Harris visits North Carolina on his second trip to the areas ravaged by Helene

CHARLOTTE — Vice President Kamala Harris made her second trip in four days to the hurricane-ravaged state, meeting with victims and first responders in North Carolina on Saturday as the administration battles criticism and false claims that the storm response is too anemic.

Fresh off her Midwest campaign, Harris visited the North Carolina Air National Guard base at the Charlotte airport, where she received a briefing alongside a phalanx of state elected officials. The ranger airlifted more than 50,000 pounds of food to parts of the state hardest hit by Hurricane Helene.

“The work that is happening here that is having such a positive impact on so many people is truly an example of the best we can do by combining resources at the federal, state and local levels and leveraging the collegiality that produces results.” – she said before the briefing.

She noted that she had spoken to many of the officials present at the table beforehand because Helene was doing the most damage. “I think these moments of crisis bring out the best of who we can be and who we are,” Harris continued.

According to the vice president’s office, Harris also met with a family who had temporarily moved from western North Carolina to Charlotte with their 6-month-old baby and another person who assisted with “lifesaving efforts during the flood.”

Natural disasters, especially hurricanes, are a litmus test for a presidential administration, reflecting its competence – or lack thereof – during a crisis.

With a month until the presidential election, former President Donald Trump has tried to weaponize criticism of the Biden administration’s response, sometimes with blatant and easily debunked lies, tying what he considers a weak response to one of the most provocative issues in America: immigration.

Harris sought to show she was a leader in complete control during the crisis, appearing on camera to talk about efforts to speed help where it is needed most and visiting shelters to comfort victims. On Wednesday, Harris traveled to Augusta, Georgia, to survey the damage.

Helene made landfall on Thursday and carved a path of destruction across six states, killing more than 200 people in one of the deadliest storms of modern times. The death toll was particularly high in the western mountains of North Carolina.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) said Saturday afternoon that 68 people had died in the state, most of them in the Asheville area. On Saturday, Harris announced that Mecklenburg County, which includes the state’s largest city Charlotte, had been added to a federal disaster declaration.

However, the humanitarian crisis contains elements of political calculus. Two of the hardest-hit places – North Carolina and Georgia – are battleground states coveted by both sides in a race that is essentially a tie. Trump has sought to stoke concerns about the federal government’s response, viewing it as a political cudgel.

At a campaign rally Thursday in Michigan, another battleground state, Trump falsely claimed that the government couldn’t adequately fund the storm response because it used Federal Emergency Management Agency money for migrants “who entered the country illegally.” He claimed that the White House was missing $1 billion that had been earmarked for immigrants.

There is no evidence that the Biden administration used money for migrants; in fact, in 2019, the Trump administration told Congress that it was drawing $271 million from Department of Homeland Security programs, including $155 million from the National Disaster Relief Fund, to pay for space in immigration detention centers.

Trump also continued his rhetoric on Friday and Saturday on his social media site, Truth Social. “People are rightly disgusted by the White House’s response. The worst since Katrina,” we read in one of the posts. A day later, he shared a clip of Fox News’ Sean Hannity about “the worst federal response to a hurricane in the history of our country,” which Hannity’s show alliteratively dubbed “Katrina Kamala.”

On Saturday, the vice president’s office released details of the government’s response to Helene, North Carolina, which includes providing more than $26 million in housing and other assistance to more than 25,000 households in the state. FEMA also sent 5.4 million meals and 6.3 million liters of water to the state. More than 700 FEMA personnel are on scene, and urban search and rescue personnel rescued or supported more than 3,000 survivors.

“FEMA has been with us from the very beginning,” Harris said.

On Wednesday, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas made the case for additional funding from Congress for hurricane relief. But that money, he said, was intended to help fight future storms, not for the current relief effort.

“We are meeting the most urgent needs with the money we have,” Mayorkas said. “We expect another hurricane to hit. FEMA does not have the resources to get through the season.” The latest forecasts predict that a powerful hurricane will hit the Florida Gulf Coast in the middle of the week.

In the memo, the White House warned that the former president’s words could keep victims from seeking the help they need, and called Trump’s comments “poison.” To counter the claims, FEMA has launched an anti-rumor tool.

Harris, for her part, sought to refute the distortions with her physical presence. She canceled a planned bus tour of Pennsylvania to instead go to the area that was almost razed by Helene. Biden also stopped in storm-affected areas in North Carolina, Georgia and Florida.

During each visit, Harris tried to reassure victims that federal aid would be available for as long as they needed it.