Chip Roy on Texas flooding: ‘Real story' is ‘heroism of those who showed up' to help
'I think the real story is not all the finger-pointing that the media wants to point to. It's the heroism of those who showed up like Ian there with the Coast Guard, who I was standing next to when we met with the president, talking about his feelings as a dad,' Roy told anchor Shannon Bream on 'Fox News Sunday.'
'There was another young man in the Coast Guard talking about how he keeps Jolly Ranchers in his pocket, and he was handing Jolly Ranchers to the little girls that were on the helicopter with him,' he added. 'It's the heroism of all of the first responders in Kerrville.'
Roy added later that as you drive into Kerrville, which was at the center of the flooding, there's a large cross on a hill.
'And if you ask me what the story of this whole tragedy is, it's the cross. And it's the power of the cross,' he said.
At least 129 people were killed in flooding that began on July 4 along the Guadalupe River in central Texas, with about 170 people still missing as search operations stretch into a second week.
Federal, state and local officials have faced questions about why early warning systems were not installed in known flood zones, and why a summer camp was allowed to expand in a dangerous flood plain.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has denied reports that federal aid to Texas was delayed due to a new rule requiring her sign-off on all Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grants or contracts worth more than $100,000.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) used a football analogy to criticize those seeking to assign blame for the tragedy, drawing criticism from Democrats.
'Every football team makes mistakes,' Abbott said. 'The losing teams are the ones that try to point out who is to blame. The championship teams are the ones that say 'Don't worry about it, man. We got this. We're going to make sure that we go score again and then we're going to win this game.''
President Trump and first lady Melania Trump went to Texas Hill Country earlier this week.
'I've been to a lot of hurricanes and tornadoes and I've never seen anything like this,' Trump said at a roundtable featuring local, state and federal officials after touring the area.
Trump has also commended Noem over the federal response to the Texas floods, while the administration has changed its tune on terminating FEMA entirely after the disaster.
Noem said Sunday her department was on the ground in Texas almost immediately after the flooding began.
'Within just an hour or two after the flooding, we had resources from the Department of Homeland Security there, helping those individuals in Texas,' she said on NBC's 'Meet the Press.'
'It was a heartbreaking scene. And I think it's been well covered about what the Coast Guard did, how they were deployed immediately and helped rescue so many individuals from those floodwaters.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
21 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Carney heads to Hamilton to meet steelworkers as U.S. trade talks continue
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney is scheduled to be in Hamilton today to make an announcement related to the steel industry. It has been more than a month since U.S. President Donald Trump doubled tariffs on steel and aluminum from 25 to 50 per cent, adding further economic insult to the two industries in Canada. Carney met with his cabinet virtually on Tuesday and told reporters before that meeting he doesn't think Trump will agree to any trade deals without including some tariffs. Carney will tour a steel company in the city and meet with workers during his visit to Hamilton. Carney and Trump have been negotiating a new economic and security pact since early May and last week Trump unilaterally pushed the deadline for reaching that from July 21 to Aug. 1. He told Carney in a letter on July 10 Canada will be hit with 35 per cent tariffs that day, with the White House saying the current plan is for that to apply only to those Canadian imports not covered under the existing Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement. Carney says negotiations with the U.S. are likely to intensify as that Aug. 1 deadline approaches. This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 16, 2025. David Baxter, The Canadian Press Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
21 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Markets are now ho-hum about tariff threats. Trump and Wall Street disagree about why.
The Trump administration and many market observers are offering diametrically opposed explanations for why dramatic tariff threats have been met by a ho-hum market reaction. The emerging White House view is that the resilience is a signal that traders are essentially fine with tariffs — and are perhaps even now on board with the effort to rebalance global trade after markets were "yippy" and "afraid" in response to a similar series of promises in April. This view could give President Trump confidence to stick to an upcoming Aug. 1 deadline. But many market watchers offer a wholly different explanation: They say traders hate tariffs as much as ever, but they are shrugging them off at least in part because they simply don't believe Trump's latest threats will ever come to pass. Both can't be right, which has at least some concerned that markets may not be fully grasping the bumpiness likely ahead. The tension was encapsulated Tuesday morning when Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appeared on Bloomberg Television and made a case that markets are on the rise because they are looking ahead and understand that trade talks "are going to be good for the US, going to be good for the global economy." "I think that the market understands what we're doing," Bessent said before adding a jab that "sometimes individual market people don't [understand], sometimes the television personalities don't." The president's critics on this front, meanwhile, say they very much understand and that it's just the latest example of Trump and his team dismissing economic experts wholesale. Other recent examples include rejecting projections of the cost of Trump's "big, beautiful bill" to a debate that broke out this week around an inflation jump that many saw as evidence that tariffs are starting to bite. The White House view, however, was that the new data "proves that President Trump is stabilizing inflation." Or as Trump himself put it a few times this week when discussing economic forecasts, he has long been right and "the others were all wrong." "I don't need 5,000 people working for me behind the scenes like Jerome Powell to tell him what he should say once a month," he told reporters Sunday, "because they got it wrong." Read more: How to protect your money during turmoil, stock market volatility On the tariff issue, it's more than television personalities who are pushing back against the president. Market watchers have repeatedly noted a divergence between often-rising stock prices — which reached new all-time highs in recent days — and tariff threats. A leading