Noem pushes back on attacks that she was so to respond to Texas floods

Once again, a national tragedy is being turned into a talking point by the Democrat Party.

As soon as the first body turned up in Texas from the flooding, Democrats were hoping to put the blame on Trump.

Now they are focusing on Noem, claiming her delayed response cost lives.

Investigate!

Before anyone had any idea what had happened, Democrats were throwing knives at Trump and Noem.

They latched on to Trump’s cuts being responsible, even though the cuts have not really even gone into effect yet. At least one Democrat has already had to eat crow on that.

Then they went after Noem, calling for an investigation. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) stated, “Kristi Noem has no idea what she’s doing, okay. FEMA is cutting the grant that gives states money to build their capacity.

“At the same time telling them they need to build more capacity. She’s cut, she’s been pausing. grants of $10 billion for previously approved disasters. They cut 20% of the workforce and every decision has to come to her."

If That Was the Case…

The big controversy here is that Noem reportedly put measures in place to ensure that she gave the final okay on anything over $100,000, which people are now saying delayed the FEMA response.

But if the response was delayed and her slow action cost lives, then how did a US Coast Guard helicopter pilot manage to save 165 people by Monday morning?

Scott Ruskan, 26, a New Jersey native, is being hailed as a hero, but he is brushing off all the attention as business as usual.

He stated, “This is what it’s all about, right? Like, this is why we do the job. This is why we take those risks all time. This is why like Coast Guard men and women are risking their lives every day.”

Noem Pushes Back

CNN published a report stating that FEMA had come into some “bureaucratic obstacles,” which had Noem going ballistic, responding, "Well, there you go. Fake News. CNN again. It’s absolutely trash what they’re doing by saying that.”

The piece claimed, "In the past, FEMA would have swiftly staged these teams, which are specifically trained for situations including catastrophic floods, closer to a disaster zone in anticipation of urgent requests, multiple agency sources told CNN. Noem didn’t authorize FEMA’s deployment of Urban Search and Rescue teams until Monday, more than 72 hours after the flooding began, multiple sources told CNN.”

Noem shot back, "Our Coast Guard, our Border Patrol BORTAC (Border Patrol Tactical Unit) teams were there immediately. Every single thing they asked for, we were there. The governor and the emergency management director, Nim Kidd, are fantastic and nobody there has said anything about that they didn’t get everything that they wanted immediately or that they needed. And I’m proud of the work we’ve done to support that

"The fact that CNN is continuing to be political and push out fake information and false information and lies is not shocking, but it’s a disservice to the country. It’s a real disservice to the country because people start to mistrust anything that comes out then over the news."

First, the piece was not calling into question the Coast Guard response, just the FEMA response, and the White House has yet to push back with numbers that would prove that report wrong. Having said that, I don’t have a problem with Noem wanting to give the approval, but if there was a holdup, take ownership, then fix the problem. But here is another question… If FEMA had usually rolled all this out, why was a request not made earlier in the week when weather reports started to get worse? Clearly, there are still some major flaws with how FEMA is operating, and I would suggest that is what we focus on, rather than pointing fingers right now. There will be plenty of time for that later.