Donald Trump Signals Phaseout of FEMA, Pushes State-Led Disaster Response

President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that his administration plans to begin phasing out the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) after the 2025 hurricane season, with the goal of shifting responsibility for disaster response to individual states, as reported by The New York Post.

Speaking from the Oval Office, Trump said, “We want to wean off of FEMA, and we want to bring it down to the state level. A governor should be able to handle it, and frankly, if they can’t handle it, the aftermath, then maybe they shouldn’t be governor.”

The statement follows a January 24 executive order signed by President Trump calling for a full-scale review of FEMA’s operations.

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The order tasked Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth with leading a FEMA Review Council to assess the agency’s performance and structure. Findings from that review have not yet been released.

Noem reiterated the administration’s position Tuesday, saying, “FEMA fundamentally needs to go away as it exists.” She echoed concerns about FEMA’s inefficiencies, political bias, and bureaucratic costs.

The executive order also cited a federal watchdog report that found a FEMA supervisor had engaged in illegal partisan behavior. The supervisor reportedly told relief staff responding to Hurricane Milton in Florida in October 2024 to “avoid homes advertising Trump.”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) projects six to ten hurricanes between June 1 and November 30 of this year, with three to five expected to be major storms.

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In 2024 alone, hurricanes caused $182.7 billion in damages, far above the five-year annual average of $149.3 billion.

Trump indicated that if federal disaster aid is provided in the future, it would come directly from the president’s office. “FEMA has been a very big disappointment,” he said during a recent visit to Swannanoa, North Carolina, a region hit by last year’s hurricanes.

“They cost a tremendous amount of money. It’s very bureaucratic and it’s very slow.”

During that same visit, Trump accused the previous administration of forcing 2,000 displaced North Carolinians out of temporary shelters and “into freezing 20-degree weather.”

Some Democrats have expressed openness to reforming FEMA but stopped short of supporting its dissolution. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.), a former state emergency management director, has proposed legislation to provide more direct block grants to states.

“Bureaucracy at the Department of Homeland Security is getting in the way of FEMA fulfilling its core mission,” Moskowitz said last month. He supports removing FEMA from DHS but not eliminating it altogether.

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