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Donald Trump dodges the blame...again | Simon Marks' American Week
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Jul 14, 2025
This week, Simon Marks reports on the catastrophic flooding in Texas, a natural disaster made worse by political negligence and budget cuts. As families mourn and officials dodge blame, Trump turns heads with a cringeworthy moment during a meeting with Liberia’s president. 0:00 | 'An utterly tragic week in Texas…' 1:03 | A flood survivor's story 3:09 | Did DOGE cuts contribute to the delayed flood response? 3:50 | Texas Governor Greg Abbott makes a football analogy 4:50 | 'This is terrifying' Measles hits record levels in the US 6:01 | Fresh questions about Trump and Jeffrey Epstein 9:04 | A lesson in the language of Liberia Listen to the full show on the all-new LBC App: https://app.af.lbc.co.uk/btnc/thenewlbcapp #SimonMarks #AmericanWeek #TexasFloods #TrumpNews #USPolitics #Liberia #Trump #musk #doge #epsteinfiles #epstein LBC is the home of live debate around news and current affairs in the UK. Join in the conversation and listen at https://www.lbc.co.uk/ Sign up to LBC’s weekly newsletter here: https://l-bc.co/signup
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0:00
It has been an utterly tragic week in the Lone Star state of Texas after the July 4th Independence Day holiday last Friday
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saw floods of biblical proportions suddenly descend on the glorious hill country
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It is some of the state's most beautiful land nestled along the banks of the Guadalupe River
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a mecca at this time of year for tourists and summer campers
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a rite of passage for the children of the American Southwest. Tonight, breaking news, the deadly flooding tragedy in Central Texas, the urgent search and rescue operations underway right now
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Central Texas is swamped by a summer's worth of rain in a matter of hours
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Dozens are rescued from fast moving water. Some could not be saved
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We're praying for all of those missing to be found alive. Last Friday night's coverage there from ABC, CBS and NBC
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those wishes expressed by Dan Patrick, the Lieutenant Governor of Texas, were not to be
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as the scale of the devastation became apparent and the stories of survivors were told
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I'm one of the campers from Camp Lahana, one of the camps that flooded, and I had a first-hand view of the flood
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14-year-old Ruffin Boyette, lucky to be alive, alongside his brother Piers, just 11
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All of the campers in those cabins had to go up on the rafters and they had to wait there until they could swim out
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And my brother here, he had to swim out of his cabin. And all of that taking place at four in the morning
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We now know more than 120 people died. At least 170 more are still missing
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And as the week ends, it is reasonable to wonder whether the death toll really had to be that large
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The chief of the Texas Emergency Management Division is W. Nim Kidd
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But listen, everybody got the forecast from the National Weather Service, right? You all got it. You're all in media. You got that forecast
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It did not predict the amount of rain that we saw. And by the time the National Weather Service, the American equivalent of the Met Office
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realised how bad things were going to be in the Hill Country, it was past 4am
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Now, that can happen. Weather patterns can change. Floods can occur in the middle of the night
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when it's challenging to raise the alarm. But it would have been even harder for the National Weather
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Service to do its job in Texas last week because of swinging cuts that Elon Musk made to the service when he was waving his chainsaw around and running Doge President Trump Department of Government Efficiency which of course is not a real government department
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In Houston, 44% of positions in the main regional National Weather Service office are now unfilled
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In San Antonio, even nearer the hill country, the meteorologist in charge of warning coordination
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Literally, the man whose job it was to raise the alarm took a Trump buyout several weeks ago
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He hasn't been replaced, thanks to a Musk hiring freeze. But whatever you do, don't even think of suggesting
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any of that might have played a role in the disaster that unfolded
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Are you investigating whether some of the cuts to the federal government left T vacancies at the National Weather Service or in the emergency quarantine
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No, they did not. They did. I'll tell you, if you look at that
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What a situation that all is. And that was really the Biden set up
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That was not our set up. But I wouldn't blame Biden for it either. I would just say this is a hundred year catastrophe
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And it's just so horrible to watch. And the Trump supporting governor of Texas, Greg Abbott
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went even further to distance himself from questions about who's to blame
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And I'm going to run this at length because you've got to hear it to believe it
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You ask, and I'm going to use your words, who's to blame? Know this
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That's the word choice of losers. Let me explain one thing about Texas
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And that is, Texas, every square inch of our state, cares about football
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Every football team makes mistakes. The losing teams are the ones that try to point out who's to blame
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The championship teams are the ones that say, don't worry about it, man
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We got this. We're going to make sure that we go score again, that we're going to win this game
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The way winners talk is not to point fingers. They talk about solutions
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Just not apparently solutions that include lifting the hiring freeze at the National Weather Service
