President Joe Biden will visit Florida on Saturday to survey the damage caused by Hurricane Idalia, but he will not meet with Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is busy overseeing the recovery efforts in the state.
DeSantis, who is a potential 2024 presidential rival to Biden, has been in touch with the White House since the storm hit the state’s Gulf Coast on Wednesday.
But he has no plans to greet the president in person.
“We don’t have any plans for the governor to meet with the president tomorrow,” DeSantis’ press secretary, Jeremy Redfern, said in a statement on Friday.
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“In these rural communities, and so soon after impact, the security preparations alone that would go into setting up such a meeting would shut down ongoing recovery efforts,” he added.
This contradicts what Biden and his Homeland Security Adviser Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall told the media on Friday.
{{/usCountry}}This contradicts what Biden and his Homeland Security Adviser Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall told the media on Friday.
{{/usCountry}}Biden said “Yes” when asked if he would meet with DeSantis during his trip. Sherwood-Randall said that she expected a meeting between the two leaders, as they had done before during previous disasters in Florida, such as last year’s hurricane and the Surfside condo collapse.
“Often, they’ll meet, have a briefing from the emergency responders. It can be in the open, as it was from the hurricane last year. It could be in a briefing room, as it was at Surfside. They are very collegial when we have the work to do together of helping Americans in need, citizens of Florida in need,” Sherwood-Randall stated.
However, Florida Gov. warned Biden that his visit could be “very disruptive” to the ongoing relief operations in the rural areas affected by Idalia.
The storm was a Category 3 hurricane that brought strong winds and heavy rain to Florida’s Big Bend region.
“One thing I did mention to him on the phone is where these communities [are] the hardest-hit communities — it would be very disruptive to have the whole security apparatus that goes because there are only so many ways to get into these places,” DeSantis said to reporters in Tallahassee on Friday.
Idalia left hundreds of thousands of Floridians without power, but DeSantis said that he expects all power to be restored by this weekend. He has paused his presidential campaign to focus on the state’s recovery. He did not say when he would resume his political activities.