Vice-President Kamala Harris ripped Florida Ron DeSantis (R) for refusing to take calls from the White House as officials continue recovery efforts from Hurricane Helene and prepare for another major storm to make landfall this week.
According to NBC News, DeSantis declined calls from both Harris and President Biden because he said they “seemed political.”
President Joe Biden visited Florida last week to survey storm damage on the ground, but DeSantis turned down an invitation to join him, choosing instead holding a separate press conference with reporters, CNN reported.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday that it’s up to DeSantis to respond to Harris or Biden regarding hurricane relief or recovery, adding that the Biden administration continues to work with state and local officials in Florida ahead of Hurricane Milton’s landfall.
“If you have the president and you have the vice president reaching out to offer up assistance provided to your constituents, the people who live in your state, to make sure we are doing everything that we need to do from federal response—and we’re reaching out, offering our support, that’s where…it is up to [DeSantis] if he wants to respond to us or not,” Jean-Pierre said.
Harris has also reached out to DeSantis multiple times since Hurricane Helene made landfall in his state, but the governor has not taken the vice president’s calls.
Harris responded to the report on Monday saying that “moments of crisis, if nothing else, should really be the moment that anyone who calls themselves a leader says they’re going to put politics aside and put the people first.”
“People are in desperate need of support right now,” she continued. “And playing political games at this moment in these crisis situations, these are the height of the emergency situations. It’s just utterly irresponsible, and it is selfish, and it is about political gamesmanship instead of doing the job that you took an oath to do, which is to put the people first.”
At a press conference, DeSantis claimed he never declined Harris’ call.
“I didn’t know that she had called,” he said. “I’m not sure who they called. They didn’t call me. Their characterization of it was something that they did. It wasn’t anything that anybody in my office did, in terms of saying it was political.”
DeSantis also praised the federal government’s response to the hurricane.
“We want to use whatever resources are available to be able to help Floridians prepare and respond to this storm,” he said. “But everything we’ve asked for from President Biden, he has approved, and we do think we’ll get more approvals for some of the individual assistance and the debris removal after landfall.”
