Trump offers support for storm victims in Iowa.
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump offered the nation’s support Tuesday for areas of Iowa heavily damaged by last week’s deadly storm, which killed three people, destroyed huge swaths of cropland and left half a million people without power.
“All Americans are united in grief and prayer for the precious life that was lost,” Trump said during a briefing in Cedar Rapids, which was hit particularly hard.
Trump’s consoling comments in Iowa contrasted sharply with the attacks he lobbed at Democrats on Tuesday morning after the first day of their presidential nominating convention.
Trump stopped in Cedar Rapids on his way to Arizona to counter the buzz surrounding the Democratic National Convention.
The trip takes Trump to two states that he won four years ago over Hillary Clinton that are in play in this election. Trump won Iowa by more than 9 percentage points and Arizona by 3.5 percentage points. Polls show him in a tight race with his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, in both places.
The Real Clear Politics average of state polls shows Trump slightly ahead in Iowa (1.7 percentage points) and Biden slightly ahead in Arizona (2 percentage points). Those results are within the polling margins of error.
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, who is locked in a tough reelection battle of her own, appeared with Trump at the Cedar Rapids event.
Trump did not mention the presidential campaign during a roundtable with Iowa state officials that focused on disaster relief. He praised Iowans’ resilience in coping with the storm damage.
“From the depths of this grave hardship, we will rebuild even stronger than before,” he said. “We’re going to be in fantastic shape in a very short period of time.”
Monday, Trump approved part of Iowa’s disaster aid request. The approval did not include assistance for private property owners. That approval may yet come, said Gov. Kim Reynolds, who described the storm as “basically a 40-mile tornado” that ripped through the state at 112 mph.
Reynolds’ total disaster aid application sought relief for nearly $4 billion in damage. About 10 million acres of cropland were heavily damaged.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said he traveled 150 miles across the state and saw the devastation firsthand.
“I’ve seen corn flat on the ground in my 50 years of farming,” he said. “But I have never seen it mile after mile, and just flat on the ground. And very little of it recoverable, I think.”