Biden praises DeSantis's 'great job' on hurricane relief as he declines Harris call

President Joe Biden offered praise for Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis organizing Hurricane Helene relief efforts as Vice President Kamala Harris has castigated him for allegedly politicizing the storm response.

"The governor of Florida has been cooperative. He's said he's gotten all that he needs. I talked to him again yesterday," Biden said during a press conference at the White House. "I said no, you're doing a good job, you know, you've done well. We thank you for it. And I literally gave him my personal phone number to call.

"There was a rough start in some places but every governor, every governor from Florida to North Carolina, has been fully cooperative and supportive and acknowledged what this team is doing," he said.

Biden's remarks appear to undercut claims from Harris that the governor had politicized the storm relief and refused to accept a phone call from her. NBC News originally reported that a DeSantis aide had said his office declined a call from Harris, though the governor indicated in a press conference that he was unaware Harris had reached out and that her staff had not called him directly.

“People are in desperate need of support right now, and playing political games at this moment, in these crisis situations — these are the height of emergency situations — it’s utterly irreconcilable, and it is selfish, and it is about political gamesmanship instead of doing the job that you took an oath to do, which is to put the people first,” Harris said of DeSantis, according to The Hill.

The governor, for his part, insisted that Harris was seeking to insert herself into an effort in which she has no role for political clout.

“She has no role in this. In fact, she’s been vice president for three and a half years. I’ve dealt with a number of storms under this administration," he said. "She has never contributed anything to any of these efforts, and so what I think is selfish is her trying to blunder into this."