New York: A week after devastating flash floods battered Texas in the US, killing 120 people and leaving thousands of others scrambling for safety, Donald Trump and first lady Melania visited the affected region.
“The first lady and I are here in Texas to express the love and support and the anguish of our entire nation in the aftermath of this really horrific and deadly flood,” Trump said at a roundtable event with Texas officials.
Responding to a question from the CBS News reporter on what the US President had to say about concerns flagged by citizens about the lack of alert prior to the alarming rise in water levels in the Guadalupe river, Trump called her ‘an evil person’.
Here’s how the conversation went:
Reporter: “What do you say to the families who are upset that alerts didn’t go out in time and people could’ve been saved?”
Trump: “I think everyone did an incredible job under the circumstances… this was one in a 500, one in a thousand years flood… I just have admiration for the job everyone did.. Only a bad person would ask a question like that. I don’t know who you are, but only an evil person would ask a question like that.”
Republican representative Chip Roy came to Trump’s defence, , calling the question ‘ridiculous’. “Don’t go around pointing fingers,” he said.
Trump went on to say, “Nobody has any idea how and why a thing like this could happen.”
“It’s easy to sit back and say, ‘Oh, what could have happened here or there, maybe we could have done something differently.’ This was a thing… that’s never happened before,” the President claimed.
Actually, Texas experienced at least four such floods in the last century that turned deadly.
“We mourn for every single life that was swept away in the flood, and we pray for the families that are left behind. It’s amazing, the incredible spirit from those families,” the President added.