The permanently discontented co-hosts of “The View” nitpicked how Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is responding to Hurricane Ian after the Republican governor thanked President Joe Biden for lending aid to his state.
DeSantis on Tuesday told Fox News host Sean Hannity that Biden had spoken to him about coordinating preparations for Hurricane Ian, which is expected to be a dangerous Category 4 storm when it makes landfall on Florida’s southwestern coastline sometime Wednesday afternoon.
The president reached out to DeSantis after reporters had noted he contacted several Florida mayors but had not appeared to have spoken with the governor. “The View” played excerpts of DeSantis’ interview on “Hannity,” during which he described his phone call with the president.
“When peoples lives and their property are at risk like this, you know we all need to work together regardless of party lines. The Biden administration has approved our request for a pre-landfall declaration and did that very quickly. So we’re thankful for that,” DeSantis told Hannity.
“It’s my sense that the administration, you know, wants to help,” he said. “I think they realize that this is a really significant storm.”
Whoopi Goldberg sneered at DeSantis’ response as if he took a dig at Biden by thanking the president.
“Well I mean, he’s the president of the United States. That includes Florida,” she said. “You don’t have to agree with him about stuff, but these are his people, your people, our people. That’s what you’re supposed to do.”
“Isn’t it socialism when the government helps you?” Joy Behar chimed in.
“Like social security, medicare?” added Asunción aka “Sunny” Hostin.
“Yeah, and the fire department’s gotta come. And the police, I mean, socialism!” Behar said, mockingly waving her hands.
The ladies went on to speculate over what kind of leadership DeSantis would show as he guides Florida through this natural disaster.
“He’ll be fine. I think he’ll handle it, he’s not stupid,” Behar said.
“I hope he can organize in the way that the Pureto Rican governor — he took a lot of flak for it, but he really organized Puerto Rico and organized those mayors and the mayor of San Juan especially,” Hostin said, referencing the Puerto Rican response to Hurricane Maria.
She went on to suggest DeSantis will be successful because he likes to take charge.
“DeSantis, in my view, he likes to have a little fiefdom,” Hostin said.
Sara Haines piped up to criticize the media coverage of DeSantis’ call with the president, observing that the “packets” provided by ABC told them to emphasize that DeSantis “praises Biden.”
“When did politics become so ugly that to say ‘I’m grateful’ … which I’m not criticizing the language, I’m saying the coverage of that was like clickbait,” Haines said.
Hostin attempted to blame former President Donald Trump for the way the media is covering how a Democratic president and Republican governor are working together in a crisis by falsely claiming that Trump never worked with Democrats. But Alyssa Farah Griffin, who worked in the Trump administration, shut her down.
“What happened when we had any kind of disaster, when we had any kind of issue Trump was not calling governors of blue states,” Hostin asserted.
“No, that’s not true,” Farah Griffin said, pointing out that the White House hosted former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and others “multiple times” during the COVID-19 pandemic, for example.
“We did during COVID, it’s just a fact,” she said when Hostin made a face.
But Goldberg interrupted to say the reason the media is “glad” to see bipartisan leadership in a crisis is because “normalcy is coming back” after Trump.
The panel went on to agree that DeSantis is “smarter than Trump” but Behar injected politics back into the discussion by linking hurricanes to climate change and attacking DeSantis for not going along with a climate alarmist agenda.
The discussion ended after Hostin observed DeSantis faces reelection in six weeks and that this hurricane will be a “test” for him.
DeSantis, meanwhile, urged Americans to pray for the people of Florida Wednesday morning, saying Hurricane Ian is shaping up to be a “historic storm.”
“It’s going to really shape the communities in southwest Florida and have a profound impact on our state,” the governor said.
As of 12 p.m., Ian remained an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane, with wind speeds just 2 mph short of Category 5 status. The eyewall of the storm has begun to make landfall over Sanibel and Captiva islands in southwest Florida, according to the National Weather Service.
The National Hurricane Center said at 1 p.m. the storm is about 35 miles west-southwest of Ft. Myers and about 45 miles southwest of Punta Gorda. Ian’s maximum sustained winds were clocked at 155 mph.
“You need to get into the interior of your home and begin to brace for a period of sustained damaging, potentially devastating winds,” acting NHC Director Jamie Rhome said in an update Wednesday morning. “Do not venture outside at all. Do not try to evacuate at this point. You really have to get into the interior of your house and ride this part out.”
He told residents of Central Florida to prepare for heavy rain and possible flash flooding.
“Absolutely the I-4 corridor is a high risk of very heavy rain, that will produce flash flooding, impassable roads,” he said. “I’m telling you, you just need to get where you’re going, to stay and plan to be there. We lose so many people after a storm because they get out and wander about it, drive into flooded roads, powerlines might be down they just encounter. I know you want to see what happened. I know you want to see if your house, your neighborhood is OK. But please stay inside until conditions allow you to safely move about.”
9/28/22 NHC Live Tropical Update
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