Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis hit back at Vice President Kamala Harris, saying it was “delusional” for her to say he didn’t answer her phone call about Hurricane Milton for political reasons.
Mr. DeSantis, a Republican, told Fox News on Monday evening that he has been in touch with President Biden and the Federal Emergency Management Agency director as his state prepares for the hurricane’s expected landfall Wednesday and that he didn’t even know she had called.
He said she was “delusional” for calling him selfish as he works to safeguard what he can in his state.
“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,” he said. “She has never contributed anything to any of these efforts.”
“I’ve had storms under both President [Donald] 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,” the governor said.
He said he’s “not worried about playing her political games” and called her selfish for “trying to blunder into this when we’re working just fine.”
Reports earlier Monday said Mr. DeSantis refused to take a call from Ms. Harris.
Ms. Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, told reporters that “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.”
She said “it is about political gamesmanship instead of doing the job that you took an oath to do, which is to put the people first.”
The hurricane is expected to hit Florida on Wednesday and be extremely destructive. Parts of the state are still trying to deal with the debris left from Hurricane Helene, which hit nearly two weeks ago.
Mr. DeSantis spoke with Mr. Biden and Tampa Mayor Jane Castor Monday to hear about how the state is handling cleanup from Helene and preparations for Milton, White House senior deputy press secretary Emilie Simons posted on X.
“He asked both to call him directly if anything can be done to further support response and recovery efforts,” Ms. Simons wrote.
Mr. Biden has postponed his trips to Germany and Angola “in order to oversee preparations for and the response to Hurricane Milton, in addition to the ongoing response to the impacts of Hurricane Helene across the Southeast,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.
The Washington Times has reached out to the Harris campaign for comment.
• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.
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