Trump praises disaster response in Texas while FEMA’s future is murky

President Trump visited a storm-torn Texas on Friday as the fate of the nation’s top federal disaster agency remains uncertain.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and other local leaders praised the president for a swift response and for signing an expanded emergency declaration for the affected area after flooding killed more than 100 people, with many still missing.

Trump and first lady Melania Trump met with state and local officials, first responders, as well as families of the victims in Kerrville.

“As a nation, we mourn for every single life that was swept away in the flood, and we pray for the families that are left behind. It’s amazing, the incredible spirit from those families. I don’t know, I don’t even know how they do it,” Trump said at a roundtable after meeting with families.

The first lady said the nation is grieving with them. She said they prayed, hugged and held hands, as they shared stories. She said she was given a bracelet, which she wore at the roundtable, “in honor of all the little girls that … lost their lives” at Camp Mystic.

Melania Trump said she promised to come back.

In the background of the emotional scene were questions about how prepared Texas communities are for flooding, whether warning systems could have been better — and how the federal government plans to approach disasters going forward.

During the roundtable event, Trump brushed off a question from a Texas reporter concerning whether locals were properly notified in advance of the floods. When asked if he had a message for families who were upset about the alert system, Trump said, he thought “everyone did an incredible job under the circumstances.” He later added, “Only a very evil person would ask a question like that.”

While he praised the response in Texas, Trump did not directly address his broader vision for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Shortly after starting his second term, Trump said he wanted to overhaul the FEMA and put more onus for emergency response on states.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem oversees FEMA and stressed in Friday’s roundtable that the federal government was playing a supporting role in this effort.

Noem said the administration is “empowering the state and the local officials to make the best decisions for their people, because they know their people, they know their community, and when they ask, then we come in and support them.”

Abbott and U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, also emphasized ways that the state and local communities are spearheading rescue and recovery efforts. Abbott also noted that there would be community sessions to consider solutions for going forward, including potentially different alert systems for future floods.

“We’re going to work on every single solution to make sure things like this don’t happen again, not just in this community, but in other river basins across the state also. So we will work to get it right,” Abbott said.

Roy referenced a Hill Country foundation that had raised $30 million. He criticized a question about whether the alert system fell short as unnecessary finger-pointing.

“The people in this community rallied around to help people,” he said. “And that’s the enduring image — those little girls from Camp Mystic who were singing hymns as they watched the damage as they left that camp coming out of there. And that’s who the people of Texas are.”

Trump said the federal government will continue to support Texas with whatever it needs.

“The billions of dollars that this country gives away for things that they shouldn’t be doing, and this is not billions of dollars,” he said in a Fox News interview as he was departing the state. “This is a relatively small amount of money, but it’s — it’s a lot of love, it’s a lot of love and a lot of heart. And so we’re going to stay involved.”

The administration has not directly said whether it will follow through with plans to eliminate FEMA in its current form as soon as December 2025, as Trump once suggested. A council tasked with recommending changes for the agency, which includes Cabinet members, governors — including Abbott, and emergency management experts — had been scheduled to make recommendations by mid-November and complete its work by May 2026.

FEMA gives billions of dollars in assistance to communities hit by disasters, but often faces criticism for being too slow to disburse aid and inefficient. Many emergency management experts say FEMA plays a crucial role in responding to disasters that are too large and require too many resources for one state to handle.

NPR political reporter Elena Moore contributed to this report.