After sodden hillsides thundered into Montecito, obliterating scores of homes and killing nearly two dozen people, seven days went by before President Trump first acknowledged the disaster.

Even then, word came not from Trump, but from his press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who noted in a two-sentence statement that the president “has been briefed and will continue to monitor the mudslides.”

The statement, issued a day after local authorities effectively announced that no more survivors would be found, offered sympathy for the families involved and “prayers for those who remain missing.”