Former President Donald Trump falsely claimed that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has not been able to reach President Joe Biden to discuss Hurricane Helene’s impacts on his state.
“He has been calling the president, but has not been able to get him,” Trump said during a press conference at a furniture store in Valdosta, Ga.
Yet earlier in the day Kemp, a Republican, said that he initially missed Biden’s call, but he called back and the two were able to connect Sunday evening.
“He just said, ‘Hey, what do you need?’” Kemp told reporters. “And I told him, you know, we got what we need. We will work through the federal process.”
Kemp said Biden told him to call directly if he needed any additional resources. Kemp said he has “been playing phone tag” with Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, but praised the bipartisan response.
Hurricane Helene made landfall last Thursday night in the Florida panhandle before ripping through Georgia, leaving more than 500,000 people without power. It then continued north, causing record flooding in eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina.
The death toll from Hurricane Helene now stands at 116 across six states, according to a count by NBC News. A third of them were reported in North Carolina. The number is likely to increase as recovery and search efforts are underway.
Just before falsely noting Kemp and Biden had not spoken, Trump acknowledged the storm hit just weeks before a major presidential election, but said he was not thinking about politics.
“At a time like this, when a crisis hits, when our fellow citizens cry out in need, none of that matters,” Trump said. “We are not talking about politics.”
Trump, though, has been taking to social media to take overt political shots at Harris, who put up a post on X that she had been briefed by the FEMA administrator, accompanied by a photo.
Republicans have mocked the photo, saying the sheets of paper look empty and claiming that the headphones are not plugged into anything.
“Another FAKE and STAGED photo from someone who has no clue what she is doing,” Trump posted. “You have to plug the cord into the phone for it to work!”
NBC News reached out to the Harris campaign for comment.
Trump has also said that the federal government and Democratic governors, including North Carolina’s Roy Cooper, are “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas.”
When NBC News asked Trump about that remark after his Valdosta news conference, the former president said, “Just take a look,” but did not respond to follow-up questions for comment.
Outside of falsely stating that Kemp had been unable to make contact with Biden, Trump’s brief remarks focused largely on the truckloads of supplies that arrived with him, including water and fuel.
“We brought a lot of things…trailers, many trailers,” Trump said.
Trump also gave a direct shout-out to Elon Musk, whom he said he spoke to directly about trying to set up Starlink, portable internet devices owned by SpaceX, a Musk-run aerospace company.
“I just spoke to Elon, we want to get Starlink hooked up,” Trump said. “They have no communication whatsoever.”
Local lawmakers in Georgia praised Trump for coming — but some also wished that he would have held off on visiting the region until more order had been restored from the destruction wrought by the storm.
Scott James Matheson, the nonpartisan mayor of Valdosta, said he would have preferred that Trump come later in the week, to allow for emergency operations to proceed longer. Still, he said he was “pretty excited” and that “we want the attention and I certainly love the aide he’s bringing.”
“I would have loved it Wednesday, Thursday or Friday,” he told NBC News said ahead of Trump’s visit, adding that, “We’re not going to say ‘no.’”
“We’ll get through it and we’ll get right back to work,” he said.
He added, however, that if Trump left them with “a truckload of water, a tanker full of gas,” then they’d be “the better for it by a mile.”
Matheson added that Biden had called him on Sunday night and “offered every level of support.”
“He said, there’s just nothing you can ask for that we’re not going to supply,” Matheson said. “He assured me that, he said, nothing’s too hard. It was just a wonderfully supportive phone call.”
Biden and Harris have both said they intend to travel to areas by Helene as soon as their visits won’t affect emergency response operations.
Meanwhile, state Rep. John LaHood, a Republican who represents a Valdosta-area district, said he was “good with” Trump’s visit — even if it commanded resources that could otherwise be devoted to emergency operations.
“I think it brings more attention to the severity of the problems here,” he said ahead of the visit. “I understand resources will be needed, but it’s going to be a quick trip.”
LaHood said he hadn’t yet heard from Biden or Harris, or their teams, but he wouldn’t oppose them visiting either.
Officials in North Carolina were also clear about wanting national politicians to put off prospective visits.
Sadie Weiner, a spokesperson for North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, said the Democratic governor spoke with both Biden and Harris over the weekend and told them not to come “immediately.”
The message “was received positively” by both Biden and Harris, Weiner said, adding that they discussed timing a visit at a later time.
Anderson Clayton, the North Carolina Democratic Party chair, reposted a message on X on Saturday that had said “there is absolutely no reason to have a presidential motorcade/presence in a disaster zone while search & rescue is still underway.”
Clayton didn’t respond to questions from NBC News.
