Former President Donald Trump criticized Vice President Kamala Harris for the Biden-Harris administration’s response to Hurricane Helene, noting that it “was a disgrace.”
During a rally in Kinston, North Carolina, Sunday, Trump spoke about Hurricane Helene, which destroyed homes and businesses, devastating and flooding communities in western North Carolina, such as Asheville, the Village of Chimney Rock, and Swannanoa. Other communities in southwestern Virginia, eastern Tennessee, Georgia, and Florida also faced landslides in the mountains, flooding, and destruction to their communities.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, many communities were left without electricity or cell phone service.
“I also want to send our prayers to everyone here in North Carolina who’s still recovering from this unbelievable hurricane — the size of it,” Trump told the crowd. “Hurricane Helene, Kamala’s hurricane response was a disgrace and it was a betrayal. It was just reported that almost 50 percent of phone calls sent to FEMA were unanswered — they didn’t answer.”
Residents in North Carolina who were affected by the hurricane expressed that they had been left to fend for themselves and did not “care if FEMA” came.
Several residents of the town of Bat Cave, near Chimney Rock, expressed to the New York Post that they had not seen signs of FEMA, or other “government agencies,” adding that the residents were the ones primarily doing the hurricane cleanup and “bringing in supplies.”
One Asheville resident expressed that she had “no” faith in the government’s “federal response” to the hurricane.
Another Asheville resident, Jordan Lanning, told Fox News host Jesse Watters that the administration’s response was “too late,” adding that the administration is “not for us.”
“It’s too late. I mean, they took too long,” Lanning told Watters when asked how he felt about the response. “They had — it took them five days to get here. I mean, it took five days for Biden to come here and he didn’t think we were worth coming down to see us himself, he had to fly over on his way to Raleigh. It’s disgraceful, they keep saying, ‘We the People.’ There is no ‘We the People,’ it’s them versus us. They’re not for us.”
While North Carolina residents criticized the government’s response to Hurricane Helene, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) issued a press release in early October stating that “more than $45 million” had gone towards hurricane relief efforts.
In the press release, FEMA announced that out of the $45 million, “more than $17 million” went to North Carolina, more than $23 million was given to people in Florida, more than $150,000 was given to people in Georgia, more than $4.5 million went to South Carolina, and more than $124,000 went to Virginia.
In his speech at his rally, Trump commented on how the Harris campaign had surrendered the state to Trump and “pulled out.” As Breitbart News previously reported, the Harris campaign withdrew almost $2 million in planned ad buys.