'Absolutely Insane': Trump Teases Killing FEMA While Touring Disaster Zones
"If we abolish federal funding for disaster assistance, municipalities and states wouldn't be able to cover these types of catastrophic emergencies and people would be left to fend on their own," one expert warned.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks while visiting a neighborhood affected by Hurricane Helene in Swannanoa, North Carolina, on January 24, 2025.
(Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)
Jessica Corbett
Jan 24, 2025
COMMON DREAMS
With trips to North Carolina and California on Friday, Republican U.S. President Donald Trump renewed his threat to the federal disaster assistance agency, drawing swift rebukes from climate campaigners, experts, and members of Congress.
Trump was sworn in on Monday and took aim at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) during a Wednesday interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity. He echoed those comments on Friday after landing at Asheville Regional Airport in North Carolina, to visit a region devastated by Hurricane Helene in September.
During his first trip since Inauguration Day, Trump declared that he will "be signing an executive order to begin the process of fundamentally reforming and overhauling FEMA or maybe getting rid of FEMA."
"I think, frankly, FEMA's not good," he said. "I think when you have a problem like this, I think you want to go, and whether it's a Democrat or Republican governor, you want to use your state to fix it and not waste time calling FEMA."
"FEMA's turned out to be a disaster," the president added. "I think we're gonna recommend that FEMA go away and we pay directly, we pay a percentage to the state, but the state should fix this."
While attempting to kill FEMA could be legally complicated due to a federal law passed after Hurricane Katrina, Trump's comments sparked concern and criticism. According toCNN:
Officials with FEMA scrambled to understand his comments in North Carolina Friday, with personnel nationwide calling and texting one another, trying to figure out what his statements meant for the agency's future and work on the ground, according to a source familiar.
Trump's desire to eliminate or curtail FEMA could have chilling effects on emergency response even at state levels, former FEMA Chief Deanne Criswell told CNN.
"We need to take him at his word, and I think state emergency management directors should be concerned about what this means for spring tornado season" and the coming hurricane season, said Criswell, who served under former President Joe Biden. "Do they have the resources to protect their residents?"
Responding to Trump's remarks on social media, the think tank Carolina Forward said that "if you were upset at how FEMA responds to natural disasters, just wait until they don't exist at all. (Trump obviously won't do this—he can't, after all—but he'll very likely make a lot of noise about it and then not actually do anything, as usual)."
Congresswoman Deborah Ross (D-N.C.) also weighed in on X, saying that "FEMA has been a crucial partner in our fight to recover from Hurricane Helene. I appreciate President Trump's concern about Western N.C., but eliminating FEMA would be a disaster for our state."
Matt Sedlar, climate analyst at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), noted in a Friday statement that "before he took office, some wondered whether Trump would actually deny federal disaster aid to states he considered politically unfriendly. The unpleasant truth is that in theory he could—and right now he appears willing to test that idea in reality."
"Trump is already setting the stage for a significant reduction in federal disaster aid and mitigation funding," warned Sedlar, who also published an article on CEPR's website that highlights how Trump's attacks on the agency relate to the Heritage Foundation-led Project 2025. "He has made repeated demands that would tie California's aid to specific policy changes he would like to see, and has even begun discussing the possibility of overhauling FEMA—if not eliminating it entirely."
"States cannot absorb the costs of these disasters, and they don't have the money to prevent them either," he stressed. "The federal government agencies that aim to make the U.S. climate resilient are already chronically underfunded as it is. If Trump truly wanted to make America great again, he would prioritize funding for aid and mitigation. Instead, he is making incoherent political demands and setting Americans up for four years of uncertainty and suffering."
Shana Udvardy, senior climate resilience policy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, released a similar statement on Friday.
"The president is suggesting eliminating FEMA. My question is: Should we also ban hospitals? Both are a means to recovery," Udvardy said. "This latest comment stretches the boundaries of reality. If we abolish federal funding for disaster assistance, municipalities and states wouldn't be able to cover these types of catastrophic emergencies and people would be left to fend on their own."
After visiting North Carolina on Friday, Trump took off for the Los Angeles area, which has been ravaged by recent wildfires. As of press time, the Hughes Fire was only 56% contained, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Sharing a video of Trump's Friday remarks on social media, Congresswoman Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.) said that "as someone who's actually been on the ground in LA, people are grateful for FEMA and want more help—not less."
Margie Alt, director of the Climate Action Campaign, said in a Friday statement that "the people of Los Angeles are suffering. They need and deserve help. Wildfires fueled by high winds and climate change-fueled drought have destroyed 12,000 homes and killed 27 people in the area so far."
