U.S. President Donald Trump speaks throughout a catastrophe briefing at a hanger, as he visits to evaluate restoration efforts and tour areas devastated by Hurricane Helene, at Asheville Regional Airport in Asheville, North Carolina, on Jan. 24, 2025.
Leah Millis | Reuters
President Donald Trump on Friday mentioned he plans to take govt motion to overtake — or probably finish — the Federal Emergency Administration Company, or FEMA, slamming the company for its response to historic floods in North Carolina.
“I believe we’ll advocate that FEMA go away,” Trump mentioned at a briefing in Asheville, North Carolina, which was devastated in September by Hurricane Helene.
Trump’s first step in that course may come quickly: He’s set to signal an govt order making a job drive to assessment FEMA and advocate modifications to the company, White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed to CNBC.
The duty drive, known as the Federal Emergency Administration Company Evaluation Council, will embrace the Homeland Safety and Protection secretaries, in addition to different subject material consultants within the non-public sector.
The group can be directed to ship Trump a report on FEMA that features really helpful modifications — probably together with ditching the company all collectively. Semafor first reported the order.
The president later Friday arrived in Los Angeles, which continues to battle wildfires which have ravaged massive swaths of the town.
Chatting with reporters on an airport tarmac upon his arrival in Asheville, Trump mentioned, “We’re wanting on the complete idea of FEMA.”
“I like, frankly, the idea [that] when North Carolina will get hit, the governor takes care of it. When Florida will get hit, the governor takes care of it, which means the state takes care of it,” he mentioned.
“To have a bunch of individuals are available from an space that do not even know the place they are going, with the intention to clear up instantly an issue is one thing that by no means labored for me,” Trump mentioned.
Trump added that further assist for North Carolina and California ought to move straight from the federal authorities.
“So relatively than going by FEMA, it can undergo us,” he mentioned.
Trump’s feedback on FEMA seem to align with the conservative coverage blueprint often known as Undertaking 2025, which requires reforming the company’s spending to “shift the vast majority of preparedness and response prices to states and localities as an alternative of the federal authorities.”
Trump politicized Helene shortly after it hit the U.S., criticizing then-President Joe Biden’s dealing with of the federal response and spreading falsehoods about FEMA’s actions.
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In January, as Los Angeles’ Pacific Palisades neighborhood was leveled by unprecedented wildfires, Trump sought to pin the blame for the destruction on California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.
He additionally threatened to make federal assist to combat the wildfires contingent on a change within the state’s water coverage.
The Biden administration as of Nov. 5 had permitted greater than $2.7 billion in complete FEMA help for survivors of Helene and Hurricane Milton, which hit Florida’s west coast lower than two weeks after Helene.
Swannanoa resident Lucy Bickers, who acquired help from FEMA after Hurricane Helene broken her property, holds an indication in help of the federal government catastrophe company as she waits on the route of visiting U.S. President Donald Trump’s motorcade in Swannanoa, North Carolina, U.S., January 24, 2025.Â
Jonathan Drake | Reuters
The New York Instances reported earlier Friday that whereas some former FEMA leaders agree with Trump that states needs to be accountable for managing their very own disasters, the states themselves are likely to need extra federal assist.
The Trump administration has but to unveil any formal proposal to retool FEMA or federal catastrophe aid coverage.
Whereas he mulls eliminating FEMA, Trump continues to vow disaster-affected communities that they’ll obtain federal assist.
“We’ll get you the assets you want and the help you deserve,” he mentioned Friday in Asheville.