Trump delivers potential message of doom for FEMA amid talk of overhaul

President Donald Trump suggested on Friday that he may “get rid” of FEMA and delegate its responsibilities to the states.

He offered up the stunning suggestion during a visit with Hurricane Helene victims in Asheville, North Carolina.

Listen:

“I’ll be signing an executive order to begin the process of fundamentally reforming and overhauling FEMA or maybe getting rid of FEMA,” Trump began. “I think, frankly, FEMA is not good. 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. And then FEMA gets here, and they don’t know the area. They’ve never been to the area.”

“And they want to give you rules that you’ve never heard about. They want to bring people who’re not as good as the people you already have. FEMA’s turned out to be a disaster. And you can go back a long way. You can go back to Louisiana. You can go back to some of the things that took place in Texas. It turns out to be the state that does the work. It just complicates it. I think we’re going to recommended that FEMA goes away and we pay directly — we pay a percentage to the state. But the state should fix it,” he added.

He later re-stressed that he feels it’d be better if state governors handled disasters instead of FEMA.

“I’d like to see the states take care of disasters,” he said. “Let the state take care of the tornadoes and the hurricanes and all the other things that happen. I think you’re going to find it a lot less expensive. You’ll do it for less than half and you’re going to get a lot quicker response.”

Can Trump actually eliminate FEMA, though? Probably not.

“Trump’s authority does not give him the power to terminate the agency unilaterally,” according to ABC News. “Doing so would require congressional action.”

And as it stands, many in Congress oppose dabbling with FEMA.

“FEMA needs reforms, and I’m willing to work with President Trump on that — but to do away with FEMA altogether would leave families, businesses, and communities hammered by disaster beyond desperate and destitute,” Sen. Peter Welch, a Democrat, said in a statement. “We will never abandon our fellow Americans.”

Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican, has also downplayed the idea.

“I still think you need some sort of FEMA-like agency at the federal level because states are overwhelmed at times of terrible natural disasters,” she said.

As for FEMA, its staff is “feeling betrayed and scared,” an anonymously speaking employee told The New York Times.

“Our employees have been there for the American people over and over again,” the employee continued. “We already had a burnout issue at this agency that his statement and interview just put on steroids.”

Where staffers do agree with Trump is on the need for reforms.

“A growing number of federal emergency managers say some reforms are needed and that FEMA is overextended,” the Times noted.

All this comes days out from embattled FEMA Director Deanne Criswell, who oversaw Hurricane Helene and the Los Angeles fires, being ousted and replaced.

Criswell announced her departure from the agency in a tweet published on Inauguration Day morning.

“It has been an honor serving as @FEMA Administrator for nearly four years,” she wrote. “The FEMA family takes immense pride in our mission of helping people before, during and after disasters. I know the agency will continue to serve the nation as we support this peaceful transition of power.”

The tweet prompted an outpouring of insults and attacks from aggrieved Americans upset over her mishandling of numerous crises:

Vivek Saxena

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