WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris is at the center of a new storm for forgoing annual hurricane season preparedness briefings that were a staple of her predecessor Mike Pence’s calendar — with critics arguing the omission reflects how she may govern as president.
Foes of the Democratic presidential nominee highlighted the missing briefings as the death toll from Hurricane Helene passed 143 in the Southeast — as Harris scrambled back to Washington from Las Vegas Monday to attend a FEMA briefing and booked a trip Wednesday to storm-hit Augusta, Ga.
“Harris hasn’t demonstrated the ability — or desire — to do the apolitical parts of the job that have a huge impact on our lives,” a former Pence aide told The Post as criticism of the flat-footed federal response to Helene became a campaign issue. “Why should Americans trust her to start in the Oval Office?”
Then-President Donald Trump and Pence held pre-hurricane season preparedness meetings with federal emergency officials in each of their four years in office. President Biden had similar meetings in 2021, 2022 and 2023 — though Harris doesn’t seem to have joined or held her own parallel events.
Former acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf told The Post that annual drop-ins from the president and vice president are important and that the omission calls to mind Harris’ role as Biden’s point person on illegal immigration.
“It just fits a larger pattern,” Wolf said.
“It doesn’t seem like she wants to roll up her sleeves and actually get into the governing of the country, which is hard to do. It’s not glamorous. It’s a lot of briefings.”
“My guess,” he added, “is she would act the very same way [as president], which is hands off — ‘I’m not going to run the country. I’m going to put a team together, and they’ll run it, and I’ll kind of talk about it,’ which is obviously a very different model than what President Trump did.”
Wolf, who held a number of high-profile roles that dealt with emergency management in the Trump-Pence administration, said that the briefings served to put FEMA workers on their toes — and also to force their managers to analyze anticipated issues — while also facilitating support from on high.
“It’s like any other job where your boss is asking you specific questions — you get more motivated to do a better job,” Wolf said.
“It’s not that they do a lesser job. It’s just they know that the importance isn’t being placed on on their work.”
FEMA currently is struggling to get a hold of the situation in the areas hardest-hit by flooding, including in western North Carolina.
“The people in western North Carolina feel let down, deservedly so,” Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC), whose district includes some of the worst-impacted areas, told NewsNation Monday.
“The response has been disappointing,” Edwards said. “We’ve begun to see some resources brought in today, but the storm was over about 80 hours ago. The storm was over about 10 a.m. Friday. We knew that the storm was coming and only today are we beginning to see the first FEMA employees and trailers and helicopters come in.”
It’s unclear why exactly Harris did not join the Biden hurricane preparedness briefings held during the first three years of their administration or why she didn’t hold her own — as Pence did one year.
Harris’ office noted her role responding to various natural disasters, but did not contradict the central claim by Republicans that she didn’t hold prep sessions for hurricane season.
Spokesman Ernesto Apreza pointed to three Harris hurricane-focused events, including her July visit to Houston after Hurricane Beryl; an April 2023 visit to the University of Miami where Harris announced $562 million in federal funding for “climate resilient projects” in 149 coastal cities, administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; and an August 2022 briefing from FEMA and NOAA leaders in Miami on “climate resilience.”
“Vice President Harris regularly receives briefings from relevant federal agencies and officials on emerging storms, other natural disasters, and the federal government’s response efforts,” Apreza said.
“She’s also gone to FEMA headquarters and NOAA’s National Hurricane Center to see preparations first hand, and visited Houston’s emergency operation center in the wake of Hurricane Beryl. It is a top priority for the Vice President to ensure communities impacted by natural disasters have the resources they need to respond.”
Interest from Pence ahead of each hurricane season was “almost like a forcing factor” in the prior administration, Wolf said.
“It requires the FEMA administrator to get with his senior leadership to say, ‘OK, here are our critical issues that we’re going to brief the president and the vice president on. Is everyone in agreement? … This is what we’re tracking, this is where we’re going to need help, this is where we’re deploying … we’re pre-positioned here, here and here. I’m going to ask DOD for assets here.’”
Wolf recalled that “what I would often see Vice President Pence say is, ‘Great. That sounds good. If you have any problems getting those assets let me know’,” adding that early communication makes getting the vice president on the phone to help with subsequent asks happen much more quickly.
“It appears as though they underestimated the severity of the storm. And I’m not sure how you do that with all the technology today,” Wolf said of the current response.
“They pre-positioned a lot of assets and resources in Florida, that’s where it makes landfall. So OK, but they didn’t think about the downstream effects to a certain extent to the level that they needed to. And now it’s [playing] catch-up.
“I’ve seen internal stuff from FEMA that all their [categories of response needs] are still red in the state of North Carolina, and we’re now three days past [Helene].”
In their first year, Pence and Trump led an August 2017 meeting at FEMA headquarters with governors and emergency officials to discuss “the nation’s preparedness for hurricane season.” In June 2018, Trump, Pence and the administration’s Cabinet secretaries reconvened at FEMA HQ for another prep meeting.
Trump had a private briefing from officials in June 2019 and Pence visited the National Hurricane Center in Florida the same month for an update. In May 2020, Trump and Pence hosted the FEMA director in the Oval Office for a hurricane season briefing, despite the raging COVID-19 pandemic.
“Apparently VP Harris was also named Hurricane Czar given how little concern she demonstrated for Americans in the path of these deadly storms,” the former aide to Pence said, referring to her role leading Biden’s efforts to reduce illegal immigration, which instead surged.
“You’ve got to walk and chew gum in the executive branch, and Mike Pence managed to juggle these briefings and a re-election campaign while overseeing the government’s response to a global pandemic.”
