Alan Zendell, July 8, 2025

The tragic flooding in Texas that took so many lives, especially those of innocent children at a summer camp, made it clear, yesterday. The disingenuousness of President Trump’s response would be appalling if it weren’t so typical. First it was White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt responding to criticisms from meteorologists all over the country that Trump’s cuts to NOAA and the National Weather Service had degraded the quality of storm forecasts. Qualified people reported that there are now insufficient staff to launch weather balloons, which are essential for accurate forecasts. A South Florida meteorologist who is a former NWS official has been sounding the warning for months.

Ms. Leavitt, who has a talent for feigning righteous indignation, declared trying to blame Trump for the lack of preparation by local Texas officials was outrageous, asserting that there was no degradation in forecasting capability. You can believe whomever you choose, but my money is on the climate and weather scientists who spent years learning their trade. It turned out that Trump and Elon Musk’s arbitrary slashing hamstrung not only NWS’s ability to forecast, but they seriously curtailed a different NWS service – assuring that local communities under threat of major storms or flooding were notified timely. These things, as we saw in Texas can develop and change drastically in a matter of minutes.

That, apparently, did not happen in the middle of the night in Kerr County, Texas, as flash floods were overwhelming a girls’ summer camp. A day later, federal officials tried to pin the blame on the local sheriff. Aside from the horrible loss of life, this is an indictment of the Trump administration’s whole approach to governing. Slashing and cutting necessary programs, like FEMA, to pay for indefensible tax cuts to billionaires, without having a clue or giving a damn how those cuts might affect or end people’s lives.

But there’s more to be learned from the Texas floods. Trump went on television to deliver a sickeningly saccharine speech, claiming to love the people hurt and killed by the floods. Don’t believe a word he said. I’m sure he cares about how the disaster affects him, but nothing in his character or his history suggests the people’s suffering matters at all to him. It’s an absolute tragedy that 104 lives, mostly children, were lost. But yesterday, EU health officials estimated that the wholesale slaughter of USAID will result in the deaths of more than four million children in third world countries. Do those children have less of a basic right to live because they weren’t born in America?

Whether Trump was unaware of the consequences of killing USAID programs, or he understood perfectly well that he was putting all those children’s life at risk, either way, it makes his phony declaration of love for the people who voted him into office even more nauseating. All he wants is a photo op of him flying around in a helicopter overseeing his flock.

This should be an object lesson. Instead of the National Weather Service, or the Federal Emergency Management Agency, substitute Medicaid, Medicare, or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance. Does Trump give a damn how his cuts will impact the seventeen million people who will lose Mediciad benefits, almost all of whom are mothers, children, and blind or disabled individuals? Does he care about the millions of American childen, most of whom live in the red states that supported him who go without food for most of the day? Of course not – they’re not old enough to be bamboozled into voting for him, and not one of them has nine zeros after their name.

Trump also doesn’t care how many Palestinians die from starvation or bombs. His only interest in post-war Gaza seems to be whether he can build golf resorts along the Mediterranean after throwing two million Palestinians out of their homes. And he cares even less about the gradual destruction of Ukraine. His humiliation of the Volodymyr Zelensky was really a declaration that forty-four million Ukrainians are nothing more that trading chips in his quest to win the admiration of Vladimir Putin.

Trump also couldn’t care less about the families and children trying to escape death and tyranny in Central America, as long as he gets to play tough guy with immigration and send out troops, a big step toward turning America into the autocratic police state he craves.

Never forget that you can’t believe a word that comes out of Trump’s mouth. I wonder if he even understands the concept of truth. To him truth is whatever is required for him to get what he wants, no matter how many people suffer for it.