As we learn more about the devastating floods in Texas that have killed more than a hundred people,

the administration and local officials are facing questions about the effectiveness of warning systems

and whether more lives could have been saved. Joining me now to discuss this and more of the day's

political news is Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter and Tamara Keith of NPR.

Great to see you both.

Good to be here.

So, Tam, kick us off here.

We've seen the president and we saw Carolyn Levin in the White House briefing room take a lot of questions about some of those cuts to the National Weather Service,

whether more could have been done.

How are they responding to some of those criticisms and questions right now?

Yeah, they are defending the

National Weather Service. They're saying that staffing was adequate. In fact, they are quoting

the union that represents National Weather Service employees who said that staffing was adequate,

though there were some unfilled positions. And they went through a timeline of when those alerts

went out. And the alerts did go out.

Part of the problem was that it happened in the middle of the night. And I think that the White House is very quick to shut down questions about President Trump's desire to wind down FEMA by the end of the year, for instance.

They are really sidestepping those questions right now and just focusing on the disaster response,

which in some ways is exactly what you want to see, is a focus on the rescue and recovery

and the people who are just dealing with this absolute tragedy.

Yeah, and I think this is going to be a conversation that unfortunately we're going to continue to have.

This has been a horrible tragedy, but we also know we had these horrific wildfires in California.

We're just starting into hurricane season.

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