Un-Presidential

My boss / supervisor’s as well and he still goes to every game and has season tickets for @ 60 years.

FIRE DAISY & FRAUDY!!!

AP

Trump slams US response to Helene. His own disaster-response record is marked by politics

By MATTHEW DALY

Updated 3:01 PM PDT, September 30, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump criticized the Biden administration’s response to the widespread devastation caused by Hurricane Helene, even as his supporters have called for cuts to federal agencies that warn of weather disasters and deliver relief to hard-hit communities.

As president, Trump delayed disaster aid for hurricane-devastated Puerto Rico and diverted money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency in order to finance an effort to return undocumented migrants to Mexico. And Project 2025, backed by Trump supporters, would restructure FEMA to limit aid to states and says that the National Weather Service, which provides crucial data on hurricanes and other storms, “should be broken up and downsized.”

Trump claimed without evidence Monday that the Biden administration and North Carolina’s Democratic governor were “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas.” And Trump adviser Stephen Miller said President Joe Biden “failed to evacuate or rescue” U.S. citizens, “just like you failed in Afghanistan.’'

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said officials have rescued and supported more than 1,400 people in areas impacted by the storm.

“This is what they do,″ she said, referring to rescue efforts by FEMA and other federal agencies.

“It doesn’t matter which state it is. It doesn’t matter if it’s a red state or blue state,’' Jean-Pierre said Monday. “This is their job — to get food there, to get generators there, to save some lives, to rescue people. And so we are very proud of the work that they’ve done.″

Biden has approved major disaster declarations for Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina, allowing survivors to access funds and resources to jumpstart their recovery immediately. FEMA and other federal agencies, along with private businesses and nonprofit and faith-based organizations, are responding to the disaster in at least seven states, from Florida to Virginia.

The death toll from the storm surpassed 130 people, with some of the worst damage caused by inland flooding in western North Carolina.

On Mondy, Vice President Kamala Harris, who is running against Trump in the presidential election, visited FEMA headquarters in Washington.

She called the devastation “heartbreaking” and vowed that she and Biden will make sure the impacted communities “get what they need to recover,” adding: “The true character of the nation is revealed in moments of hardship.”

FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell surveyed damage with North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper on Monday. She called flooding in the state “historic” and said the storm caused significant infrastructure damage to water systems, communication, roads, and critical transportation routes in multiple states, complicating recovery efforts.

During Trump’s term as president, he visited numerous disaster zones, including the aftermaths of hurricanes, tornados and shootings. But the trips sometimes elicited controversy such as when he tossed paper towels to cheering residents in Puerto Rico in 2017 in the wake of Hurricane Maria.

It also wasn’t until years later, just weeks before the 2020 presidential election, that Trump’s administration released $13 billion in assistance for the territory. A federal government watchdog found that officials hampered an investigation into delays in aid delivery.

Democrats in Congress also criticized Trump for transferring $155 million from FEMA’s operating budget to fund operations to return migrants to Mexico. FEMA officials said at the time that the transfer would not impact disaster relief, but organizations representing emergency planners criticized the move.

Trump also insisted that Alabama, along with the Carolinas and Georgia, would be hit “harder than anticipated” by Hurricane Dorian in 2019. Trump displayed a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration map that was altered with a black Sharpie marker to extend the hurricane’s projected path to include Alabama.

Democrats and some voices in the scientific community have zeroed in on Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s 900-page blueprint of a hard-right turn in U.S. government and society, as proof that a second Trump administration would gut the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center.

Project 2025 calls for refocusing the National Weather Service on “commercial operations,” arguing that it should simply collect data for “private companies such as AccuWeather,” effectively ending public weather forecasting.

The document also calls for the next administration to review the work of the National Hurricane Center and says data collected by the center should be presented neutrally, “without adjustments intended to support any one side in the climate debate.”

Trump has denied that Project 2025 has anything to do with his campaign or second-term agenda. But he previously praised Heritage for the effort, which involved many conservatives who worked in or with his first administration.

During an appearance Monday in Valdosta, Georgia, Trump suggested that Republican Gov. Brian Kemp had been unable to get in touch with Biden regarding relief. But Kemp told reporters that he spoke with Biden the day before and that the president said to “call him directly” if the state has additional needs. “I appreciate that,” said Kemp.

FEMA uses its disaster relief fund to coordinate the federal response to major disasters. It pays for debris removal, repair of public infrastructure and financial assistance for survivors, among other things. The temporary spending bill passed and signed into law last week pumped about $20 billion into the fund and gave FEMA the ability to spend that money more quickly.

