Berliner Tageblatt - 'Get a life': Hurricane whips up US election storm

As Florida reeled from Milton and the recent Hurricane Helene, a political tempest was brewing as Trump and his Republicans unleashed a flood of falsehoods about the White House response to the two storms.

Biden and Harris have launched a feisty fightback as they seek to show they are in control of the situation, and accuse the former president of putting survivors in danger.

The 81-year-old president testily said, "Are you kidding me?" when a reporter asked after a hurricane briefing on Thursday if he had spoken to Trump, the man he beat in the 2020 election, to tell him to stop the misinformation.

Biden then stopped, looked directly into the television camera and said in mock commander-in-chief style: "Mr president Trump, former president Trump -- get a life, man, help these people."

He took another potshot on his way out, saying that "the public will hold him accountable" at the ballot box in November.

Biden dropped out of the 2024 race and handed the baton to his vice president after a disastrous debate against Trump, but is keenly aware the way his administration handles the hurricane response could weigh on her election chances.

- 'Lies' -

Harris also attacked the former president, after he spoke about wind turbines in a campaign speech where he mocked its proponents for thinking it "sounds so wonderful."

"Yesterday, I met with members of the federal team that is working around the clock to deliver relief to Americans affected by Helene and Milton," Harris said on X while on the campaign trail in Nevada.

"Meanwhile, Donald Trump spread lies and educated us about the sound of the wind."

Far from fostering national unity in the face of catastrophe, the double whammy of hurricanes has fueled US political divisions less than four weeks before an agonizingly close and bitterly fought election.

"Hopefully on January 20, you're going to have somebody who's really going to help you," Trump said in a video message on Thursday to the people of Florida, where he lives, in a reference to the date the next president will be sworn into office.

Trump has repeatedly taken aim at Harris and Biden, slamming them for being out of Washington when Helene hit two weeks ago and then falsely claiming the White House had not been in contact with the governors of affected states.

Biden accused Trump of an "onslaught of lies" including that money for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was being diverted to migrants; that flood-hit property is confiscated; and that storm victims are only getting $750 in total compensation.

US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said hurricane recovery workers were now receiving threats online.

"We are seeing horrific hate speech," Mayorkas told a White House briefing, adding that it was a "motivating force for people to do harm, and it has got to stop."

- 'So stupid' -

As Milton left a trail of devastation across Florida and at least 10 people dead, the conservative Republican governor and former presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis further stirred things up over claims that he'd refused to take calls from Harris.

"What she's doing is she's trying to inject herself into this because of her political campaign," said DeSantis, adding that he "didn't even know she was trying to reach me."

DeSantis added: "I don't have time for those games. I don't care about her campaign. Obviously I'm not a supporter of hers."

In a brief moment of bipartisanship, Biden said Wednesday as Hurricane Milton drew near that the Florida governor had been "very gracious" when they spoke.

But he also launched into another condemnation of right-wing hurricane misinformation -- especially conspiracy theories spread by pro-Trump Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene that the hurricanes were geo-engineered.

"It's so stupid," he said. "It's got to stop."

F.Müller--BTB