Americanswers… did Trump’s funding cuts contribute to Texas floods deaths?

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1:20Anthony:Two big stories today for your questions. The ongoing Texas floods, of course, and the attached question, were the doge cuts partly responsible for what happened? Plus the centrepiece legislation of the Donald Trump second turn, the big, beautiful bill. It's been passed by Congress. So when do the cuts take effect and how should the Democrats be using it all? Welcome to AmeriCast.

1:45AmeriCast. AmeriCast from BBC News. You're gambling with the lives of millions of people. You're gambling with World War III. President Trump's message is very simple. We are done being taken advantage of. Mr. President, in the name of our God, have mercy upon the people. We're scared now.

2:02Anthony:Are you supportive of these onesies? I'm supportive of vaccines. What is happening? Like, this is not America. This is a terrible nightmare. This is what victory feels like. Yeah!

2:23Hello, it is Mariana, a.k.a. Misinformation, in the worldwide headquarters of AmeriCast in London. And it's Anthony back in the good old US of A after my week in the UK. But I've loved seeing all of y 'all and I miss it already.

2:38Anthony:And it's Justin sitting next to Mariana in the worldwide headquarters and missing Anthony. Plus, I should say, Matt Chorley back next week. He's off because of Wimbledon, but he will be back next week. And I've heard that makes him sound like a tennis player, but it's actually just because the tennis is on Five Live and he is busy out and about. Matt does all sorts of things, including news nights, but maybe he does do tennis as well. Who knows? Anyway, we can get to ask him in a week or so's time. Now, we are going to get to the big, beautiful bill because there is actually quite a lot to talk about with that.

3:09Anthony:But first, to the flooding in Texas and the awful, awful facts about what has happened. There are at least 82 people dead, that figure likely to rise. There is still a search and rescue operation. Big focus has been the summer camp for girls on the banks of the Guadalupe River, Camp Mystic. And Anthony, it's a place you know well. It is. It's in central Texas. This is where I grew up and I went to camps like Camp Mystic. I went intertubing on the Guadalupe River. Obviously, floods are part of life in Texas. This part of Texas, the hill country, which is limestone hills that don't absorb water very well.

3:50A lot of rain falls in one spot at one time. It's like a big funnel, and it all funnels down into these rivers. And so I can remember from my childhood devastating floods hitting Austin, my hometown, and various parts of the hill country. But this was particularly devastating and particularly tragic because of how much water fell when it fell on a holiday weekend. the morning of 4th of July and the time it fell in the middle of the night when few people were aware that it was going to happen or were able to evacuate so quickly. It just it breaks my heart. And while I didn't have any people I know directly involved, I have friends of friends who who lost people who were in camps nearby.

4:32So it is it is really just devastating to think about and see these pictures from central Texas.

4:37Anthony:And before we get to questions about it, Anthony, it's worth saying i mean the thing it brings home to all of us but certainly to me because i can remember this from my time in the states and you've just been here in britain i know you you went on a car journey to see stonehenge you will have gone through the english countryside and it's a serious point actually that there is nothing dangerous in the english countryside you know it's just undulating hills or whatever and yes you could get stuck on a mountain in in wales or scotland but you'd be very unlucky to come to any great harm. And yet the United States, and we'll talk about the factors that may have added to the dangers in a second, but just the basic level of danger.

5:17Anthony:It always struck me there. You know, there are bears. There is extremity of all sorts. If you go out into the American wilderness, there are dangers there that you just don't get in Britain. Right. We're not Australia, where there are all these different kinds of deadly things that can kill you at every turn, but it is dangerous in the United States, particularly the weather there, which can change on a dime, whether it's tornadoes, which can happen very quickly, or these flash floods, particularly, as I mentioned, in central Texas, where the geology is such that it exacerbates these downpours.

