President Trump's Twitter feed was dominated by posts about Hurricane Harvey Friday and Saturday, with the president posting warnings about the extreme weather while praising his administration's response to the storm so far.
The largest storm to hit the United States in a decade, Harvey is considered an important test for the Trump administration. "In an instant, natural disasters can become defining moments for a presidency," notes CNN's Jeremy Diamond. For example, "Hurricane Katrina, which hit the New Orleans area in August 2005, became a defining moment of [the George W. Bush] administration, whose response to the hurricane was marked by a series of errors in preparation and mismanagement that sent the president's approval rating to record lows." Trump's approval rating is already at record lows, so a fumble here could send him below 30 percent.
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) administrator William "Brock" Long is new to his post — he was confirmed by the Senate in June — but he has prior FEMA and state-level emergency management experience and is respected in his field. One of Trump's Saturday tweets, below, praised Long while reminding him "the world is watching." Bonnie Kristian