Florida Governor Ron DeSantis slammed Vice President Kamala Harris this week for trying to play political games with the disaster response to Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton.
An NBC News reporter with a history of bias against DeSantis reported Monday afternoon that the governor was not taking calls from Harris because the calls appeared to be “political” in nature.
Harris seized on the report, claiming to reporters that DeSantis was rejecting her calls because he was the one “playing political games.”
“In these crisis situations — these are the height of emergency situations — is 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,” she claimed.
The governor noted during a subsequent press conference on Monday evening that he had no idea that she called, he never received a call from her, and the quote that he believed she was playing “political” games did not come from anyone in his office which has historically been tight-lipped.
“I didn’t know that she had called, so I’m not sure who they called,” he said. “They didn’t call me, and their characterization of it was something that they did, it wasn’t anything that anybody in my office did, in terms of saying that it was political.”
During an interview Monday night, DeSantis said the notion that he was “selfish” for focusing on the state of Florida was “delusional.”
“She has no role in this,” he noted. “In fact, she’s been vice president for three and a half years. I’ve dealt with a number of storms under this administration. She has never contributed anything to any of these efforts. And so what I think is selfish is her trying to blunder into this. She has no role in this process.”
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“I’ve had storms under both President Trump and President Biden, and I worked well with both of them,” he continued. “She’s the first one who’s trying to politicize the storm, and she’s doing that just because of her campaign. She’s trying to get some type of an edge. She knows she’s doing poorly, and so she’s playing these political games. I don’t have time for political games. I’ve got people whose lives are on the line. I’ve got people whose homes and their possessions are on the line, and we are focused 100% on that mission.”
During a subsequent interview Tuesday morning, when asked about Harris’ comments, he said that what is happening right now is not about her.
“It’s not about you, Kamala, it’s about the people of Florida,” he said, adding again that Harris was the first person he’s ever encountered who is trying to politicize a hurricane.
“She has never called on any of the storms we’ve had since she’s been vice president until apparently now,” he said. “Why all of the sudden is she trying to parachute in and inject herself when she’s never shown any interest in the past? We know it’s because of politics. We know it’s because of her campaign. I have zero time to entertain these political games.”
He said that he has had good responses from President Joe Biden with respect to the current storms.
“Harris is not even in the chain of command,” he added. “She has no role in this. I mean, the idea that I should be like worrying about her when I’m focused on the task at hand is just quite frankly, absurd.”
