CNN Tries To Blame Trump For Deadly Nepal Mudslides
The article critiques CNN’s reporting on the nepal floods and its attempt to link them to the Trump management’s decision to cut funding for a natural hazards monitoring program. It clarifies that the canceled program, Project SERVIR-Hindu Kush Himalaya, was not capable of preventing or predicting the recent deadly floods caused by a glacier and rock landslide. CNN’s headline suggesting a connection is deemed misleading, as the program’s suspension did not directly contribute to the disaster. The piece emphasizes that while the US still supports flood mitigation in Nepal through other means,the specific program in question could not have foreseen or prevented this particular event. The author questions the apparent effort to implicate Trump in the tragedy despite evidence that the program’s limitations mean it had little impact on this flood.
At least 1,114 people are dead and 4,000 people remain missing after a deadly flood and mudslide wreaked havoc in Nepal and parts of China.
The culprit? President Donald Trump — or at least that’s what CNN wants you to think.
“In January 2025, the Trump administration cut off funding for a long-running natural hazards program that aimed to identify and monitor landslide hotspots in Nepal,” CNN’s climate reporter Andrew Freedman wrote in an article entitled: “The Trump administration cut funds for natural hazards monitoring in Nepal.”
The headline framing and lede sentence would leave readers at first glance assuming the story would explain how cutting off funding for the Project SERVIR-Hindu Kush Himalaya program resulted in the deadly mudslides. Except CNN then admits that their reporting and headline are actually entirely misleading:
“While the program the administration cut would not have been able to prevent the disaster that happened this past week, it represented a first step towards making those kinds of protections possible in a future where they are going to be needed more.”
In other words, nothing Trump did or didn’t do would have prevented this disaster. There is zero link between the deadly flood and Trump. But Freedman nonetheless tries to find a way to link the stories.
Notably, CNN posted the story and same introductory paragraph on X and added a “CLARIFICATION” notice at the end of their post that read: “This headline and story have been updated to better reflect the extent of the Project SERVIR-Hindu Kush Himalaya program.”
“The disaster illustrates the growing peril of living in mountain regions like the Himalayas as the planet continues to warm due to climate pollution from human activities. Increasing temperatures are destabilizing glaciers, while also raising the risks of landslides, flash flooding and glacial outburst floods,” Freedman writes.
From there, Freedman describes Project SERVIR-Hindu Kush Himalaya, an initiative that, according to its website, addresses “critical challenges in climate change, food security, water and related disasters, land use, and air quality.” But buried in the story are facts that completely ruin the narrative CNN is trying to build.
“Project SERVIR-Hindu Kush Himalaya’s tools and services remain active today through another organization, the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development,” Freedman clarifies, going further to cite a statement from a State Department spokesperson that “the US still supports flood mitigation programs in Nepal.”
Nonetheless, Freedman continues to try and peddle a causal relationship, returning to the point that the Trump administration did freeze most foreign aid after taking office (as if Trump redirecting American tax dollars to American priorities is bad).
The implication is that ending American taxpayer subsidies for a foreign climate program left Nepal more vulnerable to the flood. But once again, Freedman’s narrative collapses under the weight of his own reporting, which states that the program that lost funding could not have warned Nepal this disaster was even coming.
More than 1,100 people perished when a huge glacier and rock landslide high in the Himalayas triggered fast-moving floodwaters that struck Nepal and China on the morning of August 26. The SERVIR program probably would not have been able to provide an early warning of those floods had it been operating, [Birendra] Bajracharya said. Glacier breakup events are rare enough that researchers can’t yet set up alarm bells for when they happen. But the program was working on spotting locations where such events might be likely — something that can help communities downstream be better prepared for the worst.
CNN goes on to note that the US is still supporting flood mitigation efforts in Nepal through a separate grant to the World Meteorological Organization.
So by the end of this report, Freedman had established that the canceled program could not have prevented the flood, probably couldn’t have warned anyone that it was coming, and did not mark the complete end of American support for flood preparedness in Nepal (though it should have). Yet for some reason, Trump made it into the story. I wonder why.
Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2
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