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Personally, I am not a big fan of politicians doing photo ops after disasters.
In Germany, Gerhard Schroeder won an election this way, standing in rubber boots near some flooded village. Ever since, whenever there is a flood, politicians will decent on the affected areas like vultures on a carcass looking serious. Armin Laschet famously lost his bid at chancellorship because a photograph of him laughing at one of these events surfaced.
Perhaps I am cynical, but I generally find this disgusting. These poor people have already been visited by one plague, do we really have to subject them to a torrent of politicians as well? I mean, if a politician said 'as a sign of solidarity, I will live a month with them in an emergency shelter' that would be some serious commitment (but still net negative for the victims in the case of quite some politicians). But arriving by helicopter, getting helped into your rubber boots, making a short speech and then returning to whatever upper class home you have does not feel like a show of solidarity, but just turns the flood victims into extras in your election ad.
You don’t have to literally go there to make a speech. Hell you don’t even need to leave the resort your in (he’s on vacation). Any hotel will have some sort of conference room, and you could easily give a speech from there. Just something reassuring the people that he’s actually working on the problem. The thing he actually did, not only isn’t reassuring, but honestly gives the opposite impression. If he’s only in touch on this issue by phone for 2 hours, how can that make a person living through that confident in the response? Really, entire towns destroyed is worth stopping your vacation for two whole hours? It’s almost a show of indifference to give an answer like that.
For that matter, I’m sure you can get a computer with connection to the White House and check in at some point.
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