WASHINGTON — President Biden flew to Kentucky on Wednesday morning to survey the harm wrought by a collection of lethal tornadoes final weekend, reprising a task comforting catastrophe victims that has grow to be a staple of his presidency.
The tornadoes ripped by way of a 200-mile swath of the state, killing scores of individuals and leaving greater than 1,000 households homeless or with extreme harm to restore. Mr. Biden will tour a number of the hardest-hit areas on his journey.
Within the late morning, he’ll take an aerial tour of Mayfield, Ky., which was devastated by the storms, after which examine it on the bottom, the place he will likely be briefed by native officers and go to a neighborhood.
Within the afternoon he’ll tour a neighborhood in Dawson Springs, Ky., a small city that’s the birthplace of the daddy of Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, a Democrat who will be a part of the president on his journey. Mr. Biden will then give remarks on his administration’s response to the storms.
The president has already made a number of related journeys since taking workplace in January. He has visited with victims of hurricanes and excessive storms on the Gulf Coast and within the New York space, and with victims of wildfires within the West.
In every case, Mr. Biden has tried to reassure residents that the federal authorities was working exhausting to hurry restoration efforts, whereas additionally providing private consolation to individuals who have suffered excessive harm from the disasters.
In Kentucky, Mr. Biden “will likely be surveying the storm harm firsthand, ensuring that we’re doing the whole lot to ship help as shortly as potential to impacted areas to help restoration efforts,” Jen Psaki, the White Home press secretary, instructed reporters on Tuesday.
“I can inform you from touring on a few of these journeys with the president up to now,” she mentioned, “typically what occurs is he’ll ask leaders straight, ‘What do you want? What are you not getting? And the way can we make it sooner for you?’ After which he’ll get again within the automotive and he’ll give an task to a staffer and say, ‘Get this finished.’”
The area hit by the storms voted largely for Mr. Biden’s opponent, former President Donald J. Trump, within the 2020 election. A reporter requested Ms. Psaki on Tuesday if Mr. Biden had ready particularly for his go to to the conservative space.
“I believe the president appears at folks by way of the tragedy they’re experiencing — the heartache they’re feeling on the lack of life, the lack of their properties; questions many individuals are elevating, I do know, about whether or not they can construct again from this — this storm that’s impacted their communities,” she mentioned. “He appears at them as human beings, not as individuals who have partisan affiliations.”
Ms. Psaki mentioned this week that Mr. Biden had invited the whole Kentucky congressional delegation, which is closely Republican, to accompany him on the journey. White Home officers listed just one member of that group on the official manifest for the flight to the state: Consultant James Comer Jr., a Republican whose district contains Mayfield.
