Friday on MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House,” former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL), one of President Donald Trump’s competitors in the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, had praise for Trump and his administration ahead of Hurricane Irma’s arrival in Florida and in the wake of Hurricane Harvey in Texas.
Bush said Trump’s administration has “done well,” but added that ultimately the performance of the local government would be how hurricane response is measured.
“I think they’ve done well,” Bush said. “I think the president has had the right balance just in terms of his going without creating any kind of distractions from the recovery effort. FEMA has done its job. FEMA has gotten, under Craig Fugate’s leadership, who was our emergency response director, I think had built up really good capabilities. Ultimately though, this is a bottom-up process. You got to have the city of Houston, and other cities – the city of Miami and the county here and the states have to be well-resourced and well-trained and coordinate, and then Washington looks pretty good.”
“If the city isn’t working well, or the county and the state are not working well, no amount of activities by Washington going to solve the problem,” he added.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor