Kristi Noem Snaps Over More Reports of Disastrous Texas Flood Response

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claimed Sunday that reports that she’d kneecapped FEMA’s response to the deadly flooding in Texas were “fake news.”

During an appearance on NBC News’s Meet the Press, host Kristen Welker asked Noem to respond to a New York Times report that found thousands of calls for assistance from flood victims to FEMA call centers went unanswered because the secretary had failed to renew contracts to keep call center employees in place until nearly a week later.

“Why did it take so long to extend those contracts?” Welker asked.

“It’s just false. Those contracts were in place. Nobody—no employees were off of work. Every one of them were answering calls. So false reporting, fake news,” Noem said.

“And it’s discouraging. It’s discouraging that during this time, when we have such a loss of life, and so many people’s lives have turned upside down, that people are playing politics with this, because the response time was immediate. And if you talk to anyone in Texas who was there, that was part of this operation, they would say the federal government and President Trump immediately responded,” she continued.

“Just to be very clear, on July 7, 15.9 percent of calls were answered,” Welker pressed. “I mean, does that concern you that only 15 percent of calls were answered? These are people in a desperate state, FEMA often the first call that they make. Only 15 percent were answered on July 7, several days after the floods?”

But Noem wouldn’t hear it.

“That report needs to be valid-ified,” she said. “I’m not certain it’s accurate, and I’m not sure where it came from. And the individuals who are giving you information out of FEMA, I’d love to have them put their names behind it. Because, the anonymous attacks to polit-ili-cize the situation is completely wrong.”

The New York Times reported that on July 5, as the floodwaters in Texas began to recede, Noem failed to renew contracts with the four companies staffing FEMA call centers, leading to hundreds of contractors being fired. Documents showed that on July 6, FEMA received 2,363 calls and answered 846, about 35.8 percent. The next day, on July 7, the agency received 16,419 calls and answered only 2,613, roughly 15.9 percent.

By July 8, Noem still hadn’t renewed the contracts. “We still do not have a decision, waiver or signature from the DHS Secretary,” one FEMA official wrote in a July 8 email to colleagues, according to the Times.

This isn’t the first report that Noem botched the response to the flooding in Texas. Noem reportedly delayed FEMA’s initial response by instituting a policy that required her to personally sign off on all DHS expenditures exceeding $100,000. FEMA officials, who were unaware of the new rule, didn’t receive Noem’s go-ahead until Monday, at which point floodwaters had been raging for more than 72 hours. Meanwhile, she posted on Instagram asking her followers to vote for their favorite portrait of her to be used as her official governor’s portrait.

There’s been a mass exodus at the DOJ’s Federal Programs Branch—a unit specifically tasked with defending Trump’s most aggressive policies in court.

Of the 110 lawyers at the Federal Programs Branch, 69 have either already quit or announced that they’re quitting since Trump won in November, according to Reuters. Many of them left because they felt overwhelmed by the workload (they’re fighting an “unprecedented number of lawsuits,” one DOJ spokesperson said). Others felt ideologically compromised by the positions the administration was forcing them to defend, like the end of birthright citizenship, massive DOGE cuts from Elon Musk, or the countless extrajudicial deportations carried out by ICE.

“Many of these people came to work at Federal Programs to defend aspects of our constitutional system,” one of the outgoing lawyers told Reuters. “How could they participate in the project of tearing it down?”

The Federal Programs Branch plays a crucial role in pushing Trump’s agenda forward, and the Justice Department is working actively to refill the positions with individuals more inclined to mindlessly carry out the president’s will, no matter how blatantly unconstitutional.

Early signs bode ill for Trump after his base soundly rejected his attempt to smooth over the Epstein affair this weekend.

Trump in recent days has faced a revolt from his base over his Justice Department’s July 7 memo that Jeffrey Epstein had not kept a “client list” and that there had been no foul play in the disgraced financier and sex trafficker’s death. Top officials in the Trump administration had previously elevated Epstein-related conspiracy theories, promising full transparency on the matter and to release the supposed client list.

Trump on Saturday took to Truth Social to dispel MAGA outrage—which includes calls to fire Attorney General Pam Bondi—by insisting that the Epstein files are “Radical Left inspired Documents” created by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden, and that the administration ought “not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.”

