Republican leaders, adverse media and grieving survivors who are criticizing Joe Biden for the delay and alleged shortcomings in his response to the deadly fire on the Hawaiian island of Maui may have accused him of opportunism and electoralism if he had made a quick trip to the ground, accompanied by a more colorful deployment in front of the fire. The truth is that the criticism of the president, some understandable, does not stop while the number of dead grows and grows, well over a hundred. The president will go to the island on Monday, together with his wife, to comfort the families of the victims and engage with them; to explain the aid sent and listen to the local authorities.
The fires were declared on the night of Tuesday, August 8, and Biden did not make any statement on the matter until Tuesday the 15th. This is where the first reproaches come from. But, even if the president did not speak directly in almost a week, his spokesmen did speak soon, on the 10th. Through a statement and an intervention by the head of communications of the National Security Council, John Kirby, the White House announced that day the disaster declaration for Hawaii and the immediate dispatch of "federal aid to supplement state and local recovery efforts in affected areas." Officials conveyed the president's "deep condolences for the lives lost and the destruction of land and property," who had been in contact with the archipelago's leaders from the beginning.
But on Sunday, Biden stumbled. A reporter asked him about the tragedy. And his response, according to insider Justin Sink, was that he had nothing to comment: “After a couple of hours at Rehoboth Beach, @potus (acronym for the president) was asked about the increase in the death toll in Hawaii. 'No comments', he said before going home", the journalist explained to the X network.
Former President Donald Trump, at the time about to receive his fourth criminal impeachment, this time for mafia practices to try to overturn his 2020 electoral defeat in Georgia, took the opportunity to charge against Biden. His "no comment", he said, is "absolutely horrible". The former president brushed off his climate change denialism in passing, adding that the island's governor, Democrat Josh Green, "just blames global warming and other things that just go through his head."
Other Republicans of course joined Trump's attack, sometimes surprisingly. The ultra deputy for Florida Anna Paulina Luna called it "unfortunate" that the Government was giving "more" help and attention to Ukraine than to Maui.
"Hawaii and the people of Hawaii are much more important than places like Ukraine," he said in a video also posted on X.
Some Democrats also complained about Biden. This was the case of former Hawaii state representative Kaniela Ing, director of the environmentalist organization Green New Deal Network, for whom the attitude of his leader was disappointing. "I expected more," he said.
The situation for the president did not improve when his press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, mixed up the names and gender of Hawaiian lawmakers at her press conference on Monday. The Republican National Committee, along with right-wing media such as Fox, The Federalist and National Review, attacked her and her boss, both in broadcasts and publications and in messages on her favorite social network, X. And The editorial board of The New York Post, from the Murdoch Group, said: "Joe Biden is indifferent to the fires in Maui because he will win in Hawaii anyway."
In his expected statement on Tuesday, the ruler clarified that he had not moved quickly to the archipelago in order not to disturb: "I don't want to get in the way. I've been in too many disaster areas, and I want to go there and make sure they have everything they need,” but also that we don't disrupt ongoing recovery efforts.
At the same time, the White House released its extensive aid package to Hawaii to fight the fires and assist the victims, with more than 500 federal troops and support from several government departments, including Health, Defense and Agriculture. Hours later, the president announced for next Monday his visit to the disaster site. A view that may last longer than usual, given the complexity of the effects caused by the largest fire that the country has experienced in more than a century (since the huge fire of 1918 in Minnesota and Wisconsin, with 453 dead).
In the main area of the Maui fire "they still can't clean up because they don't know how many bodies there are", said Biden when the number of dead bodies was approaching a hundred but the number of missing exceeded (and exceeds) a thousand. "They don't know what's left. Imagine what it means in this situation to be a father or mother, husband or wife" of one of the disappeared, he added as a sign of empathy.
Complaints about Biden's reaction to the Maui fires, fueled by drought and wind although the specific cause has not yet been clarified, are added to those that the president had to deal with for his "slow to insufficient ” response to the toxic spill from a freight train in the village of East Palestine, Ohio, in February.
To make matters worse, the political opposition and some Maui residents lashed out Wednesday and yesterday against the administrator of the island's Emergency Management Agency, Herman Andaya, for not having activated the sirens when the fires started . He, with the support of Governor Green, added that he did not regret it, given that the use of sirens could have caused greater harm; as he explained, the 80 alarms installed in Maui are routinely used to warn of the arrival of tsunamis. And many, to protect themselves from a large sea wave, would have run to the mountains just "at the worst moment", when the fire was growing on the slopes.
The flames on most of the affected surfaces may have been extinguished. But its effects still seem far from extinction. Effects of all kinds.
