With the Federal Emergency Management Agency reeling from major staffing and funding shortages amid the impact of Hurricane Helene, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) refused on Sunday to commit to reconvening the House before Election Day to aid recovery efforts. In response to a letter from President Biden urging congressional leaders back to replenish federal disaster loan funding, Johnson said during a Fox News Sunday interview that he’d only do so after the election—all but ensuring the funds will run out.
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I think Desantis and the phone call thing is mostly political theatre. She wants to look presidential. It’s understandable she wants to pursue this “opportunity,” but she’s just VP. Not a key role in this kind of thing.
But Johnson refusing to fund disaster response is intended to prevent the Biden-Harris admin from doing it’s job and helping people in desperate situations. That’s fucked.
These sorts of phone calls are common, though. Desantis isn’t picking up Biden’s phone call either, and he isn’t running.
The White House actually made an announcement that Biden and DeSantis had spoken.
Apparently this call happened Monday evening per the Miami Herald, after a lot of the criticism had been made.
Having direct continuity with the next President is useful. There’s some plausible arguments (though by no means a slam dunk) that the delay in transition after the 2000 election left the Bush Admin unprepared and led to 9/11.
Had trump called, desantis would have wet himself in supplication.