It is unclear whether the two leaders’ delicate détente will hold longer than Mr. Biden’s four hours on the ground, but they must now work together on a lengthy recovery effort, which could soon bleed into the midterm election season.
Mr. Biden and Mr. DeSantis will also have to contend with the influence of former President Donald J. Trump, another South Florida resident who has demonstrated little interest in ceding the political spotlight to rivals in either party.
While the president and the governor have stayed in regular telephone contact in recent days, they showed little interest in publicly detailing their conversations or suggesting that the nature of their relationship had changed.
Gestures of solidarity in a moment of crisis can carry political risk: Mr. Biden’s visit recalled the 2012 trip by President Barack Obama to New Jersey after Hurricane Sandy, when Chris Christie, the state’s governor at the time and a rising star in the Republican Party, was photographed conspicuously embracing Mr. Obama. Mr. Christie, who ran unsuccessfully for president in 2016, was considerably maligned over the awkward embrace.
On Wednesday, the president and the governor settled for a handshake. While Mr. Biden views Mr. Trump as a threat to democracy, he speaks of Mr. DeSantis, 44, as an emerging force in a party he says he no longer recognizes.
“This is not your father’s Republican Party,” Mr. Biden said this spring, targeting Mr. DeSantis, a former congressman who is running for re-election against Charlie Crist, a centrist Democrat. “It’s not even conservative in a traditional sense of conservatism. It’s mean, it’s ugly.”
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/05/us/politics/biden-desantis-florida-hurricane-ian.html
Comments