Old Uncle Joe has finally made the choice to speak with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) as of Tuesday evening in the wake of being slammed with heavy criticism throughout the previous day for not even attempting to speak with the Floridian governor ahead of the landfall for Hurricane Ian onto the state.
“President Biden spoke this evening with Governor DeSantis of Florida to discuss the steps the Federal government is taking to help Florida prepare for Hurricane Ian,” expressed White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre via a release. “The President and the Governor committed to continued close coordination.”
Despite not trying to speak with DeSantis, Biden did manage to scrounge up some time to talk with a list of city mayors from Florida before the landfall of Hurricane Ian but he had not even attempted to speak with DeSantis, one of his prime political opponents.
Previously, Biden carried out several separate calls that same day with Mayor Jane Castor of Tampa, Mayor Ken Welch of St. Petersburg, and Mayor Frank Hibbard of Clearwater in order to talk about various preparations for the potential landfall points of Hurricane Ian, expressed the White House in a release.
One primary point about the statement issued by the administration was that it made entirely zero mention of Biden even trying to speak with DeSantis. Biden’s outright refusal to speak to DeSantis takes place just after he made a promise for “unity” and pledged to be “a president for all Americans.”
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also did not issue any details throughout the press conference concerning just why Old Uncle Joe had not reached out to DeSantis, and FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell dodged a prime question from one reporter on the issue as part of a press briefing.
“In the past … President Biden, excuse me, has made calls to governors in situations of natural disasters. Kay Ivey in Alabama or Asa Hutchinson in Arkansas or the governor of Texas,” the reporter explained. “Is there any, can you articulate I guess, how those determinations are made and why, why it hasn’t been made in this case to have the president call the governor?”
“Yeah, the president is very focused on making sure that the federal family has the right resources available to support this,’ stated Criswell. “That is why I contacted the governor right away. And we have a team of my senior leadership that are embedded with the governor to make sure that we’re supporting that.”
“Our focus today is making sure that we have the right measures in place to support the life saving activities that need to happen,” she stated. “Any conversations afterwards, will need to be, we need to see what the damages are.”