‘People need help now’: Biden details working with Republicans on Helene relief

Funding to clean up the devastating Hurricane Helene, which has killed over 200 people, is desperately needed now, President Joe Biden said on Thursday — and he has still not ruled out ordering Congress to a special session to make it happen.

Biden, who spent the day touring storm damage in Florida and Georgia, rejected House Speaker Mike Johnson’s suggestion that a delay until the post-election period could be acceptable rather than call Congress back into session from their pre-election recess.

“We can't wait,” Biden said. “People need help now,.”

The president’s comments came on the tail end of remarks he delivered at a farm in Ray City, Georgia after touring damage left after the Category Four storm cut a swath of destruction stretching from Florida to North Carolina last week.

Biden said he’d been briefed by officials during his earlier stop in Florida on the damage caused by the 15-foot storm surge — a wall of water high enough to submerge a three-story building.

“I came here to Georgia to meet all of you, to see firsthand how you're doing… because we're really in this together,” said Biden.

“In times like this, it’s time to put politics aside… it’s not one state versus another state, we’re the United States. There are no Democrats or Republicans here.”

Biden recalled how he has been committed to being a “president for all Americans” and noted that the major legislation enacted during his time in office has, for the most part, been passed on a bipartisan basis.

What’s more, he said those bills have sent far more funds to so-called “red” states that typically elect Republicans than they do to “blue” states that lean Democratic.

“Our job is to help as many people as we can… when you do that, I hope again to break