Aviva Fried with AFP / Photo credit: Stefani Reynolds / AFP
US President Joe Biden traveled to Florida on Saturday to meet residents affected by Hurricane Idalia, which killed at least one person and damaged several towns in that state, without ultimately meeting any of his main political rivals, Governor Ron DeSantis. Accompanied by his wife, Jill Biden, the president traveled to Suwannee County, in northwest Florida, where he was welcomed by the mayor of Live Oak, the county’s main city.
“I’m here to deliver a simple message to the people of Florida and throughout the Southeast. I told your governor: if your state needs anything, I’m ready to mobilize whatever help is needed. “, said the president during a press briefing.
Joe Biden was to meet Governor Ron DeSantis during this visit, he announced on Friday. The two men being both candidates for the American presidential election of 2024, the meeting promised to be very politically charged.
Do not show the slightest understanding with Joe Biden
But this year, things have changed: the governor of Florida is running for president. And he wants, above all, to avoid showing the slightest agreement with the president whose place he wants to take, lest Republican voters reproach him for being too close to his Democratic opponent. Ron DeSantis also wants to avoid comparison: Joe Biden knows how to put the people he meets at ease, he has a lot of empathy for the victims, while the governor of Florida is often criticized for being a robot incapable of communicate any emotion. Showing them side by side in the middle of the damage, with the survivors, would not be to Ron DeSantis’ advantage.
The Republican governor’s team announced on Friday evening that the meeting was canceled, citing “security preparations (…) which would have required interrupting ongoing reconstruction efforts”. However, Ron de Santis had been the first to criticize Joe Biden who, according to him, had not gone quickly enough to Maui, after the fire, and there is nothing more usual than the visit of an American president to a state affected by a disaster. In October 2022, the Republican governor and the Democratic president had encountered similar circumstances, when Joe Biden had visited Florida after the passage of another hurricane, Ian, which killed nearly 150 people.
Biden claims to have “been in contact with Governor DeSantis since the beginning of the hurricane”
Asked Saturday morning about the reasons for the cancellation of this meeting, Joe Biden replied: “I don’t know”. “I have been in regular contact with Governor DeSantis since the beginning of the hurricane,” recalled the American president, who also stressed “having approved his request for a major natural disaster within six hours of its filing”.
Idalia, which caused high water levels and widespread flooding in Florida, then continued its destructive course on the southeastern coast of the United States as a tropical storm.