"Rather than playing the traditional presidential role of 'comforter in chief,' Donald Trump's visit to the area is performative, using the tragedy to advance his personal agenda: changing state water management policy to help his Los Angeles private golf club," Alt suggested. "Trump's threat to withhold disaster aid to benefit his golf club seems, unfortunately, to be par for the course when it comes to his presidency. But the people of Los Angeles deserve better, and quickly."
"Wildfires like these will only get worse and more frequent if we don't address the climate crisis that is intensifying these disasters and other extreme weather including flooding, extreme heat, drought, and more that we are experiencing across the U.S. and the world," she added. "It is unconscionable to threaten to withdraw federal support to Americans suffering the effects of this crisis because of where they live or whom they may have voted for. The climate crisis won't spare anyone."
Alt argued that "the only acceptable course of action for Trump and the Republican majority in Congress is to stop playing politics with people's lives. They must ensure that FEMA has the resources it needs, and need to stop cutting programs designed to help mitigate climate pollution and pushing for more of the fossil fuels responsible for making this crisis worse."
U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), ranking member of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said in a Friday statement that "if Donald Trump cared even one bit about the communities being ravaged by climate change, he wouldn't hold disaster aid hostage to his political whims, dismiss the climate crisis as a hoax, or pander to his Big Oil donors."
"Instead, he'd tackle the carbon pollution driving these catastrophes and support U.S. clean energy dominance to lower energy costs for families," he added. "But from day one, Trump's priority has been rewarding his corrupt fossil fuel donors and sabotaging America's clean energy future. Now, he's exploiting the suffering caused by extreme weather to peddle his political agenda—proving once again he's all in for polluters and all out for the American people."
This isn't the first time Trump—who was previously president from 2017-21—has come under fire related to disaster response. As The Associated Pressreported Friday:
The last time Trump was president, he visited numerous disaster zones, including the aftermath of hurricanes and tornadoes. He sometimes sparked criticism, like when he tossed paper towels to survivors of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.
Trump tapped Cameron Hamilton, a former Navy SEAL with limited experience managing natural disasters, as FEMA's acting director.
Reporting on Hamilton's position, The New York Timesnoted Wednesday that "since Hurricane Katrina, when the federal response was severely criticized, FEMA has been led by disaster management professionals who have run state or local emergency management agencies, or were regional administrators at FEMA."
"If we abolish federal funding for disaster assistance, municipalities and states wouldn't be able to cover these types of catastrophic emergencies and people would be left to fend on their own," one expert warned.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks while visiting a neighborhood affected by Hurricane Helene in Swannanoa, North Carolina, on January 24, 2025.
(Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)
Jessica Corbett
Jan 24, 2025
COMMON DREAMS
With trips to North Carolina and California on Friday, Republican U.S. President Donald Trump renewed his threat to the federal disaster assistance agency, drawing swift rebukes from climate campaigners, experts, and members of Congress.
Trump was sworn in on Monday and took aim at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) during a Wednesday interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity. He echoed those comments on Friday after landing at Asheville Regional Airport in North Carolina, to visit a region devastated by Hurricane Helene in September.
During his first trip since Inauguration Day, Trump declared that he will "be signing an executive order to begin the process of fundamentally reforming and overhauling FEMA or maybe getting rid of FEMA."
"I think, frankly, FEMA's not good," he said. "I think when you have a problem like this, I think you want to go, and whether it's a Democrat or Republican governor, you want to use your state to fix it and not waste time calling FEMA."
"FEMA's turned out to be a disaster," the president added. "I think we're gonna recommend that FEMA go away and we pay directly, we pay a percentage to the state, but the state should fix this."
While attempting to kill FEMA could be legally complicated due to a federal law passed after Hurricane Katrina, Trump's comments sparked concern and criticism. According toCNN:
Officials with FEMA scrambled to understand his comments in North Carolina Friday, with personnel nationwide calling and texting one another, trying to figure out what his statements meant for the agency's future and work on the ground, according to a source familiar.
Trump's desire to eliminate or curtail FEMA could have chilling effects on emergency response even at state levels, former FEMA Chief Deanne Criswell told CNN.
"We need to take him at his word, and I think state emergency management directors should be concerned about what this means for spring tornado season" and the coming hurricane season, said Criswell, who served under former President Joe Biden. "Do they have the resources to protect their residents?"
