Trump tours Texas flood damage as disaster tests vow to shutter Fema | Texas floods 2025

Donald Trump arrived in Texas on Friday for a first -hand look at the devastation caused by catastrophic floods, a trip that comes because he remained visibly silent on his previous promises to remove the federal agency in charge of help in the event of a disaster.

The Washington Post reported on Friday that the Trump administration moved away from the plans to abolish the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but administration officials continue to dodge questions about the agency’s future and many are still calling for serious reforms, potentially sending a large part of its work to the States.

Since the July 4 disaster, which killed at least 120 people, the president and his best collaborators have focused on nature once in the life of what happened and the human tragedy involved rather than on the government’s random crusade which was popular with Trump’s main supporters.

“No one has ever seen something like that to come,” Trump told NBC News on Thursday, adding: “This is a unique agreement in 2000.” He also suggested that he was ready to visit Texas in a few hours, but did not want to charge the authorities looking for more than 170 missing people.

Trump’s change in development underlines how the tragedy can complicate political calculations, even if Trump has reduced federal staff and invoice an antagonist that has become an ally Elon Musk to considerably reduce the size of the government’s central centers for the opening months of his administration.

The president went to Texas on Air Force One with Melania Trump, the first lady, Brooke Rollins, the secretary of agriculture, Scott Turner, the secretary of housing, the administrator of small businesses Kelly Loeffler and the Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz of Texas, among others. Trump is expected to make an air visit of some of the hard -affected areas.

The White House also says that it will visit the State emergency operations center to meet the first stakeholders and relatives of the flood victims. Trump will also get a briefing for managers.

It is relatively common that the presidents visited disaster sites to visit air damage, a movement that can facilitate logistical charges on the authorities on the ground.

Trump predecessor Joe Biden observed the consequences of Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina and Hurricane Milton in Florida last fall by plane before meeting those responsible for the response to disasters and victims on the ground.

Trump, however, also used the past efforts to response to disasters to launch political attacks. While he was 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 areas.

During his first weekend in the White House, Trump again visited North Carolina to study Hélène’s damage and visited the consequences of devastating forest fires in Los Angeles. But he also used these trips to strongly criticize the Biden administration and Californian officials.

At the meeting of Tuesday’s cabinet, Trump praised the federal response to floods. Turning to Kristi Noem, the interior security secretary, who oversees FEMA, said: “You had people there as fast as anyone ever seen.”

Noem described traveling to Texas and seeing heartbreaking scenes, especially around the Mystic camp, the Christian summer camp for centenary girls where at least 27 people were killed.

“Parents who were looking for their children and picked up animals in their daughter toilet out of the mud and finding their daughter’s shoe that could be posed in the cabin,” she said.

Noem said that “the hugs and comforting people count a lot” and “it’s a moment for all of us in this country to remind us that we have been created to serve ourselves”.

But the secretary also co -chairs a FEMA examination council responsible for submitting suggestions on how to revise the agency in the coming months.

“As a federal government, we do not manage these disasters. The state is the fact,” Noem told Trump on Tuesday.

She also referred to the efforts to reduce the government of the administration, saying: “We pass the documents of the former FEMA.

Pressed this week to find out if the White House will continue to work to close the Fema, Karoline Leavitt would not say.

“The president wants to ensure that American citizens still have what they need if necessary,” said the White House press secretary. “Whether this assistance comes from states or from the federal government, it is a political discussion that will continue.”

Before Trump’s departure on Friday, Russell Vought, director of the management and budget office, also dodged questions from the journalists of the White House on the future of FEMA – noting rather that the agency has billions of dollars in its reserves “to continue to pay for the necessary expenses” and that the president promised in Texas, “everything he needs, he will get.”

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