As the death toll and destruction from Hurricane Helene soar in the Southeast, both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump will be briefed by officials on Monday as the devastating storm finds itself in the midst of a battle for the White House with just over five weeks until Election Day.

Trump will stop in Valdosta, Georgia, to receive a briefing on the devastation, help distribute relief supplies and “provide remarks to the press,” his campaign said.

Harris returned to Washington DC on Monday morning, ending a Western campaign wave. The White House said the vice president would travel to the Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters once she arrives in the nation’s capital, where she will be briefed on the impact of the hurricane and the federal response to support rescue efforts. and recovery efforts.

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A van flows into the water near Biltmore Village in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on September 28, 2024 in Asheville, North Carolina. Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend on Thursday evening with winds of up to 230 km per hour. (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images)

More than 120 people have been killed by Helene since the hurricane made landfall in Florida late Thursday before carving a path of destruction through the interior of the Southeast. The storm caused millions of power outages and billions of dollars in property damage as it swept through the southern Appalachians into the Tennessee Valley.

SCENES FROM THE STORM’S PATH OF DESTRUCTION

Among the hardest-hit states were North Carolina and Georgia, two of the seven key battlegrounds whose razor-thin margins determined President Biden’s 2020 election victory over Trump and are expected to determine the outcome of the 2024 showdown between Harris and Trump.

Trump targeted the administration and Harris over the storm during a rally on Sunday in battleground Pennsylvania, accusing the president of “sleeping” at his beach house in Delaware while the storm devastated the Southeast.

Republican presidential candidate, former President Donald Trump, during a campaign rally at the Bayfront Convention Center in Erie, Pennsylvania, on Sunday, September 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Rebecca Droke)

Biden returned to the nation’s capital on Sunday afternoon to oversee federal relief efforts.

The White House noted that more than 3,300 federal employees have been deployed to support storm response efforts in affected states, and at least 50,000 personnel from across the country and Canada are responding to massive power outages in affected areas.

Biden told reporters that the federal government is giving states “everything we have” to help with their response to the storm and that “we are not leaving until the job is done.”

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Biden said he would tour the storm-damaged areas later this week, as long as his presence on the ground did not hamper rescue and recovery efforts.

“I am determined to travel to the affected areas as soon as possible, but I have been told it would be disruptive if I did so now. We will not do so at the risk of diverting or delaying the response. assets needed to tackle this crisis,” he told reporters on Monday.

Trump attacked Harris at his rally on Sunday for attending “fundraising events with her radical left-wing crazy donors” in California this weekend. He argued that Harris “should be in the area” where the storm caused destruction.

Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a rally on Sunday, September 29, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

The White House said Harris spoke Sunday with the governors of Florida, Georgia and North Carolina and that “the vice president plans to visit affected communities as soon as possible without disrupting emergency response operations.”

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In a statement Saturday, Harris said she and the president “remain committed to ensuring that no community or state has to respond to this disaster alone.”

Elected officials’ response to natural disasters can have a huge impact on their political fortunes on the campaign trail.

Trump faced criticism early in his tenure in the White House as Puerto Rico struggled to recover from a powerful storm. The then-president was criticized for throwing paper towels at the crowd when he stopped by a shelter during a storm-related visit to the island.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more on our Fox News Digital election hub.