World News: OnPolitics Today: Our hearts are with Houston, too

with Jessica Estepa

OnPolitics Today: Our hearts are with Houston, too

A view of flood waters from Hurricane Harvey near South

It's Monday, OnPolitics friends, and we're going to take a moment and paraphrase the elder former president Bush: Our hearts are with you, Houston. More than 30,000 people have been displaced because of Hurricane Harvey, and it's only going to get worse, since it seems like Harvey could be headed for Louisiana, next.

Here's what you can do.

Helping Houston

Even with President Trump set to visit Texas tomorrow to survey the damage, there's one big question looming over the disaster: with recovery likely to last for years , what's going to happen with aid? Lawmakers are eager to help in order to avoid the political mess that happened after Superstorm Sandy struck in 2012, and Trump has said he's already spoken to congressional leaders about making something come through "very, very quickly." But there could still be a battle ahead if pork-barrel spending is added on to any sort of relief bill. Congress's to-do list for September just got longer.

This is how you do a news dump

But let's not forget what happened on Friday, as Harvey picked up steam. There was a a huge evening news dump, not least of which included the president's pardon of Joe Arpaio , the former Arizona sheriff who was convicted just last month of criminal contempt of court (tied to a racial profiling case). Trump's reasoning for why he sent out that news on a Friday night? Because Harvey was making landfall: "I assumed that the ratings would be far higher than they would be normally," he said. And don't forget, he said Monday, other presidents did way worse when it comes to pardons.

What else happened on Friday, long after we sent out our weekly roundup? The president signed an order that reversed Obama administration policy and reverted back to banning transgender troops from enlisting. And one of his controversial aides no longer works for the administration.

Oh and don't forget about the wall

We know that we just talked about this with the exact same headline, but it's worth mentioning that the president tweeted over the weekend about the border wall he wants so very badly: "With Mexico being one of the highest crime Nations in the world, we must have THE WALL. Mexico will pay for it through reimbursement/other." Mexico said, in an official statement, that one, it was definitely not going to pay for the wall, and two, that it wasn't going to do this over social media. So, of course, the president repeated himself at a press conference on Monday. This is going to work out splendidly.

Elsewhere in politics

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•	Top Democrat fears House Intelligence Committee may split on Russia probe findings