Lizzie Fletcher says President Trump belittled Harvey rescuers

HOUSTON (FOX 26) - For the second time in the space of a year, President Donald Trump got a critical portion of the Harvey rescue effort dead solid wrong by telling the capacity crowd at the Toyota Center in downtown Houston that the thousands of people who rescued fellow Texans were incompetent and foolhardy.

"And I don't know who in this room did it, but these guys with the little boats that think they have this great boat — where do these people come from?," asked the President. "They want to go out and they want to go into the hurricane and show their wife how great they are and then they get out there and say, 'Oh my God, I'm dead."

"And next time, all you guys and gals, when there’s a hurricane, do me a favor, don’t take your boat out," added President Trump.

People in Texas who lived through the effects of Hurricane Harvey know full well that without the thousands of missions by selfless neighbors, far more would have perished.

Some critics like Congressional candidate Lizzie Pannill Fletcher are blasting both the Commander in Chief and the Texas Republicans who refuse to call him out.

"To see the President come here and stand in that space and belittle us with clearly no understanding of what happened, it was so disappointing and equally, if not more disappointing to me was our representatives who have his ear have not bothered to correct him, including John Culberson," said Fletcher.

Culberson is Fletcher's opponent in Harvey-hammered Texas Congressional District 7 and he did not take kindly to the Democratic candidate's accusation.

"I am sorry to hear that my opponent has so little to offer that she's focused on Twitter comments or some sidebar that the President made," said U.S. Rep. Culberson. "I'm focused on results. As the only appropriator in southeast Texas, I delivered the largest hurricane relief package in the history of the United States."

The way Fletcher sees it, piles of federal money shouldn't buy silence.

"But if he won't stand up to him for us on this, what will he stand up for us on when it's harder?" asked Fletcher. "This is an easy thing. We need him to stand up for us for everything."

The race for Congressional District 7 is considered a toss-up.