By james art By Michelle L. Price and Bill Barrow, Associated Press
Monday, October 21, 2024 | 5:38 p.m
SWANNANOA, NC — Surveying storm damage in North Carolina, former President Donald Trump on Monday criticized federal emergency responders whose work has been hampered by gun violence and a deluge of misinformation, but he said he was not concerned that the consequences of Hurricane Helen will affect election results in the battleground state.
Trump was asked if it was helpful to criticize hurricane relief workers after the Federal Emergency Management Agency recently suspended work in the area amid reports that they could be targeted by the militia. He responded by again attacking the agency and repeating the lie that the response was being hindered because FEMA was spending its budget to help people who crossed the border illegally. That claim was refuted weeks ago by U.S. Rep. Chuck Edwards, RN.C., who stood behind Trump as he spoke.
“Well, I think you have to let people know how they’re doing,” Trump told reporters in Swannanoa, outside Asheville. “If they were doing a great job, I think we should say that, too, because I think they should be rewarded… If they’re doing a bad job, shouldn’t we say that?”
Trump’s campaign and that of his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, have been ramping up their campaigns in the last two weeks before Election Day.
Trump made three stops in North Carolina on Monday. After the Asheville area, he held a statewide rally in Greenville and spoke at a religious leaders’ event in Concord, where he addressed Christian voters, reiterating his criticism of transgender athletes playing on women’s sports teams and his proposal to hold a major a large-scale deportation operation. Trump said that during his administration, he has fought for Christians “like no other president has fought before.”
On Monday, Harris focused his campaign efforts on the “blue wall,” traveling to suburban Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. She held a series of conversations with Rep. Liz Cheney, moderated by GOP strategist Sarah Longwell, publisher of Bulwark, a commentary site for anti-Trump conservatives, and conservative radio host Charlie Sykes. Trump won those three states in 2016 and lost them in 2020, and Harris could lock up the presidency if he swept them.
Cheney, a former congresswoman from Wyoming who lost her seat after coming out against Trump after the January 6, 2021 riot, offered advice to fellow Republicans who don’t feel comfortable with Trump but don’t feel comfortable broadcasting support for a Democrat.
“You can vote your conscience and never have to say a word to anybody,” Cheney said.
Hurricane Helena displaced thousands of voters
Many North Carolina counties affected by Hurricane Helin moved precincts on Election Day or changed early voting locations. Thousands of voters were left displaced or without power or water as early voting began. Both sides are struggling to check voter turnout.
“We’re working every channel we can, you know?” Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley, a North Carolina resident, said. “We will have phone calls. We will do direct mail. We’re going to do email and digital — basically anything we can do to let people know where to go.”
Despite extensive damage in western North Carolina, Trump said he saw no reason the storm would cast doubt on North Carolina’s election results.
“No, I think in some ways it’s the opposite,” Trump said. “I mean, we’re so impressed and I think they have a pretty good system here.”
Republican Renee Kyro, who lives a short drive from the devastated mountain town of Chimney Rock, said she knows “a lot of Trump supporters who have lost everything” and others who remain in their homes but don’t have reliable internet or phone connections and they may not know their polling station.
“I’ll go door to door if I have to,” she said.
State Sen. Natalie Murdoch, who serves as political director for the state’s coordinated Democratic campaign, said the party has the apparatus to reach target voters in the disaster zone. Field workers in some of the state’s more than two dozen Democratic offices have been involved in recovery efforts, distributing water and other supplies to residents.
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, urged Trump not to “share lies or misinformation” about the storm recovery.
Many storm survivors have lost everything and want help and truth, Cooper said Monday at a briefing in Asheville.
“We must work together to give them both,” the governor said. “Recovering from a storm cannot be partisan.”
Edwards, who represents Asheville and surrounding districts in Congress, issued a lengthy statement last month debunking “outrageous rumors” that FEMA is halting truck deliveries, abandoning rescue efforts to demolish Chimney Rock, running out of money and more. He did not defend FEMA from Trump’s criticism on Monday.
Instead, Edwards, who owns McDonald’s franchises, presented Trump with what he called a “French fries certification pin” as a sign of the former president’s photo opportunity Sunday at one of the fast-food restaurants.
White House press secretary Karin Jean-Pierre called Trump’s FEMA comments “dangerous” and said they were debunked on a bipartisan basis. She said 5,500 federal workers have been in North Carolina and Florida since Helena and Hurricane Milton, and noted that $2 billion in federal aid has been approved for those affected in North Carolina.
“They are dangerous,” Jean-Pierre said of Trump’s remarks. “They are useless. This is not what leadership looks like.”
Democrats are running for both Helen and Mark Robinson
Even before Helene, North Carolina was even more compelling because of its history of split-ticket voting. It is one of the few states where gubernatorial races run concurrently with presidential races.
Democrats have won the presidential election just once since 1992, with Barack Obama’s narrow victory in 2008. Republicans have won just one gubernatorial race during the same period. Four years ago, Cooper won re-election by 4.5 points, even though Trump edged out Biden. He is barred by term-limit laws from running again.
Democrats are hoping that GOP gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson’s recent struggles, centered on CNN’s revelations that the state’s first black lieutenant governor ever called himself a “black Nazi” and posted lewd statements on a porn website, will turn thousands of Cooper-Trump voters in supporters of Harris and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Stein. Robinson denied the allegations and sued CNN, calling their reporting defamatory.
Trump demurred on Monday when asked whether voters should support Robinson, whom Trump endorsed and called “Martin Luther King on steroids.”
“I’m not aware of the state of the race right now,” he said. “I haven’t seen him.”
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Associated Press writers Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, Colleen Long in Washington and Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix contributed to this report.