President Donald Trump and the first lady visited Alabama on Friday to survey damaged areas and offer support to locals after a slate of deadly…
President Donald Trump and the first lady visited Alabama on Friday to survey damaged areas and offer support to locals after a slate of deadly tornadoes ripped across the region last weekend, killing 23 people, including four children.
After touching down in Fort Benning, Georgia, the couple headed to Lee County, Alabama, where much of the damage occurred. They flew over the tornado-torn county to assess the damage, traveled to a disaster-relief center to thank first responders and meet with survivors and volunteers, and stopped at a memorial to honor victims, CNN reported.
Sen. Doug Jones of Alabama thanked the president for visiting the state during a news conference on Thursday, according to the Associated Press, adding, “Seeing the devastation will take your breath away.”
The president’s visit comes after a controversial tweet he posted on Monday, writing: “FEMA has been told directly by me to give the A Plus treatment to the Great State of Alabama and the wonderful people who have been devastated by the Tornadoes.”
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, who tweeted on Monday that she had spoken to Trump and was coordinating efforts with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to evaluate next steps, thanked the president for his support. A day later, Trump approved a disaster declaration for Alabama, ordering federal aid to assist with recovery efforts.
But his “A Plus” tweet sparked concerns over how Trump responds to natural disasters and whether he is more gracious with his time and attention when the state aligns with his political leanings.
Disaster experts told INSIDER that Trump’s tweets and rhetoric has cast doubt on FEMA’s efforts as an apolitical agency to provide relief to survivors.
“My first reaction was that there’s no such thing as an A-plus. Every disaster response should be as robust and targeted as possible, regardless of where you live,” Rafael Lemaitre, a former director of public affairs at FEMA during the Obama administration, said.
“The president has politicized disaster relief in a way we haven’t seen before, in terms of how he talks about it in public and how he’s used it as a mechanism for advancing whatever position he has, and that’s dangerous.”After the California wildfires, Trump in part blamed the state for the disaster and said he ‘ordered FEMA to send no more money’
Alabama, a solidly red state in the heart of the South, swings in the opposite direction of California, a blue bastion that also experienced a devastating natural disaster last year when multiple wildfires tore through the state.
