(Washington) While President Donald Trump goes to Texas on Friday to note the damage caused by catastrophic floods, he remained remarkably silent on his previous promises to remove the federal agency in charge of rescue in the event of a disaster.
The Trump administration does not give up its promises to close the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and to reintegrate states into the intervention in the event of a disaster.
However, since the July 4 disaster, which left at least 120 dead, the president and his main advisers have focused on the uniqueness of what happened and the human tragedy it has caused, rather than the crusade of government repression, popular with Mr. Trump’s main supporters.
“No one had ever seen anything like coming,” Trump told NBC News on Thursday. “This is something that only happens once every 200 years,” he added.
He also suggested that he would have been ready to go to Texas in a few hours, but that he did not want to overload the authorities who are still looking for the more than 170 people who are still missing.
Trump’s change of orientation underlines how much a tragedy can complicate political calculations, even if the republican president has made the draconian reduction in federal workforce a central element of his administration in the first months.
Trump is expected to make an air visit of some of the hardest affected areas.
The White House also announced that it would go to the State Emergency Operations Center to meet the first stakeholders and relatives of the victims of the floods. Trump will also be informed by officials.
Photo Kevin Lamarque, Reuters archives
Donald Trump
Republican governor Greg Abbott, senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz will join the visit, and the Republican senators should go to their state with Mr. Trump on board Air Force.
It is relatively common that the presidents going to the scene of a disaster fly over the damage by plane, a measure which can alleviate the logistics load of the authorities on the spot.
Trump’s predecessor, President Joe Biden, observed by plane the consequences of the hurricane Helen in the west of North Carolina and Hurricane Milton In Florida last fall, before meeting with rescue and victims in the field.
The first lady Melania Trump will accompany the president on Friday, marking the second time this mandate that she joined to her husband to visit a natural disaster site.
During his first weekend back to the White House, Donald Trump went to North Carolina again to assess the damage caused by Helen And noted the consequences of devastating forest fires in Los Angeles. He also took advantage of these trips to strongly criticize the Biden administration and Californian officials.
Trump has promised on several occasions – and not later than last month – to start to gradually suppress FEMA and bring the management of interventions in the event of a disaster at the level of states.
During the meeting of the cabinet on Tuesday, President Trump did not mention these plans, contenting himself with greeting the federal response to the floods. Addressing the interior security secretary, Kristi Noem, whose department supervises FEMA, he said: “You have deployed teams on site with unprecedented speed”.
In a hurry this week to find out if the White House would continue its efforts to close the FEMA, the press secretary Karoline Leavitt did not wish to rule.
