Appearing as a guest on Saturday's CNN Newsroom, CNN presidential historian Douglas Brinkley was hitting President Donald Trump over promises to cut the budgets of FEMA and the EPA, as the liberal historian called the plans "BS" and wondered how does the President "look at himself in the mirror?"
At 10:36 a.m. ET, CNN host Christi Paul brought up the issue of spending on FEMA as she referred to a tweet from former Obama White House advisor David Axelrod. Paul recalled:
David Axelrod on Wednesday tweeted this: "Wondering if Harvey might cause POTUS to rethink his nine percent cut in FEMA funding?" And then we had Houston Mayor Sylvestor Turner say, "We need an army of FEMA agents."
She then added: "Any indication that this national disaster has swayed the President to rethink that policy?"
Brinkley went after the President as he began his response:
You just asked the key question that we should all be asking. How does President Trump look at himself in the mirror knowing that he's slashing FEMA? And now we need FEMA more than ever. He's trying to cut the Environmental Protection Agency, you know, by 30 percent. And we now have an environmental disaster going on in the Gulf South.
He further complained:
I mean, this idea of slashing, slashing, but then we're going to need billions of dollars of appropriations. You know, at some point, you can't believe the BS of your own campaign trail. Federal government's there for a reason. FEMA needs funding -- the EPA needs funding. We need big infrastructure money for the Gulf South. They need like a Marshall Plan for the waterway system around Houston.
The liberal historian recommended more New Deal-like federal projects as he concluded: "This whole area has been neglected, and we need more FDR-like New Deal projects -- proper dams, proper waterways, not slashing of government."