5:55I would be driving when I was young in Austin, and you'd be at a bridge, and the bridge would look fine one minute, even if it's not raining there. But within a matter of half an hour, an hour, the floodwaters could rise so fast that the entire bridge would be inundated. And you think you can drive across it in a car, but it only takes less than a foot of water, even just a few inches of water to sweep a car away. Now, imagine all of that happening when you're in a cabin on the banks of a river where you had 20, 30 feet storm surge, a flood surge that picks up the RVs, picks up these cabins and carries it away on their foundations.

6:33The power of nature, the power of these storms in Texas in particular are very, very apparent. And, you know, it can be very scary, even if you're in a solid home on high ground. Now, in terms of your questions about this, we've had quite a few. And let's start with this one from Leslie in Stratford-upon-Avon, which quite a few of you have asked us, really. Leslie says, I've just listened to the news about the terrible floods in Texas. the question of why no warning was given was asked the commentator blamed the cuts Elon Musk made to the Met Office so there were just not enough experts to see what was coming is this true and remember Elon Musk was until quite recently central to this advisory body this doge department of government efficiency looking at where they could be more efficient but has the efficiency gone too far what do we actually know in terms of I mean it's one of those things isn't it it's kind of prove a negative?

7:25Like what could have been done that wasn't done? Right. And alerts went out. They did have a flash flood watch earlier in the day on Thursday. They had a warning overnight. But a lot of these camps, cell phone services spotty, so they may not have gotten the notice on their cell phones. It's difficult to predict these sorts of downpours. And the forecast from the weather officials had become increasingly dire throughout the night. But But being able to reach these people and evacuate them with the systems that were in place, even pre-doge cuts, and there will be a debate about whether these cuts are a good idea or not.

8:04But even without these sorts of cuts, it's difficult on a holiday when the banks of the river are packed like that to get people out when it hits in the middle of the night at 3 a.m.

8:14Anthony:There is a question about the warnings, isn't there? So there's sort of two separate things. There's the doge cuts. And I think it's going to be very difficult, actually, to pin it on Elon Musk in some kind of a way, just because, I mean, there have been cuts. There's no question about that. But whether they're in this particular case, in fact, the AP, the Associated Press, has suggested a meteorologist at the National Weather Service has said that the office actually had extra staff on duty at the time of the storms, the relevant office. So, you know, there'll be a lot of people who want to believe one thing.

8:45Anthony:A lot of people will want to believe the other typical of so much of American politics at the moment. The actual proof of it, I think, would be difficult. But it is true, isn't it, Anthony, that when it comes to warnings, I mean, there are some places I've seen pictures of these things. I don't think I've ever seen it in real life, but you certainly will have done these kind of towers with with sirens at the top of them. And there weren't any in this particular stretch of the river, but there are in others. Is that right? There are. And in Tornado Alley, in the Midwestern states in particular, in places like Kansas, they have these because they know that tornadoes can appear so quickly and you need to be able to seek shelter.

9:22So these air raid sirens, and they have some in central Texas as well, these air raid sirens go off. And that is a sign that you need to do something very, very quickly. There had been talk in Kerrville, which is the town that was closest to these camps, of setting up a system like that for floods because they do know that flooding can be bad. And this particular part of central Texas can be very bad. It can happen so quickly, even if it's not someplace where it's raining right now. The rain could be upriver and they could see the storm surge coming down the river. And that would give them warning time if they could have these sirens.

9:55But they decided not to put them in. They decided it was too expensive, too extravagant for a town like this. And they decided to spend money elsewhere on lower cost types of warning systems. And there's going to be a lot of second guessing now about whether that type of system should have been in place. And in other parts of Texas and other parts that are prone to flash flooding, whether those need to be developed and installed now to avoid something like this happening again. Anthony, what you were saying there really reminds me of some of the conversations we've had on different episodes of America.

