Trump speaks in Georgia as Hurricane Helene fallout gets political

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Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump pauses before speaking during a campaign rally at the Mosack Group warehouse on September 25, 2024 in Mint Hill, North Carolina. 

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Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is set Monday to deliver remarks and help hand out supplies in the hurricane-blasted swing state of Georgia, one day after he leveraged the devastating storm as a political attack against Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.

Trump will travel to the southern city of Valdosta to receive a briefing on the impact of Hurricane Helene and “facilitate the distribution of relief supplies” before speaking to the press at 2 p.m. ET, his campaign said Sunday afternoon.

The short-notice trip comes as Harris, the vice president, scrapped planned campaign stops in Las Vegas in order to return to Washington, D.C., for a briefing with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

President Joe Biden, meanwhile, said earlier Monday that he and Harris hope to travel to hurricane-damaged areas once they can be sure their presence will not disrupt emergency response efforts. He later said that he expects to make a trip on Wednesday or Thursday.

The hurricane’s death toll has mounted to 116 since it made landfall as a Category 4 storm in northern Florida on Thursday night, according to NBC News’ count.

At least 25 people in Georgia have been killed, said Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, at a briefing Monday morning. Deaths have also been reported in Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. Ferocious rains, wind and floods have left millions of people without electricity, and entire towns — including those hundreds of miles inland, like Asheville, North Carolina — have been submerged under feet of water.

On Sunday, Trump attacked Biden and Harris in politically charged terms over their response to Helene.

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“They raise a lot of money from bad people, fundraising events with their radical left lunatic donors, when big parts of our country have been devastated by that massive hurricane, and is underwater with many, many people dead,” Trump said at a campaign rally in Erie, Pennsylvania.

“She ought to be here. She ought to be down in the area where she should be. That’s what she’s getting paid for, right? That’s what she’s getting paid for.”

The Harris campaign and its allies had already lashed out at Trump for his remarks about Helene at a rally in Michigan on Friday, when he told those affected by the hurricane, “We’re with you all the way, and if we were there, we’d be helping you, and you’ll be OK.”

A Harris campaign social media account quickly shared that clip to suggest Trump was downplaying the disaster. The clip racked by Monday morning had racked up more than 5 million views on X, according to the site’s tally.

Trump’s allies said the clip was taken out of context and defended his remarks, saying he was offering comfort to the storm’s victims.

But some of the former president’s opponents drew parallels between the quote and Trump’s insensitive responses to previous natural disasters, including his tossing paper towel rolls into a crowd of people who survived a hurricane in Puerto Rico in 2017.

This is developing news. Please check back for updates.

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