Kamala Harris Tries To Use Hurricane For Gain As Ron DeSantis, Joe Biden Work Together | Mary Katharine Ham

President Biden (remember him?) and Gov. Ron DeSantis teamed up Tuesday for a win so clean and complete over Vice President Kamala Harris that one hopes, even in these stupid and narcissistic political times, it will serve as a warning to anyone who tries to make a devastating hurricane about themselves.

Here’s how it started. NBC ran a story, based on an alleged missed phone call and a quote from an anonymous DeSantis aide, to say that DeSantis was dodging Harris’ calls in the run-up to Hurricane Milton, which at the time was a Category-5 monster headed toward Central Florida.

Asked about this report at a news conference, DeSantis denied avoiding calls and said he’d been in touch with Biden and had all the federal assets and help he needed.  

"This is not a time for politics," he said to a Florida reporter. "You and your publication will twist anything that’s done to try to make a political agenda. That’s what you do, That’s how you get your clicks. I understand that. I understand that’s the business model… but I don’t want to participate in it."

When Harris was asked about the NBC report on the tarmac, she responded by bashing DeSantis, which is apparently the only thing she can do extemporaneously.

"Moments of crisis, if nothing else, should really be the moment that anyone who calls themselves a leader, presidential politics aside, put the people first," Harris said. "Playing political games at this moment in these crisis situations...is utterly irresponsible and it is selfish and it’s about political gamesmanship instead of doing the job you took an oath to do."

Someone is mad the governor isn’t letting her cosplay President.

Did it occur to her that DeSantis may have missed her call precisely because he is doing the job he took an oath to do, and is among the best at it of public servants tasked with disaster prep? Thanks to a combo of institutional knowledge in the state of Florida and great management skills from DeSantis, the state’s response to Helene was so competent, DeSantis was able to send some assets to other states to help them. This is a man who, even his political adversaries must admit, does this work extremely well and is currently doing it around the clock for back-to-back hurricanes.

But it didn’t occur to Harris because she is never the one doing the work. She is not a leader. She never has been.

From her time denying knowledge of scandals in evidence collection in her District Attorney office to her time denying she’s the border czar, she’s really more a pass-the-buck kind of figure.

"What you have is a pattern of someone who campaigns ruthlessly and efficiently for office and cuts down any sort of democratic opponent in her way," says Charlie Spiering, author of "Amateur Hour: Kamala Harris in the White House" a book on the Vice President’s political career. "And yet when she finally gets the job, she’s kind of unserious about performing the work."

Her decision, with 30 days left in a presidential campaign, to slam a sympathetic governor who is not even on the ticket reflects her worst tendencies rolled into one move, both ruthless and unserious.

And DeSantis had something to say about it, showing up on national TV twice in two days to talk about storm prep and note that Harris has never called him during her tenure for any other storm. It seems her passion for disaster prep is matched only by her passion for small business.

"My focus has not been on dealing with Kamala Harris," DeSantis said. "It’s not about you, Kamala. It’s about the people of Florida. My focus is exactly where it should be…I’ve worked on these hurricanes under both President Trump and President Biden. Neither of them has ever tried to politicize it."

In this 11-minute interview, he also talked about the precise number of linemen he has staged and incoming, pet-friendly shelters, the importance of expediting debris removal from Helene, shelters to avoid the storm surge on high ground, predictions for the storm surge, and repeatedly warned Floridians not to try to wait it out in dangerous areas. He is the man in the arena and she is not. He is doing the work and she’s rarely even on the campaign trail for a full week.
 

DeSantis had an unexpected assist from President Joe Biden, speaking from the White House to reporters about storm response.

"The Governor of Florida has been cooperative. He’s said he's gotten all that he needs. I talked to him again yesterday and I said…I know you're doing a great job. It’s being all — being done well, we thank you for it and I literally gave him my personal phone number to call."

Having been pushed out of the race by his own party and resentful of Harris’ attempts to distance herself from what he views as his successful record, Biden seemed more than happy to link arms with DeSantis in this rebuke of his veep’s narrative. And Biden is so politically neutered by his own party, the press, and Harris herself, DeSantis could team up with him without any political downside to consider.

Now, the federal and state governments can get back to working together in a beautiful display of bipartisanship in a time of crisis that the media would laud if it hadn’t made Harris look bad. And the serious governor can get back to his work while Harris goes on Colbert, which she has time to do because as DeSantis notes, she’s not in the chain of command. Voters may decide to keep it that way.