Donald Trump has arrived in Texas to see the devastation from the state’s catastrophic flooding but he has remained conspicuously quiet about his promises to do away with the federal agency in charge of disaster relief.
The Trump administration is not backing away from its pledges to shut 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 human tragedy rather than the government-slashing crusade that has been popular with his core supporters.
“It’s a horrible thing,” Mr Trump told reporters as he left the White House.
He approved Texas’s 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.
His shift in focus underscores how tragedy can complicate political calculations, even though he has made slashing the federal workforce and dramatically shrinking the size of government centrepieces of his administration’s opening months.
Air Force One landed in San Antonio and Mr Trump and his wife Melania will tour some of the hard-hit areas by air, then visit the state emergency operations centre in Kerrville to meet first responders and relatives of flood victims.
“This area is primarily pro-Trump,” said Harris Currie, a rancher from Utopia, Texas, near Kerrville.
Mr Trump won Kerr County with 77% of the vote last year, and Mr Currie said his visit is “something a president should do”.
The president will get a briefing from officials in Kerrville, where he will joined by Republican governor Greg Abbott and Republican senators. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz.
Kerr County Commissioner Jeff Holt, who also is a volunteer firefighter, said the focus of Mr Trump’s visit should be “how we responded and what we’re going to do in the future”.
“In the future, we’re going to figure out how we get a little better at what we do,” Mr Holt said.
Asked what he might tell Trump officials is needed, Mr Holt stressed the need for repairs to non-working phone towers and “maybe a little better early warning system”.
Mr Trump has suggested that a warning system should be established, though he has not provided details on how that might happen.
He 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, Mr 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.”
