From The Pulpit, Harris Calls Out Trump For Hurricane Misinformation | EUROtoday

GREENVILLE, N.C. (AP) — Kamala Harris used an look Sunday earlier than a largely Black church viewers in battleground North Carolina to name out Donald Trump for spreading misinformation in regards to the authorities’s hurricane response. President Joe Biden visited Florida for the second time this month to survey storm harm.

Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, didn’t communicate Trump’s identify, however he’s most outstanding amongst these selling false claims in regards to the Biden administration’s response to Hurricanes Milton and Helene. Florida was within the path of each storms, with Helene additionally hitting North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, whereas Milton headed for the open Atlantic.

The vp spoke on the Koinonia Christian Center in regards to the “heroes” throughout who’re serving to residents with out regard to political affiliation.

“Yet, church, there are some who are not acting in the spirit of community, and I am speaking of these who have been literally not telling the truth, lying about people who are working hard to help the folks in need, spreading disinformation when the truth and facts are required,” Harris stated.

“The problem with this, beyond the obvious, is it’s making it harder, then, to get people life-saving information if they’re led to believe they cannot trust,” she stated. “And that’s the pain of it all, which is the idea that those who are in need have somehow been convinced that the forces are working against them in a way that they would not seek aid.”

Harris stated they’re attempting “to gain some advantage for themselves, to play politics with other people’s heart break, and it is unconscionable,” she stated. “Now is not a time to incite fear. It is not right to make people feel alone.”

“That is not what leaders, as we know, do in crisis,” she stated.

Trump made a sequence of false claims after Helene struck in late September, together with saying that Washington was deliberately withholding assist from Republicans in want throughout the Southeast. The former president falsely claimed the Federal Emergency Management Agency had run out of cash to assist them as a result of it was spent on packages to assist immigrants who’re within the United States illegally.

He pressed that argument on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” saying the White House response was “absolutely terrible” and repeating the declare about FEMA’s {dollars}. “It came out from there and everybody knew it,” Trump stated in an interview that was taped Thursday and broadcast Sunday.

Before Harris spoke in church, Biden was surveying hurricane harm on a helicopter flight between Tampa and St. Pete Beach on the Gulf Coast. From the air, he noticed the torn-up roof of Tropicana Field, dwelling of the Tampa Bay Rays baseball workforce. On the bottom, the president noticed waterlogged family furnishings piled up outdoors flooded houses. Some homes had collapsed.

The president stated he was grateful that Milton was not as dangerous as officers had anticipated, however that it nonetheless was a “cataclysmic” occasion for many individuals, together with those that misplaced irreplaceable private objects. He additionally praised the primary responders, a few of whom had come from Canada.

“It’s in moments like this we come together to take care of each other, not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans,” Biden stated after he was briefed by federal, state and native officers, and met some residents and responders. “We are one United States, one United States.”

Harris opened her second day in North Carolina by talking on the Christian heart in Greenville, a part of her marketing campaign’s “Souls to the Polls” effort to assist prove Black churchgoers earlier than the Nov. 5 election.

The vp later spoke to roughly 7,000 supporters at a Sunday afternoon rally at East Carolina University’s enviornment, suggesting that Trump’s workforce has stopped him from releasing medical information or debating her once more as a result of they could be “afraid that people will see that he is too weak and unstable.”

The North Carolina appearances mark the beginning of per week that can discover Harris working to shore up assist amongst Black voters, a key constituency for the Democratic Party. She is relying on Black turnout in aggressive states resembling North Carolina to assist her defeat Trump, who has centered on energizing males of all races and has tried to make inroads with Black males particularly.

On Tuesday, she’s going to seem in Detroit for a stay dialog with Charlamagne tha God, a outstanding Black media persona.

Black registered voters have overwhelmingly favorable views of Harris and damaging views of Trump regardless of his makes an attempt to enchantment to nonwhite voters, in keeping with a latest ballot from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. But the ballot additionally reveals that many Black voters aren’t positive whether or not Harris would enhance the nation general or higher their very own lives.

In Florida, which Biden had visited the Big Bend area on Oct. 3 after Helene struck, the president introduced $612 million for six Department of Energy tasks in hurricane-affected areas to bolster the area’s electrical grid. The cash consists of $47 million for Gainesville Regional Utilities and $47 million for Switched Source to accomplice with Florida Power and Light.

With slightly greater than three weeks earlier than the election, the hurricanes have added one other dimension to the carefully contested presidential race.

Trump has stated the Biden administration’s storm response was missing, significantly in western North Carolina after Helene. Biden and Harris have hammered Trump for selling falsehoods in regards to the federal response.

Biden stated Trump was “not singularly” in charge for the unfold of misinformation however that he has the “biggest mouth.”

“They blame me for everything. It’s OK,” Trump instructed Fox.

Biden has pressed for Congress to behave shortly to ensure the Small Business Administration and FEMA have the cash they should get by hurricane season, which ends Nov. 30 within the Atlantic. He stated Friday that Milton alone had brought about an estimated $50 billion in damages.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, whose division oversees FEMA, stated the hurricane season is much from over and there are different pure disasters for which the company should prepared.

“We don’t know what’s coming tomorrow, whether it’s another hurricane, a tornado, a fire, an earthquake. We have to be ready. And it is not good government to be dependent on a day-to-day existence as opposed to appropriate planning,” Mayorkas stated on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., stated there was loads of time and that lawmakers would tackle the funding subject when Congress comes again into session after the Nov. 5 election.

“We’ll provide the additional resources,” Johnson instructed CBS.

Milton made landfall in Florida as a Category 3 storm on Wednesday night. At least 10 folks had been killed and lots of of 1000’s of residents stay with out energy. Officials say the toll might have been worse if not for widespread evacuations.

Madhani reported from St. Pete Beach, Florida, and Superville from Washington.