Fox News personalities have been attacking the media and prominent Democrats for linking the July 4 flooding that killed over 100 in Central Texas to climate change and raising concerns about the Trump administration's cuts to agencies and services that predict and respond to extreme weather events. 

The flooding, which started in the early hours of July 4 along the Guadalupe River, was one of the deadliest U.S. floods in the past 100 years, with its victims including 27 campers and counselors from Camp Mystic, an all-girls Christian summer camp.

The same network now lambasting Democrats and the media for connecting the event to climate change and the Trump administration's policies not only politicized extreme weather-related tragedies under Biden, but, in the case of Hurricane Helene, also pushed harmful misinformation that disrupted relief operations. 

During The Five, Democratic strategist and Fox co-host Jessica Tarlov pointed out the hypocrisy:

Climate change is making flooding events more common and severe, and stripping down the agencies that predict and respond to extreme weather is a threat to public safety — both relevant facts for discussion in the wake of a tragic extreme weather event.

During the early days of the disaster, Fox News focused largely on search and rescue updates and community impact, but by the evening of July 7 the network’s coverage started to shift. Fox News’ evening and nightly programs that day dedicated at least 10 segments and at least 45 minutes of airtime to suggesting that the Democrats blamed “climate change and Trump as bodies were still being recovered” and the media “chose not to offer guidance and information and instead chose to assign blame and degradation.”

• On The Five, co-host Dana Perino opened the show by claiming, “Some Democrat celebrities and folks in the media wasted no time to blame President Trump's administration for this.” Perino continued, “So just take it from me, politicizing weather events is not good and it shouldn't happen.” [Fox News, The Five, 7/7/25]

• Co-host Jesse Watters said that ABC News’ George “Stephanopoulos should lose his job” for saying that the National Weather Service is understaffed. Watters continued, “This climate change thing is a religion to these people because they believe that weather is punishing us for being a rich and successful and prosperous nation. All they need to do to appease the rain gods is to have everybody use their sacred things like solar panels and stupid cars and wind mills. And that’s what’s going to save lives.” [Fox News, The Five, 7/7/25]

• Fox host Greg Gutfeld suggested that there wasn’t enough funding for disaster relief because it was spent on the “climate agenda.” “I was thinking about why there isn’t enough disaster relief, and you look at the L.A. fires and you realize that billions upon billions went to the climate agenda, not severe weather,” he said. “And if you think that Biden’s scandal is bad, you wait until you find out about the climate models being fudged to get a trillion dollars to make elites rich off of a existentialist fantasy. Think about the opportunity costs of that and all the resources that weren't realized because of that.” [Fox News, The Five, 7/7/25]

• On The Ingraham Angle, host Laura Ingraham played clips of Democratic Texas Reps. Llyod Doggett and Joaquin Castro discussing concerns about vacancies at the National Weather Service in light of the tragedy to claim that they are “going to use any opportunity to exploit a tragedy and take cheap shots at Trump.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 7/7/25]

• On Jesse Watters Primetime, Watters said the media and Democrats “are blaming DOGE for dead little girls.” Watters continued, “Schumer is even calling for an investigation. But The Associated Press, not a right-wing publication, says the left’s lying. Not only were they fully staffed at the National Weather Service, they even added extra staff before the flood. The White House says Democrats should be ashamed of themselves.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 7/7/25]

• Reading from a Fox Digital headline on Hannity, guest host Charlie Hurt said, “But as FoxNews.com put it, ‘Several Democrats blamed climate change and Trump as bodies were still being recovered.’” “This might be a new low for the Democrat Party, and, per usual, their attacks are completely dishonest,” Hurt said. [Fox News, Hannity, 7/7/25]

• In a later segment, Hurt attempted to disprove the link between our warming climate and the floods. “Sadly, this is not an unprecedented event caused by so-called climate change. In fact, it's known as Flash Flood Alley locally. The same region experienced similar flooding, including a prior disaster in 1987.” He continued: “It is kind of a remarkable scam that Democrats have. They've convinced half of the electorate in America that the government can control the weather and that if you vote for them they will make the weather good but if you vote for the other people, the weather is going to be bad.” [Fox News, Hannity, 7/7/25]

• Of the evening and nightly programming, Fox News @ Night dedicated the most time to accusing the media and Democrats of politicizing the flooding tragedy, airing 4 segments during the July 7 episode. Anchor Trace Gallagher introduced a correspondent report dedicated to the issue by saying: “Democrats and their media allies have been quick to blame the Texas flooding disaster on President Trump.” The report highlighted several Democrats who have raised the issue of staff shortages in the wake of the tragedy, including Sen. Chuck Schumer, who asked the Commerce Department to investigate whether there is any link between shortages and the tragedy. [Fox News, Fox News @ Night, 7/7/25]

