Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had harsh words for Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday night, picking a fight with the Democratic nominee after he reportedly failed to answer her calls about preparations for Hurricane Milton.
Earlier in the day Harris called the Florida governor’s actions “selfish” and “utterly irresponsible”—a characterization that DeSantis apparently resented.
“For Kamala Harris to try to say that my sole focus on the people of Florida is somehow selfish is delusional,” DeSantis said during an interview on Fox News’ Hannity. “She has no role in this. In fact, she’s been vice president now 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. What I think is selfish is her trying to blunder into this.”
The feud between the two politicians began after multiple outlets reported DeSantis was dodging calls from Harris about the massive storm, which is currently expected to make landfall over the next few days.
“Kamala was trying to reach out, and we didn’t answer,” an anonymous DeSantis aide told NBC News on Monday. A source close to the governor also confirmed the same to ABC News hours later.
The anonymous DeSantis aide said the governor declined to take Harris’ calls because they “seemed political.” They were unsure if DeSantis had been in communication with President Joe Biden.
Harris offered her own harsh words for the governor after reporters asked her about the evaded calls at Joint Base Andrews on Monday.
“It’s 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.”
Speaking at a press conference primarily about storm prep earlier on Monday, DeSantis said he wasn’t aware Harris had tried to contact him. “I didn’t know that she had called,” DeSantis told reporters. “So I’m not sure who they called, 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 it was political.”
DeSantis said he was prepared to “hop on the phone very quickly” if they need any more federal resources from the White House or FEMA. “We have gotten approvals for everything that we’ve asked for.”
“This is not a time for politics,” the governor later added when reporters pressed him on the missed calls.
By Monday night, the Florida governor was irate. Speaking to Fox News’ Sean Hannity, DeSantis accused Harris of trying to “politicize the storm.”
DeSantis accused the vice president of using the storm to gain an edge in the presidential campaign. “I don’t have time for political games,” DeSantis told the Fox host.
Milton is projected to make landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast by Wednesday. It has rapidly intensified over the last 24 hours from Category 1 to a now Category 5 storm—sustaining wind speeds over 157 miles per hour. Milton’s maximum wind speeds are currently 180 miles per hour, according to the most recent update from the National Hurricane Center.
The storm is projected to hit the Sunshine State less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region as a Category 4 storm.
When asked about the dodged calls, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said “that’s really for the governor to speak to.”
“We invited the governor to come and survey the damaged areas with the president,” Jean-Pierre said at a press briefing on Monday, referring to Biden’s trip to visit the states damaged by Hurricane Helene last week. “It was his decision not to attend and not be there with the president,” said Jean-Pierre.
DeSantis was in the Tampa Bay area for a scheduled press conference at the same time Biden was visiting northern Florida.
At his press conference on Monday, the Florida governor said he didn’t know the White House had tried to contact him since then. “Biden called me a couple days ago with Helene when I was on a helicopter. I didn’t have any issues, they had helped us with what we’d done. I’m not aware that he’s tried to call since then—he certainly hasn’t tried to call my phone. So I don’t know quite where they’re getting that information.”
“If you have the president and you have the vice president reaching out to offer up assistance provided to your constituents, the people who live in your state, to make sure we are doing everything that we need to do from the federal response and we’re reaching out offering our support… it’s up to him if he wants to respond to us or not,” Jean-Pierre said.
Jean-Pierre confirmed that FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell has spoken with DeSantis as the state prepares for Hurricane Milton and that the White House had been in contact with state and local officials in Florida.
“So look, we’re going to do our job,” Jean-Pierre said. “We’re going to do what we need to do to make sure communities have what they need as this hurricane is coming our way at potentially Category 5.”
Meanwhile, DeSantis has been busy directing his state’s preparations for Milton, which is currently projected to make landfall in the Tampa Bay area. Mandatory evacuation orders have so far been issued for parts of Pasco, Pinellas, and Hillsborough counties.
On Sunday, DeSantis announced a “24/7” operation to remove as much debris leftover from Helene before Milton is projected to hit—likely late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning, according to the National Hurricane Center’s latest predictions.
DeSantis also defended his decision to send National Guardsmen and other state resources to North Carolina and other states that suffered worse effects from Helene, the Tampa Bay Times reported. “You had people that were dying in the mountains there, and we’re all Americans, and we step up and we do the right thing,” DeSantis told reporters on Monday.
“Everybody’s back,” DeSantis later told the Weather Channel in an interview. “We’re going to have 8,000 guardsmen activated to respond to this storm… This will definitely be all hands on deck.”
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