The president’s message evidently fell flat among large swaths of his supporters. Major MAGA media figures have registered their dissatisfaction with the statement, and the Truth Social post was Trump’s first ever post on his platform to receive more replies than likes—indicating that users gave Trump an earful over it.

A Morning Consult poll conducted from July 4 to July 10—a period during which the Epstein news broke and began to resonate (not to mention other developments, such as the passage of Trump’s “big, beautiful” bill)—seems to indicate a backlash against Trump. The polling firm, which collects data on global leaders’ approval ratings, has Trump at 44 percent approval and 50 percent disapproval between July 4 and July 10. This represents a six-point dip from a month earlier.

This reversal, of course, can only tell us so much, as the poll records favorability and unfavorability generally, rather than issue-specific data. But since it was conducted, Trump further stirred the pot with his Saturday plea on Truth Social. While we’ll have to wait for clearer quantifications of the backlash against Trump for the Epstein fiasco, MAGA rancor over the matter seems more clamorous than ever, with no sign of quieting down any time soon.

President Donald Trump forced his way onto Chelsea’s Club World Cup victory celebration on Sunday, much to the chagrin and confusion of everyone involved. He was booed mercilessly. 

Trump, as the host country representative, was only meant to hand the English club their trophy and exit stage left after their 3-0 victory over Paris Saint-Germain. Instead he lingered on stage, completely ignoring FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s obvious attempts to get him to leave the platform, situating himself right in front of Cole Palmer, who was named player of the tournament for scoring two of England’s three goals. 

Palmer looked particularly confused in the moment, and later confirmed that to reporters. 

“Naw, I knew he was going to be there, but I didn’t know he was gonna be on the stand where we lift the trophy,” Palmer said. “So I was a bit confused, yeah.” 

Chelsea Captain Reece James echoed his teammate’s sentiments. 

“It probably highlights how big the tournament is, the coverage for the tournament final was huge,” James said in response to a question about Trump’s presence. “And yet, answering your question: Before they told me that he was gonna present the trophy and then exit the stage … I thought that he was gonna exit the stage but he wanted to stay.” 

Aside from being another excellent example of the president’s general hubris, Trump crashing Chelsea’s victory celebration also showed his impressive lack of situational awareness. Boos rained down on him throughout the event, and although he was undeterred, the tension highlights both Trump’s unpopularity and the controversy surrounding the U.S hosting of the Club Cup and the 2026 World Cup amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants and outright hostility to allies.  

Earlier this week—in a story that reads as a perfect encapsulation of abuses by Trump’s immigration enforcement—masked ICE agents roughed up and detained a 71-year-old U.S. citizen volunteering as a legal observer to monitor them at a federal courthouse in San Diego.

Grandmother Barbara Stone says she was documenting the detention of asylum-seekers with the group “Detention Resistance” at San Diego’s immigration court when she was baselessly accused of pushing an officer. Multiple masked agents then pursued Stone, grabbed and handcuffed her (leaving bruises), confiscated her phone and purse, and detained her for over eight hours, she says.

Once Stone was released, ICE returned her bag but kept possession of her phone. Why? Stone says an ICE agent compared the situation to “a drug bust where they keep a drug dealer’s phone because I had used it in the crime.”

But the only “crime” of which Stone says she’s guilty is documenting immigration enforcement. If this is true, the episode would track with other apparent attempts by ICE agents to avoid accountability of late, for instance, by wearing masks so they can conduct raids and arrests anonymously.

In a statement to a local outlet, ICE accused Stone of assaulting an officer, citing “a 700% increase in assaults” against its agents over the last year (a statistic the agency uses to justify agents concealing their identities, as well).

That 700 percent increase, it should be noted, is a somewhat misleading way to say there have been 79 alleged assaults against ICE agents this year, compared to 10 in the same timeframe last year. Meanwhile, ICE interactions have become dramatically more frequent and aggressive.

ICE’s numbers unfortunately deserve further scrutiny, as the agency has been defining “assault” quite loosely. In another high-profile arrest of a U.S. citizen, for example, ICE last month detained New York City Comptroller Brad Lander for assault—an accusation not unlike when a schoolyard bully accuses his victim of getting in the way of his fist, as Washington Post columnist Philip Bump put it.

One might add, to this list of questionable ICE allegations, its new claims about Stone.