Joe Biden has visited the wildfire-hit island of Maui – following days of criticism over his response to the crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The president and his wife, first lady Jill Biden, arrived on the Hawaiian island on Monday – 13 days after the wildfires that claimed at least 114 lives and devastated the historic town of Lahaina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After touring the damage, he promised the federal government would help Maui “for as long as it takes” to recover from the devastation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The country grieves with you, stands with you and will do everything possible to help you recover,” he said in a speech, delivered next to a 150-year-old banyan tree in Old Lahaina which had been burned in the fires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Today it’s burned, but it’s still standing,” Mr Biden said of the tree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The tree survived for a reason. I believe it’s a very powerful symbol of what we can and will do to get through this crisis.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Criticism of Biden’s response<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It comes after Biden and his administration faced criticism over the response to the wildfires – the deadliest in the US in more than a century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A protester held out a banner urging “relief for Maui now” as the president’s motorcade weaved through the streets of Lahaina, while another sign urged Mr Biden to “listen to the people”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Joe Biden has visited the wildfire-hit island of Maui – following days of criticism over his response to the crisis. The president and his wife, first lady Jill Biden, arrived on the Hawaiian island on Monday – 13 days after the wildfires that claimed at least 114 lives and devastated the historic town of Lahaina. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7238,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[220],"tags":[2951,2210,1259,2952,2935],"class_list":["post-7237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-hawaiia","tag-island","tag-joe-biden","tag-maui","tag-wildfires"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7237"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7239,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7237\/revisions\/7239"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}