When a hurricane hit North Carolina last year, Donald J. Trump claimed without evidence that the Biden administration was avoiding helping residents in Republican areas. When wildfires burned through Los Angeles earlier this year, Mr. Trump excoriated local and state Democrats for the calamity, making false assertions about water use policy.
But after a catastrophic flood that tore through Texas last week, leaving at least 100 dead, Mr. Trump cautioned against casting blame.
“This is a hundred-year catastrophe, and it’s just so horrible to watch,” the president told reporters Sunday as he left his Bedminster golf course.
Pressed on whether the disaster was exacerbated by his administration’s push to shrink federal agencies, including the National Weather Service, he deflected.
“What a situation that all is,” Mr. Trump said. He appeared close to pointing the finger at President Joseph R. Biden Jr. before stopping short: “That was really the Biden setup. That was not our setup. But I wouldn’t blame Biden for it either.”
Unlike his predecessors, Mr. Trump has not hesitated to lean into partisanship during moments of major natural disasters. During his first term, he told aides he didn’t want to send money to Puerto Rico after it was hit by Hurricane Maria, saying that the island’s leadership was corrupt. In 2018, he threatened to withholds federal funds from California after wildfires erupted in the state.
But when it comes to the floods that ravaged Texas, it was the Trump White House that was on the defensive. Its efforts to reduce the federal bureaucracy have led to worries among local and state emergency officials about curtailed resources and staffing for disaster preparedness and response.
Key roles at local offices of the National Weather Service, in particular, went unfilled as the floods hit.
Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, wrote a letter to the Commerce Department’s acting inspector general demanding “an investigation into the scope, breadth, and ramifications of whether staffing shortages at key local National Weather Service (NWS) stations contributed to the catastrophic loss of life and property during the deadly flooding.”
Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, wrote on social media that “accurate weather forecasting helps avoid fatal disasters.”
He added: “There are consequences to Trump’s brainless attacks on public workers, like meteorologists.”
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, vigorously disputed any such connection at her press briefing on Monday afternoon. She said the National Weather Service had sufficient staff and executed “timely and precise forecasts and warnings.” She described what happened as “a once-in-a-century flash flood.”
“Many Democrat-elected officials are trying to turn this into a political game, and it is not,” Ms. Leavitt said. “This is a national tragedy, and the administration is treating it as such.”
“Blaming President Trump for these floods is a depraved lie, and it serves no purpose during this time of national mourning,” she added.
The administration’s Republican allies came to its defense.
Senator Ted Cruz of Texas condemned people “engaging in, I think, partisan games and trying to blame their opponents for a natural disaster.” The area of Texas devastated by the flood is represented by Representative Chip Roy, who said on Monday that “the finger pointing generally is just offensive when you’re dealing with trying to find bodies, and trying to deal with families grieving.”
White House officials said Mr. Trump planned to tour the disaster zone in Texas on Friday.
Unlike his rhetoric during the Los Angeles fires, the president has so far offered nothing but support for the efforts of officials in the red state, which voted overwhelmingly for his re-election.
“We’ve been in touch with Governor Abbott — I’m very close to Governor Abbott — and everybody in Texas,” he said Sunday. “Kristi Noem has been, as you know, been there, and will continue to be there, and were working very close with representatives from Texas.”
The extent of the federal response on the ground remains unclear, however.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly proclaimed his intention to disband the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which coordinates the federal response to natural disasters, calling it inefficient and bungling. The agency has already lost some of its most experienced senior leaders. Cameron Hamilton, who was serving as the acting leader of FEMA, was pushed out of his role in May.
On Monday, when reporters pressed Ms. Leavitt on whether the president was reconsidering his plan to eliminate the agency, she demurred, saying simply that it was “a policy discussion that will continue.”
In a news release, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, said the agency had been “activated” in Texas. But officials did not respond to questions about how many people had been deployed and what resources were on the ground.
Shortly before Ms. Leavitt’s briefing, Tom Homan, a top Homeland Security official, spoke to reporters from the driveway of the White House and trumpeted the administration’s handling of the disaster.
“Bottom line is,” he said, “I looked at the response that occurred, it’s a far better, quicker, appropriate response than you would have seen under the Biden administration.”
Megan Mineiro contributed reporting.
Shawn McCreesh is a White House reporter for The Times covering the Trump administration.
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