Vice President Harris and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) are trading barbs as his state prepares for a potentially life-threatening storm this week.
Hurricane Milton is slated to slam into the west coast of Florida starting Wednesday, prompting most of the state to be under evacuation orders due to the storm surge and high winds. When asked Monday to respond to reports that DeSantis was dodging her calls, Harris ripped DeSantis for being “utterly irresponsible” and “selfish.”
“People are in desperate need of support right now, and playing political games at this moment, in these crisis situations — these are the height of emergency situations — is just utterly irresponsible, and it is selfish,” Harris told reporters.
She added: “It is about political gamesmanship instead of doing the job that you took an oath to do, which is to put the people first.”
Multiple reports said that Harris called the Florida governor about the storm but that DeSantis had not taken the vice president’s calls. However, DeSantis told reporters during a press conference on Monday that he did not know that the vice president called him.
DeSantis spoke with Fox News host Sean Hannity later on Monday to discuss his state’s response to Milton and Harris accusing him of playing “political games.” He emphasized that his administration has been “laser focused on leveraging all resources available, including from the federal government.”
“And so for Kamala Harris to try to say that my sole focus on the people of Florida is somehow selfish, is delusional. She has no role in this. 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,” he said.
He also blamed her for politicizing the storm.
“And I will say this, I’ve had storms under both President Trump and President Biden, and I’ve worked well with both of them. She’s the first one who’s trying to politicize the storm, and she’s doing that just because of her campaign,” he said.
“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 percent on that mission,” he added.
Emilie Simons, a White House senior deputy press secretary, wrote on social media platform X that President Biden spoke with DeSantis and Tampa Mayor Jane Castor about the storm on Monday.
Almost the entirety of Florida’s west coast was under a hurricane or tropical storm warning as the storm and its 145 mph (230 kph) winds spun just off Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, creeping toward the state and sucking energy from the Gulf of Mexico’s warm waters. With the storm expected to remain fairly strong as it crosses Florida, parts of the eastern coast were put under hurricane warnings early Tuesday, as well.
Milton’s center could come ashore Wednesday night in the Tampa Bay area, which has a population of more than 3.3 million people. The county that’s home to Tampa ordered evacuations for areas adjacent to the bay and for all mobile and manufactured homes by Tuesday night.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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