Donald Trump's administration is picking up some of the blame for recent deaths from flooding in Texas.
Trump's team already faced a fact check in connection with the Texas flood that swept through a girls' camp and has led to an estimated 27 deaths.
Now, the Daily Beast is reporting that "officials in Texas are casting blame on the National Weather Service (NWS) for failing to forecast catastrophic flooding that has killed" dozens of people, including nine kids, according to new reports.
According to the Daily Beast:
"NWS was among the government agencies targeted by the Trump administration in its effort to gut the federal bureaucracy, losing approximately 600 staffers. After the cuts, the agency—which was already understaffed—began to prepare to offer 'degraded' forecasting services, facing 'severe shortages' of meteorologists, according to an internal document obtained by The New York Times in April."'
The outlet goes on to quote Texas Emergency Management Chief W. Nim Kidd, who pointed to bad data.
"The original forecast that we received Wednesday from the National Weather Service predicted 3-6 inches of rain in the Concho Valley and 4-8 inches in the Hill Country," according to the chief. "The amount of rain that fell at this specific location was never in any of those forecasts.”
Others have noticed the connection between the Trump administration's cost-cutting efforts and the Texas tragedy, as well.
Former GOP lawmaker Adam Kinzinger, a frequent target of Trump, had this to say Saturday:
"Regarding the flooding: GOP doesn’t want to fund the programs that predict these things, but they still want to blame the federal government for not predicting this."
"DOGE has consequences," the ex-congressman said.
Read the full Daily Beast article here (subscription is required).
