also sought to exacerbate political fault lines by claiming without evidence that the federal government and the state’s Democratic governor were “doing everything possible not to help people in Republican areas.” There is no evidence of this.

Asheville, one of the hardest-hit parts of the state, is solidly Democratic, as is the rest of Buncombe County.

Trump campaign lowers expectations ahead of Tuesday’s vice presidential debate:

Ahead of Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate, the Trump campaign is tempering expectations that the former president’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, will deliver a decisive performance, telling reporters in a conference call Monday that Walz is an experienced politician who the debate cleverly approaches the stage.

“Tim Walz is very good at debates, really good. He has been a politician for almost 20 years. He will be very well prepared for tomorrow night,” said Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Trump. He predicted that Minnesota’s Democratic governor will be much more “buttoned up” than he was on the campaign trail and ready to defend his record, but said, “That doesn’t mean JD Vance won’t be prepared tomorrow, or that somehow,” he said is not up to the challenge.”

Miller was joined on the call by Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., who helped Vance prepare for the debate by waltzing in the debate prep sessions. Emmer said he has spent the last month going through all of Walz’s previous debate appearances, studying his demeanor and politics, and stated that “JD Vance is ready to wipe the floor with Tim Walz and expose him to the radical liberal who is he is.”

Harris recalls the morning after President Biden informed her he was withdrawing from the presidential campaign:

Harris says that when President Biden called her in July and told her he was withdrawing from the presidential campaign, she had trouble sleeping.

“Everything was moving at a rapid pace” and “I wasn’t sleeping too well,” she said on an episode of the “All the Smoke” podcast.

She laughed and added, “I like to sleep.” She recalled that the morning after that call, Harris said she couldn’t sleep. So she got up and started marinating a pot roast for her family.

“Everyone was asleep. I just got up and started cooking,” she remembers.

Harris tells the podcast that she was clear about her racial identity and background:

Vice President Kamala Harris says she has made her racial identity and background clear and is not listening to questions from critics, including her presidential opponent, Republican Donald Trump.

When asked about criticism of her identity on an episode of the “All the Smoke” podcast released Monday, Harris replied, “I don’t listen to it.”

“I’m really clear about who I am,” she said. “And if that’s not the case for others, he needs to undergo his own level of therapy.”

Harris said she would like to talk about her identity in more detail, but that doing so would require hours of discussion about the role of race in America.

“My mother was very clear. She raised two Black girls to be two proud Black women,” Harris said. “And it was never a question.”

Harris tells the “All the Smoke” podcast about the blind date on which she met her husband:

Vice President Kamala Harris says of the infamous blind date on which she met her husband Doug Emhoff: “I just have a really bossy best friend.”

Set up by particularly persuasive friends, Harris said on an episode of the “All the Smoke” podcast released Monday that Emhoff picked her up for the date in a BMW. He immediately revealed: “I’m a really bad driver,” she recalls.

“I guess he was trying to create a little expectation,” Harris said.

She said the couple then went to Emhoff’s favorite restaurant, where the people who worked there “said, ‘Hey Doug.'” She did not name the restaurant.

Harris and Trump talk about Hurricane Helene during the election campaign:

At the start a rally in Las Vegas On Sunday, Harris said, “We will stand with these communities for as long as necessary to ensure they can recover and rebuild.”

trump, speaks in Erie, Pennsylvania.on Sunday, described the storm as “a big monster hurricane” that hit “much harder than anyone thought possible.”

He criticized Harris for attending weekend fundraisers in California during the storm.

“She should be in the range she should be,” Trump said.

The White House said Harris would visit affected areas “as soon as practicable without disrupting the emergency response.” She also spoke with North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and received a briefing from Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell during her trip.