Responding to Trump's remarks on social media, the think tank Carolina Forward said that "if you were upset at how FEMA responds to natural disasters, just wait until they don't exist at all. (Trump obviously won't do this—he can't, after all—but he'll very likely make a lot of noise about it and then not actually do anything, as usual)."
Congresswoman Deborah Ross (D-N.C.) also weighed in on X, saying that "FEMA has been a crucial partner in our fight to recover from Hurricane Helene. I appreciate President Trump's concern about Western N.C., but eliminating FEMA would be a disaster for our state."
Matt Sedlar, climate analyst at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), noted in a Friday statement that "before he took office, some wondered whether Trump would actually deny federal disaster aid to states he considered politically unfriendly. The unpleasant truth is that in theory he could—and right now he appears willing to test that idea in reality."
"Trump is already setting the stage for a significant reduction in federal disaster aid and mitigation funding," warned Sedlar, who also published an article on CEPR's website that highlights how Trump's attacks on the agency relate to the Heritage Foundation-led Project 2025. "He has made repeated demands that would tie California's aid to specific policy changes he would like to see, and has even begun discussing the possibility of overhauling FEMA—if not eliminating it entirely."
"States cannot absorb the costs of these disasters, and they don't have the money to prevent them either," he stressed. "The federal government agencies that aim to make the U.S. climate resilient are already chronically underfunded as it is. If Trump truly wanted to make America great again, he would prioritize funding for aid and mitigation. Instead, he is making incoherent political demands and setting Americans up for four years of uncertainty and suffering."
Shana Udvardy, senior climate resilience policy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, released a similar statement on Friday.
"The president is suggesting eliminating FEMA. My question is: Should we also ban hospitals? Both are a means to recovery," Udvardy said. "This latest comment stretches the boundaries of reality. If we abolish federal funding for disaster assistance, municipalities and states wouldn't be able to cover these types of catastrophic emergencies and people would be left to fend on their own."
After visiting North Carolina on Friday, Trump took off for the Los Angeles area, which has been ravaged by recent wildfires. As of press time, the Hughes Fire was only 56% contained, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Sharing a video of Trump's Friday remarks on social media, Congresswoman Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.) said that "as someone who's actually been on the ground in LA, people are grateful for FEMA and want more help—not less."
Margie Alt, director of the Climate Action Campaign, said in a Friday statement that "the people of Los Angeles are suffering. They need and deserve help. Wildfires fueled by high winds and climate change-fueled drought have destroyed 12,000 homes and killed 27 people in the area so far."
"Rather than playing the traditional presidential role of 'comforter in chief,' Donald Trump's visit to the area is performative, using the tragedy to advance his personal agenda: changing state water management policy to help his Los Angeles private golf club," Alt suggested. "Trump's threat to withhold disaster aid to benefit his golf club seems, unfortunately, to be par for the course when it comes to his presidency. But the people of Los Angeles deserve better, and quickly."
"Wildfires like these will only get worse and more frequent if we don't address the climate crisis that is intensifying these disasters and other extreme weather including flooding, extreme heat, drought, and more that we are experiencing across the U.S. and the world," she added. "It is unconscionable to threaten to withdraw federal support to Americans suffering the effects of this crisis because of where they live or whom they may have voted for. The climate crisis won't spare anyone."
Alt argued that "the only acceptable course of action for Trump and the Republican majority in Congress is to stop playing politics with people's lives. They must ensure that FEMA has the resources it needs, and need to stop cutting programs designed to help mitigate climate pollution and pushing for more of the fossil fuels responsible for making this crisis worse."
U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), ranking member of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said in a Friday statement that "if Donald Trump cared even one bit about the communities being ravaged by climate change, he wouldn't hold disaster aid hostage to his political whims, dismiss the climate crisis as a hoax, or pander to his Big Oil donors."
"Instead, he'd tackle the carbon pollution driving these catastrophes and support U.S. clean energy dominance to lower energy costs for families," he added. "But from day one, Trump's priority has been rewarding his corrupt fossil fuel donors and sabotaging America's clean energy future. Now, he's exploiting the suffering caused by extreme weather to peddle his political agenda—proving once again he's all in for polluters and all out for the American people."
This isn't the first time Trump—who was previously president from 2017-21—has come under fire related to disaster response. As The Associated Pressreported Friday:
The last time Trump was president, he visited numerous disaster zones, including the aftermath of hurricanes and tornadoes. He sometimes sparked criticism, like when he tossed paper towels to survivors of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.
Trump tapped Cameron Hamilton, a former Navy SEAL with limited experience managing natural disasters, as FEMA's acting director.
