Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis lambasted both President Biden and the media for largely ignoring the catastrophic Maui wildfire and Lahaina’s resultant mass graveyard.
(Video Credit: Forbes Breaking News)
DeSantis tore into Biden and the media during a press conference that was held on Sunday. He was addressing Florida’s recovery efforts in the wake of Hurricane Idalia.
“Do you trust the federal government to help, seeing what happened in Hawaii just a few weeks ago and in East Palestine a few months ago?” a reporter asked the governor during the press conference in Yankeetown, Florida.
“I think that Maui is a total catastrophe, what happened there. And I don’t think we have all the answers to that. I think we should have all the answers to that,” DeSantis responded.
“It’s interesting how incurious our corporate media is about what happened in Maui. I mean, I don’t see them interviewing parents who can’t find their kids and people we know, there’s a lot of people missing. So that was a total disaster, really, really heartbreaking to hear some of the stories, even though they’re not being publicized,” he added.
As he should. He’s handled the hurricane perfectly. Yet the media are trying to nitpick and harass him over it. Meanwhile completely ignoring the left’s completely botched response to the fire in Maui. On all levels a failure there and the media couldn’t care less.
— Joel Tamblyn (@jtamblyn1) September 4, 2023
DeSantis differentiated between the horrific fire that swept Lahaina and the hurricane that hit Florida. The governor and the state government extensively prepared for such an event and Maui was caught totally unprepared for the fire.
“And really what the federal government’s role is, is just turning on programs that Congress has enacted over many, many years,” he noted.
“And so it’s basically serving as a checkbook to get people reimbursed for debris cleanup, to give people individual assistance. And so in that sense, I think that that has been turned on, I anticipate that that will go smoothly. But most of the nuts and bolts is done by our local communities, and by the state of Florida. And that’s really how it should be, disaster response is really bottom up,” DeSantis asserted.
He went on to comment that the emergency response in Florida is so detailed that local governments in many ways play a more important part in reacting to a situation than the state government does. Especially when it comes to warnings and evacuations of those in the path of an incoming hurricane.
Compare and contrast how DeSantis handles a natural disaster versus Biden’s response to the Maui fires. https://t.co/oVm6mYZOL0
— Anthony Abides (@AnthonyAbides) August 29, 2023
“And so you had that, you had the state managing and assisting and that’s really the bread and butter,” the governor pointed out.
“The checkbook from the feds is great and we’re going to – whatever resources are available as the governor, I’m going to pull those levers to be able to help Floridians. But we’re certainly not relying on the federal government to do the day-to-day heavy lifting,” he asserted.
“We’re going to do that as Floridians, as people in the counties and municipalities, and of course at the state level,” DeSantis concluded.
The presidential candidate has been very critical of Biden’s handling of the disaster in Maui.
During a pre-debate rally in Fort Walton Beach in August, DeSantis slammed Biden for being too slow to respond to the deadly wildfire.
Two weeks ago: It doesn’t matter that Biden isn’t in Maui and is on vacation instead, he’d just get in the way
Now: It means everything that Biden is in Florida and DeSantis is bad for not showing up for the photo-op.
No matter how much you hate the media, it’s not enough.
— Sunny McSunnyface (@sunnyright) September 2, 2023
“But, you know, I just had a thought experiment: if we had a Republican president who in the midst of these fires and their aftermath decided not to go engage to help the victims, but to go sit on the beach, what would the media say if they tried to do that? They would be screaming bloody murder and yet, what do they say about Old Joe just sitting out there? They don’t say anything, they protect him. That’s what they’re trying to do,” DeSantis charged.
The conservative leader had more to say during an Atlanta, Georgia speech according to Florida Politics.
“Biden, what is he doing? He ends up on the beach and then he’s asked about it and he says, ‘Oh, no comment.’ If a Republican had tried to do that, what do you think the media would do? They would go crazy. In fact, they would blame the Republican for the fires happening in the first place,” DeSantis said, drawing laughter from the crowd.
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