Trump and Harris are the last to deal with the consequences

WASHINGTON – Another presidential election was marred by a hurricane.

In political terms, Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden are hoping that the recovery from Hurricane Helene will be similar to the federal government's response to Hurricane Sandy in 2012 – a fairly smooth process that was a credit to the last Democratic-led White House in a presidential election season .

Former President Donald Trump, meanwhile, is trying to turn the latest natural disaster to hit the US in an election year into the Harris-Biden version of 1992's Hurricane Andrew – a slow and sloppy response that sealed the political fate of defeated President George HW Bush.

“There is no one who has handled a hurricane or storm worse than what he is doing right now,” Trump told supporters in Saginaw, Michigan, on Thursday evening.

Trump's indictment contained falsehoods – he claimed that federal disaster funds went to migrants and that Georgia's Republican governor, Brian Kemp, had difficulty reaching Biden, but neither was the case – and was credited to the Republican nominee for the 2024 White House accused of pursuing politics in disaster relief during his presidency.

As he toured the devastated areas of Georgia, Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina, Biden urged people to put politics aside and try to help as many storm victims as possible.

“If you do that, I hope we start to break this fanatical partisanship that exists,” Biden said during a visit to Ray City, Georgia. “I mean that sincerely.” There’s no justification for that.”

This election's hurricane debate is particularly heated in Georgia and North Carolina, the storm-ravaged swing states that are recipients of candidate visits this week.

In Augusta, Georgia, Harris did not mention Trump by name but told residents, “We are here for the long haul…The coordination we are committed to will be long-lasting to bring families and residents.” Get the neighborhoods back on track.”

Disaster politics is nothing new

Disaster policy has been a staple of presidential politics, from the post-World War II flu epidemic in 1918-1920 to the start of the COVID pandemic in 2020.

After all, fall campaigns come in the middle of flu season, although any disaster—and the government's response to it—can change the shape of American politics.

During the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, President Calvin Coolidge appointed a prominent official to lead the relief effort: Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover.

Hoover was already known for his food deliveries to Belgium during the World War and rode all the way to the White House as a flood relief worker (where he eventually fell into an economic catastrophe known as the Great Depression, although that's another story).

President Lyndon Johnson created a template for modern presidents in 1965 when he traveled to Louisiana to survey the damage caused by Hurricane Betsy. LBJ assumed personal control of the salvage operation.

“Presidents — as chief executives and sole leaders chosen by the entire country — are expected to take actions that protect and help Americans,” said political scientist Lara Brown, author of “Jockeying for the American Presidency: The Political Opportunism of Aspirants”. “

“When disasters happen,” she said, “Americans look to presidents to see how well their promises of compassion, protection and aid match their actions.”

1992: A Warning to Future Presidents

The cautionary tale is President George Herbert Walker Bush.

By the time Bush sought re-election in 1992, he was already facing problems from a weakening economy and a fierce challenge from Democrat Bill Clinton.

Then came Hurricane Andrew in August, which devastated the southern coast of Florida.

In his biography of the elder Bush, historian Timothy Naftali wrote: “It took too many days for the U.S. government to respond adequately.”

Bush ended up losing a three-candidate election that included independent Ross Perot, although the incumbent Republican president (narrowly) won Florida.

Another cautionary tale: Katrina

His son, Republican George W. Bush, was in charge of keeping track when four hurricanes hit Florida in six weeks during the 2004 hurricane season, another presidential election year.

The next year, after winning his second term, Bush suffered from the sloppy response to Hurricane Katrina, an example of what not to do.

In his memoirs, Bush said that his failures in responding to Katrina had added to existing stresses: “The aftermath of Katrina—along with the failure of Social Security reform and the drumbeat of violence in Iraq—made the fall of 2005 a damaging time in my life Presidency.” .”

The memories of Katrina are so vivid that Trump – no fan of the Bush family – brought them up in his recent speech in Michigan.

“A certain president, I won't name him, destroyed his reputation in Katrina,” Trump said in Saginaw.

Collaborating on Hurricane Sandy

Incumbent President Barack Obama fared better in October 2012, when Hurricane Sandy devastated the coast of New Jersey.

Obama promoted cooperation with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a prominent Republican, and the Democratic president defeated Republican candidate Mitt Romney.

When Christie ran for president in 2016, Republicans criticized him for his collaboration with Obama. One primary opponent mocked the New Jersey governor by saying, “He was like a little boy: 'Oh, I'm on the president's side.'”

“Remember, he was flying in a helicopter and he was really excited,” said that rival, then a New York businessman named Donald Trump. “I said, 'I would have put you in my helicopter – that's much nicer.'”

Mike DuHaime, a former adviser to Christie, said voters in his home state of New Jersey loved Christie for working with Obama and overwhelmingly re-elected him governor in 2014.

However, the Republican presidential caucus and primary voters “punished” Christie when he ran for president, DuHaime said, “as if cooperating with the federal government during the greatest natural disaster in the state's history was somehow wrong.”

He added: “At some point, compromise and bipartisanship became dirty words on the far right and the far left.”

A political lens

As Trump seeks to criticize Harris and Biden over Hurricane Helene, some of his own former administration officials said he played disaster relief politics during his time in the Oval Office.

Trump was hesitant to provide disaster relief to areas he viewed as leaning Democratic, including California, as wildfires raged, according to a report by Politico's E&E News, which cited interviews with two former Trump aides.

Biden retweeted the article and said of the allegations: “You can't help those in need only if they voted for you.”

“It's the most fundamental part of being president, and this guy knows nothing about it,” the president added.

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung called the story “fake news” that never happened. “None of this is true and is nothing more than a made-up story from someone's insane imagination,” Cheung told USA TODAY.

One of the former Trump administration officials quoted by E&E News, Olivia Troye, told USA TODAY that “it was so frustrating to see Trump attack others over disaster relief this week.”

“We don’t look at disaster relief through a political lens,” Troye said.

Contributor: Joey Garrison

Disaster politics is nothing new

1992: A Warning to Future Presidents

Another cautionary tale: Katrina

Collaborating on Hurricane Sandy

A political lens

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