{"id":156295,"date":"2025-07-09T02:14:21","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T02:14:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/republicans-toe-trump-line-even-in-aftermath-of-deadly-texas-floods-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2025-07-09T02:14:21","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T02:14:21","slug":"republicans-toe-trump-line-even-in-aftermath-of-deadly-texas-floods-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/republicans-toe-trump-line-even-in-aftermath-of-deadly-texas-floods-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Republicans toe Trump line even in aftermath of deadly Texas floods – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

GOP members praised president\u2019s response as Democrats want inquiry into effects of Doge cuts on NWS forecasting
T<\/span>he US is reeling after catastrophic floods<\/a> killed more than 100 people in Texas, including 27 children and counsellors from an all-girls Christian camp. On Monday, Democrats asked a government watchdog to investigate whether cuts at the National Weather Service (NWS) affected the forecasting agency\u2019s performance.
But Republicans\u2019 default response has been to express fealty to Donald Trump. They lavished praise on the president for providing federal assistance while studiously avoiding questions around the effect of his \u201cdepartment of government efficiency<\/a>\u201d (Doge) or threats to dismantle the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema).
\u201cIt is a sign of the sickness and dysfunction of what was the Republican party that they have almost no thoughts about their constituents,\u201d said Rick Wilson<\/a>, a cofounder of the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group. \u201cTheir thoughts are, how do I avoid making sure that Donald Trump doesn\u2019t look at me as an enemy or a critic?
\u201cDespite the fact that the Doge cuts and the reductions in force and the early buyouts have savaged the workforce of the National Weather Service<\/a>, they can\u2019t even utter the slightest vague, elliptical critique of the administration that is now engaged in these cuts that have cost the lives of the people they supposedly represent.\u201d
The raging flash floods \u2013 among the US\u2019s worst in decades \u2013 slammed into riverside camps and homes in central Texas before daybreak on Friday, pulling sleeping people out of their cabins, tents and trailers and dragging them for miles past floating tree trunks and cars. Some survivors were found clinging to trees. Authorities say the death toll is sure to rise as crews look for the many who are still missing. <\/p>\n

Republicans have long been criticised for responding to mass shootings with \u201cthoughts and prayers<\/a>\u201d, as if the tragedy transcends politics. Similarly, party leaders have sought to blame a freak act of nature rather than contemplating a potential association with Trump\u2019s policies \u2013 or with the broader threat of the climate crisis, seemingly a taboo subject under the current administration.
Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, praised Trump<\/a> for approving a major disaster declaration that ensured state and local government have more resources to deal with the emergency. \u201cThe swift and very robust action by President Trump is an extraordinary help to our response,\u201d he said.
Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, tweeted \u201cThank you @POTUS Trump\u201d for the declaration and told Fox News<\/a>: \u201cThe National Weather Service under President Trump has been working to put in new technology and a new system because it\u2019s been neglected for years. It\u2019s an ancient system that needed to be upgraded and so President Trump recognised that right away and got to work on it when he came into office in January.\u201d
Senator Ted Cruz wrote on the X<\/a> social media platform that \u201cPresident Trump committed ANYTHING Texas needs\u201d, while telling a press conference: \u201cThere\u2019s a time to have political fights, there\u2019s a time to disagree. This is not that time.\u201d
Trump himself has struck a similar tone, deflecting questions about whether he is still planning to phase out Fema. He said he does not plan to re-hire any of the federal meteorologists who were fired this year as part of widespread government spending cuts.
The president told reporters on Sunday: \u201cThat water situation, that all is, and that was really the Biden setup. But I wouldn\u2019t blame Biden for it, either. I would just say this is a 100-year catastrophe.\u201d
But scrutiny of whether more could have been done to avoid the tragedy is already under way. Texas officials criticised the NWS, arguing that it failed to warn the public about impending danger.
The NWS defended its forecasting<\/a> and emergency management, stating that it assigned extra forecasters to the San Antonio and San Angelo offices over the holiday weekend. But a top leadership role at the NWS\u2019s San Antonio office has been vacant since earlier this year after Paul Yura accepted an offer from the Trump administration to retire.
Doge, formerly led by the billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, has been pushing the NWS to cut jobs and gave hundreds of employees the option to retire early rather than face potential dismissal.
Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the Senate, asked the commerce department\u2019s acting inspector general to investigate<\/a> whether staffing vacancies at the NWS\u2019s San Antonio office contributed to \u201cdelays, gaps, or diminished accuracy\u201d in forecasting the flooding. Republicans accused Democrats of seeking to politicise the tragedy.
Wilson, a political consultant who has worked on numerous campaigns, said: \u201cIt is an ongoing family psychodrama inside the Republican party, where everyone is desperately, deeply afraid that they will put a foot wrong with Donald Trump<\/a> and that\u2019s why there\u2019s absolutely no candour with these folks about what has happened to the people they represent.\u201d
Some commentators suggest that Republicans<\/a> will ultimately pay a political price for their blind devotion and for last week passing Trump\u2019s cost-cutting Big, Beautiful Act.
Larry Sabato<\/a>, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said: \u201cIt\u2019s a vision of the future because every time there is something tragic that happens, not just a natural disaster but a mass shooting or you fill in the blank, somebody is going to find a connection to these deep cuts in government engineered by Trump and Musk.
\u201cI think Trump and the Republicans need to get used to this. It may not hurt Trump, but it could potentially and should hurt some of the members of Congress from competitive states and districts that voted for the BBB.\u201d<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GOP members praised president\u2019s response as Democrats want inquiry into effects of Doge cuts on NWS forecastingThe US is reeling after catastrophic floods killed more than 100 people in Texas, including 27 children and counsellors from an all-girls Christian camp. On Monday, Democrats asked a government watchdog to investigate whether cuts at the National Weather […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":156296,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-156295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}