That should help the agency respond to the most immediate needs, but lawmakers from both parties recognize that additional money will be needed in the coming months. Lawmakers are expected to return to Washington shortly after the November election and negotiate a full-year spending bill when many lawmakers will seek billions of dollars more for the disaster relief fund.

POLITICO

Trump refused to give California wildfire aid until told how many people there voted for him, ex-aide says

Former White House advisers said Trump hesitated as president to provide disaster aid to California because of the state’s Democratic leanings.

By Scott Waldman and Thomas Frank

10/03/2024 04:23 PM EDT

In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, former President Donald Trump has blasted the Biden administration for its handling of the disaster — going so far as to accuse Democratic leaders of ignoring the needs of Republican storm victims.

But a review of Trump’s record by POLITICO’s E&E News and interviews with two former Trump White House officials show that the former president was flagrantly partisan at times in response to disasters and on at least three occasions hesitated to give disaster aid to areas he considered politically hostile or ordered special treatment for pro-Trump states.

Mark Harvey, who was Trump’s senior director for resilience policy on the National Security Council staff, told E&E News on Wednesday that Trump initially refused to approve disaster aid for California after deadly wildfires in 2018 because of the state’s Democratic leanings.

But Harvey said Trump changed his mind after Harvey pulled voting results to show him that heavily damaged Orange County, California, had more Trump supporters than the entire state of Iowa.

“We went as far as looking up how many votes he got in those impacted areas … to show him these are people who voted for you,” said Harvey, who recently endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris alongside more than 100 other Republican former national security officials.

The exchange — not previously reported — drew a dumbfounded response on social media Thursday from President Joe Biden, who summed up Trump’s attitude as: “You can’t only help those in need if they voted for you.”

“It’s the most basic part of being president, and this guy knows nothing about it,” Biden posted on X, reacting to a tweet about an earlier version of this article.

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom piled on, calling the episode “a glimpse into the future if we elect” Trump.

The Trump campaign did not respond to an E&E News request seeking comment.

Both Harvey and Olivia Troye, a former Trump White House homeland security adviser who backed up Harvey’s claim, say Trump is approaching Hurricane Helene with a similar mindset. They say he is politicizing a disaster that has killed more than 170 people in six states. And Troye, who has endorsed Harris for president, accused Trump of trying to divert attention from his own political liabilities on disaster responses.

She said if Trump wins the White House again, he will view disasters through a political lens that values personal loyalty over damage considerations.

“It’s not going to be about that American voter out there who isn’t even really paying attention to politics, and their house is gone, and the president of the United States is judging them for how they voted, and they didn’t even vote,” Troye said in an interview Wednesday.

Troye, who played a lead role in federal disaster response, said local political leaders regularly called her office begging for help because Trump refused to sign documents approving aid. Troye said she had to repeatedly enlist former Vice President Mike Pence to apply pressure.

Added Harvey: “There’s no empathy for the survivors. It is all about getting your photo-op, right? Disaster theater to make him look good.”

On Monday, Trump turned a visit to flood-damaged Valdosta, Georgia, into a partisan attack. He falsely claimed the Biden administration — and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) — were “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas” and that GOP governors couldn’t get the president on the phone.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, both Republicans, confirmed that wasn’t true and praised the federal response. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) also applauded the Biden administration’s response to Helene, which damaged the southeastern part of the state.

While Trump is alone among political leaders in accusing President Joe Biden of ignoring the Republican victims of Hurricane Helene, his four years in the White House show that at times he played favorites with disaster response.

‘They love me in the Panhandle. … What do they need?’
In early 2019, shortly after taking office, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida met with Trump at the White House to ask a favor.

Months earlier, while DeSantis was running for governor, Hurricane Michael had caused massive damage in the Florida Panhandle.

DeSantis asked: Would the president order the Federal Emergency Management Agency to pay 100 percent of recovery costs instead of its customary 75 percent?

“This is Trump country — and they need your help,” DeSantis told the president, according to the Republican governor’s autobiography, “The Courage to Be Free.”

“They love me in the Panhandle,” Trump replied, according to DeSantis’ book, published in 2023 as he was preparing to run for president. “I must have won 90 percent of the vote out there. Huge crowds. What do they need?”

