Drowned in Silence: While Texas Families Searched for Their Children, Trump Golfed, Ate Ice Cream, and Announced a UFC Event on the White House Lawn

83 Dead, Dozens Still Missing — and the President Who Gutted NOAA and the Weather Service Didn’t Say Their Names

On July 4th, as families across the United States gathered to celebrate freedom and resilience, dozens of families in Kerrville, Texas, were plunged into unthinkable tragedy. By nightfall, torrential rain had caused the Guadalupe River to surge more than 20 feet in less than an hour, sweeping away homes, campsites, cars, and human lives.

And it never should have happened, according to Texas State Officials.

“DOGE/Trump Cuts to NWS and NOAA prevented accurate rainfall reporting predictions, as there was very little communication as NWS/NOAA are severely undertsaffed.”

83 people are now confirmed dead.
More than 40 are still missing.
At least 28 of the dead are children.
And not one word of acknowledgment from Donald Trump until 24 hours later.

Why? Because Trump — your President, if you're still pretending this isn't a failed state — was golfing, eating ice cream, and hosting a UFC promotional event at the White House. No, that’s not satire. It’s the grotesque reality of Trump’s America in 2025.

🚨 The Death Toll and the Silence That Followed

Among the dead: kids from Camp Mystic, where a wall of water overtook a girls’ dorm and counselors were swept downstream trying to save them.
Entire families: gone.
People drowned in their vehicles trying to flee.
Mothers and fathers on live TV begging for help locating their children.

And where was Trump?

Golfing, eating ice cream.

This is what state failure looks like. Not just in policy, but in morality, empathy, and humanity.

Trump Gutted the Weather Service — And Texans Paid the Price

Let’s be clear: this disaster was made worse by Trump’s direct actions.

In the past year alone:

• 880 NOAA staff were let go due to federal hiring freezes and "workforce optimization" mandates.

• 600+ NWS jobs were cut — some in the very region that includes the flood zone.

• Kerrville’s closest NWS forecast office in San Antonio lost its lead warning coordinator just three months ago due to these budget cuts.

• Entire forecasting models were defunded or allowed to expire, including AI-enhanced radar composites and river gauge monitors.

Even the emergency alerting infrastructure was underfunded. Kerr County, where most of the victims drowned, does not have a siren system, and never got one because the Trump Administration quietly canceled federal community resilience grants back in February.

While Trump played emperor and posed with championship belts, the science that could’ve saved these lives was bled dry by his obsession with cutting “the Deep State.”

Forecasts Were Wrong. Experts Warned This Would Happen With Cuts to NWS/NOAA

Texas Emergency Management Director W. Nim Kidd was blunt:

“The forecast did not predict the amount of rain we saw. Not even close.”

The NWS forecast said 3–8 inches.
The actual total? Over 15 inches in under 6 hours.

This isn’t just a “missed call.” It’s institutional collapse.
Forecasting is fragile. It depends on continuity, experience, training, and real-time modeling. When Trump gutted NOAA and NWS, he cut the legs out from under the science of life-saving prediction.

Veteran meteorologists resigned en masse. No replacements. No strategy.
Just chaos — and now, corpses, including dozens of children.

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 NOAA & NWS have critically impacted storm prediction nationwide and are a major driver of the deaths of close to 100 Texans, including dozens of kids.

While Texas Drowned, Trump Was Having Dessert

As the search began for missing children and families in Kerrville, Trump was:

• Eating chocolate ice cream at Mar-a-Lago while his inner circle posted selfies.

• Pimping a UFC event at the White House:

• Retweeting Elon Musk’s robot Grok, which bizarrely blamed “old Democrat floodplain maps” for the deaths — even though it also correctly linked the loss of NOAA staff to fatalities.

Trump did finally acknowledge the flood, 3 days later, in a 34-second Truth Social post, where he said Texas was “resilient” and blamed the disaster on “Biden regulations.” He also coldly stated, “It looks like some young people have died” on his way to his NJ Golf Course.
Real comforter in Chief, stuff:

Republicans in Texas Are Furious — And You Should Be Too

Here’s what Texas officials had to say:

• Sheriff Larry Leitha (Kerr County): “Everybody got the forecast from the National Weather Service. It did not predict the amount of rain that we saw.”

• Lt. Governor Dan Patrick: “We need to examine the system breakdowns, not just the rainfall. The alerts were late, vague, or wrong.”

Even the state’s conservative media is reporting what national outlets won’t: Trump’s cuts to weather forecasting likely contributed to the deadliest non-hurricane flood event in U.S. history.

This Wasn’t Just Negligence. It Was a Political War on Science.

Let’s remember: Trump didn’t just cut NOAA because of a budget. He did it out of spite.

• He slashed NWS staff after they contradicted his false Hurricane Dorian forecast in 2019.

• He fired top NOAA scientists who refused to “massage” climate data.

• He dismantled early warning AI systems that were proven to reduce disaster deaths.

And while Texans drowned, he literally pitched a cage fight on the White House lawn.

We Deserve Better

This isn’t about partisan blame anymore. It’s about survival.

• Families in Kerrville deserved to live.

• Kids at Camp Mystic deserved to be warned.

• Texans deserved a President who gave a damn.

Instead, they got chocolate ice cream, UFC sponsorships, silence, and tragic, needless death.

Trump’s war on facts killed people. His cult of self-gratification made sure no one noticed.