【1988 Archives】

Donald Trump woke up early988 ArchivesSunday morning to grim news out of Texas: a flash flood emergency had been declared in and around Houston after 2 feet of rain fell in 24 hours, with more to come.

SEE ALSO: Hurricane Harvey slams storm chasers: 'One of the worst hurricanes I've ever been in'

In response, he picked up his phone and -- using his preferred method of communication with the public -- fired off a pair of tweets:

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Hurricane Harvey dumped 1 to 2 feet inches of rain on the Houston area between Saturday and Sunday morning, a catastrophic development that's left the people of Houston facing historic flooding. In all, the damage is likely to dramatically exceed that of Tropical Storm Allison, the 2001 weather event that claimed 41 lives and wrought $9 billion worth of destruction.

It's gotten so bad, in fact, that the National Weather Service issued a warning to Houston residents at 7:16 a.m. ET: if the highest floors in your home become uninhabitable, take refuge on the roof rather than your attic.

Trump's tweet came several hours later, though it wasn't the first tweet of the day from a president who woke up to a devastating natural disaster. Roughly 20 minutes before Trump's Harvey-related tweet -- which, you should note, makes no mention of the situation in Houston at all -- he tweeted this...

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Clarke is a controversial figure in the law enforcement community, often getting a mention in the same breath as the former sheriff, Joe Arpaio, whom Trump recently -- and controversially -- pardoned. As with the pardon, the weather disaster provides Trump with cover as he boosts divisive personalities.

Not muchcover, mind you. Ever-attentive Twitter users spotted Trump's pro-Clarke tweet and called out the highly questionable timing.

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Trump also sought to portray the storm response as seamless, even as thousands are being rescued from rapidly flooding homes in Houston.

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Take note, folks: you're now seeing what Trump looks like in action during a crisis that he himself didn't create. It's not pretty.

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UPDATEDAug. 27 at 9:17 a.m. ET: Trump sent out two more tweets after the earlier three, for a total of five Sunday morning tweets. Out of those five, not a single one mentions the terrible situation in Houston.

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Trump does at least say that he's going to visit Texas, but in the very next tweet he drops the subject of Harvey completely and resorts again to one of his favorite forms of address: self-praise.

History is watching, Mr. Trump.

UPDATEDAug. 27 at 9:47 a.m. ET: There's now a sixth Trump tweet. Still no mention of Houston, but worse than that: he's embraced a weirdly celebratory tone.

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You can almost visualize him shouting "Our storms are the best. The BEST." from the podium of one of his stump speeches. It's a remarkably ignorant response to a situation that has already claimed multiple lives, and threatens to claim more with each passing hour.

UPDATEDAug. 27 at 10:17 a.m. ET: Two more tweets....

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That's eight Sunday morning tweets and no mention whatsoever of the situation in Houston. Someone needs to impress upon this president the importance of comforting the nation when tragedy strikes, because he's clearly incapable of grasping that on his own.

UPDATEDAug. 27 at 10:35 a.m. ET: Ninth tweet. Still no mention of Houston.

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Also worth noting: The unprecedented nature of this storm had been forecasted in the days and hours before Harvey made landfall.

UPDATEDAug. 27 at 10:59 a.m. ET: A 10th tweet again referenced the storm, but still not a single mention of Houston, where an historic catastrophe continues to unfold.

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UPDATEDAug. 27 at 7:16 p.m. ET:

At 7:01 p.m. ET, 11 tweets into a day that saw portions of America's fourth-largest city erased by falling rain, Donald Trump finally used the word "Houston."

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Hurricane Harvey is intensifying in the Gulf of Mexico

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