Ben Hendren for the New York Post
The failure of the Biden-Harris administration to take charge of urgently needed rescue and recovery efforts after Hurricane Helene underscores a key question: Who is really running this White House?
Right now, we have no clear answer.
President Biden’s and Vice President Harris’ cavalier indifference to the Americans fighting to survive in the disaster zone has left us — both longtime Democrats — speechless.
Substantively, politically and personally, both Biden and Harris had ample reason to step up in the aftermath of the storm’s horrific destruction.
Yet their administration has repeatedly failed Helene’s victims — and, by extension, the American people as a whole.
The storm made landfall Sept. 26 in Florida and raged over inland parts of Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, killing a confirmed 232 people with hundreds still missing.
But the administration’s slow response in mobilizing federal resources hampered recovery efforts, while Biden’s and Harris’ late and perfunctory visits to the disaster area to show support have made them appear woefully insensitive.
Biden — who was vacationing in Delaware when the storm hit — glibly told reporters he had “commanded” the federal response by phone “for at least two hours,” hardly sufficient for an event this devastating.
Even more alarmingly, Harris, who is hoping to be our next president, was initially content with a brief FEMA photo op in the storm’s aftermath.
Only when it became a media talking point, nearly a week later, did the veep finally travel to a hard-hit part of the swing state of Georgia — an obviously political stop just weeks before Election Day.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp was one of many local officials who called out the administration for delaying much-needed federal aid.
Only 11 counties — out of the 90 likely to need aid — were initially made eligible for federal relief funds, Kemp complained, tying locals’ hands and undoubtedly worsening Helene’s impact in the Peach State.
It took six days for the White House to activate a paltry 1,000 military members to help deliver assistance — even though three of America’s premier military divisions with critical search and rescue experience are based within just a few hours of the hardest-hit areas in the Carolinas and Georgia.
Compare that to President George W. Bush, who ordered nearly 10,000 troops to the Hurricane Katrina disaster zone in 2005.
If Biden and Harris wished to actually help Americans and not just pose for pictures, they should have immediately activated military assets for rescue efforts, and mobilized the Army Corps of Engineers to clear and stabilize roads and bridges.
They could have ordered FEMA to quickly expand the list of impacted counties to get aid flowing appropriately.
And they should certainly have done a better job managing FEMA’s funding: According to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the agency is nearly broke after spending more than $600 million caring for illegal migrants nationwide.
The bumbling White House response is incomprehensible for any administration — but particularly so this close to a presidential election.
Harris was already struggling to respond to voters’ questions over her agenda, her priorities and her managerial abilities.
Her failure to so much as show up when Americans faced such a crisis has literally taken our breath away.
Her apparent indifference underscores voters’ suspicion that Harris is not on top of our country’s domestic concerns — and may well damage her chances in these battleground states.
Bush was excoriated for appearing heartless toward the people of New Orleans after his 2005 flyby of the Hurricane Katrina disaster zone. Harris is running the very real risk of being seen in the same light.
Given that well-known history, the level of political mismanagement on the part of this administration and Harris’ campaign is shocking.
It reinforces the belief that the Biden-Harris administration as a whole is both inept and insensitive.
Why should voters think a President Harris would be any less asleep at the wheel than the administration in which she now serves?
And how can Americans trust her to lead the country for the next four years when she has proven time and again to be unresponsive to our needs?
You’d think that two key swing states with a total of 32 electoral votes would receive overwhelming resources and attention from the party in power after a catastrophe of this magnitude.
Instead, the Biden-Harris administration’s incompetence, indifference and weakness on a host of issues, both domestic and foreign, could presage the Democrats’ defeat.
Douglas Schoen was an adviser to President Bill Clinton and to Hillary Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign. Andrew Stein (D) served as New York City Council president, 1986-94.