Trump calls for ‘termination’ of FEMA, says states should own disaster relief

President Trump Tuesday called for the “termination” of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and said catastrophe alleviation should beryllium handled by states.

Repeating false claims astir the alleviation effort for Hurricane Helene successful North Carolina, Trump said FEMA is riddled with corruption and partisan bias and indispensable beryllium abolished.

“FEMA should beryllium terminated. It has been dilatory and wholly ineffective,” Individual states should grip storms, etc., arsenic they come,” Trump wrote connected his societal media site. “Big savings, acold much efficient.”

President Donald Trump speaks astatine a Hurricane Helene betterment briefing successful a hangar astatine the Asheville Regional Airport successful Fletcher, North Carolina, connected January 24, 2025. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

Trump has been signaling for immoderate clip that helium was considering large changes involving FEMA.

He made governmental hay retired of the shocking devastation erstwhile Hurricane Helene barreled into occidental North Carolina past fall. He has repeatedly floated unsubstantiated claims that erstwhile President Biden’s medication directed disproportionate amounts of catastrophe backing to Democratic-leaning areas.

“FEMA is going to beryllium a full large treatment precise shortly, due to the fact that I’d alternatively spot the states instrumentality attraction of their ain problems,” Trump said successful an interrogation aft his inauguration connected Jan. 20.

Newly confirmed Homeland Security Director Kristi Noem, whose bureau oversees FEMA, said past play that the feds should “get escaped of FEMA the mode it exists today.”

“We inactive request the resources and the funds and the finances to spell to radical that person these types of disasters,” Noem said. “But you request to fto the section officials marque the decisions connected however that is deployed,” she said.

Like different national agency, FEMA is funded by Congress, which is fixed powerfulness of the purse successful the Constitution. But Trump has directed his state Elon Musk to dismantle agencies including USAID and the Department of Education successful his archetypal days successful office, raising superior law questions.