President Joe Biden is struggling with twin crises — one foreign, one domestic — even as Vice President Kamala Harris runs to replace him at the job. And both of them face huge challenges — personally and politically — from the twin crises, challenges that may decide whether Harris can actually become Biden’s successor.
Biden will fly to Greenville, S.C., this afternoon, where he will be given an aerial tour of Hurricane Helene damage. Biden then travels to Raleigh, N.C., for a briefing at the Raleigh Emergency Operations Center. Biden heads back to Washington later tonight.
For her part, Harris will fly to Augusta, Ga., this afternoon. The Central Savannah River Area, where Augusta is located, was hit very hard by Helene. More than 25 people were killed, including some young children. Augusta’s water system lost power for several days. There’s been extensive road and tree damage. Georgia GOP Gov. Brian Kemp and Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) were in Augusta on Monday. Harris will also return to D.C. afterward.
Georgia and North Carolina are two of the critical battleground states in the Nov. 5 elections. Harris and Biden have vowed to visit both states as soon as they could without interfering in rescue operations.
Harris is then scheduled to be in Wisconsin and Michigan later this week for campaign events.
Yet to do so, Biden and Harris must leave Washington even as a huge regional war threatens in the Middle East.
Harris cut short a West Coast fundraising trip earlier this week so she could attend briefings in Washington on the Helene situation. At the same time, Harris was pulled into the White House’s response to Tuesday’s Iranian missile attack on Israel, taking part in high-level meetings with national security and military advisers on what the administration should do next.
So far, the Israelis haven’t hit back at Iran, although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that Israel will retaliate for the barrage of nearly 200 missiles. Two U.S. Navy ships fired interceptors to help shoot down the Iranian missiles.
Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump was in Valdosta, Ga., on Monday. Trump claimed falsely that Kemp hadn’t been able to get hold of Biden, accusing the president of “sleeping” while Helene battered the Southeast region. That brought a sharp response from Biden, who accused Trump of lying.
Yet the Biden-Trump exchange shows the high stakes for both sides in the Helene response. Thousands of emergency personnel have deployed to the Southeast as part of the federal response to Helene. Biden has issued disaster declarations for North Carolina and Florida, as well as emergency declarations for countries affected by the megastorm.
But the White House and local and state officials in impacted areas are still groping with the scale of the disaster, especially in western North Carolina. More than 160 people were killed by Helene, making it one of the deadliest storms in U.S. history. Extraordinarily heavy rains washed out homes and roads, and dozens of people are still missing or unaccounted for. More than 1.5 million people still don’t have power days after the storm. The cleanup will take months or even years, as well as many billions of dollars.
