Trump Hasn't Visited A Single Natural Disaster On His Watch As President
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Source: Huff Post
Jun 16, 2025, 08:00 AM EDT
WASHINGTON ― After making political hay of a train derailment and a hurricane during his campaign to return to the White House, President Donald Trump since retaking office has failed to visit a single natural disaster site on his watch and has slow-walked aid to victims. On Feb. 14, windstorms and torrential rains caused floods and mudslides in Kentucky and West Virginia, killing 25. Trump did not visit the affected communities, but did spend the following five days playing golf at his clubs in South Florida.
Exactly one month later, strong winds, tornadoes and wildfires wreaked havoc across Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas and Mississippi, leaving 34 people dead. Trump again did not visit but instead spent that weekend at his course in West Palm Beach, Florida, and the following weekend at his club in Bedminster, New Jersey. And on May 16, tornadoes and heavy rain again ravaged Missouri and Kentucky. This time, 25 people died, but again, Trump did not go to either state in the coming days — but did manage a round of golf at his course in Virginia that weekend, and at Bedminster the weekend after.
In all, close to 100 Americans have died in dozens of tornadoes, straight-line windstorms, floods and wildfires since Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration. None has merited a presidential visit. What’s more, he has reneged on promises he made to Tropical Storm Helene victims in North Carolina during the one trip he has made to sites of disasters that took place under his predecessor, Joe Biden.
“We’re going to get you the resources you need and the support that you deserve and we’ll be at your side through every step of the rebuilding,” he told residents of Swannanoa on Jan. 24. “The highest responsibility and deepest obligation of the American government is to protect its people and that’s never truer than in times of emergency like this.” In the five months since, though, Trump and his administration have not delivered new aid, including billions specifically targeted for North Carolina in December’s spending bill, and has instead cut back on paying for the cleanup costs.
Read more: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-ignoring-disasters_n_684c8b3de4b0897e37f9f7a6
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As there were many disasters in the 1980s - IRA bombings, the Kings Cross Fire, Zeebrugge, the Clapham and Purley rail crashes, Hillsborough, Lockerbie, the sinking of the Marchioness - her ministrations became such a familiar sight that Private Eye proposed that readers carry a Thatch-Card, stating that in the event of an accident, they were, in no circumstances, to be visited by her.
She was not the most convincing of humanitarians. Instead of hugging, nestling or squatting, eye-to-eye, beside the sufferer of the moment, claiming to feel their pain, Mrs Thatcher preferred to pay tribute to the emergency services, then offer individual patients some bracing, can-do encouragement. After the Clapham crash, for example, she assured one survivor, 'I am sure if the doctors say it will be all right, it will be all right'. Still, Mrs Thatcher spoke from experience. She had survived the Brighton bombing. The jeering which followed her hospital tours may have had less to do with her stiffness, than the feeling that Mrs Thatcher was, as per usual, trespassing on royal territory. It was for the Queen, not this partisan harridan, to lead the country in a united expression of horror or sympathy.
https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/1999/may/06/features11.g2
