WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden will travel to Florida on Wednesday and pledge support to assist the state recuperate from the Hurricane Ian during a visit that features a meeting with Governor Ron DeSantis, a possible rival within the 2024 presidential race.
The Democratic president and the Republican governor are at odds over scores of issues, including climate change, which experts blame for Florida’s increasingly wet, windy and intense hurricanes.
Greater than 100 people died and nearly 400,000 homes and businesses remained without power in Florida on Tuesday, five days after Hurricane Ian crashed across the state. On Monday, Biden visited Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory battered by Hurricane Fiona last month.
Biden will survey Florida’s badly damaged Fort Myers by helicopter, before meeting with residents and disaster-relief officials, in addition to DeSantis, in response to the White House.
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Biden has been in regular communication with DeSantis in the course of the crisis and the federal government picked up a major share of the initial disaster relief. Last week, Biden said his relationship with DeSantis is “irrelevant” but “very wonderful.”
When Biden visited Florida in July after a condominium complex collapsed and killed nearly 100 people, he said, “we’re letting the nation know we are able to cooperate when it’s really essential,” as he and DeSantis sat shoulder to shoulder.
On climate change, Biden has made reducing carbon emissions a spotlight of his presidency, while DeSantis backed funding to harden Florida’s defenses against flooding but additionally opposed some previous disaster-relief aid and pushed pension funds not to contemplate environmental impact once they invest.
Before Hurricane Ian hit, Biden had planned a rally within the political battleground state last week. Then, Democratic officials expected Biden to attack DeSantis’ approach, which has included shunning COVID-19 lockdowns, mocking Biden’s age and talents, penalizing Walt Disney World Resort for opposing state laws limiting discussion of LGBTQ issues in schools and flying Venezuelan immigrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard.
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt. Editing by Gerry Doyle)
Copyright 2022 Thomson Reuters.
