Not the one that spent the weekend on Rehoboth Beach. Not the one who couldn't plug her earbuds into her phone while "receiving updates" on the disaster response, either. 

We're talking about the president bringing his own disaster response to Valdosta, Georgia. Donald Trump announced that we would personally airlift critical necessities to the disaster area left behind by Hurricane Helene, while Joe Biden and Kamala Harris remain ... elsewhere. Trump made the announcement on Twitter/X rather than just on Truth Social:

We are now heading to Valdosta, Georgia, in order to pay my respects and bring lots of relief material, including fuel, equipment, water, and other things, to the State. Many politicians and Law Enforcement will be there. We’ll be saying hello to Franklin Graham, Burt Jones,…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2024

... We’ll be saying hello to Franklin Graham, Burt Jones, Tyler Harper, Mike Collins, Austin Scott, Russ Goodman, Sam Watson, and the Mayor of Valdosta Scott James. They are working very hard. I was also going to stop into North Carolina, which has really been hit hard. I have a lot of supplies ready for them, but access and communication is now restricted, and we want to make sure that Local Emergency Management is able to focus on helping the people most affected, and not being concerned with me. I’ll be there shortly, but don’t like the reports that I’m getting about the Federal Government, and the Democrat Governor of the State, going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas. MAGA!

That last part may not be accurate, at least not in terms of intent. The White House and FEMA appear to have been caught flat-footed on emergency response overall, not just in targeted areas. The impacted region tends to be more Republican than Democrat, as do most rural areas, so the impact of incompetence would be felt along those lines. But it doesn't mean that the federal and North Carolina governments are specifically withholding aid based on politics.

Nevertheless, it provides a large opening for a presidential contender who likes to show up personally to offer support in disasters. Trump showed up in East Palestine, Ohio within three weeks of the February 2023 train derailment that poisoned the town and disrupted life there for months. He also sharply criticized the Biden-Harris response to that disaster, calling it a "betrayal" on his visit, which he made with now-running mate J.D. Vance:

Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday described the federal response to the toxic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, as a “betrayal” as visited the village amid mounting frustration from residents and local leaders more than two weeks after the disaster.

Trump, wearing his trademark red “Make America Great Again” cap and an overcoat, said the community needs “answers and results,” not excuses. He spoke at a firehouse roughly half a mile from where more than three dozen freight cars — including 11 carrying hazardous materials — came off the tracks near the Pennsylvania state line.

“In too many cases, your goodness and perseverance were met with indifference and betrayal,” Trump said. He appeared with Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, Mayor Trent Conaway and other state and local leaders, giving the visit the look of an official trip.

The former president and other Republicans have intensified criticism of the Biden administration’s handling of the Feb. 3 derailment, which led to evacuations and fears of air and water contamination after a controlled burning of toxic chemicals aboard the rail cars. 

Trump showed up 19 days after the derailment. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg showed up the next day, more than a week after residents demanded that he show up on site to deal with the transportation-related disaster. Joe Biden went to Ukraine instead, and didn't actually set foot in East Palestine until the following February, more than a year after the derailment. The town residents remained unimpressed, and they conducted a counter-demonstration Trump rally to rebuke Biden:

During Biden’s visit, there will be a separate rally for former President Donald Trump, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination. Trump won nearly 72 percent of the vote in Ohio’s Columbiana County, which includes East Palestine. He visited several weeks after the derailment.

Mike Young, the rally’s coordinator, described the grass-roots event as “anti-Biden.” He said he delivered water to the community after the disaster and the president should have been an immediate presence on the ground.

“The sentiment from residents has been: Where were you a year ago?” Young said. “Too little, too late. And now Biden shows up at election time.”

To paraphrase Woody Allen's famous quote, eighty percent of leadership (and politics) is showing up. For all his "common man" conceits, Biden never learned the wisdom of presence. Kamala Harris doesn't appear to have a clue about it either. 

Trump, on the other hand, understands presence as a political value. He didn't show up in East Palestine by mistake, and the lack of response from Biden and Harris gives him a great opportunity to provide a contrast in leadership. Flying aid into the area will give those on the ground a real boost in morale, not to mention address the real needs of those in the devastated region, incrementally at least. 

Biden, meanwhile, just got back to the White House after spending the hurricane at Rehoboth Beach on vacation. Where's Harris? She's cutting short a campaign visit to Nevada to go back to Washington DC. Neither one will go to the disaster area until later in the week, the White House says, to avoid disrupting the emergency response. When George W. Bush did that after Hurricane Katrina, the press pilloried him for his lack of presence. Keep an eye on the Protection Racket Media's narratives in this disaster.