AUGUST 29, 2017
Photo: The New York Times
Decisions, decisions.
What does a well-dressed First Lady wear when visiting a hurricane-ravaged city? A designer bomber jacket would be nice, which would go perfectly with 6-inch stiletto heels. Yes, people are still drowning in Houston, but you never know when you’ll stumble across a chic Texas cocktail party.
I know, the tone-deafness of the Trumps’ response to Hurricane Harvey is hardly all Melania’s fault, but it is a stark visual example of just how out-of-touch the First Couple’s actions are with the residents of Houston who are fleeing for their lives.
And it wasn’t only their trip on Tuesday to Texas that left something to be desired as far as comforting the nation was concerned. Back on Friday night, we all knew that Hurricane Harvey was barrelling toward Texas, and cable news viewers were glued to their screens, fearful that Harvey could be another Katrina.
Still, Trump chose that moment to announce that he was pardoning a convicted criminal, former Sheriff Joe Arpaio — you know the one, the the racist who would regularly round up Latinos whom he suspected to be undocumented and throw them into a criminal detention center, which he proudly called a “concentration camp.” And he has shown absolutely no remorse for his crime, usually a prerequisite for receiving a Presidential pardon.
News pundits were dumbfounded by the unfortunate timing. The question “What was Trump possibly thinking?” was heard all over cable news on Friday evening. Of course, Trump knew exactly what he was doing, as he explained on Monday afternoon. He knew that the hurricane would drive viewership to the cable networks, so he exploited viewers anxious about the welfare of the people of Houston to gather the largest audience possible for his big announcement. As always with Trump, it’s all about ratings.
So expectations that he might do something empathetic for the people of Houston today wasn’t very high. Melania’s “disaster heels” aside, Trump did the bare minimum while in Texas. To his credit, at least he went, not repeating Bush’s mistake of merely helicoptering over the disaster area. And he was smart enough not to go to Houston, where his galumphing around town would only get in the way of the first responders doing their rescue work. From Corpus Christi, Trump encouraged the residents of Houston as well as he could and assured that he would make sure that they will be helped.
The day was not without its tone-deaf moments — Trump’s address to hurricane victims included “What a crowd! What a turnout!,” as if he was ginning up a Trump rally. These are hurricane victims, for God’s sake!
But for many, the big takeaway from the Trump trip was not anything that he did but is what he didn’t do. Yes, Trump met with people, but they were fellow politicians and FEMA staffers. Don’t get me wrong — it’s crucial for a President to meet with Federal agencies in order to learn what’s happening on the ground. But the President is also supposed to be Consoler-in-Chief in times of natural disasters. How difficult would it have been for Trump to schedule an hour to visit a Houston shelter and hear the stories of those whose lives have been forever changed by this disaster? President Obama, whom Trump never fails to criticize, managed to do it in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Why couldn’t President Trump do it here today?
The President announced on Tuesday evening that he will be returning to Texas on Saturday. He has a second chance. Anyone want to bet whether he actually meets a displaced hurricane victim then? Anyone?
