President, first lady meet survivors.
HOUSTON — He came to Texas with hugs and smiles. At an evacuation shelter, he hoisted a little girl above his shoulders, got into a scrum with a young boy wielding a plastic sword, and pulled on disposable gloves to serve hot dogs. At a church, he called on people to pray and loaded care packages into pickup trucks and minivans.
If President Donald Trump’s first visit Tuesday to floodravaged Southeast Texas was all about projecting competence, then his Saturday return was about showing compassion — albeit with a dose of selfcongratulation. The president got to work acting like, well, a president. In a full day of visits with storm survivors and emergency management officials, the president tried to convey empathy and a personal commitment to the longterm recovery of America’s fourth largest city after the devastation of Hurricane Harvey.
“They say two years, three years, but I think that because this is Texas you’ll probably do it in six months!” Trump said as he delivered a pep talk of sorts to volunteers at a church in the Houston suburb of Pearland.
Trump’s optimism seemed to belie the far more complicated reality of rebuilding lives here, however. After talking with families who had lost their homes to Harvey’s floodwaters, Trump said he was struck by how “happy” they were.
“We saw a lot of happiness,” Trump said after he and his wife, Melania, toured the NRG Center, a cavernous convention hall transformed into an evacuation center. The first lady, who donned a custom baseball cap that read “TEXAS” on the front and “FLOTUS” on the back, handed out books to displaced children. “They’re really happy with what’s going on,” the president said of the evacuees.
Making his second visit to the region since Harvey came ashore Aug. 25, Trump toured Houston as well as Lake Charles, La. On his first trip to Texas, Trump focused almost exclusively on the government’s response and stayed out of the disaster zone, in part because the presidential entourage could have interfered with rescue efforts.
In both Houston and Lake Charles, fans lined streets wearing “Make America Great Again” caps and Trump-branded T-shirts, holding up signs. “Texans love stilettos,” read one sign, an apparent message of encouragement to the first lady, who set social media abuzz when she departed Washington for Texas on Tuesday wearing black high heels.