As wildfires continue to rage in California, President Donald Trump says he's considering "getting rid" FEMA.
During a visit to hurricane-ravaged North Carolina on Friday, Trump said he would soon sign an executive order “fundamentally reforming and overhauling" the disaster relief agency.
“I think, frankly, FEMA is not good,” the president said. "FEMA's turned out to be a disaster...I think we're going to recommend that FEMA go away."
Trump does not have the authority to shutter FEMA entirely. Still, he seems to be leaning toward a recommendation that the agency be wound down, which could be carried out by his allies in an entirely Republican-controlled government.
Trump's ideal replacement would be a state-level response to natural disasters, something that could be a serious hindrance to many of the states that make up the Republican base, as they are poorer on average.
“I like, frankly, the concept [that] when North Carolina gets hit, the governor takes care of it. When Florida gets hit, the governor takes care of it, meaning the state takes care of it,” Trump said on Friday.
FEMA has managed American disaster relief for over four decades. The agency was created in 1978 to help centralize the response to disasters. States are not required to accept FEMA help, but the agency received more than 180 disaster and assistance declarations in 2024 alone.
The agency was the subject of right-wing conspiracy theories in the wake of Hurricane Helene. Trump boosted a false claim that disaster relief funds were spent on undocumented immigrants days before the election, and widespread paranoia boosted by Trumpworld led to confrontations between militias and federal aid workers.
In an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity earlier this week, President Trump said the organization was “getting in the way of everything” and floated a “whole big discussion” on eliminating FEMA. Gutting FEMA was a central promise of Project 2025, the far-right policy handbook that has guided many of Trump’s early actions.
Without FEMA, Trump told Hannity, states could “take care of their own problems.” And for states who do want federal help, they should stop expecting an unconditional check.
The president signaled that he would be more open to helping some states than others, telling reporters that he would “have a condition” on giving aid to California but not North Carolina, where billions of dollars are needed to rebuild.
We need your help to stay independent
“I have a condition. In California, we want them to have voter ID so the people have a voice, because right now, the people don’t have a voice because you don’t know who’s voting, and it’s very corrupt,” Trump said. “If they released the water when I told them to… you wouldn’t have had the problem.”
Trump is not alone in seeking to strong-arm California. Wyoming GOP Senator John Barrasso told CBS earlier this month that there “will be strings attached” to rebuilding cost assistance after a bout of wildfires in Los Angeles County became one of the costliest disasters in US history.
Trump's Friday comments aren't the first time that the president has attempted to politicize natural disasters. In 2018, Trump briefly withheld disaster aid from California until aides showed him data demonstrating the presence of his supporters in the state. Two years later, he temporarily rejected California’s requests for FEMA assistance during a feud with Governor Gavin Newsom.
Read more
about Trump's FEMA responses
Shares