Dan Abrams Defends Trump From ‘Unfair’ Partisan Attacks After Texas Flood Tragedy

Mediaite founder Dan Abrams defended the Trump administration against the “unfair” blame game mounting in media and politics after devastating flash floods in Texas killed more than 100 people, including dozens of girls at a summer camp.

The flood that tore through central Texas on July 4 came with terrifying speed. In Kerr County alone, 84 people — including 28 children — died, many at Camp Mystic as the Guadalupe River surged over 30 feet in a matter of hours.

Speaking on his new YouTube channel, Abrams pushed back hard against growing claims that Trump cuts to the National Weather Service (NWS) were to blame for an alleged delay in warnings as questions mounted over who, or what, failed and whether the “heartbreaking” tragedy could have been averted.

“It is unfair to blame the Trump administration for this,” Abrams said of the idea that the NWS could not “accurately” predict the risk because of DOGE cuts made since President Donald Trump started his second term.

“It’s true that there are cuts that have been made. Most of those cuts have not gone into effect in a significant way. And if you talk to the folks who are there and even to objective meteorologists, it sure sounds like that is not the cause,” he followed.

Abrams continued to dismantle that narrative around the NWS’ warnings. The agency issued a flood watch 16 hours before the deluge, followed by a flash flood warning at 1:14 a.m. local time, and then a grave “flash flood emergency” just after 4 a.m. urging “immediate evacuation to higher ground.” The worst flooding hit at 6:45 a.m..

“At that point if they had acted they could have still gotten out,” Abrams said. “Now, is that the fault of the camp? Is that the fault of the community? Unclear. But i think it’s unfair to blame the National Weather Service.”

Responding to Senator Chris Murphy’s (D-CT) criticism  Trump’s “brainless” cuts to public services, including meteorologists, the host added: “Again, you can say that you disagree with the cuts. What you can’t do is say cause and effect to what happened here.”

Quoting Occupy Democrats executive editor Grant Stern and Rachel Bitecofer from the Christopher Newport University Center for Public Policy, both of whom also blamed the tragedy on Trump’s cuts, Abrams cited articles to argue that there was “nothing to indicate that staffing was the issue.”

The host also cited a report from NBC News that said “weather forecasting offices were adequately staffed” and “issued timely forecasts and warnings leading up to the storm.”

In fact, he argued, according to Jason Runyon, a meteorologist in the National Weather Service, the office had “five on staff” that evening, where “the office typically would have had two forecasters on duty.”

“So it was not because of Trump’s cuts that this happened. There’s a difference between saying you’re politicizing an event and you’re not telling the truth about an event,” Abrams said.

He continued: “So then you get the Trump supporters saying well this is not the time to politicize. That’s true, but more importantly it’s not the type to mischaracterize right? If the answer was that cuts had led to the National Weather Service not being able to do its job I would be on this show today telling you it’s not politicizing it to call out the blame, because it’s too important and it’s too urgent and we have to make sure immediately it doesn’t happen again. There’s not evidence that that’s the case.”

At the same time as striking down the partisan opportunism, Abrams dismissed the suggestion that now was not the time to ask questions about what went wrong.

To the contrary, he said: “It makes it all the more important to be asking questions now when the public is listening, when change could be enacted. I don’t know the answer, right? But you can’t just do the cop-out thing which is to say ‘Oh, well you know, this is not the time.’”

“Here, there is definitely a way, a direct cause and effect that could have led these kids and other people to be warned to get the heck out of this area. There is no ambiguity about that,” Abrams said. “There is no doubt they could have gotten almost everyone out before it happened.”

Watch above, and check out more from The Dan Abrams Show on his newly launched YouTube channel.