KERRVILLE, Texas (AP) — As President Donald Trump heads to Texas on Friday for a firsthand look at the devastation from catastrophic flooding, he has remained conspicuously quiet about his previous promises to do away with the federal agency in charge of disaster relief.
The Trump administration isn’t backing away from its pledges to shutter the Federal Emergency Management Agency and return disaster response to the states. But since the July 4 disaster, which has killed at least 120 people and left more than 170 missing, the president has focused on the once-in-a-lifetime nature of what occurred and the human tragedy rather than the government-slashing crusade that's been popular with Trump’s core supporters.
“It's a horrible thing,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House. That echoes him telling NBC News on Thursday, ”This is a once-in-every-200-year deal.”
Also Friday, Trump approved Texas' request to extend the major disaster declaration beyond Kerr County to eight additional counties, making them eligible for direct financial assistance to recover and rebuild.
Trump's shift in focus underscores how tragedy can complicate political calculations, even though Trump has made slashing the federal workforce and dramatically shrinking the size of government centerpieces of his administration's opening months.
The president is expected to tour some of the hard-hit areas by air. The White House says he will also visit the state emergency operations center to meet with first responders and relatives of flood victims.
Trump will also get a briefing from officials. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and Republican Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz are joining the visit, with the senators expected to fly to their state aboard Air Force One.
Kerr County Commissioner Jeff Holt, who also is a volunteer firefighter, called Trump’s visit a positive but said the focus should be “how we responded and what we’re going to do in the future.”
“He’s here to help and pledge his federal support, like he already has with FEMA,” Holt said, adding, “In the future, we’re going to figure out how we get a little better at what we do.”
Asked what he might tell Trump officials needed, Holt stressed the need for repairs to nonworking phone towers and “maybe a little better early warning system.” Trump himself has suggested that a warning system should be established, though he has not provided details on how that might happen.
It's relatively common for presidents visiting disaster sites to tour the damage by air, a move that can ease the logistical burdens on authorities on the ground.
Trump's predecessor, President Joe Biden, observed the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina and Hurricane Milton in Florida last fall by air before meeting with disaster response officials and victims on the ground.
Trump, though, has also used past disaster response efforts to launch political attacks. While still a candidate trying to win back the presidency, Trump made his own visit to North Carolina after Helene last year and accused the Biden administration of blocking disaster aid to victims in Republican-heavy areas.
First lady Melania Trump is accompanying the president, marking the second time this term that she has joined her husband to tour a natural disaster site.
During his first weekend back in the White House, Trump again visited North Carolina to scope out Helene damage. He also toured the aftermath of devastating wildfires in Los Angeles but used both trips to sharply criticize the Biden administration and California officials.
Trump has promised repeatedly — and as recently as last month — to begin “phasing out” FEMA and bring disaster response management “down to the state level.”
During Tuesday's Cabinet meeting, Trump did not mention those plans and instead praised the federal flooding response. Turning to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose department oversees FEMA, he said, “You had people there as fast as anybody’s ever seen.”
Pressed this week on whether the White House will continue to work to shutter FEMA, press secretary Karoline Leavitt would not say.
“The president wants to ensure American citizens always have what they need during times of need,” Leavitt said. “Whether that assistance comes from states or the federal government, that is a policy discussion that will continue.”
Before Trump left Friday, Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, similarly dodged questions from reporters at the the White House about FEMA's future, instead noting that the agency has billions of dollars in reserves “to continue to pay for necessary expenses” and that the president has promised Texas, “Anything it needs, it will get."
“We also want FEMA to be reformed,” Vought added. “The president is going to continue to be asking tough questions of all of us agencies, no different than any other opportunity to have better government.”
While the focus is on FEMA at the federal level, local officials in Texas have come under mounting scrutiny over how much they were prepared and how quickly they acted. But not everyone affected has been quick to point fingers.
Darrin Potter, a Kerr County, Texas, resident for 25 years who saw ankle-deep flooding in his home and knew people who were killed, said, “As far as early warnings, I’m sure they can improve on that."
But he said all the talk about evacuating missed something important. The area where a wall of water ripped through was a two-lane road, he said.
“If you would have evacuated at 5 in the morning, all of those people would have been washed away on this road," he said.
During the Cabinet meeting, Noem described traveling to Texas and seeing heartbreaking scenes, including around Camp Mystic, the century-old all-girls Christian summer camp where at least 27 people were killed.
“The parents that were looking for their children and picking up their daughter's stuffed animals out of the mud and finding their daughter’s shoe that might be laying in the cabin," she said.
Noem said that “just hugging and comforting people matters a lot” and “this is a time for all of us in this country to remember that we were created to serve each other.”
But the secretary also co-chairs a FEMA review council charged with submitting suggestions for how to overhaul the agency in coming months.
“We as a federal government don’t manage these disasters. The state does,” Noem told Trump on Tuesday.
She also referenced the administration's government-reducing efforts, saying: ”We’re cutting through the paperwork of the old FEMA. Streamlining it, much like your vision of how FEMA should operate.”
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Weissert reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim in Washington and Nadia Lathan in Ingram, Texas, contributed to this report.
Sean Murphy And Will Weissert, The Associated Press
