Speaking during a Monday, October 7 press conference, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis sounded off on and quite rejected claims that he had denied a phone call from Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of the landfall of Hurricane Milton, the massive hurricane headed east across the Caribbean and which will likely make landfall in the middle of Florida, near Tampa.
As background, Hurricane Milton is one of the most powerful ever recorded in this hemisphere and is predicted to strike Florida less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene decimated parts of Florida. It is predicted to slam in to the Tampa Bay area and has prompted evacuations across a large swath of central Florida.
Then, on Monday afternoon, Disney-owned ABC News, a news outlet run by a longtime friend of Vice President and 2024 presidential candidate Kamala Harris, reported that a “source close to the governor” claimed that Gov. DeSantis had refused to take a phone call from VP Harris about responding to Hurricane Milton.
VP Harris, when asked about the matter, said that Gov. DeSantis is putting “politics” first, saying, “You know, moments of crisis, if nothing else, should really be the moment that anyone who calls themselves a leader says they’re going to put politics aside and put the people first. People are in desperate need of support right now.”
She continued, “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 then added, “And it is about political gamesmanship instead of doing the job that you took an oath to do, which is to put the people first.”
Gov. DeSantis denied the ABC News report about him and Kamala Harris during a press conference on the hurricane and his response to it. Beginning, the governor denied even knowing that Kamala Harris had called him, saying, “No, I didn’t know she called me. I saw [the report], but I was not aware of that.”
Continuing, Governor DeSantis denied claims that he had also been ducking calls from President Joe Biden, saying, “So Biden called me a couple days ago with Helene when I was on the helicopter. I didn’t have any issues. They had helped us with what we’ve done. I’m not aware that he’s tried to call since then. Certainly hasn’t called my phone so I don’t know quite where they’re getting that information.”
He added that he is in close touch with the federal authorities, saying, “At the same time we got the approvals that we need. If there’s something else that we need you know I’ll hop on the phone very quickly whether that’s a FEMA administrator or the president and we will press the case to be able to get approvals for what we need in Florida but we have gotten approvals for everything that we’ve asked for.”
DeSantis then reiterated that the Kamala Campaign is framing the matter incorrectly, saying, “I didn’t know that she had called so I’m not sure who they called. They didn’t call me and their characterization of it was something that they did wasn’t anything that anybody in my my office did in terms of saying that it was political.” Watch him here:
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