President Joe Biden bowed his head during a tearful prayer at a Georgia pecan farm that suffered devastating losses as Hurricane Helene and hit back at criticism of his response on Thursday.
The commander-in-chief, 81, stood in silence during sweltering heat when a Ray City farmer concluded his remarks at a post-hurricane event with a prayer.
Biden and senior Washington officials stood and listened in front of rows of massive upturned pecan trees behind him, their leaves brown just days after Hurricane Helene tore through.
Ray City is around 18 miles north of Valdosta, one of the areas that suffered the biggest hit from Helene and where Donald Trump visited earlier this week.
Most of the area is still without power and residents are picking up the pieces from the deadliest hurricane since Katrina that has killed 200 people so far. At least 33 have died in Georgia.
‘Lord this is your creation,’ Shiloh farm property manager Buck Paulk said, with Biden and lawmakers gathered behind him.
‘There ain’t a twig or leaf or branch or root that you don’t hold account of,’ he said in his Georgia drawl. ‘Lord, we need the help – it all comes from you.’
President Joe Biden bowed his head during a tearful prayer at a Georgia pecan farm that suffered devastating losses as Hurricane Helene
Farmers here are looking for another kind of help from Washington, D.C., and Biden said they would get it.
The president took a question about an emergency supplemental bill, something he has said may be needed soon to provide relief. Speaker Mike Johnson said earlier that other legislation already refilled a FEMA fund.
‘Can’t wait, can’t wait. People need help now,’ Biden said.
‘At moments like this, it’s time to put politics aside,’ said Biden during his own remarks. He called to ‘break down this rabid partisanship that exists,’ then said funds in some of his infrastructure legislation went more to red states than to blue ones.
‘It’s not one state versus the other, it’s the United States. You know, there’s no Democrats or Republicans out here … only Americans are here. I’ve been committed to being president for all Americans’.
Earlier this week, Trump accused Biden of going out out of his way to not help Republicans hit by the storm.
At a rally on Thursday he said the response has been worse than that of Hurricane Katrina.
‘There’s nobody that’s handled a hurricane or storm worse than what they’re doing right now,’ Trump said. ‘Kamala spent all her FEMA money, billions of dollars, on housing for illegal migrants. Many of whom should not be in our country
Biden name-dropped Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, thanking him and saying they spoke earlier Thursday.
Kemp has already vouched for their contact, But Kemp was not there in person for the presidential tour of his state.
The event featured Sen. Rafael Warnock, a Democrat who helped give Democrats their majority, as well as Rep. Austin Scott, a Republican who Biden also acknowledged.
‘Lord this is your creation,’ Shiloh farm property manager Buck Paulk said, with Biden and lawmakers gathered behind him.
Farmers here are looking for another kind of help from Washington, D.C., and Biden said they would get it.
‘FEMA has been down here. Coordination has been pretty good,’ Scott told DailyMail.com on the farm.
He said the damage to the overall pecan crop was ‘somewhere around $500 million.’
On an earlier storm tour in Florida, Biden met with people who lost their homes. Some houses were completely gone, with only bare pilings standing in what had been a community of retirees and vacationers near Big Bend, where the storm made landfall.
The president was accompanied by Sen. Rick Scott, who was there in jeans and his familiar Navy ballcap from earlier storm duty.
Biden name-dropped Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, thanking him and saying they spoke earlier Thursday
After landing near Washington, Biden said it took ‘physical courage’ for Liz Cheney to endorse Kamala Harris
But Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wasn’t there, despite an apparent effort by the White House to get in touch.
Asked why DeSantis wasn’t there, Scott told DailyMail.com, ‘I don’t know.’ DailyMail.com has reached out to the governor’s office for comment.
DeSantis has been with Biden during other disasters, including after the Surfside building collapse, which came when the two were eying a potential presidential battle.
The governor, who endorsed Donald Trump after a bitter primary that ended in his defeat, may be mindful of a famous event with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie famously toured Hurricane Sandy damage weeks before the 2012 election. Observers said it bolstered Obama in his reelection.
The trip to Georgia was the latest by a top politician to a damaged battleground state, with Vice President Kamala Harris also getting in on the action with a visit to North Carolina.
Trump got the jump on both Biden and Harris with his Monday visit, where his unfounded claim that the administration was brushing off Kemp drew White House pushback.
If ‘rabid partisanship’ was on Biden’s mind in Georgia, he issued an emphatic statement to reporters upon landing near D.C. minutes after former GOP Rep. and Trump nemesis Liz Cheney endorsed Harris onstage in Wisconsin.
‘She made one of the most consequential speeches I’ve ever heard. She has character. I know her dad … We argue like hell, but I always admired his courage and honesty,’ Biden told reporters after returning on Air Force One.
‘What she did not took only political courage, but physical courage… I was really incredibly proud of her.’ But he bristled when DailyMail.com asked him what he would do to bring more Republicans over to Harris.
‘I am not making that judgment. I’m talking about her… She and her father have character, character, dammit. There’s not enough of it.’