President Donald Trump on Friday floated the idea of overhauling or eliminating the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, while visiting North Carolina to view the aftermath of last year's Hurricane Helene.
“I’ll also 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 is not good," Trump said at a hurricane recovery briefing in Fletcher, North Carolina.
“FEMA has really let us down, let the country down. And I don’t know if that’s Biden’s fault or whose fault it is, but we’re going to take over it. We’re going to do a good job," Trump told reporters in separate remarks upon landing in Asheville.
He suggested cutting FEMA out of the process entirely for future natural disasters, saying “I’ll be direct. In other words, the aid will go through us. So rather than going through FEMA, it will go through us. And I think maybe this is a good place to start, because, and in all fairness to the governor, in all fairness to everybody else, FEMA was not on the ball, and we’re going to turn it all around.”
The president spoke about overhauling FEMA entirely, saying “probably less FEMA, because FEMA just hasn’t done the job. And we’re looking at the whole concept of FEMA."
He also voiced support for letting states take charge of disaster response in the aftermath of natural disasters such as hurricanes and wildfires, telling reporters, "I’d like to see the states take care of disasters, let the state take care of the tornadoes and the hurricanes and all of the other things that happen. And 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."
"So that seems to be the recommendation, but we’ll be making that recommendation over the next couple of weeks," Trump added.
He echoed that notion at the hurricane recovery briefing, saying, “I think we’re going to recommend that FEMA go away and we pay directly, we pay a percentage to the state, but the state should fix this.”
He also called the agency "very bureaucratic" and "very slow."
Traditionally, FEMA doesn't work alone in response to natural disasters to clean up debris and provide humanitarian aid, but alongside state and local partners.
As it stands right now, both state governors and FEMA play a role in disaster response. Despite the president’s language saying that he would like to see states take care of disasters, governors do take primary responsibility for the response already. They have the ability to declare states of emergency, control and coordinate their emergency management agencies, and deploy state resources such as the National Guard.
It is only when states make a formal request for federal assistance — or when the situation clearly exceeds state and local capabilities — that the federal government steps in, and that requires the president to sign a disaster declaration.
Does Trump have the power to eliminate FEMA?
In order to eliminate FEMA entirely, as Trump suggested, he would need Congress to give him “presidential reorganization authority” under the Presidential Reorganization Act. In short, Trump could seek support from both chambers for the authority to consolidate, reorganize or eliminate executive branch departments.
The last time Congress gave a president such authority was during the Reagan administration.
In 2012, then-President Barack Obama came to Congress with a restructuring proposal but was turned down.
Neither Trump nor congressional Republicans have spoken publicly about the act or any attempt to authorize its use for Trump.
Following Trump's comments, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., thanked the president for visiting his state, but sidestepped the president's potential plan to gut FEMA.
"Under President Biden, FEMA’s failure to act and communicate swiftly put vulnerable families at risk with freezing temperatures outside. Despite our continued pressure, FEMA made little progress in providing direct housing solutions for those most affected by Helene," Tillis said in a statement.
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He added, "Things will be changing under President Trump, and his visit shows his Administration is committed to the people of Western North Carolina as he promised during the campaign. I look forward to working with the Trump-Vance Administration to ensure that every available federal resource is deployed and that red tape preventing families from accessing housing is eliminated.”
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Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., more explicitly backed Trump's plan, saying that it "makes sense."
"Governors know more about what’s going on than anybody, you know, in their state. They’re going to be more, more aggressive with helping their people, but there’s whatever -- something needs to be done, because FEMA right now is, it runs in a slow pace," he added.
Another of Tillis' colleagues, GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, told reporters that she's "hearing very disappointing reports on how FEMA operated, that they were very late to show up," from her colleagues whose states were hit by hurricanes.
But, she added, "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, but it sounds like an oversight hearing or some reforms based on the feedback I got today are warranted."
Trump's recent history of questioning FEMA
Trump has long counted FEMA as a foe and joined other Republicans last year in spreading misinformation about the agency in the wake of the devastating hurricane that hit North Carolina in September.
While on the campaign trail, Trump criticized FEMA's response to Hurricane Helene and falsely blamed Democrats for stealing money from the agency.
“They stole the FEMA money, just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to their illegal immigrants,” Trump said during a rally in Michigan.
He appeared to be conflating two different FEMA funds — one fund that is dedicated to disaster relief and cannot be used for other reasons and one fund that FEMA gained control of in 2022 to disseminate money from Customs and Border Protection to communities facing an influx of migrants.
And earlier this month, Trump seemingly spread the same conspiracy theory again, this time in the aftermath of destructive wildfires that swept through Southern California.
“NO WATER IN THE FIRE HYDRANTS, NO MONEY IN FEMA. THIS IS WHAT JOE BIDEN IS LEAVING ME. THANKS JOE!” he wrote in a TruthSocial post while then-President Joe Biden received an emergency management briefing from officials in Los Angeles.
This week, ahead of his Friday trip to Southern California to see the aftermath of the wildfires, Trump threatened to withhold federal aid from California unless they meet his political demands.
"I don’t think we should give California anything until they let water flow down into there just from the north to the south," the president told Fox News, reviving an ongoing political fight Trump has picked with Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., over the state's water management and endangered species.
During his visit to North Carolina, Trump repeated his threat over water management and demanded changes to the state's voter ID laws.
“I want to see two things in Los Angeles. 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," he said.
