Trump steps up as ‘responder in chief’

Natural disasters can boost or hamper a president’s image

The one-two punch of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma have thrust President Trump into one of the most perilous roles of any modern president: That of responder-in-chief.

Disasters — both natural and man-made — have become critical tests of presidential leadership. If the crisis response is perceived as quick and efficient, the president gets the credit. If it’s slow and bureaucratic, the president can pay a price.

And by most accounts, the Trump administration has handled the double-barreled hurricanes competently — if not always empathetically.

“I think he’s done fine. He’s prepared disaster declarations. He’s stayed out of the way of the response, and most of all he’s appointed a professional FEMA director,” said Patrick Roberts, who studies the federal response to disasters at Virginia Tech.

Trump has used his Twitter account to call Irma a storm of “epic proportion,” and to tell people to heed instructions of state and local officials to evacuate.

Yet his first visit to see the damage from Hurricane Harvey was largely seen as lacking the displays of compassion shown by some of his predecessors.

The Tuesday after the weekend storm, Trump visited a Corpus Christi fire station, waved the Texas flag and toured the state’s emergency operations center in Austin — all without getting his feet wet or meeting with victims. Still, he later tweeted that he had witnessed “first hand the horror and devastation” of Harvey.

Energy Secretary Rick Perry later defended Trump, saying the president wanted to go to Houston earlier — but was advised to stay out of the way of the search and rescue response.

But pundits seized on the moment. “Startlingly, he did not utter one syllable about those who have lost their lives, their homes or businesses in the floods,” said David Axelrod, a former aide to President Obama, on CNN.

So Trump returned to Houston four days later — this time visiting a shelter, shaking hands and hugging children.

Trump hasn’t yet announced a trip to Florida in the aftermath of Irma, but spent most of the weekend at Camp David huddling with emergency officials and said Sunday he plans to visit “very soon.”

It wasn’t always this way. For most of American history, communication and travel made it impossible for presidents to respond to disasters in real time.

That changed with President Lyndon Johnson, who visited the aftermath of Hurricane Betsy in

1965. His response was part calculated politics — he needed the support of the Louisiana delegation to pass his Great Society programs — but also appeared to stem from genuine concern.

When Hurricane Andrew hit Florida in 1992, President George H.W. Bush’s response was largely seen as slow and ineffective.

Each of the last four presidents have seen their political fates determined, at least in part, by how they responded to disasters.

President Clinton cemented his reputation as the comforterin-chief when he went to Oklahoma City and delivered a pastoral speech after domestic terrorists blew up a federal building, killing

168 people.

President George W. Bush generally received high marks in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 2001. But his handling of Hurricane Katrina was so bad that “Katrina moment” has become shorthand for an embarrassing presidential mismanagement.

Said Virginia Tech’s Roberts, “It’s become expected that the president will go to the scene themselves and roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty and show that they are themselves helping.”