explanation is that we are seeing essentially a new version of the so-called TACO ("Trump always chickens out") trade, as well as how many of these current tensions don't involve China, where some tensions are easing. The key question is whether Trump's long-promised "flurry" of deals with other trading partners are really in the offing to lower tariff rates or, in spite of market expectations, Trump and his team are ready to move forward with the higher rates. Trump announced Tuesday morning a trade deal with Indonesia that could adjust levies there to 19%, a significant break from the 32% tariff that Trump threatened on that country's goods just last week. Trump and his team have also often said that higher tariffs are fine with them. Bessent added Tuesday morning that when it comes to the European Union, Trump is "indifferent" between striking a deal for lower rates or moving ahead with his promise of 30% tariffs in that region. It's a dynamic that has led to increased warnings that markets are underplaying the risk. "I think investors need to take the president serious on this," Innovator Capital Management chief investment strategist Tim Urbanowicz offered in a recent Yahoo Finance appearance, adding that ongoing trade talks aren't going to resolve easily and that, for now, "the destination is higher tariffs, and I don't think investors have digested that yet." JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon also offered last week that markets could be underplaying a range of economic threats ahead — tariffs among them — which he said could lead to higher interest rates. He concluded during an event at Ireland's foreign ministry that "unfortunately I think there is complacency in markets, and [they are] a little desensitized." The banker added Tuesday during an earnings call that markets have "been resilient and hopefully it'll continue," but added that "you can always have adverse consequences and it's always good to hope for the best, prepare for not the best, and then we'll see." Read more: 5 ways to tariff-proof your finances In any case, trade developments will remain in focus in the weeks ahead with fears that tariff headwinds on the economy — which could only increase if Trump adds new tariffs on his Aug. 1 deadline — are still to come. The view got some new evidence Tuesday, when new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 2.7% on an annual basis in June. As a recent Goldman Sachs note said about tariffs, "investors are still trying to work out exactly how the increased taxes are affecting US companies," with the coming earnings season being looked at closely for clues. The bottom line, the analysts expect, is "a modest drag on economic growth and a one-time boost to inflation from tariffs." That's a fear the White House has also been dismissing out of hand. As Trump put it recently, tariffs are fueling his view that the US is the "hottest country." "Tech Stocks, Industrial Stocks, & NASDAQ, HIT ALL-TIME, RECORD HIGHS!" he wrote last Thursday. "USA is taking in Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in Tariffs. COUNTRY IS NOW "BACK."" David Hollerith contributed reporting. Ben Werschkul is a Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance. Click here for political news related to business and money policies that will shape tomorrow's stock prices Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
USA Today
22 minutes ago
- USA Today
MAGA, I feel bad Trump lied to you about the Epstein list. Who saw this coming?
It seems clear that President Trump lied to MAGA in the past about Jeffrey Epstein – or is lying now. I hate this for them. To the supporters of President Donald Trump who were waiting for more information about Jeffrey Epstein: I'm sorry your king has failed you. On July 7, the Justice Department declared that there was no Epstein 'client list' of people involved in a sex-trafficking ring. It contradicts a previous statement by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi that said the list was 'sitting on [her] desk' back in February, and leaves MAGA conspiracy theorists reeling with the possibility that the Trump administration either lied then or is lying now. It goes against the claims made by Elon Musk, Trump's BFF until their falling out back in June, who claimed in a 'really big bomb' that Trump was mentioned in the Epstein files. Poor Trump supporters, you can't catch a break. Even though Trump's government has officially said the Epstein files don't exist, that hasn't stopped the president from posting about a second theory that they were planted by Democrats who weren't even in office when Epstein was arrested and charged. It all seems like one big mess, one that would surely infuriate the MAGA movement. Most of us would think this was the line in the sand for conspiracy theorists hoping to own the libs. At least, that's what you'd expect. Did Jeffrey Epstein have a client list? Do you care? Tell us. | Opinion Forum MAGA, Trump lied then or he's lying now. Either way, I hate it for you. Instead of standing up for MAGA and pushing for answers, many in your movement seem to be kowtowing to the president and his administration's assertion that there's no such thing as the Epstein files. 'Honestly, I'm done talking about Epstein for the time being,' Charlie Kirk said on a podcast episode that was posted July 14. 'I'm going to trust my friends in the administration, I'm going to trust my friends in the government to do what needs to be done.' Opinion: Please stop talking about Jeffrey Epstein. You're making Donald Trump mad. Again, I'm sorry to the MAGA voters who expected to see someone, anyone, take a stand and demand answers about Epstein. It must be difficult to know that someone you trusted hasn't been honest with you, and I'm sure none of you saw this coming. I'm sure nobody before this moment realized that Trump and his entire administration demand loyalty, even in the face of clear and aggressive lying. Democrats tried to save MAGA. Republicans denied it. Still, some of you are upset about this particular failure of the administration (other failures, it seems, are nonissues). According to polling by Morning Consult, Trump lost six points from his approval rating between June and July, bringing him to a 44% approval and 50% disapproval rating. I have great news for the disappointed MAGA voter: the Democrats are actually trying to do something about the Epstein files. Rep. Ro Khanna, D-California, attempted to add an amendment to a piece of cryptocurrency legislation that would require Bondi to release the Epstein files. The bad news? His efforts were blocked by Republicans. So yeah, sorry to the MAGA crowd. It doesn't seem like you're going to get any answers in the near future – after all, Trump really thinks you should stop talking about Epstein, 'somebody that nobody cares about.' Don't worry, though, you can continue to own the libs by supporting a president who clearly doesn't respect you enough to be honest. After all, he's doing a great job attacking marginalized communities and destroying the economy. So, that's cool. Follow USA TODAY columnist Sara Pequeño on X, formerly Twitter, @sara__pequeno
