Florida Governor Ron DeSantis does not plan to meet with President Biden on Saturday when the commander-in-chief visits the part of the state hardest hit by Hurricane Idalia.
“We do not have any plans for the governor to meet with the president tomorrow,” DeSantis’ press secretary, Jeremy Redfern, said in a statement Friday.
“In these rural communities, and immediately after the impact, the security preparations alone that would hold such a meeting would shut down the ongoing recovery efforts,” he added.
DeSantis, 44, who is vying to challenge Biden, 80, in the 2024 presidential election, has been in frequent contact with the White House since the Category 3 storm made landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast earlier this week — but the lack of a planned face-to-face meeting between the two has conflicted with what the president said to the media on Friday.
“Yes,” Biden replied when asked by reporters if he planned to meet with DeSantis at some point during his Florida trip.
White House Homeland Security Adviser Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall also suggested on Friday that she expects a Biden-DeSantis meeting.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis does not plan to meet with President Biden on Saturday.ZUMAPRESS.com
“We’re just planning the trip, but I will say that every time I’ve been to Florida with the president, he’s met, of course, with Governor DeSantis and toured the disaster zone, either from the hurricane last year or when the Surfside condominium building collapsed,” said Sherwood-Randall.
“Often, they will meet, get a briefing from the emergency department. It could be in the open, because it was from last year’s hurricane. It might be in a briefing room, like at Surfside. They are very collegial when we have work to do together helping Americans in need, Floridians in need,” he added.
DeSantis on Friday warned Biden that his planned visit to the Sunshine State could be “very disruptive” to ongoing recovery efforts.
DeSantis on Friday warned Biden that his planned visit to the Sunshine State could be “very disruptive” to ongoing recovery efforts.ZUMAPRESS.com
“One thing I mentioned to him on the phone is where this community is [are] — the communities that are the hardest hit — it’s going to be very disruptive to have all the security equipment go because there are so many ways to get into these places,” DeSantis told reporters during a briefing in Tallahassee.
Idalia’s strong winds and powerful storm surge wreaked havoc in Florida’s Big Bend region Wednesday morning and left hundreds of thousands of Floridians without power.
The governor said Friday that he expects all power to be restored to residents this weekend.
DeSantis has taken a break from the campaign trail to focus on recovery efforts in the Sunshine State. It is unclear when the governor plans to resume his presidential primary campaign.
The White House did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