Reporting on Hamilton's position, The New York Timesnoted Wednesday that "since Hurricane Katrina, when the federal response was severely criticized, FEMA has been led by disaster management professionals who have run state or local emergency management agencies, or were regional administrators at FEMA."
President Donald J. Trump, joined by Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan and Acting FEMA Administrator Pete Gaynor, attends a briefing Sunday, Sept. 1, 2019, on the current directional forecast of Hurricane Dorian at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) headquarters in Washington, D.C.
(Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)
January 24, 2025
THE NEW CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
President Donald Trump intensified his attacks on the Federal Emergency Management Agency during a visit to Hurricane Helene-damaged parts of North Carolina on Friday, announcing he is planning on reforming or “getting rid of FEMA,” and proposed an unprecedented move to condition disaster relief on the passage of a voter ID law by California’s lawmakers, “as a start.” Trump’s trip, which will include travel to California later Friday, appears designed to target the emergency management agency, which he has been criticizing for months.
In what appeared to be scripted remarks, Trump later elaborated that he would “sign an executive order to begin the process of fundamentally reforming and overhauling FEMA, or maybe getting rid of FEMA. I think frankly, FEMA’s not good. I think when you have a problem like this, I think you want to go and, uh, whether it’s a Democrat or Republican governor, you want to use your state to fix it and not waste time.”
“Calling FEMA and then FEMA gets here and they don’t know the area,” Trump claimed. “They’ve never been to the area and they want to give you rules that you’ve never heard about, they wanna bring people that aren’t as good as the people you already have,” he alleged.
“FEMA turned out to be a a disaster. And you could go back a long way, you could go back to Louisiana, you could go back to some of the things that took place in Texas. And it turns out to be the state that ends up doing the work. It just complicates it. I think we’re gonna recommend that FEMA go away. And we pay directly and we pay a percentage to the state, but the state should fix it.”
President Donald Trump intensified his attacks on the Federal Emergency Management Agency during a visit to Hurricane Helene-damaged parts of North Carolina on Friday, announcing he is planning on reforming or “getting rid of FEMA,” and proposed an unprecedented move to condition disaster relief on the passage of a voter ID law by California’s lawmakers, “as a start.” Trump’s trip, which will include travel to California later Friday, appears designed to target the emergency management agency, which he has been criticizing for months.
In what appeared to be scripted remarks, Trump later elaborated that he would “sign an executive order to begin the process of fundamentally reforming and overhauling FEMA, or maybe getting rid of FEMA. I think frankly, FEMA’s not good. I think when you have a problem like this, I think you want to go and, uh, whether it’s a Democrat or Republican governor, you want to use your state to fix it and not waste time.”
“Calling FEMA and then FEMA gets here and they don’t know the area,” Trump claimed. “They’ve never been to the area and they want to give you rules that you’ve never heard about, they wanna bring people that aren’t as good as the people you already have,” he alleged.
“FEMA turned out to be a a disaster. And you could go back a long way, you could go back to Louisiana, you could go back to some of the things that took place in Texas. And it turns out to be the state that ends up doing the work. It just complicates it. I think we’re gonna recommend that FEMA go away. And we pay directly and we pay a percentage to the state, but the state should fix it.”
In his wide-ranging remarks, President Trump also claimed that “rather than going through FEMA,” disaster relief aid to California and North Carolina “will go through us,” meaning, through his administration. FEMA is a federal government agency under the wide umbrella of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The president nominates the HHS Secretary, a cabinet level official, and the FEMA administrator.
And Trump appeared to say that he will assign Republican National Committee chairman Michael Whatley to manage financial aid to North Carolina, removing FEMA from the state.
“Trump also said FEMA would not be involved in further relief efforts and instead suggested that Whatley, North Carolina Governor Josh Stein (D), and a trio of Republican House members would be working with the White House directly because the agency ‘hasn’t done the job,'” The Independent reported.
“I wanna see two things in Los Angeles,” Trump also told reporters late Friday morning, “voter ID so that the people have a chance to vote, and I want to see the water be released and come down into Los Angeles and throughout the state. Those are the two things. After that, I will be the greatest president that California ever has ever seen.”
“I want the water to come down and come down to Los Angeles and also go out to all the farm land that’s barren and dry,” Trump claimed. This week the President appeared to suggest that water runs only north to south.
“So, I want two things,” Trump repeated, “I want voter ID for the people of California. They all want it. Right now you have no, you don’t have voter ID. People want to have to voter identification. You wanna have proof of citizenship. Ideally, you have one-day voting, but I just want voter ID to start, and I want the water to be released, and they’re gonna get a lot of help from the U.S.”
