Harris and Biden head to the Southeast for firsthand looks at damage from Helene

By CHRIS MEGERIAN and COLLEEN LONG

GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) — Over the past four years, President Joe Biden has jetted off to survey damage and console victims after tornadoes, wildfires and tropical storms. It's not a role that Kamala Harris has played as vice president.

But on Wednesday, they headed to separate sites across the Southeast to grapple with the damage from Hurricane Helene, seeking to demonstrate commitment and competence in helping devastated communities after Donald Trump’s false claims about their administration’s response.

Biden landed in Greenville, South Carolina, and was touring impacted parts of North Carolina, while Harris was going to Georgia.

On the tarmac, Biden wore boots and grabbed the hand of Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer who was on-hand to greet him, as was South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham. The White House announced during his flight that he’d also be visiting storm damaged parts of Florida and Georgia on Thursday.

The mayor noted that they could not close down the area’s one operable road for Biden’s motorcade.

“We’re going down to see ... the damage done," Biden said before leaving Washington. He also made a point of mentioning how an ongoing dockworkers strike could make getting supplies to hard-hit areas more difficult.

“Natural disasters are incredibly consequential. The last thing we need on top of that is a man-made disaster that’s going on at the ports,” the president said. “We’re getting pushback already, we’re hearing from the folks regionally that they’re having trouble getting product that they need because of the port strike.”

Harris' stop, meanwhile, is serving as a political test in the midst of a humanitarian crisis. She's trying to step into a role for which Biden is well known — showing the empathy that Americans expect in times of tragedy — in the closing stretch of her campaign for president.

She last visited scenes of natural disasters as a California senator, including when she went to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria in 2017 and when she walked through charred wreckage in Paradise, California, after the Camp Fire in 2018.

Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Harris’ campaign manager and former state director in her Senate office, said the vice president uses her experience consoling victims as a courtroom prosecutor to connect with people after tragedies.

She said the trip to Georgia was a chance for Harris "to continue to show her leadership and her ability to get things done, versus Donald Trump and JD Vance who want to dismantle the basic services and the role that the government should play.”

Trump, the Republican nominee, traveled to Valdosta, Georgia, on Monday with a Christian charity organization that brought trucks of fuel, food, water and other supplies.

After arriving, Trump accused Biden of “sleeping” and not responding to calls from Gov. Brian Kemp, R-Ga. However, Kemp had spoken with Biden the previous day, and the governor said the state was getting everything it needed.

Biden was infuriated by Trump’s claim, saying Trump was “lying, and the governor told him he was lying.”

The White House said Wednesday that as many as 1,000 active-duty soldiers, part of an Infantry Battalion Task Force based out of Fort Liberty, North Carolina, will begin work helping to deliver food, fuel and supplies in the region.

“Even before Hurricane Helene hit, I directed my team to do everything possible to prepare to support communities in the storm’s path,” Biden said in a statement. “I mobilized the entire Federal government to bring every possible resource to the fight to save lives and help those in urgent need.”

The death toll climbed to at least 178 people, and power and cellular service remained unavailable in some places.

“We have to jumpstart this recovery process," Biden said Tuesday. “People are scared to death. This is urgent.”

The president was set to view storm damage from the air as roads and highways are still impassable in many areas, before heading to Raleigh, North Carolina, for a briefing.

Trump claimed without evidence that Democratic leaders were withholding help from Republican areas, an accusation that better describes his own approach to disaster relief. He recently threatened that he would withhold wildfire assistance from California because of disagreements with Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.

When Trump was president, Puerto Rico was devastated by Hurricane Maria, which killed 3,000 people. His administration waited until the fall of 2020, just weeks before the presidential election, to release $13 billion in assistance for Puerto Rico’s recovery. A federal government watchdog also found that Trump administration officials hampered an investigation into delays in the aid delivery.

During a visit there, he was criticized for tossing paper towel rolls to survivors at a relief center. The gesture seemed to go over well in the room but was widely panned as insensitive to those who were suffering. He also questioned whether the death toll was accurate, claiming it rose “like magic.”

Harris visited Puerto Rico after Maria as part of a bipartisan delegation.

“When disaster hits anywhere in America, our government has a basic responsibility to commit the resources necessary to save lives, accurately assess damage, and rebuild communities," she wrote on Twitter in 2018. "We now know that after Hurricane Maria, our government failed Puerto Rico at every level.”

Last month, on the seventh anniversary of Maria, Harris recalled speaking with Puerto Ricans who had lost businesses and homes.

“They didn’t need paper towels thrown at them — they needed real help and partnership,” she said.