Biden to meet with DeSantis at hurricane briefing Wednesday

President Biden will meet with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Wednesday when he travels to the state to tour harm from Hurricane Ian.

DeSantis and Federal Emergency Administration Company Administrator Deanne Criswell will give Biden a briefing “on the present response and restoration efforts,” White Home press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre advised reporters on Tuesday.

Biden will go to Fort Meyers, one of many areas that sustained probably the most harm when Hurricane Ian made landfall final week as a Class 4 storm. Whereas there, Biden will converse with and thank federal, state and native officers for his or her response and restoration efforts.

White Home officers have spent the previous week attempting to maintain the deal with the storm and restoration efforts within the state, the place hundreds of thousands had been left with out energy, houses had been destroyed and state and native politicians warned rebuilding could be a years-long course of in some areas.

Jean-Pierre and others have repeatedly downplayed any stress between Biden and DeSantis or whether or not different political disagreements would overshadow a gathering on Wednesday, weary of shifting consideration away from the hurricane response.

“There are many instances to debate the variations between Joe Biden and Ron DeSantis, however that isn’t across the topic of serving to the folks of Florida after they have been devastated by one in every of these tremendous highly effective storms that took dozens and dozens of lives, that has devastated a whole swath of the state,” White Home chief of workers Ron Klain stated Monday on MSNBC.

Biden and DeSantis have spoken thrice over the telephone to coordinate on storm response efforts prior to now week, and the 2 have projected an aura of cooperation and professionalism publicly.

However overshadowing all of it is the likelihood that Biden and DeSantis may face each other in a possible 2024 presidential election and that the Florida governor has elevated his nationwide profile by way of battles with the administration.

The White Home has sparred with DeSantis over his ban on masks mandates in faculties, his help for a legislation that restricts dialogue of sexual orientation within the classroom and, most lately, his determination to fly migrants from Texas to Massachusetts.

Wednesday’s assembly is not going to be the primary time the 2 officers have tried to place politics apart, although.

Biden and DeSantis sat side-by-side in July 2021 after a rental collapse in Surfside, Fla., killed roughly 100 folks. 

The president on the time praised DeSantis, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) and others for cooperating “in ways in which I haven’t seen in a very long time.”

DeSantis likewise expressed gratitude to Biden and the federal authorities for recognizing the severity of the tragedy and providing help.

That interplay affords a probable preview of how the 2 males would conduct themselves ought to they share a stage on Wednesday.

“There are optics which are essential and so this complete dialog has been a waste of time due to folks not desirous to offend their political base,” GOP strategist and former Republican Nationwide Committee spokesperson Doug Heye stated. “Disgrace on any Democrat who could be upset with the president of the USA assembly with the governor of Florida and disgrace on any Republican who could be upset with the governor of the Florida assembly with the president of the USA.”