Joe Biden is in Florida for his brief photo-op meeting with first responders regarding Hurricane Idalia.
But once again, he couldn't manage to get through even that short period without telling some whoppers and pushing his political agenda.
As I reported earlier, he made a weird, snotty comment regarding Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. He was asked about DeSantis saying that he couldn't meet with him because the presidential visit was "very disruptive" -- in other words, he shouldn't be coming while the emergency is still on. Biden shot back at the reporter, "Do you [think it's disruptive]?" DeSantis is still having to deal with the crisis, he doesn't have time for Biden. Meanwhile, Biden is playing political games trying to make up for his failures in dealing with the Maui fire response.
During his remarks in Live Oak, Florida, Biden blamed the hurricane on climate change.
“Nobody can deny the impact of climate crises—at least nobody intelligent can deny the impact of the climate crisis anymore. Just look around, around the nation and the world for that matter,” Biden said while in Live Oak, Fla. “Historic floods, intense droughts, extreme heat, deadly wildfires that have caused serious damage that we’ve never seen before.”
Biden has no evidence this hurricane had anything to do with climate change. Hurricanes have been hitting Florida for centuries, and probably as long as it has existed; they're weather events. While there isn't an official cause of the fire determined yet in Maui, Maui County just sued Hawaiian Electric for negligence, blaming their maintenance of the poles and electrical lines as well as their failure to shut off the power during the incident.
Biden also had this strange setup where he stood at a distance from the locals. I don't know what the reason was for that, and I hope they weren't trying to go back to some social distancing nonsense in the middle of a disaster.
It didn't look like a natural exchange between a caring leader and first responders/victims. It looked like they were paying homage to him yet weren't allowed to get close to him. It also looked like there were very few people there. You could see Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) there. He thanked Biden for showing up.