Trump later responded to a reporter’s question about his remarks on ending FEMA, calling the agency “a very big disappointment” that costs “a tremendous amount of money.” He alleged, “they end up in arguments if they’re fighting, all the time over who does what, it’s just it’s just not a good system.”
“I think it’s, I think when there’s a, uh, when there’s a problem with the state, I think that that problem should be taken care of by the state. That’s what we have states for. They take care of problems, and a government can handle something very quickly,” Trump said, appearing to not mention the scope of FEMA’s actions, responsibilities, and resources.
Jordan Weissmann, reporter for Yahoo Finance covering federal agencies, offers this explanation on California water: “The water issue Trump is fixated on doesn’t really have anything to do with the wildfires. It’s a fight between Central Valley farmers and Northern California farmers and environmentalists about who gets more fresh water.”
Is Trump Using Project 2025 to Eliminate FEMA?
January 23, 2025
By David Badash
President Donald Trump, who made baseless attacks against FEMA during his 2024 campaign, suggested on Wednesday night that he wants to defund the Homeland Security emergency management agency and shift the burden for disaster relief to individual states. The move would revoke federal responsibility for managing crises like hurricanes, earthquakes, flooding, and wildfires. While his remarks appear to align with The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, he appears to have gone further in appointing an interim FEMA head who reportedly “does not appear to have experience coordinating responses to large scale disasters.”
Although he has repeatedly denied knowing anything about Project 2025, despite at least 140 of his former administration’s officials having been involved with the program, President Trump appears to be following the far-right plan to eliminate or largely downsize the 45-year-old agency. Its current incarnation was created by President Jimmy Carter, but the federal government of the United States has been assisting states with disaster relief for well over 200 years.
“Now, I will say that Los Angeles has changed everything, because a lot of money’s gonna be necessary for Los Angeles, and a lot of people on the other side want that to happen,” Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity in a pre-taped interview that aired Wednesday night (video below). In recent weeks, California’s wildfires, fueled in part by climate change according to Scientific American, have decimated large swaths of the Los Angeles area, killing dozens of people.
READ MORE: ‘Road to Chaos’: Trump Orders ‘Thousands’ of Troops and ‘Illegal’ Arrests at Border
“Well, they don’t care about North Carolina. The Democrats don’t care about North Carolina. What they’ve done with FEMA is so bad. FEMA is a whole other discussion. Because all it does is complicate everything,” Trump baselessly charged. “FEMA has not done their job for the last four years. You know, I had FEMA working really well, we had hurricanes in Florida, we had Alabama, tornadoes, we had. — but unless you have certain types of leadership, it’s really, it gets in the way.”
“And FEMA is gonna be a whole big discussion very shortly because I’d rather see the states take care of their own problems,” Trump declared, alluding to wanting to dismantle the agency. “If they have a tornado, someplace, and if they have — let that state, Oklahoma is very competent. I love Oklahoma. 77 out a 77 districts and uh that’s never been done,” he claimed, referring to his Electoral College win.
On Thursday, The Independent reported, “Trump wants to shut down the Federal Emergency Management Agency and let states handle their own disaster needs.”
Project 2025 describes the Department of Homeland Security as a “bloated” bureaucracy that would “provide real opportunities for a conservative Administration to cut billions in spending and limit government’s role in Americans’ lives
It calls for “privatizing” FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program, and “reforming FEMA emergency spending to shift the majority of preparedness and response costs to states and localities instead of the federal government,” as well as “eliminating most of DHS’s grant programs, and removing all unions in the department for national security purposes.”
Trump’s remark, “I’d rather see the states take care of their own problems,” is similar to a portion of Project 2025’s proposal.
But Trump appears to have taken yet another step that could harm FEMA.
Trump has appointed a former Navy SEAL, Cameron Hamilton, who “does not appear to have experience coordinating responses to large-scale disasters, like the wildfires in California,” to be the interim head of FEMA, according to The New York Times.
“Mr. Hamilton is an unusual choice to lead the agency, even in a temporary capacity. Since Hurricane Katrina, when the federal response was severely criticized, FEMA has been led by disaster management professionals who have run state or local emergency management agencies, or were regional administrators at FEMA,” the Times reported. “Mr. Hamilton does not appear to have experience coordinating responses to large scale disasters like the wildfires that are raging in Los Angeles or the hurricanes, floods and earthquakes that FEMA typically manages.”
Watch the video below or at this link.
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