Biden surveys damage from Hurricane Milton, Harris visits church in North Carolina

WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden Sunday will examine the devastation caused to Florida's Gulf Coast Hurricane Milton while calling on Congress to authorize additional emergency disaster relief. Vice President Kamala Harris will spend a second day in North Carolina hit hard by Hurricane Helene, visiting a Black church and holding a campaign rally.

Biden's visit to the St. Petersburg area gives him another chance to press House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., for congressional approval of more aid before the Nov. 5 election. Johnson said the issue would be addressed afterward.

“I think Speaker Johnson will get the message that he needs to get involved, especially for small businesses,” Biden told reporters as he and Harris met with aides on Friday to discuss the federal response to hurricanes Milton and Helene to discuss. Biden and Johnson have not yet discussed the matter directly.

In Florida, Biden should announce $612 million for six Energy Department projects in hurricane-hit areas to improve the resiliency of the region's power grid, the White House said. The financing includes $94 million for two projects in Florida: $47 million for Gainesville Regional Utilities and $47 million for Switched Source in partnership with Florida Power and Light.

Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, visited Raleigh on Saturday to meet with Black elected and religious leaders and help volunteers package personal care items for delivery to Helene victims in the western part of the state.

She spent Sunday in Greenville and planned to speak during a service as part of her campaign's “Souls to the Polls” campaign to support black churchgoers ahead of Election Day. She also plans to hold a rally to talk about her economic plans and highlight the start of early voting in the state on Thursday, her campaign said.

Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, will spend the next week campaigning in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and North Carolina, according to a Harris campaign official who was not authorized to provide details have not yet been released to discuss publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

There are still less than four weeks until then election dayThe Hurricanes have added another dimension to the hotly contested presidential race.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said the Biden administration's response to the storm was lacking, particularly in North Carolina afterward Hurricane Helene. Biden and Harris have pressed Trump promote falsehoods around the federal response.

After Helene struck in late September, Trump made a series of false claims, including falsely saying that the federal government was doing this deliberate withholding of help to Republican disaster victims. He also falsely claimed that the Federal Emergency Management Agency ran out of money because all of the money went illegally to programs for immigrants in the country.

Biden said that Trump was “not alone” responsible for spreading false claims in recent weeks, but that he had the “biggest opinion.”

The president is pushing for quick action from Congress to ensure the Small Business Administration and FEMA have the money they need to get through the hurricane season, which ends Nov. 30 in the Atlantic. He said Friday that Milton alone caused an estimated $50 billion in damage.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said last week that FEMA would be able to meet the “immediate needs” caused by the two storms. But him warned in the aftermath of Helene that the agency doesn't have enough resources to get by Hurricane season.

But Johnson has pushed back, saying the agencies have enough money for now and that lawmakers will address the funding issue during the lame-duck session after the election.

Tensions are also circulating in the background between Harris and Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla. As Helene raced towards Florida, the two met exchanged accusations that the other tried to politicize the federal storm response.

Last week, Harris' office suggested that DeSantis had been dodging her calls. DeSantis responded that he didn't know she had called and grumbled that she wasn't involved in the federal response before becoming the Democratic nominee.

Biden, for his part, said he hopes to see DeSantis on Sunday if the governor's schedule allows.

“He was very cooperative,” Biden said of DeSantis. He added: “We got along very, very well.”

DeSantis said Saturday he had no details about the president's visit.

Biden was scheduled to survey the damage during a flight tour between Tampa and St. Pete Beach, where he will be briefed on the storm by federal, state and local officials. He will also provide care to residents and first responders.

Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida on Wednesday evening as a Category 3 storm. At least ten people were killed and hundreds of thousands of residents remain without power.

Officials say the death toll could have been even worse had there not been widespread evacuations. The fresh devastation Helene had caused just two weeks earlier may have helped forcing many people to flee.

___

Boak reported from Raleigh, North Carolina.