During a trip on Friday to look at the devastation caused by the catastrophic flooding in Texas, Donald Trump claimed that state and federal officials had done an “incredible job”, saying of the disaster that he had “never seen anything like this”.

The trip comes as he has remained conspicuously quiet about his previous promises to do away with the federal agency in charge of disaster relief.

The Washington Post reported on Friday that the Trump administration has backed away from plans to abolish the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), but administration officials continue to dodge questions about the agency’s future and many are still calling for serious reforms, potentially sending much of its work to the states.

Since the 4 July disaster, which has killed at least 120 people, the president and his top aides have focused on the once-in-a-lifetime nature of what occurred and the human tragedy involved rather than the government-slashing crusade that has been popular with Trump’s core supporters.

Speaking at a roundtable in Kerrville, Texas, Trump said that Fema deployed multiple emergency response units and he praised all the officials involved in what he said was an effective and swift response.

“Every American should be inspired by what has taken place,” Trump said. He likened the flooding to “a giant, giant wave in the Pacific Ocean that the best surfers in the world would be afraid to surf”.

Trump called a reporter a “bad person” for asking a question about families of the dead who are saying that their loved ones could have been saved had emergency warnings gone out before the flooding. Trump said: “I think this has been heroism. This has been incredible, the job you’ve all done.”

In an NBC News interview on Thursday, Trump said: “Nobody ever saw a thing like this coming.” He added: “This is a once-in-every-200-years deal.” He has also suggested he would have been ready to visit Texas within hours but did not want to burden authorities still searching for the more than 170 people who are still missing.

Trump’s shift in focus underscores how tragedy can complicate political calculations, even though the president has made slashing the federal workforce and charging ally turned antagonist Elon Musk with dramatically shrinking the size of government centerpieces of his administration’s opening months.

The president traveled to Texas on Air Force One with Melania Trump, the first lady; Brooke Rollins, the agriculture secretary; Scott Turner, the housing secretary; the small business administrator, Kelly Loeffler; and senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz of Texas, among others. Trump is expected to do an aerial tour of some of the hard-hit areas.

Before arriving at the Happy State Bank Expo Hall in Kerrville, where he delivered remarks, the president and his motorcade stopped at an area near the Guadalupe River in Kerrville next to an overturned tractor-trailer and downed trees. Damage appeared to be more extensive near the riverbank. Trump, his wife and the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, took a briefing about flooding there from local officials.

Trump has used past disaster response efforts to launch political attacks. While still a candidate trying to win back the presidency, Trump made his own visit to North Carolina after Hurricane Helene last year and accused the Biden administration of blocking disaster aid to victims in Republican-heavy areas.

During his first weekend back in the White House, Trump again visited North Carolina to survey Helene damage and toured the aftermath of devastating wildfires in Los Angeles. But he also used those trips to sharply criticize the Biden administration and California officials.

During Tuesday’s cabinet meeting, Trump praised the federal flooding response. Turning to Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, which oversees Fema, he said: “You had people there as fast as anybody’s ever seen.”

Noem described traveling to Texas and seeing heartbreaking scenes, including around Camp Mystic, the century-old all-girls Christian summer camp where at least 27 people were killed.

“The parents that were looking for their children and picking up their daughter’s stuffed animals out of the mud and finding their daughter’s shoe that might be laying in the cabin,” she said.

Noem said that “just hugging and comforting people matters a lot” and “this is a time for all of us in this country to remember that we were created to serve each other”.

But the secretary is also co-chairing a Fema review council charged with submitting suggestions for how to overhaul the agency in coming months.

“We as a federal government don’t manage these disasters. The state does,” Noem told Trump on Tuesday.

She also referenced the administration’s government-reducing efforts, saying: ”We’re cutting through the paperwork of the old Fema. Streamlining it, much like your vision of how Fema should operate.”

Pressed this week on whether the White House will continue to work to shutter Fema, Karoline Leavitt would not say.

“The president wants to ensure American citizens always have what they need during times of need,” the White House press secretary said. “Whether that assistance comes from states or the federal government, that is a policy discussion that will continue.”

Before Trump left on Friday, Russell Vought, director of the office of management and budget, similarly dodged questions from reporters at the the White House about Fema’s future – instead noting that the agency had billions of dollars in its reserves “to continue to pay for necessary expenses” and that the president has promised Texas: “Anything it needs, it will get.”

“We also want Fema to be reformed,” Vought added. “The president is going to continue to be asking tough questions of all of us agencies, no different than any other opportunity to have better government.”