Harris Calls Out Trump,Biden Visits FL 10/14 06:18

   Kamala Harris used an appearance Sunday before a largely Black church 
audience in battleground North Carolina to call out Donald Trump for spreading 
misinformation about the government's hurricane response. President Joe Biden 
visited Florida for the second time this month to survey storm damage.

   GREENVILLE, N.C. (AP) -- Kamala Harris used an appearance Sunday before a 
largely Black church audience in battleground North Carolina to call out Donald 
Trump for spreading misinformation about the government's hurricane response. 
President Joe Biden visited Florida for the second time this month to survey 
storm damage.

   Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, did not speak Trump's name, but 
he is most prominent among those promoting false claims about the Biden 
administration's response to Hurricanes Milton and Helene. Florida was in the 
path of both storms, with Helene also hitting North Carolina, South Carolina 
and Georgia, while Milton headed for the open Atlantic.

   The vice president spoke at the Koinonia Christian Center about the "heroes" 
all around who are helping residents without regard to political affiliation.

   "Yet, church, there are some who are not acting in the spirit of community, 
and I am speaking of these who have been literally not telling the truth, lying 
about people who are working hard to help the folks in need, spreading 
disinformation when the truth and facts are required," Harris said.

   "The problem with this, beyond the obvious, is it's making it harder, then, 
to get people life-saving information if they're led to believe they cannot 
trust," she said. "And that's the pain of it all, which is the idea that those 
who are in need have somehow been convinced that the forces are working against 
them in a way that they would not seek aid."

   Harris said they are trying "to gain some advantage for themselves, to play 
politics with other people's heart break, and it is unconscionable," she said. 
"Now is not a time to incite fear. It is not right to make people feel alone."

   "That is not what leaders, as we know, do in crisis," she said.

   Trump made a series of false claims after Helene struck in late September, 
including saying that Washington was intentionally withholding aid from 
Republicans in need across the Southeast. The former president falsely claimed 
the Federal Emergency Management Agency had run out of money to help them 
because it was spent on programs to help immigrants who are in the United 
States illegally.

   He pressed that argument on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures," saying the 
White House response was "absolutely terrible" and repeating the claim about 
FEMA's dollars. "It came out from there and everybody knew it," Trump said in 
an interview that was taped Thursday and broadcast Sunday.

   Before Harris spoke in church, Biden was surveying hurricane damage on a 
helicopter flight between Tampa and St. Pete Beach on the Gulf Coast. From the 
air, he saw the torn-up roof of Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Rays 
baseball team. On the ground, the president saw waterlogged household 
furnishings piled up outside flooded homes. Some houses had collapsed.

   The president said he was thankful that Milton was not as bad as officials 
had anticipated, but that it still was a "cataclysmic" event for many people, 
including those who lost irreplaceable personal items. He also praised the 
first responders, some of whom had come from Canada.

   "It's in moments like this we come together to take care of each other, not 
as Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans," Biden said after he was briefed 
by federal, state and local officials, and met some residents and responders. 
"We are one United States, one United States."

   Harris opened her second day in North Carolina by speaking at the Christian 
center in Greenville, part of her campaign's "Souls to the Polls" effort to 
help turn out Black churchgoers before the Nov. 5 election.

   The vice president later spoke to roughly 7,000 supporters at a Sunday 
afternoon rally at East Carolina University's arena, suggesting that Trump's 
team has stopped him from releasing medical records or debating her again 
because they might be "afraid that people will see that he is too weak and 
unstable."

   The North Carolina appearances mark the start of a week that will find 
Harris working to shore up support among Black voters, a key constituency for 
the Democratic Party. She is counting on Black turnout in competitive states 
such as North Carolina to help her defeat Trump, who has focused on energizing 
men of all races and has tried to make inroads with Black men in particular.

   On Tuesday, she will appear in Detroit for a live conversation with 
Charlamagne tha God, a prominent Black media personality.

   Black registered voters have overwhelmingly favorable views of Harris and 
negative views of Trump despite his attempts to appeal to nonwhite voters, 
according to a recent poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public 
Affairs Research. But the poll also shows that many Black voters aren't sure 
whether Harris would improve the country overall or better their own lives.

   In Florida, which Biden had visited the Big Bend region on Oct. 3 after 
Helene struck, the president announced $612 million for six Department of 
Energy projects in hurricane-affected areas to bolster the region's electric 
grid. The money includes $47 million for Gainesville Regional Utilities and $47 
million for Switched Source to partner with Florida Power and Light.

   With a little more than three weeks before the election, the hurricanes have 
added another dimension to the closely contested presidential race.

   Trump has said the Biden administration's storm response was lacking, 
particularly in western North Carolina after Helene. Biden and Harris have 
hammered Trump for promoting falsehoods about the federal response.

   Biden said Trump was "not singularly" to blame for the spread of 
misinformation but that he has the "biggest mouth."

   "They blame me for everything. It's OK," Trump told Fox.

   Biden has pressed for Congress to act quickly to make sure the Small 
Business Administration and FEMA have the money they need to get through 
hurricane season, which ends Nov. 30 in the Atlantic. He said Friday that 
Milton alone had caused an estimated $50 billion in damages.

   Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, whose department oversees 
FEMA, said the hurricane season is far from over and there are other natural 
disasters for which the agency must ready.

   "We don't know what's coming tomorrow, whether it's another hurricane, a 
tornado, a fire, an earthquake. We have to be ready. And it is not good 
government to be dependent on a day-to-day existence as opposed to appropriate 
planning," Mayorkas said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

   House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said there was plenty of time and that 
lawmakers would address the funding issue when Congress comes back into session 
after the Nov. 5 election.

   "We'll provide the additional resources," Johnson told CBS.

   Milton made landfall in Florida as a Category 3 storm on Wednesday evening. 
At least 10 people were killed and hundreds of thousands of residents remain 
without power. Officials say the toll could have been worse if not for 
widespread evacuations.