SAGINAW, Michigan — Former President Donald Trump accused Vice President Kamala Harris of being “totally unprepared” for Hurricane Helene on Thursday as he compared the federal response to President George W. Bush’s handling of Hurricane Katrina.
“This is the worst response in the history of hurricanes. A certain president, I will not name him, destroyed his reputation with Katrina, and this is doing even worse,” Trump told a crowd of supporters in Saginaw, Michigan. “She’s doing even worse than he did.”
More than 200 people have died since the Category 4 storm barrelled across the Southeastern United States last week. President Joe Biden approved disaster declarations in the hours and days after the storm made landfall and has since traveled to the affected states, but election season has injected heightened scrutiny, and political attacks, into the federal response.
Trump, speaking from Georgia on Monday, falsely claimed that Biden was not taking the calls of Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA). On Thursday, he said Biden is “universally” getting poor marks for his handling of Helene in a social media post despite the praise of affected Republican governors.
In 2005, Bush faced fierce Democratic criticism over his handling of Katrina, a hurricane that left about 1,400 people dead and more than $100 billion in damage, especially in New Orleans.
Biden has also faced criticism. Last weekend, he drew scrutiny for monitoring the situation from his beach home in Delaware instead of the White House, and multiple Republicans have said Biden has been too slow to act.
Still, Trump has attempted to generate a sense of scandal around the disaster, claiming on Thursday that there is no money for relief efforts because overburdened cities are housing illegal migrants at the federal government’s expense.
“They spent it all on illegal migrants,” Trump said in Michigan. “They stole the FEMA money, just like they stole it from a bank, so they can give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them this season.”
The Biden administration has warned it does not have enough funding to last through hurricane season, but the two pools of money are unrelated.
Trump’s broadsides come as Biden made trips to Georgia and Florida to survey the damage on Thursday. Harris toured Georgia on Wednesday and will travel to North Carolina in the coming days.
As president, Trump received criticism for delaying aid to Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, though he told rallygoers in Michigan, “We had the best four years with hurricanes.”
“We took care of people, and I was on the phone — I was screaming at people, they hate my guts to this day,” Trump said.
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The Harris campaign did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
Biden invoked a different president on Thursday as he toured a Georgia pecan farm suffering from storm damage, quoting Jimmy Carter as he told reporters, “Tremendous progress can be made when we persevere through difficult challenges.”
