President Donald Trump praised his administration's response to deadly Texas floods while speaking in Kerrville, Texas, on Thursday, insisting recovery efforts were "fully funded within minutes."
His comment directly contradicts reports that spending restrictions imposed by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem delayed federal aid for more than three days.
Trump: And we will be helping you from Washington, D.C., like no other president would do. Nobody else -- nobody else would do it and nobody would even be— get back to you. pic.twitter.com/fRmNohlS8w
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 11, 2025
"Kristi, I would say they were fully funded within minutes of hearing about this," Trump said, addressing Noem specifically during a round table discussion with local officials.
"We'll be helping you from Washington DC like no other president would do. Nobody else would do it, nobody else would even get back to you," he added.
But according to FEMA officials who spoke to CNN, FEMA was unable to deploy critical search and rescue teams until Noem personally approved expenditures exceeding $100,000 — a process that took more than 72 hours after flooding began last week.
By Monday night, FEMA had deployed just 86 staffers to the disaster zone, far fewer than is typical for a disaster of this scale, which has killed nearly 120 people and left over 160 still missing.
Noem defended the delays as part of an effort to streamline federal disaster response and shift more responsibility to states, calling CNN's reporting "fake news." DHS officials also downplayed the lag, pointing to other deployed assets like the Coast Guard.
Despite the president's claim that his administration responded "like no other president would do," internal FEMA data and multiple officials paint a different picture.
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