DHS Secretary Leaves Helene-hit NC early to hit 5 star restaurant

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas spent less than six hours visiting hurricane-hit areas of North Carolina on Thursday — before retreating to Washington to grab an early takeout dinner at Nobu.

Mayorkas touched down in the Tar Heel State around 10 a.m. before jetting back to the nation’s capital, where he was spotted by The Post at 5:15 p.m. carrying bags of food from the posh international Japanese restaurant chain — where sushi and sashimi selections are priced at $60 a plate and the highest-grade Wagyu steaks go for $40 per ounce.

A photographer snapped the apparently peckish Mayorkas, 64 — still wearing his navy blue suit and white dress shirt — exiting the Northwest DC establishment at 5:30 p.m., just 30 minutes after it opened.

Mayorkas had returned to Washington at 4 p.m. after remotely joining a White House press briefing shortly after 1 p.m. and “speaking firsthand” with FEMA responders, “impacted communities” and other “first responders on the ground” in Raleigh.

“This Administration has completely failed the American people, again,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told The Post.

“It is offensive that the secretary is wasting time eating over-priced sushi rolls at fancy restaurants, when he should be working to get disaster relief out the door immediately for the people in desperate need of basic necessities.”

Johnson has himself spent two working days visiting hurricane victims in Florida and western North Carolina and held a press conference earlier this week in Asheville.

“I think it’s important for the speaker of the House to come,” he told reporters Wednesday. “It’s symbolic to show that it’s the whole of Congress that has our eyes and our attention, our prayers on the community here and those who are affected. We want them to know they will not be forgotten and that we will get recovery dollars to these communities as is needed.”

Mayorkas previously visited North Carolina on Oct. 2, when he joined Democratic Gov.

Roy Cooper and President Biden for an aerial tour of storm-wrecked regions.