Trump travels the flood sites of Texas and defends officials in the midst of growing questions about the answer

Kerville, Texas (AP) – President Donald Trump toured on Friday the devastation of catastrophic floods in Texas and praised state and local officials, even in the midst of growing critications that residents could have warned residents fast enough to occur to him a deadly water wall.

Trump has repeatedly promised to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency as part of its largest promises to drastically reduce government size, and likes to denounce officials in the states of democrats affected by disasters and past natural tragedies.

But the president gave a much more gloomy and comprehensive tone while visiting the most populated Republican state in the United States, highlighting the anguish of what happened while eranging elected officials and lifeguards alike.

“The search for missing continuing. The people who are doing it are incredible,” Trump said, sitting with officials around a table with prints with a black and white banner “Texas Strong”, in an improvised emergency operations center inside an exhibition hall in Kerville.

He later added: “You couldn’t get better people, and they are doing the job as if I don’t think anyone else could, frankly.”

From the disaster of July 4, which killed at least 129 people and left more than 170 missing, the president has been silent in silence about his past promises to close FEMA and return the disaster response to the United States. Instead, it focuses on the unique nature on the life of what happened in the country of the Hill of Center of Texas and its human toll.

“We just visited incredible families. They have been devastated,” the president said on a closed door meeting that he and the first lady Melania Trump had with the relatives of some of those killed or missing.

Via News

Honoring the victims

Trump’s approach change underlines how tragedy can complicate political calculations, although it has made the reduction of the federal workforce a centerpiece of the initial months of its administration. He spent a lot of time arguing the victims of Camp Mystic, the Christian summer camp of the Centenal Girls, where at least 27 people were killed.

“They were there because they loved God. And, while we cried this unthinkable tragedy, it comforts us the knowledge that God has welcomed those little beautiful girls in their comforting arms in heaven,” Trump said.

The first lady described meeting with “beautiful ladies” of the area that, according to her, gave her a “special bracelet of the camp in honor of all the girls who lost their lives.” She promised to return to support the camp in the future.

Trump approved the Texas application to extend the main disaster statement beyond Kerr county to eight additional counties, making them eligible for direct financial assistance to recover and rebuild.

“In the whole country the hearts of the Americans are destroyed,” he said. “I had to be here as president.”

Despite saying that I didn’t want to talk about politics, Trump couldn’t help it. During the round table, he briefly boasted about his administration, reducing the cost of eggs throughout the country and, in an answer to a question about democratic criticisms of the response to floods, he said: “All they want to do is criticize.”

“They are being absolutely crowded because everyone sees the incredible work that the governor did,” Trump said about the Democrats. “All in this room, all at this particular table.”

In praise to Fema

He also insisted on “We have some good people” directing Fema. However, that is far from your call only weeks ago to start “eliminating” FEMA.

In the White House, Russell Vought, director of the Office of Administration and Budget, dodged the questions similarly on Friday about the future of Fema. He said the agency has billions of dollars in reservations “to continue paying the necessary expenses.”

“We also want FEMA to be renovated,” Vought said. “The president will continue to ask difficult questions to all US agencies, not different from any other opportunity to have a better government.”

Meanwhile, in the field of devastated communities, some state and local officials have faced questions about how well prepared and how fast they acted, even if the warning systems could have given time more people to evacuate.

When asked about such concerns during his appearance at the Operations Center in Kerville, Trump called an “evil” journalist and said he thought that “everyone did an incredible job under the circumstances.”

“I admire you and consider you heroes,” Trump said about the surrounding officials.

He also praised a long list of Texas Republicans and had especially friendly words for representative Chip Roy, who represents some of the most affected areas. Firm conservative, Roy initially opposed the broad package of tax and spending expenses of Trump, but finally supported him.

“It’s not easy, but it’s good,” Trump said about Roy. The congressman, on the other hand, bristled at questions about the response to the floods of the authorities, calling consultations on inadequate “ridiculous” flood warnings.

Seeing the foreground of damage

Before the round table, Air Force One landed in San Antonio and Trump moved in a suit, while the first lady wore more informal clothes, although both wore ball covers against heat. The Trump then boarded a helicopter to Kerville and saw the floods after the air. Later they walked near the Guadalupe River to receive an informative session of officials near a tractor tractor, numerous fallen trees and other rubble.

The roads in the city center closed, and people align in the streets, some with triumph hats and t -shirts and waving American flags. The green ribbons that recognize the lost lives in Camp Mystic were tied around trees, posts already throughout bridges, and the tents presented slogans such as “Hill Country Strong” and “thanks to the first to respond.”

Harris Currie, a rancher from Utopia, Texas, near Kerville, said that the devastation of floods can only be understood when seeing it first hand.

“The images do not do justice,” said Currie.

When asked what officials on the field needed more urgency from federal sources, Kerr County Commissioner, Jeff Holt, who is also a voluntary firefighter, emphasized the need for repairs in the telephone towers that do not work and “maybe a little better early alert system.”

Trump himself has suggested that an important warning system must be established, although few details have been offered on what could eventually imply.

Friday’s visit was very different from the other times that the first couple visited natural disaster sites, during Trump’s first weekend at the White House in January. They toured North Carolina to highlight the damage of Hurricane Helene and saw the consequences of forest fires in Los Angeles, and the president abruptly criticized the administration of his predecessor, President Joe Biden, and Deep-Blue California officials.

“The state of Texas, No. 1, they do well and have done well for a long time,” Trump said. “And it is a very special place for me.”

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Weissert reported from Washington.