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People aren’t happy with how Trump is handling Hurricane Harvey

‘What a crowd, what a turnout.’
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Donald Trump is not exactly known for his grace under pressure. He’s coming off a month where he aligned himself with white supremacy, pardoned a racist sheriff, fired nearly half his staff and continued to be investigated for Russian collusion (and those are just the big things). With Hurricane Harvey wreaking havoc in Texas and Louisiana, this was really a time when America needed him to get it together and be a strong, compassionate, understanding leader. While in some ways he played the role of Commander in Chief well, people thought he left much to be desired.

First the good stuff. There was some speculation before Trump left for Texas on Tuesday that he might not pay the state a visit at all. Fortunately, he chose to head down there despite the danger. Good presidential move, Donny. One of the things citizens in a disaster-stricken area need from their leader is a morale boost and Donald Trump provided that for the most part. He met with first responders, spoke in front of a crowd about American resilience and waved around a Texas flag. That’s sure to boost the spirits of those participating in the search and rescue effort.

One major criticism about his trip is that he didn’t meet with any victims of the flooding. The president spoke to a crowd, but never interacted with anyone who was displaced from their home. We probably should have expected that though. Melania was literally wearing stilettos.

To make matters worse, he was more preoccupied with his own optics than with the crisis at hand. He made a comment about the crowd size at his speech–really?–and wore campaign gear for the whole visit. You can literally buy that hat.

Some people are also concerned about where the president’s mind is during this time. On Sunday–two days before his trip, two days after Harvey hit–rather than focusing on the disaster at hand, Trump was tweeting about a whole array of other things. To his credit, he was tweeting a lot about Harvey too, but many critics thought his mentions of the 2016 election, his border wall and NAFTA all demonstrated a lack of empathy.

Trump has said he has plans to return to Texas on the weekend, and hopefully once the flood waters start to recede in areas, he’ll be more inclined to meet with victims. In the meantime, it looks like Vice President Mike Pence is setting out for Texas today and has made a point to say meeting victims is a priority. The White House has also acknowledged that Trump not meeting with flood victims during his trip was ‘unfortunate.’