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President Donald Trump met with victims and families on Friday in Tennessee after a series of tornadoes hit Nashville and surrounding towns. Reporters were kept away from hearing his full conversations with the group of storm victims and members of their families, but as Trump spoke privately to the group of people, many of them began applauding and shouted “Amen!” according to footage streamed live by White House press cameras. At another point in the conversation, Trump pointed at the sky, as he typically does when referring to God or a loved one who has passed away. “We’re a big...

President Trump on Friday visited a Tennessee town devastated by a tornado to console victims, and pledged “whatever they need” in federal aid. In Cookeville, Mr. Trump stood amid the rubble of homes and sheared-off trees on a street where eight people were killed. A total of 18 people were killed in the Putnam County community when an EF-4 tornado packing winds of nearly 200 mph struck, leaving a path of destruction 50 miles long. “I love them very much, that’s why I’m here,” Mr. Trump said. “I was going to [visit] yesterday, but they asked me for one more...

FEMA Regional Director Asha Tribble, Cobra Acquisitions President Donald Keith Ellison, and former FEMA staffer and then Cobra employee Jovanda Patterson arrested in the mainland U.S. for fraud and bribery related to the reconstruction of the Puerto Rico electrical grid after Hurricane Maria. Basically, the FEMA and former FEMA officials accepting or offering bribes for favoritism in the awarding of reconstruction contracts. No Puerto Rican officials appear to be involved. Ongoing press conference. Developing...

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, blocked a disaster relief bill in the House on Friday by objecting to a unanimous consent vote. The Texas Republican who previously worked for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), argued the House should not have recessed before debating the legislation and holding a vote. “I'm here today primarily because if I do not object, Congress will have passed into law a bill that spends $19 billion of taxpayer money without members of Congress being present in our nation's capital to vote on it,” he said on the floor. “Secondly,...

The Democrats today killed a Bill that would have provided great relief to Farmers and yet more money to Puerto Rico despite the fact that Puerto Rico has already been scheduled to receive more hurricane relief funding than any “place” in history. The people of Puerto Rico..... ....are GREAT, but the politicians are incompetent or corrupt. Puerto Rico got far more money than Texas & Florida combined, yet their government can’t do anything right, the place is a mess - nothing works. FEMA & the Military worked emergency miracles, but politicians like..... ....the crazed and incompetent Mayor of San Juan...

Democratic California Rep. Ted Lieu apologized Friday for a snarky tweet that mocked President Donald Trump’s trip to storm-ravaged Alabama to meet with tornado victims.

Trump visits storm-ravaged Ala., DR volunteers BEAUREGARD, Ala. (BP) -- President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump visited storm-ravaged Lee County, Ala. on Friday (Mar. 8) in the aftermath of an EF-4 tornado that killed 23 people. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania visited with several family members who lost loved ones in the March 3 tornado that hit Lee County, Ala., and Rusty Sowell, senior pastor of Providence Baptist Church, prior to addressing survivors and volunteers in the church’s sanctuary. Photo by Sam Porter After disembarking from Air Force One, Trump met with Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey,...

Millions of Californians could end up with higher water bills after the Trump administration on Friday announced that federal emergency officials aren’t going to reimburse the state for $306 million in repairs to Oroville Dam stemming from the 2017 spillway crisis. The Federal Emergency Management Agency said federal taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for problems that existed prior to a massive hole forming in the dam’s concrete spillway in February 2017, eventually prompting the two-day evacuation of 188,000 downstream residents and a $1.1 billion emergency response and repair job. Oroville Dam – the nation’s tallest – is operated by a...

President Donald Trump reportedly plans to stop financial aid to millions of Americans in Puerto Rico still dealing with the devastating effects of Hurricane Maria. The president believes, without evidence, that the Puerto Rican government is using the disaster relief funds to pay off debt rather than help its citizens rebuild, according to Axios. The island nation is still rebuilding after Maria’s destruction more than a year ago; most of the country waited almost 11 months for power to be restored and thousands of people are still displaced after their homes were destroyed. Trump was initially reluctant to send money...

The New York billionaire seems unable to comfort the nation in times of tragedy or celebrate its moments of triumph.It is a poignant paradox of Donald Trump’s ubiquitous presidency—all tweets, all the time—that a leader who prides himself as omnipresent in digital public discourse is so often absent from national life in the hundred human ways in which the country has come to expect its presidents to perform. Latest case in point: After Hurricane Michael devastated parts of Florida’s Panhandle, Trump played host at the White House to Kanye West, who—in a ten-minute monologue in the Oval Office—dropped the F-bomb...

