Painful flaws in Karoline Leavitt's Texas tragedy response exposed in analysis

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is in a state of constant outrage, attacking the mainstream media relentlessly for, she claims, having it in for President Donald Trump and his administration. Comedian Lisandra Vázquez has been mocking that outrage nonstop in a series of YouTube, TikTok and X.com videos that have gone viral.

Leavitt is now attacking mainstream media outlets for their coverage of the flash floods that devastated Central Texas, where more than 100 deaths were reported. The New Republic's Greg Sargent notes that Leavitt "angrily lashed out at the news media and Democrats for asking whether Trump Administration policies bear any blame for the disaster's impact."

Sargent discussed Leavitt's response to the Texas tragedy with his colleague Kate Aronoff on an episode of The New Republic's podcast posted on July 9. Leavitt, they argued, does Americans — including residents of Texas — a huge disserve when she takes offense at hard questions on the tragedy.

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Aronoff told Sargent, "The debate about why this flood was so deadly, why the response times were so slow, is ongoing. The debate, at first, focused on the National Weather Service…. which the Trump Administration has targeted for 20 percent cuts despite it already operating at a staffing deficit for many years."

Arnoff noted that areas of Central Texas received "four months of rain in a matter of hours." And she stressed that "there are a lot of questions remaining as to what role federal cuts and Texas Republican policy had in making this disaster so deadly."

When Sargent pointed out that Leavitt is "really angry at Democrats and the media for raising some of these questions," Aronoff responded, "What she very obviously doesn't mention is just how depleted the NWS" and "our entire disaster response is."

Aronoff told Sargent, "Some of these things won't become clear for many weeks, such as the fact that Donald Trump is trying to defund FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency — which plays a crucial role in both sort of the cleanup and the recovery efforts for this, but also, the mitigation efforts."

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FEMA, she added, already "operates on a shoestring budget."

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Listen to the full New Republic podcast at this link.