WASHINGTON — As a powerful hurricane batters Florida’s Gulf Coast, Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida faces a very different reckoning in his dealings with President Biden and the federal government.
Mr. DeSantis, a Republican widely seen as having White House ambitions, is one of his party’s top political provocateurs, often appearing on national television to denounce an administration in Washington he denounces as authoritarian. As recently as February, Mr. DeSantis fired Mr Biden as someone who “hates Florida”, baselessly claiming he is “stiffening” storm victims for political reasons.
But now, as Hurricane Ian threatens to inflict major damage across Florida, Mr. DeSantis must rely on help from the same federal government whose public health advice he ridiculed during the pandemic. Beyond that, he needs to work with the very president he castigated and could soon run to replace him.
“We all need to work together, regardless of party lines,” DeSantis said on Fox News Tuesday night, adding that he was “grateful” for the help from the Biden administration.
“The administration wants to help,” he said. “They realize this is a really big storm.”
The disaster-induced break in partisanship is a notable change for Mr. DeSantis, a politician who came to power in a highly polarized social media era and won his 2018 primary with the endorsement of Donald J. Trump that he got after defending Mr. Trump dozens of times on Fox News.
The governor’s tenure has been characterized by a series of fights appealing to the Trump-aligned Republican base, particularly on social issues and the pandemic response. One question that immediately arose as the storm hit Florida was how long Mr. DeSantis, who is seeking re-election in November against Rep. Charlie Crist, a former Democratic governor, would put the policy of side.
During Wednesday’s briefings, Mr. DeSantis did not mention the president or take questions from reporters, though he praised the support his state has received from several federal agencies.
Mr. Biden, unlike Mr. DeSantis, has for decades sold himself as a trader through the aisles.
On Wednesday morning, the president made a point of announcing that they had been in contact.
“Yesterday I spoke with Governor DeSantis for a while,” he told a White House hunger conference. “My team has been in constant contact with him from the very beginning.”
Mr Biden, who has also spoken to several Florida mayors, said he told Mr DeSantis the federal government was “alert and on the move” and approved every request for federal aid from Florida.
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“I have made it clear to the governor and the mayors that the federal government is ready to help in any way possible,” Biden said.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also pointed to the temporary unity.
“There’s no politics in it, when you’re talking about extreme weather,” she said. “This is about the people of Florida, this is about two people who wanted to have a conversation about how we can be partners with the governor and his constituents and make sure we deliver for the people of Florida.”
Ms. Jean-Pierre declined to say how long Mr. Biden and Mr. DeSantis spoke on Tuesday.
Hurricane Ian is the first major storm to hit Florida since Mr. DeSantis took office in early 2019. It operates with a storm playbook long honed by Florida governors, where the state’s response to Hurricane Andrew in 1992 was widely criticized as too slow and inefficient.
When he ran for president in 2016, Jeb Bush, a two-term governor, frequently highlighted Florida’s hurricane preparedness and rebuilding efforts under his leadership. Mr. DeSantis’ immediate predecessor, Rick Scott, polished a somewhat clumsy public figure while guiding Florida through a series of hurricanes during his tenure.
Mr. DeSantis is unlikely to follow the path of Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, whose warm greetings to President Barack Obama during an October 2012 visit to inspect the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy drew scorn from his fellow Republicans during his subsequent presidential campaign.
Mr Christie said in an interview on Wednesday that, 10 years later, “I wouldn’t change a thing.” He continued: “For me, it’s always been that the job I was elected to do was the most important thing and politics at the time was secondary.”
He added: ‘I didn’t think there was anything else at all. It’s a decision Governor DeSantis is going to have to make. »
At the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, Mr. DeSantis said that Mr. Biden “hates Florida” and “brings up” the victims of the storm because of politics. (There is no evidence that Mr. Biden withheld federal emergency aid for political purposes, although Mr. Trump often threatened to use a similar tactic while in the White House.)
Mr. DeSantis has also spent months attacking federal public health guidelines on the pandemic. In August, he disparaged Dr. Anthony S. Fauci days after the doctor announced he would be retiring as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
“Someone needs to grab this little elf and throw him across the Potomac,” DeSantis said at a rally in Orlando.
And two weeks ago, Mr. DeSantis flew two planes full of undocumented Venezuelan immigrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, in a bid to underscore his opposition to Mr. Biden’s immigration policies.
“The biggest blow was Biden coming in as president and Trump reversing policy,” DeSantis told reporters in Florida days later. He also suggested that the next plane of immigrants could land in Delaware, near the president’s weekend home.
The Democrats were furious. Mr Biden said Mr DeSantis was “playing politics with human beings, using them as props”, adding: “What they are doing is just plain wrong. It’s anti-American. It’s reckless.” Asked a few days later about his response to Mr. DeSantis’ threat to send the next plane to Delaware, Mr. Biden replied: “He should come visit us. We have a beautiful coastline .
Michael D. Shear contributed report.