Trump regime officials must be prosecuted for the deaths of the children in Texas flood!

Trump gutted the National Weather Service

Kristi Noem and Trump

I cannot (nor do I want to) imagine the pain of losing a child. Yet that is what the families of 28 children are experiencing as you read this after the deadly floods ravaged Kerr County, Texas. Heartbreakingly, at this moment, there are still many children still missing from Camp Mystic—where they were staying. Again, I can’t imagine the agony those families are going through.

But if were one of those parents or family members, I would want to know why my child died, who failed them and to make sure that all who contributed to this preventable tragedy were criminally prosecuted. And we owe it to these families to ensure that happens!

When I first heard about this tragedy—that as of now has taken at least 52 lives--my focus was solely on what happened and was there hope of still rescuing the missing people? That was especially true on Saturday morning when Kerrville Mayor Joe Herring, Jr. shared a bit of the pain with us as he fought back tears at the press conference updating the nation. Herring was barely able to utter the words, “People need to know — today will be a hard day…it will be a hard day.” Later he repeated that line, pausing to fight the tears as asked the people of the nation to “please pray for our community.”

But after Herring spoke up came GOP Rep. Chip Roy--who instantly changed the tone to one of don’t blame us Republicans for this. Roy declared, “I’d just [ask] everybody like, pause, take a breath for the recriminations and the Monday morning quarterbacking.”

Later in the day it got worse as the always vile DHS Secretary Kristi Noem at a press conference began the political spin by blaming past administrations for the tragedy. A reporter asked given the fact that many did not receive warnings from the National Weather Service until after the worst of the flooding already had hit was there a “fundamental failure of the federal government’s responsibility to keep people safe?”

That is when Noem—in a despicable display of politics that made my blood boil- blamed Biden and past administrations. She first began by praising Donald Trump stating, “That is something, and one of the reasons that when President Trump took office that he said he wanted to fix and is currently upgrading the technology.” She then pivoted to place blame saying, “we needed to renew this ancient system that has been left in place with the federal government for many, many years."

In reality, Trump—as a May headline from NPR tells us—gutted the National Weather Service as part of the DOGE cuts and at the worst time: “Ahead of hurricane season, the National Weather Service is reeling from DOGE's cuts.”

The real world impact as reported by Wired was that the National Weather Service “has lost more than 500 staffers since the beginning of the year, leaving some offices unstaffed overnight.” Trump also “cut key programs and even satellites that help keep track of extreme weather.” In addition, some of the first changes made because of Trump’s cuts “were weather balloon launches across the country being reduced or eliminated altogether.” These balloons provide vital information for weather forecasters and experts. But Trump slashed the budget despite warnings from experts.

These alarming cuts is why in May, Scientific American ran a story with the headline that is now truly prescient: “How Trump’s National Weather Service Cuts Could Cost Lives.” The article raised red flags that, “meteorology experts are urgently warning that the Trump administration’s staff firings and funding cuts at the National Weather Service (and its parent, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) threaten to disrupt these crucial operations and turn back the clock on forecasting.” The article cited an open letter from five former National Weather Service directors from both Democratic and Republican past administrations who warned point blank: “Our worst nightmare is that weather forecast offices will be so understaffed that there will be needless loss of life.”

That is where we now are. For context, with at least 82 dead as of Monday morning from this flood, this is already the most deadly flood in Texas since the 1908 Trinity River Flood--which claimed 215 lives. That 1908 tragedy happened before satellite technology and the other advanced detection systems had been developed. But Trump has taken our nation backwards in saving lives from storms—as he has done in so many other areas.

There is no dispute that Trump and his regime created this crisis. That is backed up by Texas officials—many Republicans—who publicly made it clear Trump’s Weather Service failed them. Kerr County official Rob Kelly told media Friday morning that the county “didn’t know this flood was coming. Adding, “We have floods all the time…but we had no reason to believe that this was going to be anything like what’s happened here.” W. Nim Kidd, the Chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM), echoed those comments saying at a press conference, “The amount of rain that fell in this specific location was never in any of those forecasts.”

And Noem’s claim that Trump was going to swiftly update the “ancient systems” used by the NWS is bullshit. If Trump wanted to make that a priority, he would’ve. Instead, Trump’s focus for his nearly six months in office has been using the power of government to target universities, law firms, media outlets, put troops in the streets of California, tour the Alligator Alcatraz camp and pass a massive bill that guts programs for the most vulnerable while giving a tax cut to the wealthy.

In fact, while Trump has expressed some perfunctory sympathies to those who lost loved ones in Texas, he showed far more passion when speaking of the Alligator Alcatraz death camp.

Trump—like Noem’s—top priority is not the American people. It’s about getting headlines for Trump.

I wrote last month why Noem—as well as Border Czar Tom Homan and Stephen Miller—should be charged by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity for their inhumane treatment of migrants. This just adds to the need for Noem to be criminally prosecuted. And yes, I get that the Trump regime will never prosecute her but it doesn’t mean we don’t demand it!!

The facts surrounding this unspeakable tragedy are still being developed. We will know more in time. Yet a few things are certain. More families will receive heartbreaking news that will knock them to the ground in grief. Neither the children nor the adults who drowned in this horrific event had to die.

And we need to ensure that the Trump officials and others who failed our nation are criminally prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. We owe that to the families who lost loved ones—and that will also go a long way to reducing the prospect of a similar Trump made tragedy in the future.

---