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SWANNANOA, N.C. (AP) — Surveying storm damage in North Carolina, former President Donald Trump on Monday blasted federal emergency responders whose work has been stymied by armed harassment and a deluge of misinformation, but he said he was not concerned that the aftermath of Hurricane Helene would affect election results in the battleground state.
Trump was asked whether it was helpful to criticize hurricane relief workers after the Federal Emergency Management Agency recently paused work in the area because of reports they could be targeted by militia. He responded by again assailing the agency and repeating the falsehood that the response was hampered because FEMA spent its budget helping people who crossed the border illegally. That claim was debunked weeks ago by U.S. Rep. Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., who stood behind Trump as he spoke.
“Well, I think you have to let people know how they’re doing," Trump told reporters in Swannanoa, outside Asheville. “If they were doing a great job, I think we should say that, too, because I think they should be rewarded. ... If they’re doing a poor job, we’re supposed to not say it?”
Trump's campaign and that of his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, are ramping up their campaigns in the final two weeks before Election Day.
Trump had three stops in North Carolina on Monday. After the Asheville area, he held a rally across the state in Greenville and spoke at a faith leaders event in Concord, where he appealed to Christian voters by repeating his criticism of transgender athletes playing on women's sports teams and his proposal to conduct a large-scale deportation operation. Trump said that during his administration, he fought for Christians “like no president has ever fought before.”
Harris on Monday focused her campaigning efforts on the “blue wall,” traveling to suburban Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. She held a series of conversations with Republican Liz Cheney moderated by GOP strategist Sarah Longwell, publisher of the Bulwark, a commentary site for anti-Trump conservatives, and conservative radio host Charlie Sykes. Trump won those three states in 2016 and lost them in 2020, and Harris could all but lock up the presidency if she swept them.
Cheney, a former Wyoming congressman who lost her seat after she spoke out against Trump following the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, offered advice to her fellow Republicans who are uneasy with Trump but not comfortable broadcasting support for a Democrat.
“You can vote your conscience and not ever have to say a word to anybody," Cheney said.
Many North Carolina counties affected by Hurricane Helene moved Election Day precincts or changed early voting sites. Thousands of voters remained displaced or without power or water as early voting commenced. Both parties are scrambling to check their turnout operations.
“We’re working every channel we can, you know?” Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley, a North Carolinian, said. “We’re going to be doing phone calls. We’re going to be doing direct mail. We’ll be doing emails and digital — basically anything we can do to let people know where to go.”
Despite extensive damage across western North Carolina, Trump said he saw no reason for the storm to cast doubt on the North Carolina election results.
“No, I think in a way, it’s the opposite,” Trump said. “I mean, we’re so impressed, and I think they have a pretty good system here.”
Republican Renee Kyro, who lives a short drive from the devastated mountain town of Chimney Rock, said she knows “plenty of Trump supporters who lost everything,” and others who remain in their homes but don’t have reliable internet or phone connections and may not know their polling location.
“I’ll go door to door if I have to,” she said.
State Sen. Natalie Murdock, who doubles as political director for Democrats' coordinated campaign in the state, said the party has the apparatus to reach their target voters in the disaster zone. Field workers in some of Democrats’ two-dozen-plus offices around the state have engaged in recovery efforts, distributing water and other supplies to residents.
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, urged Trump not to "share lies or misinformation” about the storm recovery.
Many storm survivors lost everything, and they want help and truth, Cooper said Monday at a briefing in Asheville.
“We should work together to give them both,” the governor said. “Storm recovery cannot be partisan."
Edwards, who represents Asheville and surrounding areas in Congress, put out a long statement last month debunking “outrageous rumors” that FEMA was halting trucks from bringing in supplies, abandoning rescue efforts to bulldoze Chimney Rock, running out of money and more. He did not defend FEMA from Trump’s criticism Monday.
Instead, Edwards, who owns McDonald’s franchises, presented Trump with what he called a “French fry certification pin" in a nod to the former president's photo opportunity Sunday at one of the fast-food restaurants.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called Trump's FEMA comments “dangerous” and said they had been debunked on a bipartisan basis. She said 5,500 federal personnel were in North Carolina and Florida after Helene and Hurricane Milton and noted that $2 billion in federal assistance had been approved for those affected in North Carolina.
“They are dangerous,” Jean-Pierre said of Trump’s remarks. “They are unhelpful. It is not what leadership looks like.”
Even before Helene, North Carolina was all the more compelling because of its history of split-ticket voting. It’s one of the few states that features competitive governor’s races concurrent with presidential contests.
Democrats have carried the presidential electoral vote just once since 1992 — in Barack Obama's narrow win in 2008. Republicans have won just one governor’s race in the same span. Four years ago, Cooper won reelection by 4.5 points despite Trump outpacing Biden. He's prevented by term limit laws from running again.
Democrats hope Republican gubernatorial nominee Mark Robinson’s latest struggles, centered on CNN’s revelations that the state's first Black lieutenant governor once called himself a “Black Nazi” and posted lascivious statements on a porn website, turn thousands of Cooper-Trump voters into supporters of Harris and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Josh Stein. Robinson has denied the allegations and sued CNN, calling its report defamatory.
Trump demurred Monday when asked whether voters should support Robinson, whom Trump has endorsed and has referred to as “Martin Luther King on steroids.”
“I’m not familiar with the state of the race right now,” he said. “I haven’t seen it.”
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Associated Press writers Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, Colleen Long in Washington and Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix contributed to this report.