Former President Donald Trump falsely claimed that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp hasn’t been able to reach President Joe Biden to discuss Hurricane Helene’s impacts on his state.
“He has been calling the president, but has not been able to get him,” Trump said at a news conference at a furniture store in Valdosta, Georgia.
Yet earlier in the day Kemp, a Republican, said that he initially missed Biden’s call but that he called back and that the two were able to connect Sunday evening.
“He just said, ‘Hey, what do you need?’” Kemp told reporters. “And I told him, you know, we got what we need. We will work through the federal process.”
Kemp said Biden told him to call directly if he needed any additional resources. Kemp said he has “been playing phone tag” with Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, but praised the bipartisan response.
Biden ripped Trump over the false claim Monday.
“He’s lying, and the governor told him he was lying,” Biden told reporters in the Oval Office. “I don’t know why he does this. And the reason I get so angry about — I don’t care about what he says about me, I care what he what he communicates to people that are in need, implies that we’re not doing everything possible. We are.”
“So that’s simply not true, and it’s irresponsible,” Biden added of Trump. He also said he plans to survey storm damage in North Carolina on Wednesday.
Harris told reporters at Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters later in the day that she, too, had connected with Kemp, as well as North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and other local officials.
“I have shared with them that we will do everything in our power to help communities respond and recover. And I’ve shared with them that I plan to be on the ground as soon as possible. But as soon as possible without disrupting any emergency response operations, because that must be the highest priority and the first order of business,” Harris said.
Hurricane Helene made landfall Thursday night in the Florida Panhandle before it ripped through Georgia, leaving more than 500,000 customers without power. It then continued north, causing record flooding in eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina.
The death toll now stands at 116 across six states, according to a count by NBC News. A third of the deaths were reported in North Carolina. The number is likely to increase as recovery and search efforts continue.
Just before he falsely said Kemp and Biden hadn’t spoken, Trump acknowledged the storm hit just weeks before a major presidential election but said he wasn’t thinking about politics.
“At a time like this, when a crisis hits, when our fellow citizens cry out in need, none of that matters,” Trump said. “We are not talking about politics.”
Trump, though, has been taking to social media to take overt political shots at Harris, who put up a post on X that she had been briefed by the head of FEMA, accompanied by a photo.
I was just briefed by @FEMA_Deanne Criswell on the latest developments about the ongoing impacts of Hurricane Helene. We also discussed our Administration’s continued actions to support emergency response and recovery.
I also spoke with @NC_Governor Cooper about the ongoing… pic.twitter.com/nlZPB0h3mO— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) September 30, 2024
Republicans have mocked the photo, saying the sheets of paper look empty and claiming that the headphones aren’t plugged into anything.
“Another FAKE and STAGED photo from someone who has no clue what she is doing,” Trump posted. “You have to plug the cord into the phone for it to work!”
The Harris campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump has also said the federal government and Democratic governors, including Cooper, are “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas.”
When NBC News asked Trump about that remark after his Valdosta news conference, he said, “Just take a look,” but did not respond to follow-up questions.
Outside of falsely stating that Kemp had been unable to make contact with Biden, Trump’s brief remarks focused largely on the truckloads of supplies that arrived with him, including water and fuel.
“We brought a lot of things … trailers, many trailers,” he said.
Trump also gave a direct shoutout to Elon Musk, whom he said he spoke to directly about trying to set up Starlink, portable internet devices owned by SpaceX, a Musk-run aerospace company.
“I just spoke to Elon. We want to get Starlink hooked up,” Trump said. “They have no communication whatsoever.”
Local lawmakers in Georgia praised Trump for coming — but some also said they wished that he would have held off visiting the region until more order had been restored from the destruction wrought by the storm.
Scott James Matheson, the nonpartisan mayor of Valdosta, said he would have preferred that Trump come later in the week to allow for emergency operations to proceed longer. Still, he said that he was “pretty excited” and that “we want the attention, and I certainly love the aid he’s bringing.”
“I would have loved it Wednesday, Thursday or Friday,” he told NBC News said ahead of Trump’s visit, adding, “We’re not going to say ‘no.’”
“We’ll get through it, and we’ll get right back to work,” he said.
He added, however, that if Trump left the city with “a truckload of water, a tanker full of gas,” then it would be “the better for it by a mile.”
Matheson added that Biden called him Sunday night and “offered every level of support.”
“He said there’s just nothing you can ask for that we’re not going to supply,” Matheson said. “He assured me that, he said, nothing’s too hard. It was just a wonderfully supportive phone call.”
Meanwhile, state Rep. John LaHood, a Republican who represents a Valdosta-area district, said he was “good with” Trump’s visit — even if it commanded resources that could otherwise have been devoted to emergency operations.
“I think it brings more attention to the severity of the problems here,” he said before the visit. “I understand resources will be needed, but it’s going to be a quick trip.”
LaHood said that he hadn’t yet heard from Biden or Harris or their teams but that he wouldn’t oppose their visiting, either.
State House Majority Whip James Burchett, a Republican who represents an area just northeast of Valdosta, praised Trump for “being here and bringing awareness to this devastating storm.”
Burchett said he hadn’t heard from Biden or Harris or their teams but was “100% supportive of them coming down.”
“I would welcome any assistance right now,” he said. “This is not a political issue. We need every asset possible.”
Harris canceled planned campaign stops in Las Vegas on Monday and flew back to Washington for a FEMA briefing on the hurricane.
Officials in North Carolina were also clear about wanting national politicians to put off prospective visits.
Sadie Weiner, a spokesperson for Cooper, said he spoke with both Biden and Harris over the weekend and told them not to come “immediately.”
The message “was received positively” by both Biden and Harris, Weiner said, adding that they discussed timing a visit later.
Anderson Clayton, the North Carolina Democratic Party chair, reposted a message on X on Saturday that had said “there is absolutely no reason to have a presidential motorcade/presence in a disaster zone while search & rescue is still underway.”
Clayton didn’t respond to questions from NBC News.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
