President Donald Trump said he was considering “getting rid of FEMA” as he visited hurricane-battered North Carolina on Friday during the first trip of his second term.
The comment, made during a briefing on the monthslong recovery from Hurricane Helene, was the latest signal of how Trump is planning sweeping changes to the federal government’s role in managing catastrophes.
“FEMA has been a very big disappointment,” the Republican president said. “It’s very bureaucratic. And it’s very slow. Other than that, we’re very happy with them.”
Trump, who also planned to visit wildfire-ravaged Los Angeles later in the day, said he was looking at signing an executive order on the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“I’d like to see the states take care of disasters,” he said after landing in the Asheville area. “Let the state take care of the tornadoes and the hurricanes and all of the other things that happen.”
Trump said that would be quicker than sending in FEMA.
“FEMA just hasn’t done the job,” the president said. “We’re looking at the whole concept of FEMA.”
The agency helps respond to disasters when local leaders request a presidential emergency declaration, a signal that the damage is beyond the state’s ability to handle on its own. FEMA can reimburse governments for recovery efforts such as debris removal, and it gives stopgap financial assistance to individual residents. Some of Trump’s conservative allies have proposed reducing how much money the agency should provide.
Trump has criticized former President Joe Biden for his administration’s response to Hurricane Helene in North Carolina. As he left the White House on Friday morning, he told reporters that “it’s been a horrible thing the way that’s been allowed to fester” since the storm hit in September, and “we’re going to get it fixed up.”
Trump will receive a briefing on recovery efforts and then travel to a small town outside Asheville to meet with residents who have been helped by Samaritan’s Purse, a humanitarian organization headed by evangelical leader Franklin Graham.
Once in California, Trump plans to tour the Pacific Palisades neighborhood, where rows of homes burned to the ground. He’s expected to receive a briefing on the fires, which are ongoing, with thousands of people under evacuation orders.
Trump has showered California leaders with disdain for water policies that he falsely claimed worsened the recent blazes. He said he would “take a look at a fire that could have been put out if they let the water flow, but they didn’t let the water flow.”
Members of Congress will be at the briefing, and the meeting could prove contentious. Trump has suggested using federal disaster assistance as a bargaining chip during unrelated legislative negotiations over government borrowing, or as leverage to persuade California to change its water policies.
“Playing politics with people’s livelihoods is unacceptable and a slap in the face to the Southern California wildfire victims and to our brave first responders,” said Rep. Young Kim, a Republican from Orange County, south of Los Angeles, in a recent statement.
Trump has a history of injecting politics and falsehoods into disaster response. During his first term, he talked about limiting help for Democratic states that didn’t support him, according to former administration officials. While running for president last year, he claimed without evidence that Democrats were “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas” of the battleground state of North Carolina.
He’s also been focused on California water policies, specifically fish conservation efforts in the northern part of the state.
“I don’t think we should give California anything until they let the water run down,” Trump said Wednesday in an interview with Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity.
The president also suggested shifting more responsibility to individual states for managing disasters.
“I’d rather see the states take care of their own problems,” he told Hannity, adding that “FEMA is getting in the way of everything.”
Michael Coen, who served as chief of staff at FEMA during the Biden administration, said Trump was “misinformed” about an agency that provides critical help to states when they’re overwhelmed by catastrophe.
In addition, Coen criticized the idea of attaching strings to assistance.
“You’re going to pick winners and losers on which communities are going to be supported by the federal government,” he said. “I think the American people expect the federal government will be there for them on their worst day, no matter where they live.”
The last time Trump was president, he visited numerous disaster zones, including the aftermaths of hurricanes and tornadoes. He sometimes sparked criticism, like when he tossed paper towels to survivors of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.
“If you’re a disaster survivor, no matter who you voted for, it’s always good when the president comes to town,” said Pete Gaynor, who headed FEMA during the first Trump administration between 2019 and 2021. “You can see him and hopefully talk to him about what you need in your community.”
Laurie Carpenter, a 62-year-old retiree in Newland, North Carolina, said she’s looking forward to Trump’s visit because she’s been disappointed by the federal response. She said there’s still debris and trash strewn around her part of the state months after Hurricane Helene.
“If anybody’s going to do something about it, I think he will,” Carpenter said.
Trump tapped Cameron Hamilton, a former Navy SEAL with limited experience managing natural disasters, as FEMA’s acting director. He also said individual states should be in charge of directing response to natural disasters rather than FEMA, and that the federal government should only step in subsequently to provide funding.
Biden vowed before leaving office that the federal government would cover all the costs of responding to the wildfires around Los Angeles, which could end up being one of the costliest natural disasters in U.S. history. However, that promise won’t be kept unless Congress comes up with more funding.
Friday’s trip could prompt some uncomfortable conversations about climate change, which Trump has played down and denied. Both Hurricane Helene and the Los Angeles wildfires were exacerbated by global warming.
In Helene’s case, a study by international climate scientists at World Weather Attribution found that climate change boosted the storm’s rainfall by 10%. In California, the state suffered a record dry fall and winter — its traditional wet season — which made the area around Los Angeles more vulnerable to blazes.
“This is just breaking our comfort zone of what is supposed to be normal,” said University of Oregon researcher Amanda Stasiewicz.
After visiting North Carolina and California, Trump plans to hold a rally Saturday in Las Vegas. Advisers said he will offer details on keeping a campaign promise to exclude tips from federal taxes, while reveling in having won Nevada in an Election Day upset.
“I’m going to go to Nevada to thank them,” Trump said. He was the first Republican candidate to win the state since 2004, when George W. Bush beat John Kerry.
Las Vegas’ 24-hour economy is fueled by the hospitality and service industries, where everyone from restaurant waiters to valet parkers to hotel maids relies on gratuities. However, exempting them from taxes would likely be difficult to implement and require an act of Congress to remain permanent.
Associated Press writers Stephen Groves, Seth Borenstein and Makiya Seminera contributed to this report.
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