President Donald Trump travels to Texas on Friday in the midst of growing questions about how local officials answered the devastating floods, as well as questions about the federal answer, including the fate of FEMA, which has so far avoided.
Trump’s visit arrives a week after heavy rains caused the Guadalupe River in Kerr County to rise 26 feet in less than an hour, killing at least 121, including dozens of children in the nearby Cristiano Summer Camp, Camp Mystic.
He and the first lady Melania Trump will visit areas affected by floods, according to a statement from the first lady’s office.
The search for more than 170 people who still continue with more than 2,100 responders in Kerr County of local, state and federal agencies.
Meanwhile, local officials are under scrutiny about the steps taken to adequately warn people and how long it took in the authorities to take measures based on the growing climate and other alerts.
Trump, in particular, has not participated in similar criticisms about how the crisis was handled, as it has done in the case of other disasters.
“I would only say that this is a hundred -year -old catastrophe, and it is very horrible to see him,” Trump said Sunday.
President Donald Trump walks towards the media with the Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick before addressing Air Force One, at Morristown municipal airport in Morristown, NJ, July 6, 2025.
Jacquelyn Martin/AP
Instead, Trump has largely focused on his relationship with Texas Greg Abbott governor, a republican and strong ally of the president.
“We have been in contact with Governor Abbott, I am very close to Governor Abbott and all in Texas,” Trump said Sunday.
It is a marked contrast with how Trump has reacted in the past, even to the Forest Fire of California earlier this year, where he criticized the Democratic governor of California, Gavin Newsom and other local Democratic officials.
Some of the most affected areas of the Texas center, including Kerr County, are areas of strong republican support that voted for Trump in the 2024 elections.
Trump approved a great disaster statement for Texas earlier this week.
Abbott said during a press conference on Tuesday that he spoke with Trump that morning and received guarantees that assistance would be provided.
“I couldn’t stop talking about how sad it was for all the girls who have lost their lives,” said Abbott. “He related his own understanding of what happened with what really was a wave of tsunami, a wall of water, which swept many of them.”
“And those young people care about. And he wants to step forward and make sure any need we have here in Texas are satisfied very quickly,” Abbott continued.
The Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, speaks during a press conference, on July 8, 2025, after touring damage due to sudden floods in Hunt, Texas.
HARTMAN/AP
The White House has rejected the criticisms of the administration cuts to the National Meteorological Service, which led some to question whether personnel levels or prognosis skills were affected.
“To blame President Trump for these floods is a depraved lie, and has no purpose during this national mourning time,” the White House Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said on Monday, from the podium of the information room.
Trump has also avoided answering questions about whether the Federal Emergency Management Agency is still gradually eliminated.
The National Secretary of National Security Kristi Noem discussed the federal response to floods during a cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
“We, as a federal government, do not manage these disasters, the State does,” said Noem. “We entered and support them. And that is exactly what we did here in this situation. FEMA was at an improved level immediately. But as soon as he signed the declaration of major disasters, we could obtain their resources and dollars immediately, as he imagined through state subsidies to help them with cleanliness. And we are still there in the presence.”
A vehicle drives through a road flooded by the waters of the Guadalupe River, in Hunt, Texas, on July 9, 2025.
Umit Bektas/Reuters
However, later in the week, Noem pursued FEMA during the Biden administrations and other previous administrations, claiming that the agency has suffered “poor management and negligence.”
“The list of famous faults is amazing,” said Noem in the comments to the FEMA Advisory Council, a working group designed to recommend reforms to the agency, including the possible dismantling of the agency as it exists today. Trump appointed Abbott as a new group member in April.
FEMA’s interim administrator, David Richardson, had not yet visited the areas affected in Texas until Thursday afternoon.
Luke Barr and Kelsey Walsh of ABC News contributed to this report.
