Democrats sought accountability after deadly Texas floods. Was it too soon?

Left, Right & Center

KCRW

352865, News

4.2 • 4.8K Ratings

🗓️ 11 July 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

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Summary

Authorities were still searching for survivors of the deadly July 4 floods in Central Texas when some Democrats started asking whether President Donald Trump’s cuts at the National Weather Service exacerbated the disaster. Republicans, including Texas Senator Ted Cruz, accused those Democrats of “partisan finger-pointing.” How early is too early to talk about accountability? And is a nuanced policy conversation to prevent future tragedies possible in our political climate? Democratic strategist Rebecca Pearcey joins on the left, Republican strategist Mike Dubke joins on the right, and host David Greene holds down the center.

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Elon Musk threatened to start a third party if Trump passed his “Big Beautiful Bill.” The tech billionaire launched that party on X this week, saying he wants to represent the “80%” of Americans “in the middle.” Is anyone on the left or the right taking him seriously? Or is this just the latest development in his very-public spat with the president?

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0:36.0	Green. So authorities were still
0:38.7	searching for survivors of those devastating floods in central Texas when criticism started pouring
0:44.9	in from Democrats. Democrats wanted to know was this tragedy that left at least 120 people
0:50.7	dead exacerbated by the Trump administration's cuts to the National Weather Service.
0:55.3	After all, reports show that about 15% of weather service staff were laid off or pushed into
1:01.5	retirement in the first six months of this year. That left dozens of local offices, including those
1:07.4	in the areas most impacted by these floods with staff vacancies.
1:11.6	Texas Congressman Joaquin Castro was among the first Democrats to speak out about the role of Trump's cuts in the disaster.
1:18.6	He told CNN that an investigation is in order.
1:20.6	When you have flash flooding, there is a risk that you won't have the personnel to make that, do that analysis, do the predictions
1:28.9	in the best way. And it could lead to tragedy. So I don't want to sit here and say
1:33.9	conclusively that that was the case, but I do think that it should be investigated and having,
1:39.3	you know, not having enough personnel is never helpful. Right. So local weather service offices, they did send out warnings ahead of these floods.
1:47.6	Much was out of their control, including the fact that the hardest hit area, Kerr County,
	...

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