A new digital ad from Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign features two former officials who served in Donald Trump’s administration denouncing the Republican nominee for politicizing natural disasters while he was in office.
Olivia Troye, who was an aide to former Vice President Mike Pence, and Kevin Carroll, a Trump administration Homeland Security official, claim in the ad that Trump wanted to withhold disaster relief funds from Democratic states.
“Never in a million years did I ever think that I’d be working in the White House with a president that didn’t care about the American people,” Troye says in the ad.
“He would suggest not giving disaster relief to states that hadn’t voted for him,” Carroll claims.
Troye recalled that “one time, after a wildfire in California, he wouldn’t send relief because it was a Democratic state. So we went as far as looking up how many votes he got in those impacted areas to show him: These are people who voted for you.”
“This isn’t normal. The job of the president is to protect Americans, regardless of politics,” she adds.
Both Troye and Carroll warned that, under a second Trump administration, things would be worse. “There’ll be no one to stop his worst instincts,” said Carroll.
Troye said she’s voting for Harris because “she will put the safety and security of every American first, whether they voted for her or not.”
Troye and another official who served in Trump’s administration, Mark Harvey, told Politico in an article published last week that, on at least three occasions, Trump resisted giving aid to regions he considered left-leaning or ordered special treatment for Republican states.
Democrats have enlisted the help of Republicans and former Trump officials on multiple occasions during the campaign to warn what the country would be like if he returned to power.
The ad was released amid attacks from Trump on the Biden-Harris administration’s response to Hurricane Helene.
Trump claims, for example, that Joe Biden is neglecting Republican-leaning areas affected by the storm and that the president ducked calls from Georgia’s Republican governor about hurricane relief. Both claims are false.
Trump’s slights appear to be yet another case of projection.
As president, Trump blocked billions in congressionally approved aid from reaching Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, and threatened to withhold aid to California for wildfires.
The Harris campaign’s ad will begin to appear on digital and social media across battleground states Thursday evening, CNN reported.
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