Democratic strategist and former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel once stated that “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”
That philosophy seemed to be the playbook for the media and pundits immediately after the flood in Texas as many rushed to claim that it was caused by Trump budget cuts to the National Weather Service (NWS).
From George Stephanopoulos to Rosie O’Donnell, the hoax was spread that there was an understaffing at the NWS that may have caused these deaths.
It did not matter that it was an easy matter to confirm or that the underlying claims of understaffing the NWS team were false.
The weaponization of such tragedies has become commonplace in American politics.
Previously, Democrats like Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer bizarrely attempted to blame the crash of a Mexican ship in New York and air accidents around the world on Trump cuts.There are legitimate reasons to question whether cuts to agencies like the NWS might impact key programs, such as weather warning systems. There are also questions about whether long-standing forecast modeling failed to capture the severity of this particularly storm. However, basic honesty and decency would demand a modicum of inquiry before blaming the NWS for a failure that caused mass deaths, including a large number of children.
Indeed, the rush to claim that the tragedy was caused by understaffing can make it more difficult to find any real failures in the system. It is also possible that this was a convergence of weather systems that happened so fast (and late at night) that few citizens could take meaningful action. Some reports indicate that the river rose by 20 feet in only 45 minutes.Nevertheless, many rushed to take political advantage of the tragedy. Grant Stern, the executive editor of Occupy Democrats wrote on X “It only took 9 days for Trump’s cuts to the [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] to kill dozens of children in Texas when Tropical Storm Barry landed this week.”
In reality, the NWS had extra personnel working the storm and issued the first warning 12 hours before the flood.
Moreover, even assuming that the cuts to the NWS might impact warning systems, they are not even scheduled to take effect until next year. While there were retirements and resignations early in the Trump Administration, there is no evidence that those departures are impacting weather warnings, let alone this emergency.
However, the media pounced as the death toll rose. Even after the Administration refuted the false claims, they were still being promulgated by the press. On ABC’s This Week George Stephanopoulos ominously declared “We’re also learning there were significant staffing shortfalls to the National Weather Services offices in the region.”
Whatever “shortfalls” are being reported “in the region”, they did not appear to impact the early warning given 12 hours earlier or the fact that there were extra, not fewer, staffers working the storm.
Again, none of this mattered. Politicians and pundits, such as Hakeem Jeffries and Adam Kinzinger, joined the chorus to suggest that cuts would make this a repeated failure.
Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) told CNN Sunday the NWS should be investigated. “I don’t think it’s helpful to have missing key personnel from the National Weather Service not in place to help prevent these tragedies.”
As parents mourned dead children, commentators rushed to lay the losses at the feet of the Administration. Ron Filipkowski, the editor-in-chief of MediasTouchNews, wrote “The people in Texas voted for government services controlled by Donald Trump and Greg Abbott. That is exactly what they (sic) getting.”
Rachel Bitecofer, assistant director at Christopher Newport University’s Wason Center for Public Policy declared “What has happened to the girls at Camp Mystic is EXACTLY what one of the country’s best meteorologists, John Morales, warned would happen. Trump’s cuts to the NOAA & NWS have critically impacted storm prediction nationwide.”
Rosie O’Donnell, who famously fled the United States for the safety of Ireland after the election, added to the false narrative:
“What a horror story in Texas. When the president guts all of the early warning systems and the weathering forecast abilities of the government, these are the results that we’re going to start to see on a daily basis.”
There are obvious familiar aspects to the news coverage.
It takes very little for the media to seed a false, viral story. It quickly enters the echo chamber and is repeated on countless social media sites.
When it is finally debunked, the media just shrugs and walks away.
Whether it was the false story about agents whipping migrants in Texas or the photo op claim in Lafayette Park, false stories were disproven only to have a collective shrug from those who spread them.
Heading into the presidential debate, the White House and the media attacked Fox News and other outlets for “cheap fake” videos designed to make the President look confused and feeble. For months, politicians and pundits insisted that Biden was sharp and commanding in conversations even after Special Counsel Robert Hur cited his decline as a reason for not charging him criminally.
On MSNBC, Joe Scarborough stated “start your tape right now because I’m about to tell you the truth. And F— you if you can’t handle the truth. This version of Biden intellectually, analytically, is the best Biden ever. Not a close second. And I have known him for years…If it weren’t the truth I wouldn’t say it.”
When the truth came out after the election loss, reporters ran around claiming that they were shocked by the fact that Biden was indeed mentally and physically diminished. By that point, it did not matter. Biden was out and the truth could be reported in a slew of belated books and articles.
Yet, some media outlets have refused to acknowledge false stories even after they were debunked. At the Washington Post, columnist Philip Bump previously had a meltdown in an interview when confronted about past false claims. After I wrote a column about the litany of such false claims, the Post surprised many of us by issuing a statement that it stood by all of Bump’s reporting, including false columns on the Lafayette Park protests, Hunter Biden’s laptop, and other stories. That was long after other media debunked the claims, but the Post stood by the false reporting.
Many media outlets pushed such stories because they knew that their readers want the claims to be true — and will not be outraged (or even convinced) when the stories are later debunked. Notably, when the New York Times recently ran a confirmed story that was negative for the Democratic mayoral nominee in New York, liberal readers and pundits were outraged.
Once again, we need to see what went wrong in Texas to try to avoid such tragedies in the future. However, the NWS appears to have done its job with adding extra staff and reportedly issuing the first warnings 12 hours in advance. We need to look at precisely when those warnings were issued during the critical period and what information they conveyed. The hair-triggered response of the media to weaponize the tragedy should also be reviewed.
However, it is far more likely that there will be changes to emergency procedures than any serious change to journalistic practices.