10:27including after that attack that happened in New Orleans just kind of over Christmas, where there were some bollards that hadn't been maintained or accusations that there'd been sort of failings in maintenance. And this question of local communities or, you know, within particular states or particular towns, a kind of a decision to perhaps cut corners or to save money on certain things that ultimately has a huge impact on the people who are then affected or lose their lives in these kinds of disasters. and in some ways doge was set up to try and sort of offset that problem which was that it felt like bits of infrastructure weren't working or people weren't protected in the right way and maybe that was due to inefficiency but like you just wonder how many of these other things exist in different places across america where there's been i mean the same could be said of other countries not just

11:12Anthony:the states really but particularly the states i think you're really onto something because i mean anthony it's how the place was set up it's local people doing things sometimes voluntarily sometimes times through local taxation. We think of America, or people who don't know America well, sometimes think of this kind of huge thing where everything's kind of centralized. And it's absolutely the opposite of that, isn't it? It is very local, very local in outlook, very local in payments often for stuff that is locally provided or not locally provided, as in this case. Right. And the system, Kerrville, was contemplating, they applied for federal grants, but they have to put together an application.

11:51And then that grant was denied. Money went elsewhere to other programs, a lot of it for hurricane preparedness on the Gulf Coast of Texas, which obviously was also hit by devastating floods in Hurricane Harvey a while back. But it's the local governments that have to kind of organize that and find the funding, whether it's through the government or through local fundraising sources. And if they don't do it, then that's on them. And I think the town officials in Kerrville are going to be getting a lot of criticism also for not being better prepared, for not spreading the word locally about the potential for these storms, which were being predicted, which were being forecast with, as I mentioned, increasing intensity and concern from the national weather forecasters.

12:36It's a question of the last mile, right? You have all of this infrastructure on forecasting the weather, which is great, but if it doesn't reach the people who are most at risk, then it doesn't do you any good. And this was a failure to alert the people who were camping on a floodplain in central Texas when there was a potential for storm. And the consequences obviously are being measured in lost lives. I mean, it really is very tragic.

13:02Anthony:We had an email from Francis in Bath. Is Donald Trump following through on his threats to only give aid to red states where there's a natural disaster? Well, Trump's already signed a disaster declaration for Kirk County, Texas, and that's going to direct federal funds. As we've heard from Donald Trump before, he's called into question the entire federal emergency management agency structure, whether he said states should be more in charge of handling the disaster response as well. Now, Texas is a state with a lot of money and they have the resources to provide aid, but a lot of states don't have that.

13:37I think that's the big concern. And the federal government having one agency that has the skill and the resources to handle disasters anywhere in the country. I think a lot of people would say there's benefits to that. But that seems to be something that Donald Trump wants to go in a different direction.

13:53Anthony:He says he's going to go there on Friday, doesn't he? But some presidents are very good at dealing with these things, aren't they? And kind of bringing the nations together. It has never, frankly, been a forte of Donald Trump's, has it? I don't know whether, I mean... And then there's not really that. I think it's quite interesting as well because if you look at and actually thinking about the images that different leaders project on social media is quite a helpful way of analyzing this like there are lots of kind of leaders across the world and including kind of former presidents of the united states and biden was more like this who want to kind of create this feeling of like unity and let's all stand together and let's mourn the victims and to some extent donald trump does that like obviously he expresses solidarity and care and everything else but actually he thrives most online and in interviews when he's able to be a bit more punchy and to disagree with people.

14:42And these situations don't really create an environment where he can do that. Or he wants to have a go at someone like perhaps the governor of that state or to kind of point the finger.

14:50Anthony:Right. We had a voice note from Louise in Australia on conspiracy theories. This, Mariana, is right up your street. What has started to appear on my feeds is a lot of comments from, I don't know whether this is from a bot or from regular users of Instagram. There's this rumour going around that the Democrats have cloud seeded and manipulated the weather to punish people of Texas and are therefore responsible for this. And I'm just wondering why that is the more acceptable narrative for many people, I'm assuming, on the right, as opposed to that this is a climate change induced weather event. Thanks, guys.