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Cold comfort for the families of the dead and the missing. And another extraordinary example of America's elected leaders showing that they don't really seem to understand
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that job number one in government is making sure your citizens are safe
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Yesterday South Carolina reached a really scary milestone and reported its first case of measles That is Dr Annie Andrews a pediatrician and a Democrat who is trying to unseat Republican Senator Lindsey Graham in South Carolina
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This was the week when America could no longer claim to have eliminated measles
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Cases have hit their highest levels in the quarter of a century since the United States declared the disease defeated
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And Dr Andrews, like so many others, puts the blame for that at the door of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
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the conspiracy theorist now running Donald Trump's Department of Health, who last month fired the country's entire vaccines committee
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and replaced them with people much closer to his own vaccine-sceptical views
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This is a five alarm fire for those of us who care about children's health
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and the general health of our community. This is terrifying and the only way out of this, again
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is to hold these people accountable at the ballot box. That's the only way they're going to learn
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Of course, by the time Americans get the chance to do that, it may not only be measles that is posing a huge public health threat to the country
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President Trump's own political future was threatened this week by ongoing questions
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regarding the nature of his relationship with the disgraced and deceased financier Jeffrey Epstein
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Questions it is fair to say that you no longer have to be a conspiracy theorist to be mulling
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Let's pull back to February and Attorney General Pam Bondi appearing on Fox News
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The DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients. Will that really happen
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It's sitting on my desk right now to review. That's been a directive by President Trump. I'm reviewing that
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So the client list was sitting on her desk to review. And it would have been because President Trump throughout last year's election campaign promised his conspiracy theory believing supporters
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that if elected, he would get to the bottom of whether Jeffrey Epstein really committed suicide in jail
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while he was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. But fast forward five months and this week, the Department of Justice suddenly announced that, in fact
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the client list doesn't exist. Yes, the very document that Pam Bondi said was on her desk back in February
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Of course, what has happened in the intervening months is that Elon Musk, now on the outs with President Trump
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has alleged that the president's name features prominently on the Epstein client list
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So again you do not have to be a conspiracy theorist to wonder whether the White House is covering something up And President Trump certainly fueled that notion during this week made cabinet meeting
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when the Attorney General was asked to explain things by a reporter
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Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy's been talked about for years
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You're asking, we have Texas, we have this, we have all of the things
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And are people still talking about this guy, this creep? that is unbelievable do you want to waste the time and do you feel like answering i don't mind
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answering i mean i can't believe you're asking a question on epstein at a time like this where
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we're having some of the greatest success and and also tragedy with what happened in texas it just
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seems uh like a desecration me thinks he doth protest too much although perhaps he just understands
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that if you live by the conspiracy theory, you can die by the conspiracy theory as well
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Now listen, I'm heading off on holiday. American Week is going to take a break and won't be back
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until Friday, August the 1st. So let me leave you with something to put a smile on your face
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The magical moment this week when Donald Trump found himself listening to the president of
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Liberia, one of several African leaders visiting the White House. And just a reminder, if you know
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only one thing about Liberia, it will be that the African nation was founded by freed American
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slaves back in 1847. It has always had a deep and abiding connection to the United States
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And you could even hear it in President Joseph Boakai's American-infused accent
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We want to work with the United States in peace and security within the region
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because we are committed to that and we just want to thank you so much for this opportunity
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The response from President Trump? One for the ages. Well thank you, I had such good English
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such beautiful. Where did you learn to speak so beautifully? Were you educated where
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In Liberia? Yes sir. That's very interesting, it's beautiful English. I have people at this
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table who can't speak nearly as well. Although maybe some of them actually know a thing or two
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about Liberia, we can only hope. On Monday, President Trump says he's going to be making a
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major announcement about Russia. Stand by your beds for that one. If it really proves to be
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that major, I am going to have a lot of catching up to do when we are next together
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