The difference between how President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are reacting in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene and how former President Donald Trump is taking action shows the difference between "talking about being a leader and being a leader," Trump campaign senior official Corey Lewandowski told Newsmax on Tuesday.
"This is a national tragedy," Lewandowski told Newsmax's "Wake Up America." "People don't truly understand how long it's going to take to rebuild these communities … I have lived through a hurricane — Hurricane Ian — two years ago that devastated southwest Florida. It takes years for these communities to recover."
What's needed, he continued, is people who care.
"A lot of these communities don't even have electricity still," said Lewandowski, noting that Trump contacted Elon Musk to bring in Starlink so the communities can communicate with their loved ones.
Trump has also started a GoFundMe account that has already raised more than $1.85 million as of Tuesday morning. He also arrived in Valdosta, Georgia, with truckloads of supplies.
But Biden and Harris, he commented, "have done nothing to help these people. I don't want to make this political, but it will be reflected at the ballot box because when you are in your time of need the most, you look to those leaders who come to you and say, what can we do to help? That's why we saw Donald Trump in Georgia yesterday."
Biden has rejected claims from Trump that he's not doing anything to command the situation, and plans to visit North Carolina on Wednesday.
Lewandowski said he's been traveling with Trump, and there were some elected officials in the communities that were hit asking that he wait to visit, leading to the decision to visit Valdosta.
"I can assure you Donald Trump's going to be in North Carolina on Thursday of this week," he added. "He's going to continue to make sure that the people of the communities have the resources they need. It would be different if he was in the White House. But as a private citizen, he's doing everything he possibly can to help these families recover as quickly as possible."
Lewandowski insisted that "you put politics aside when people are hurting," but said the lack of leadership from Washington, D.C., "reminds me that people don't turn" there for solutions, "because they don't provide any."
"They want people like Donald Trump, a private individual who has business acumen and success, to come in and solve the problem," said Lewandowski. "What that means yesterday was bringing water and supplies to the people who most need it, because potable water, drinking water, is so critical right now."
But once the floods recede, "the smell, the sewage, the devastation that remains behind, if your home even exists, basically most of these homes," adds to the tragedy, he said.
Many homes will have to be razed, and people will have to start over, Lewandowski added.
"It's going to take probably a decade potentially to recover, and my heart goes out to these people," he said. "I know what it's like. It's so hard. But having leaders that care about you is important."
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