After a natural disaster, local authorities usually ask the President to hold off on visiting the area until it's been established safe enough for the residents to not take any much-needed resources away from anyone impacted by the tragedy to, say, accommodate a presidential motorcade.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have each been in touch with the governors of the states impacted by Hurricane Helene, and federal assistance has already been issued as the White House continues to receive briefings on the recovery efforts from FEMA. President Biden has plans to visit North Carolina, where the mountain town of Asheville was hit with "biblical" rains and flooding, on Thursday.
But Donald Trump doesn't listen to what anyone says once he sees his moment for a photo op, which is why he was in Valdosta, Georgia, a town very much still recovering from being directly in Hurricane Helene's historically destructive path through the Southeast.
You might recall when Trump was asked in 2017 not to visit Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria's devastation and how well he listened back then.
Trump stood behind a makeshift podium created from what was left of the bricks from a destroyed furniture store, another perfect visual metaphor for his campaign. If only the store was also called Four Season Furniture.
He then delivered a low-energy ramble of a prepared set of remarks, going off-script as usual.
Trump, who's out on bail in Georgia and has a state-issued prisoner number, falsely claimed President Biden wasn't doing enough for the state's disaster relief effort.