On March 9, 2019, Trump signed an order directing FEMA to pay 100 percent of most disaster costs in Florida. As a result, FEMA paid roughly $350 million more than it would have without Trump’s intervention, according to an E&E News analysis.

But less than two months earlier, Trump threatened to veto a disaster-aid measure in Congress that would have FEMA pay 100 percent of all disaster costs in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands after Hurricane Maria killed more than 3,000 people.

The White House said in Jan. 16, 2019, policy statement that it “strongly objects” to the proposal.

“Cost shares are critical to ensure that work with impacted jurisdictions is collaborative and that both partners have incentives to operate efficiently and control costs,” the Office of Management and Budget wrote.

The legislation failed in the Senate.

Presidents often increase the federal share of disaster costs for the worst disasters. Trump himself increased the federal share following 23 disasters during his administration including after Hurricane Maria, a Congressional Research Service report shows.

Trump paid 100 percent for Maria — but only for FEMA funds spent on debris cleanup and emergency protection. Under the legislation Trump opposed, FEMA would have paid 100 percent of all recovery costs for Maria including reconstruction.

The Department of Homeland Security Inspector General issued eight reports criticizing FEMA’s response to Hurricane Maria in both Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands during the Trump administration. The department oversees FEMA.

An IG report in 2020 found that FEMA “mismanaged the distribution” of $257 million in commodities, which “took an average of 69 days” to reach their destinations.

The report also found that FEMA gave hurricane survivors in Puerto Rico junk food including Oreos, Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal and Airheads candy. “Vendors were at capacity in providing nutritional meals following Hurricane Harvey,” the IG wrote, “and could not produce any more to support the effort in Puerto Rico.”

The Department of Housing and Urban Development Inspector General found that the White House delayed the release of $8.3 billion in HUD disaster aid for Puerto Rico that Congress approved in February 2018. HUD officials told the IG that the White House undertook a review process that it “had never before required.”

The money was allocated in January 2020.

The Trump administration also withheld for nearly two years a report that could have helped push Congress to improve HUD’s disaster-aid program, E&E News reported. The report, completed in April 2019, was released the day before Trump left office.

Harvey, the former Trump special assistant, remembers trying to push Trump to get money out the door to Puerto Rico.

“It was very much a business deal, like, ‘This a lot of money. What are we getting in return for it?’” Harvey said. “There was still just a whole lot of stall, stall, stall, don’t give them what they need yet.”

“It just goes into this pattern of, ‘We’re not awarding that, these aren’t my people.’ That general sense of, ‘I am here to help my people, and these aren’t my people, so I don’t have a responsibility to help.’”

Trump’s approach to Puerto Rico stands in contrast to how he responded to a separate disaster in Alabama, where he won 63 percent of the vote in 2016.

In early 2019, days after tornadoes killed 23 people in Alabama, Trump wrote on Twitter, “FEMA has been told directly by me to give the A Plus treatment to the Great State of Alabama and the wonderful people who have been so devastated by the Tornadoes.”

There is no indication that FEMA gave special treatment to Alabama.

‘Get the politics out of the disaster’
The dim view of Trump’s response to disasters isn’t shared by all his former officials.

Former Trump FEMA Administrator Brock Long denied that the president slow-walked aid to Democratic areas. He said the evidence was there in the amount of money that went to California for wildfire recovery and to Puerto Rico after Maria.

But, Long said, the agency has too long been subjected to politicization from Republicans and Democrats alike.

Long, who was in North Carolina this week and described the destruction as “generational” damage, said that dragging its recovery into campaign politics would be very harmful.

That’s why he wants FEMA to no longer be headed by a political appointee.

“You would hope that in major disasters like this, you could get the politics out of the disaster, and you would hope that we could focus on the people that are hurting,” Long said. “Let them be the agency that can function and get the job done without politics on both sides.”

Trump approved 89 disasters in states that opposed him, including 17 in California — more than any state, an E&E News analysis of FEMA data shows.

More than 80 percent of the disaster requests that Trump denied came from governors of states that he won in 2016, an E&E News analysis of FEMA data shows.

“There really is no difference that I’ve seen,” Chad Berginnis, executive director of the Association of State Floodplain Managers, said in an interview this week.

“Brock Long, just like Deanne Criswell, are committed emergency managers trying to fill the intent of their agency and are doing as good a job as they possibly can,” Berginnis said, referring to FEMA administrators under Trump and President Joe Biden.

DeSantis is a racist son of a bitch. Forget about YOUR agenda. HER agenda. Take the fucking call.