President Donald Trump on Friday toured the devastation from catastrophic flooding in Texas and lauded local officials amid mounting criticism that they failed to warn residents fast enough that a deadly wall of water was coming their way. 'The search for the missing continues. The people that are doing it are unbelievable,' Trump told first responders and other state and local officials gathered at an emergency operations center in an expo hall in Kerrville.

'You couldn't get better people, and they're doing the job like I don't think anybody else could, frankly,' Trump said. The president said his administration "is doing everything it can to help Texas" and insisted that 'we've got some good people' running the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Since the July 4 disaster, which has killed at least 120 people and left more than 170 missing, the president has been conspicuously silent on his past, repeated promises to do away with FEMA. Instead, he's focused on the once-in-a-lifetime nature of what occurred and the human tragedy. He has praised Texas and local officials while de-emphasizing the administration's government-slashing crusade that's been popular with Trump's core supporters.