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A federal judge in Manhattan on Wednesday turned down a request for a temporary restraining order that would have stopped the Trump administration’s plan to send test messages to more than 200 million cellphones later in the day. Judge Katherine Polk Failla rejected arguments from lawyers representing people who objected because they believed that the government should not be able to control what messages Americans receive on their devices. At a news conference outside the courthouse after the decision, plaintiff Liane Nikitivich said she was “not sure how terrorism is defined and who will be found to be a terrorist”...

REMINDER: Tomorrow, 10/3 at 2:18 PM EDT, there will be a nationwide test of the Wireless Emergency Alert system, in coordination w/ @FCC. You’ll get a message on your phone with a tone & vibration. This is not a text & your phone number is not shared with anyone.

Hurricane Sandy was the deadliest hurricane to hit the East Coast since the 70s. It had the most direct fatalities, with 49 drownings in homes and cars, and 20 deaths caused by falling trees out of the 72 direct deaths that occurred in the United States. When it comes to direct deaths, Hurricane Sandy was far deadlier than Hurricane Maria’s impact on Puerto Rico. But Sandy took place under Obama and Maria under Trump. Just as with Hurricane Katrina, under Bush, the media was motivated to make the disaster appear much worse than it really was. And it did that...

"And we stand with Puerto Rico, and we are helping them to rebuild stronger and better than ever before.” - President Donald J. Trump HISTORIC RECOVERY EFFORT: The Federal Government has helped lead a historic recovery effort in Puerto Rico in the year since Hurricane Maria hit. •FEMA has joined with Federal partners and the Government of Puerto Rico to undertake one of the largest post-disaster reconstruction efforts in United States history. •Never before has FEMA coordinated federal resources to rebuild an entire island of this size. •The Federal response to Hurricane Maria marked the largest and longest Federal response...

"Right now, everybody is saying what a great job we are doing with Hurricane Florence – and they are 100 percent correct," Trump tweeted.... they "will start ranting that FEMA, our Military, and our First Responders, who are all unbelievable, are a disaster and not doing a good job." "This will be a total lie, but that's what they do, and everybody knows it!" he said, urging Americans to not "be fooled."

President Trump is expected to speak at what the White House is describing as the inaugural meeting of the President's National Council for the American Worker on Monday. The president praised the efforts of first responders after Hurricane Florence lashed out at the East Coast. "Will not rest until that job is done and done perfectly," the president said, according to the White House press pool. "... It's a very dangerous situation. You have collapses. You have slides. Its very scary." The council was formed to develop a national workforce strategy to help students and workers have access to the...

Pollster Mallory Newall said on Monday that hurricanes are not likely to impact President Trump's approval rating, given how steady it has been recently. "What strikes me about President Trump's approval rating is that it has been remarkably steady for months, and even in the face of different newsworthy events, a hurricane or a tropical storm being one of them, he tends to hover around the low to mid-forty percent range," Newall, research director at Ipsos Public Affairs, told Hill.TV's Joe Concha on "What America's Thinking." "If you look at this trend over time, it's been remarkably steady for months,"...

On the Waffle House Index, if a "...store is open and offering a full menu, the index is green. If it is open but serving from a limited menu, it’s yellow. When the location has been forced to close, the index is red," per comments from Panos Kouvelis, Ph.D., the Emerson Distinguished Professor of Operations and Manufacturing Management and director of the Olin's Boeing Center for Technology, Information and Manufacturing, in a 2011 EHS Today article about the Waffle House Index. According to the tweet from Mike Seidel, a "Meteorologist/Field Reporter for The Weather Channel", per his Twitter bio, on...

The Talk Shows September 16th, 2018 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C.; FEMA Administrator Brock Long; Sen. John Kennedy, R-La. The panel will be Karl Rove, former Bush White House senior adviser; former Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, a Fox News contributor; Julie Pace of The Associated Press; and former Rep Jane Harman, D-Calif, president of the Woodrow Wilson Center.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Long; Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.; Bob Woodward, author of “Fear: Trump in the White House.” The panel will be Yamiche Alcindor of “PBS NewsHour”; presidential...