• In another segment, Gallagher played a montage of Democrats “blaming Trump for the flooding, the deaths, in Texas.” After the montage concluded, Gallagher asked his guests, “Why not just wait … until you find out the facts? Why not see, you know, maybe I could be wrong here, but they don't. Again and again and again, they jump the gun, they’re wrong, and you get no apology.” [Fox News, Fox News @ Night, 7/7/25]

• In a regular segment called “Common Sense,” Gallagher said: “Tonight Common Sense is heartsick by the flooding and devastation in Texas and sickened by the response of some Democrats and the legacy media.” “With dozens still missing and feared dead, including many children, the media chose not to offer guidance and information and instead chose to assign blame and degradation,” he said. “Why help the victims when you can hurt Trump? … Those who didn't blame the Weather Service tried to pin it on climate change until a litany of meteorologists shut down that narrative as well.” [Fox News, Fox News @ Night, 7/7/25]

• Gallagher introduced another panel to discuss Democrats’ and media response to the tragedy with a series of media clips and responded: “There you have the legacy media out rushing to exploit the tragedy by trying to blame the president.” “It's amazing,” Gallagher said. “You would think the media would just stop, wait, as common sense say, and see if they've got the facts right before they jump forward, but they don't.” [Fox News, Fox News @ Night, 7/7/25]

• Climate change is making extreme rain storms more common across much of the U.S. While the July 4 flooding represented a worst-case scenario, deadly flooding caused by extreme rainfall is becoming more frequent as the world warms. According to CNN, “Four months’ worth of rain fell in just hours as water-laden thunderstorms stalled in place,” and as NPR reported: “A warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture. That extra water vapor means storms can drop more rain than in the past. Today, the heaviest rainstorms in Texas drop about 20% more water than they did in the late 1950s, when the planet was significantly cooler, according to the National Climate Assessment.” [CNN, 7/5/25; NPR, 7/7/25]

• The Trump administration has already taken a number of actions to dismantle climate science and roll back efforts to mitigate its impacts and make communities more resilient. These include “nearly 100 efforts to scale back or eliminate federal climate mitigation and adaptation measures” and canceling or interrupting “hundreds of grants aimed at improving health and severe weather preparedness.” [Time, 2/18/25; Mother Jones, 6/4/25]

• Meteorologist Eric Holthaus wrote in The Guardian that “despite funding cuts and widespread staffing shortages implemented by the Trump administration,” forecasters “in both the local San Angelo and Austin/San Antonio offices … provided a series of watches and warnings in the days and hours leading up to Friday’s flooding disaster.” [The Guardian, 7/6/25]

• But there was a critical vacancy in the Austin-San Antonio office. According to CNN, “Tom Fahy, the legislative director for the NWS employees’ union, told CNN that while he believes the offices had ‘adequate staffing and resources,’ the Austin-San Antonio office is missing a warning coordination meteorologist — a role that serves as a crucial, direct link between forecasters and emergency managers.” Politico also reported on this vacancy and others in the state: “It’s unclear whether federal staffing levels played a role in the disaster. NWS forecasts were accurate and came well in advance of the disaster, though there are vacancies in several weather service offices in the state.” [CNN, 7/5/25; Politico 7/8/25]

• Trump administration cuts to the NWS have left the agency with “severe staffing shortages” that it is scrambling to refill.  According to Newsweek, “The NWS said last month that it would be hiring new meteorologists and specialists to ‘stabilize’ operations after the Trump administration's job cuts. NBC News reported in May that the NWS was scrambling to reassign staffers internally and fill more than 150 positions to cover critical roles. The Associated Press earlier reported that nearly half of NWS offices had vacancy rates of 20 percent or more, with some locations facing even more severe staffing shortages.” [Newsweek, 7/7/25]

• In response to mass firings at NOAA that began on February 27, weather experts warned that cuts to NOAA and the NWS could have devastating impacts on weather forecasting. “Even before the layoffs, the NWS in particular was short-staffed,” Axios reported. “While NOAA had pushed for public safety exemptions from the layoffs for NWS meteorologists, not all were granted. A congressional aide reported hearing that ‘some’ at NWS were spared but ‘not many.’” Axios also noted in a separate piece that some Weather Service and NOAA offices were already cutting back on their services, including weather balloon launches that “provide information on upper air conditions to fine-tune computer models that help predict the weather across the U.S.” [Axios, 2/27/25, 2/28/25; Media Matters, 2/28/25]