‘Connect the cord to the phone’: Trump claims Kamala took ‘fake and staged’ photo of Hurricane Helene briefing

Former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump took to social media to accuse Vice President Kamala Harris of staging a photo of her on a phone call with officials about disaster recovery efforts Hurricane Helene which continues to devastate parts of the southeastern United States.
The photo, posted to Harris’s X account on Sunday, shows the vice president on board Air Force Twoan iPhone on the table in front of her and an earbud in one ear as she scribbled notes on a piece of paper. The image accompanied a message outlining the government’s support for affected areas.
“I was just updated by FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell on the latest developments on the ongoing impacts of Hurricane Helene. “We also discussed our government’s continued actions to support emergency response and recovery,” Harris wrote in her post. She added that she had spoken to North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper on the state’s efforts to address the crisis.
But it wasn’t the recovery efforts that caught Trump’s attention — it was the apparent disconnect between the vice president’s earpiece and the phone in front of her.
“Another FAKE and INSPECTED photo of someone who has no idea what she is doing,” Trump tweeted. “You have to connect the cable to the phone for it to work! Biden and Harris have failed Americans in Afghanistan. They sacrificed Americans to an open border, and now they have drowned Americans in North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama. and elsewhere in the South, Americans always come last because we have “leaders” who have no idea how to lead!”

For Trump, the incident presented not only an opportunity to criticize Harris but also to draw broader parallels between the response to the hurricane and what he sees as the administration’s broader failures, from foreign policy to border security.
The human cost of the disaster is significant: over 100 people lost their lives and millions face the daunting task of rebuilding after the storm. Power outages and destroyed infrastructure have left communities in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and beyond struggling to recover.
The Biden-Harris administration has underscored its commitment to relief efforts, deploying more than 3,300 federal forces to affected regions for search and rescue operations, restoring power and more. Harris, whose campaign plans were derailed by the disaster, cut short her trip to return to Washington and oversee the federal response.
President Joe Biden announced that he had communicated with the governors of Georgia and North Carolina following the devastating impact of Hurricane Helene on their states and expressed his intention to visit the state later in the week, likely on Wednesday or Thursday. Additionally, he noted that he “may have to ask” Congress to call a special session to approve additional funding to support those affected by the hurricane’s aftermath.