First lady Melania Trump, from left, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and President Donald Trump are briefed on flood damage in Kerrville om July 11.

One person’s blame game is another’s call for accountability.

When a reporter asked President Donald Trump about flood victims’ complaints about inadequate flood warnings, he called her “an evil person.”

“Only a bad person would ask a question like that, to be honest with you. I don’t know who you are, but only a very evil person would ask a question like that,” Trump said. “It’s easy to ask, to sit back and ask, ‘What could have happened here or there? ... maybe we could have done something differently.’”

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Trump repeated the lie that somehow the flood was unforeseeable and the deaths unpreventable. He and Gov. Greg Abbott are trying to deflect the blame because they fear taking responsibility for failures like this one.

Last week, when I first explained how local and state officials failed to act against this known threat, I received dozens of emails criticizing me........

© Houston Chronicle