U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a disaster briefing at a hanger, as he visits to assess recovery 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 said he plans to take executive action to overhaul — or possibly end — the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, slamming the agency for its response to historic floods in North Carolina.
“I think we’re going to recommend that FEMA go away,” Trump said at a briefing in Asheville, North Carolina, which was devastated in September by Hurricane Helene.
Trump’s first step in that direction could come soon: He is set to sign an executive order creating a task force to review FEMA and recommend changes to the agency, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed to CNBC.
The task force, called the Federal Emergency Management Agency Review Council, will include the Homeland Security and Defense secretaries, as well as other subject matter experts in the private sector.
The group will be directed to deliver Trump a report on FEMA that includes recommended changes — possibly including ditching the agency all together. Semafor first reported the order.
The president later Friday arrived in Los Angeles, which continues to battle wildfires that have ravaged large swaths of the city.
Speaking to reporters on an airport tarmac upon his arrival in Asheville, Trump said, “We’re looking at the whole concept of FEMA.”
“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,” he said.
“To have a group of people come in from an area that don’t even know where they’re going, in order to solve immediately a problem is something that never worked for me,” Trump said.
Trump added that additional aid for North Carolina and California should flow directly from the federal government.
“So rather than going through FEMA, it will go through us,” he said.
Trump’s comments on FEMA appear to align with the conservative policy blueprint known as Project 2025, which calls for reforming the agency’s spending to “shift the majority of preparedness and response costs to states and localities instead of the federal government.”
Trump politicized Helene shortly after it hit the U.S., criticizing then-President Joe Biden‘s handling of the federal response and spreading falsehoods about FEMA’s actions.
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 also threatened to make federal aid to fight the wildfires contingent on a change in the state’s water policy.
The Biden administration as of Nov. 5 had approved more than $2.7 billion in total FEMA assistance for survivors of Helene and Hurricane Milton, which hit Florida’s west coast less than two weeks after Helene.
Swannanoa resident Lucy Bickers, who received assistance from FEMA after Hurricane Helene damaged her property, holds a sign in support of the government disaster agency as she waits on the route of visiting U.S. President Donald Trump’s motorcade in Swannanoa, North Carolina, U.S., January 24, 2025.
Jonathan Drake | Reuters
The New York Times reported earlier Friday that while some former FEMA leaders agree with Trump that states should be in charge of managing their own disasters, the states themselves tend to want more federal help.
The Trump administration has yet to unveil any formal proposal to retool FEMA or federal disaster relief policy.
While he mulls eliminating FEMA, Trump continues to promise disaster-affected communities that they will receive federal help.
“We’re going to get you the resources you need and the support you deserve,” he said Friday in Asheville.
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