President Donald Trump travels to Texas on Friday amid rising questions on how native officers answered to the devastating floods, in addition to questions concerning the federal reaction — together with FEMA’s destiny — that he has up to now have shyed away from.
Trump’s talk over with comes per week after heavy rainfall brought about the Guadalupe River in Kerr County to upward thrust 26 toes in not up to an hour, killing no less than 121, together with dozens of youngsters on the close by Christian summer season camp, Camp Mystic.
He and primary girl Melania Trump will talk over with flood-affected spaces, in step with a commentary from the primary girl’s workplace.
The seek for greater than 170 other folks nonetheless lacking continues with greater than 2,100 responders at the flooring in Kerr County from native, state and federal businesses.
In the meantime, native officers are underneath scrutiny about what steps have been taken to adequately warn other folks and the way lengthy it took for government to do so in response to escalating climate and different signals.
Trump, particularly, hasn’t engaged in equivalent complaint about how the disaster used to be treated — as he has carried out relating to different failures.
“I’d simply say this can be a hundred-year disaster, and it is simply so terrible to observe,” Trump mentioned on Sunday.
President Donald Trump walks towards the media with Trade Secretary Howard Lutnick ahead of boarding Air Pressure One, at Morristown Municipal Airport in Morristown, N.J., July 6, 2025.
Jacquelyn Martin/AP
As a substitute, Trump has in large part considering his dating with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott — a Republican and powerful best friend of the president.
“We have now been in contact with Governor Abbott, I am very just about Governor Abbott, and everyone in Texas,” Trump mentioned on Sunday.
It is a marked distinction to how Trump has reacted prior to now, together with to the California wildfires previous this yr, the place he blasted California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and different native Democratic officers.
One of the vital hardest-hit spaces of central Texas, together with Kerr County, are spaces of robust Republican toughen that voted for Trump within the 2024 election.
Trump authorized a significant crisis declaration for Texas previous this week.
Abbott mentioned all the way through a information convention on Tuesday that he spoke with Trump that morning and won assurances that help can be equipped.
“He may no longer prevent speaking about how unhappy he used to be for all of the little women who’ve misplaced their lives,” Abbott mentioned. “He recounted his personal working out of what took place with what used to be actually a tsunami wave, a wall of water, that swept too a lot of them away.”
“And he cares so much about the ones younger girls. And he desires to step up and make certain that any want that we have got right here in Texas goes to be met in no time,” Abbott endured.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott speaks all the way through a press convention, July 8, 2025, after traveling harm from flash flooding in Hunt, Texas.
Eli Hartman/AP
The White Area has driven again closely on complaint of the management’s cuts to the Nationwide Climate Carrier, which led to a couple to query if staffing ranges or forecasting talents have been impacted.
“Blaming President Trump for those floods is a wicked lie, and it serves no function all the way through this time of nationwide mourning,” White Area press secretary Karoline Leavitt mentioned from the briefing room podium on Monday.
Trump’s additionally have shyed away from answering questions about whether or not he’s nonetheless aiming to section out the Federal Emergency Control Company.
Division of Native land Safety Secretary Kristi Noem, mentioned the federal reaction to the floods all the way through a Cupboard assembly on Tuesday.
“We as a federal govt do not set up those failures, the state does,” Noem contended. “We are available and toughen them. And that is the reason precisely what we did right here on this state of affairs. FEMA went to an enhanced degree in an instant. However once you signed the main crisis declaration, we have been in a position to get them assets and greenbacks instantly, identical to you envisioned via state lot grants to assist them with cleanup. And we are nonetheless there in presence.”
A automobile drives via a highway flooded through the waters of the Guadalupe River, in Hunt, Texas, July 9, 2025.
Umit Bektas/Reuters
Later within the week, despite the fact that, Noem went after FEMA all the way through the Biden and different earlier administrations — alleging the company has suffered from “gross mismanagement and negligence.”
“The record of well-known screw ups is staggering,” Noem claimed in feedback to the FEMA Advisory Council, a job pressure designed to suggest reforms to the company, together with conceivable dismantlement of the company because it exists as of late. Trump appointed Abbott as a brand new member to the gang again in April.
Appearing FEMA Administrator David Richardson had but to talk over with the affected spaces in Texas as of Thursday afternoon.
ABC Information’ Luke Barr and Kelsey Walsh contributed to this document.
