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“I’m going to give you everything you want,” President Trump told disaster-stricken residents and local officials. “I’m going to give you more than any president would have ever given you.”
That was in January, in Los Angeles, in the wake of the catastrophic Palisades and Eaton fires. If Trump could express such magnanimity in California, typically the blue-state butt of his partisan jabs and threats, imagine what he’ll tell red-state Texans on Friday when he visits the flood-ravaged Hill Country, where the usually easy-going Guadalupe River turned mass killer on the Fourth of July.
He’s sure to promise that the federal government will spare no expense. (Note: California is still waiting.) But words are cheap, especially for the truth-challenged Trump. Even as the president, playing Daddy Warbucks, promises money in the moment, he must be held to account for his administration’s continued mindless axing of federal funds and government-wide expertise (a process greenlighted on Tuesday by the ever-accommodating Supreme Court) — and not least in gutting essential agencies that forecast weather, warn of storms and then help Americans recover from disasters.
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Don’t let the words ‘tax cut’ fool you in Donald Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill.’ The rich will get richer while economic disparity in America grows.
Trump isn’t to blame for the deaths and destruction in Texas. But raising questions about the effect of his, and the now-disfavored Elon Musk’s, reckless rampage through government offices isn’t “depraved and despicable,” as White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt fulminated on Monday. It’s merely holding the government to account, which is, to be sure, a foreign concept to a president accustomed to impunity. (Leavitt’s protestations are particularly rich considering that Trump falsely blamed then-President Biden after Hurricane Helene during last year’s campaign, and initially suggested on Sunday that the Texas tragedy was somehow a “Biden set-up.”)
For a decade now, Trump has exploited Americans’ disdain of government, even when he’s at the head of it. But Americans don’t like government until they need it, and they expect it to keep them safe in the meantime. Because Trump is taking Musk’s chainsaw to federal agencies, with the acquiescence of Congress’ Republican majorities, he should be on the defensive from here on out for every emergency, crisis and tragedy that might have been prevented or at least mitigated by federal action.
A ‘shadow docket’ ruling Monday gives a win to an administration whose lawless actions are only matched by its open defiance of the judiciary.
Most of Trump’s proposed and attempted cuts have yet to take effect. Some — say, cutbacks in public health and scientific research programs — might not be fully felt for years. Yet even if administration reductions, eliminations and layoffs aren’t culpable this time, in this tragedy, what about the next? Because there will be a next time.
Consider: Climate change is demonstrably turbocharging the number and intensity of severe storms, yet Trump’s budget calls for closing the National Severe Storms Laboratory, which has pioneered forecasting technology for years.
It’s way past time to ignore the familiar post-catastrophe mantra that people inappropriately politicize calamity by raising questions, proposing remedies and, yes, laying blame: Only thoughts and prayers allowed. We’ve heard it in recent days not only from the likes of Leavitt, but also from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and his fellow Republican, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who inserted further cuts to weather forecasting funds as part of the One Big Ugly Bill that Trump signed into law on the Fourth, as Texans dealt with the flood nightmare.
The victims deserve more. We all do.
For months since Trump took office and began his slashing spree on Day 1 with his executive orders, critics and experts have predicted that his actions could boomerang, in particular when it comes to weather-related threats, such as the hurricane season underway.
Forget ‘city upon a hill.’ When you travel outside our borders and look back, you see how tattered America’s reputation has become.
Just to cite one example: Back in April, Rep. Zoe Lofgren of San Jose, the senior Democrat on the House committee that oversees the National Weather Service, complained (presciently?), “Chaotic and illegal firings, coercions to resign, reductions in force, and a general obsession with destroying the morale of dedicated public servants have left the National Weather Service’s work force so strained they cannot carry out their duties as they once did.”
So when we have a natural disaster like that in Texas, where survivors lament inadequate warnings, why should Lofgren or anyone else keep quiet and just think and pray? It’s political, but it’s proper as well that Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York asked for an investigation of whether staffing shortfalls at the weather service contributed to the Texas flood’s death toll. A Republican, Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran, cited Texas’ plight at a Senate hearing on Wednesday to complain that Trump’s federal hiring freeze has also left his state and others short of meteorologists, and without 24/7 coverage when tornadoes ripped through Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas in May.
Early evidence and anecdotes suggest that federal forecasters did their job in warning Texans of flooding hours in advance. But years of penny-pinching and antitax zeal at the local and state levels, especially, meant that the region — known as “flash flood alley” — had no system in place to adequately transmit the warnings to rural residents in the dead of night.
The president’s foreign policy is ‘Me, Myself and I’ — strictly transactional and motivated less by national interest than what’s in it, personally and politically, for him.
Yet the feds — Trump mainly — still have much to answer for. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which includes the National Weather Service, was among the earliest targets of his misnamed Department of Government Efficiency. Trump said he wants to phase out the Federal Emergency Management Agency completely.
Months before the storm, a union official representing staff of the weather service, Tom Fahy, told the New York Times that its offices nationwide were “struggling to maintain operations” amid what the agency acknowledged as “severe shortages” of meteorologists and other employees. After the storm, Fahy said that vacancies at the two offices overseeing the Texas Hill Country were roughly double what they were when Trump took office. The longtime “warning coordination meteorologist” for the Hill Country in April announced that he was “sad” to prematurely end his career amid the administration cutbacks and early-retirement offers.
A local media outlet lamented the man’s departure: “The importance of experience” in the job he’d held “cannot be understated.” Abbott is being defensive, as he should be. “Who’s to blame?” the three-term governor snapped at a reporter on Tuesday. “That’s the word choice of losers.” Expect more such vituperation when the Guv greets his friend, the president, on Friday — from both men — should anyone suggest they bear any blame.
Losers? If the word fits…
@Jackiekcalmes
@jackiecalmes.bsky.social
@jkcalmes
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Ideas expressed in the piece
- The author contends that the Trump administration’s budget cuts to federal agencies—specifically the National Weather Service (NWS) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)—compromised disaster forecasting and response capabilities, potentially exacerbating the Texas flood tragedy[1][3].
- Trump’s promises of unlimited federal aid during disasters are contrasted with his simultaneous push to eliminate agencies like the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and defund critical research programs, such as the National Severe Storms Laboratory and Landsat satellite systems[1][3].
- Staffing shortages at the NWS, driven by layoffs and early retirements under Trump’s “Department of Government Efficiency,” left offices understaffed during the floods, undermining the effectiveness of weather warnings[1][3].
- The author rejects the notion that questioning policy failures politicizes tragedy, arguing that accountability is essential—especially as climate change intensifies extreme weather—and cites Democratic lawmakers and union representatives who warned about degraded NWS operations months before the disaster[1][3].
Different views on the topic
- Federal officials assert that NWS forecasting systems operated normally during the Texas floods, issuing timely alerts including a flash flood emergency warning at 4:03 a.m. on July 5, which accurately described an “extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation”[1][3].
- The Trump administration denies any link between staffing reductions and the disaster, with President Trump personally dismissing allegations that budget cuts hampered emergency response as politically motivated[1][2].
- Local and state authorities face criticism for failing to activate adequate emergency protocols despite NWS warnings, with some forecasters noting that Texas’s “flash flood alley” region lacked robust overnight alert systems for rural residents[1][3].
- While future funding cuts might degrade forecasting tools like Landsat satellite mapping, current models performed effectively during this event, with experts highlighting that NOAA’s high-resolution systems successfully predicted the storms[3].
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