Trump’s Answer to Weather Disasters: Shut FEMA down.
He has a much cheaper plan. Jul 11 2025President Trump has said that he intends to put an end to FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, after the current hurricane season ends. With 119 dead and 173 missing as this is written, and catastrophic damage inflicted on the hill country area of Texas, one would think he’d have second thoughts.
He had come to that conviction in January when he visited Asheville in North Carolina where in late September of last year Hurricane Helene had wrought devastation never experienced by the mountain region of the state:
“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."
It was a stunning notion with no basis whatever in facts, and yet at end-April he appointed 13 people to review FEMA and gave them 180 days to come up with a recommendation.
In the meanwhile, the managerial brilliance of Musk and DOGE cut the permanent staff by 20%. No surprise that The New York Times is reporting that FEMA did not answer nearly two-thirds of thousands of calls to its disaster assistance line because the agency had fired hundreds of contractors at call centers.
The agency's acting director who Trump appointed in May has no background in disaster response and told employees last month he didn’t know the country has a hurricane season. One of the reviewing panel is Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who can be counted on to turn thumbs down on FEMA's survivor because that’s what Trump is looking for. She has already disrupted FEMA’s preparedness grants to states and localities, insisting on personally approving all outlays of more than $100,000, slowing issuance to a crawl.
But another committee member is Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who after the July 4th disaster in his state would be vilified by his constituents should he vote for FEMA’s extinction.
Asked days ago by a reporter about “planning to phase out FEMA”, Trump’s equivocation suggests he hasn’t changed his minded:
”Well, FEMA is something we can talk about later, but right now they’re busy working so we’ll leave it at that.”
brain fog
Turning over emergency management to the states is an asinine idea evident from just a moment’s thought, and leaves one wondering whether the president has cognitive dysfunction rivaling Biden’s.
It would require every state to create an agency of its own – FEMA cloned 50 times over. Each would need to develop emergency management professionals, inventory costly supplies of water and foodstuffs, stock tents and bedding, on and on, a long list, poised to deal with calamity. And staffing wouldn’t be just a few people; it would have to be a full-size team poised to handle an extreme weather event — an event that might not happen this year, perhaps not next year either, nor possibly for an indefinite, unpredictable number of years beyond. All the while, 50 agencies with personnel sitting about with nothing to do in most states, each state bearing the redundant cost burden.
That, says businessman Trump, would be “a lot less expensive. You’ll do it for less than half”.
fix itThe solution is the opposite. To be sure, FEMA draws a lot of complaints. In the wake of a disaster people expect it to be everywhere at once. It was Trump himself in the days immediately following the hurricane who said about FEMA in North Carolina, “They’re not getting water, they’re not getting anything”, which was of course a lie from someone far removed. “They’re giving your FEMA dollars to illegals. They’re housing them with your FEMA dollars”, he claimed, misinformation amplified by chief propagandist at Fox, Jesse Watters. FEMA has a separate program, Shelter and Services, mandated and funded by Congress, to manage the migrant overflow, just as now it is charged with running “Alligator Alcatraz”. No money was diverted from North Carolina rescue operations.
Trump said residents were being offered only $750 in relief. The Biden administration had the foresight to add a few months prior a $750 handout as an on-the-spot stopgap for people to buy food, baby formula, diapers, whatever – a supplement to the regular and substantial relief to follow. He did great harm. It caused people to believe there was only the $750 and not reach out for the further assistance that awaited them, and replacing the institutional faith people had in their government with misguided resentment.
Trump’s reviewers should come up with reforms, not just another irresponsible DOGE-style shutdown. Above all, the review committee should recognize that FEMA is faced with an ever-increasing number of weather events – 27 with at least $1 billion in damage in 2024, and before judging that as being probably a fluke, note that there were 28 in 2023 – yet it is always chronically unfunded and understaffed. By dismantling FEMA, Trump would show he simply wants to wash his hands of responsibility.
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