15:31Take it easy. In terms of the playbook itself, it tends to be people kind of reaching for quite extreme unfounded conspiracy theories about weather manipulation. So this idea that somehow deliberately the forces that be, often the conspiratorial forces that be, are designing these mass weather events in order to cause harm. The problem with these narratives, and I think what's quite interesting, is people often use them because they want to kind of target perhaps politicians or people in power they don't agree with and say, look, they're complicit in these plots. But what it does is distract from real accountability, like real accountability for where there were failings or where politicians didn't get things right.

16:05And it might be Democrats and it might be Republicans and it might be on a local level as we've been chatting about. The last thing I would say, which I think is really interesting and that I get asked all the time is where you mentioned, I don't know if this is bots or regular people. My experience is that these are almost always regular people. And this is kind of no slight on you, Louise, because loads of people get in touch with me saying the same. I think sometimes we want to think it could be a bot because we don't really understand how other people might believe it. But actually, people do believe this stuff.

16:32And they often believe this stuff because they don't feel listened to and they don't feel like there are answers and they don't feel like there's accountability for politicians. And that's kind of why we're at the point we're at. And, you know, cloud seeding is actually a thing. Yeah, exactly. There are states that are doing it, but they aren't just Democrats. It's not a democratic conspiracy theory. There are conservative states like Utah that have been investing heavily in cloud seeding because it is viewed as a way to generate ice crystals in the clouds. and then that will cause more snow and more rain and help overcome what has been some very nasty droughts in areas where they are having water shortages.

17:09But you could see how you take something that you don't quite understand and it seems somewhat ominous, maybe even a man trying to control the weather. And then all it takes is a little twist and a tragic event and turned it into a conspiracy theory.

17:23Anthony:OK, let's turn to Donald Trump's big, beautiful bill, the centerpiece legislation of Donald Trump's second term. Probably the only legislation, Anthony, is worth saying, isn't it? I mean, of any great moment coming out of Congress. At least so far. Yeah, so far and maybe for the whole time. Anyway, so it adds a lot of money,$3.3 trillion. And that, by anyone's book, is a lot of money to the US federal debt. Critics say it's going to leave millions without health coverage. Supporters say the debt doesn't matter because it's going to boost so much economic activity. There'll be a ton of money flowing through the economy and everything will work out fine.

18:03Anthony:And they also say, well, the people without health coverage shouldn't have been on it anyway because it's all fraud, waste and abuse, etc., etc. So this is how Donald Trump described it all on the 4th of July, that special signing ceremony. This is the most single, most popular bill ever signed. And it includes the largest tax cut in American history, the largest spending cut,$1.7 trillion. And yet you won't even notice it just waste, fraud and abuse. This is a triumph of democracy on the birthday of democracy. And I have to say that the people are happy. They're happy. Anthony, how happy? Well, the polls show that this bill is generally not all that popular.

18:48So there are very, very real concerns about the level of cuts, particularly to Medicaid, which is the government run program for health insurance and medical care for low income Americans. And it's not just waste, fraud and abuse that is being cut, but there are estimates that there's going to be tens of billions of Americans who will be put off this health care rolls and will have to try to find health insurance or go without health insurance and rely on emergency room care rather than annual doctor's checkups, which can be even more costly. So I think Donald Trump is putting his spin on it and it does cut taxes and it does advance a lot of Donald Trump's priorities, such as new immigration enforcement spending to the tune of one hundred and seventy billion dollars in new defense spending.

19:33But I think the battle now is going to be on convincing the American public, if you're a Republican, that this is good or a Democrat, that it is bad.

19:41Anthony:Yeah, and the Democrats have done their bit, haven't they, to try to convince people. So among them, Hakeem Jeffries, the leader in the House, making that sort of last ditch stand, trying to delay the vote with a speech, a speech that lasted eight hours. We're not going to play the whole eight hours. This is a taste of it. I feel the obligation, Mr. Speaker, to stand on this House floor and take my sweet time to tell the stories of the American people. And that's exactly what I intend to do. Take my sweet time on behalf of the American people, on behalf of their health care, on behalf of their Medicaid.