©  The Hill, Greg Nash/Associated Press, Rebecca Blackwell

President Biden and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a GOP challenger to his 2024 reelection bid, said Wednesday that politics are off the table as they work together to respond to Hurricane Idalia.

The storm made landfall in Florida and crossed into Georgia traveling toward the Carolinas on Wednesday, bringing a range of hazardous weather conditions and leaving nearly 480,000 people without power as of early Wednesday evening.

While the Florida Highway Patrol said two people were killed in weather-related car crashes, CNN reported, DeSantis told reporters Wednesday afternoon there were no confirmed fatalities from the storm.

“I think he trusts my judgment and my desire to help, and I trust him to be able to suggest that this is not about politics, it’s about taking care of the people of his state,” Biden said of DeSantis.

The Florida governor said that “helping people has got to triumph over any type of short term political calculation or any type of positioning.”

The White House said Biden spoke with DeSantis and governors of Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, as well, promising the administration’s support.

Idalia hit Florida as a Category 3 hurricane on Wednesday morning and had weakened to a Category 1 storm by early afternoon. Follow The Hill’s live blog on Hurricane Idalia.

Biden on Wednesday also discussed the administration’s response to the wildfires on Maui, which killed at least 115 people. The president announced $95 million from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is going toward Hawaii’s electric grid. 

More coverage from The Hill: Idalia poses once-in-a-century threat to rural Florida

• Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) appeared to freeze up during a press gaggle Wednesday, following a similar occurrence just over a month ago. A McConnell aide said the senator “feels fine” but “will be consulting a physician[.]”
  
  

• A judge ruled in favor of two Georgia election workers by default in their defamation lawsuit against Rudy Giuliani after he refused to turn over discovery.
  
  

• Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio‘s sentencing was postponed because the presiding judge in the case was sick Wednesday, a court spokesperson told The Hill.

©  The Hill/Greg Nash

At Wednesday’s White House press briefing, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Deanne Criswell said the agency’s personnel who are funded through the Disaster Relief Fund won’t be impacted if there’s a government shutdown later this year. Criswell said she could also designate other emergency essential personnel. 

“We have plans in place — as we have gone through this before — on how we would staff our agency,” Criswell said.

Congress has until Sept. 30 to reach some kind of government funding agreement, with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) pushing for a short-term continuing resolution. A small group of conservatives who want more spending cuts and policy additions are threatening to oppose the effort.

The Hill’s Mychael Schnell and Emily Brooks have more on that here.

A new ADP National Employment report showed the private sector added 177,000 jobs in August, down from 371,000 in July based on ADP’s revised numbers.

Nela Richardson, chief economist with ADP, said August’s numbers “are consistent with the pace of job creation before the pandemic.”

From The Hill’s Julia Shapero: “The sharp slowdown in private sector hiring is the latest indication that the labor market could finally be cooling, after remaining unexpectedly resilient to the Federal Reserve’s repeated interest rate hikes.” Read more here.

Manufacturer Emergent BioSolutions announced the first batch of Narcan, an opioid overdose reversal drug, has shipped to retailers for over-the-counter sale. 

“Major retailers including CVS, Walmart and Walgreens have said they expect Narcan to be available online and in many stores early next week,” The Hill’s Sarah Fortinsky wrote. 

©  AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File

After the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan two years ago, tens of thousands of Afghan evacuees came to the states. But Congress has not yet cleared a path for them to obtain permanent status in the U.S.    

As board chair for the Afghan-American Foundation Joseph Azam put it, “a lot of them are wondering if their permanent state in the U.S. is actually impermanence.” Read more from The Hill’s Rebecca Beitsch.  

The second GOP presidential primary debate’s moderators have been announced: Fox hosts Stuart Varney and Dana Perino and Univision’s Ilia Calderón. Learn more about them here.

The moisture released from crops, via a process called evapotranspiration, can raise humidity levels and the heat index. According to the U.S. National Weather Service Central Illinois, the state’s mature corn crops release more than 35 billions gallons of water a day. More here.

“How the Afghanistan War Commission aims to learn from our longest conflict” — Shamila N. Chaudhary and Colin F. Jackson, Ph.D., the co-chairs of the congressionally-mandated independent and bipartisan Afghanistan War Commission. (Read here)

“Time to reassess the war on terror” — Norman Solomon, co-founder of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. (Read here)

28 days until the second GOP presidential primary debate.

138 days until the Iowa Republican caucuses.

433 days until the presidential election.

President Biden will be in Pennsylvania.

There a story you think should be getting more attention? Something people should be talking about? Drop me a line: ALaTour@digital-release.thehill.com

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