President Donald Trump has announced plans to revamp the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as North Carolina continues its recovery from Hurricane Helene, which impacted the state over 120 days ago.
“I’ll also be signing an executive order to begin the process of fundamentally reforming and overhauling FEMA, or maybe getting rid of FEMA,” Trump told reporters in North Carolina on Friday morning. “I think, frankly, FEMA is not good.”
Trump also promised his administration would step in and assist North Carolina to fix the damage quickly, vowing to “do a good job” for the state.
“We’re going to fix it, and we’re going to fix it as fast as you can,” Trump said.
“It’s a massive amount of damage. 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. We’re going to do a good job.”
Trump also said he would like to see the states assume more responsibility when disaster strikes, arguing those familiar with the state are better equipped to provide disaster response and relief.
“I think when you have a problem like this, I think you want to go and —
whether it’s a Democrat or Republican governor — you want to use your state to fix it and not waste time calling FEMA, and then FEMA gets here and they don’t know the area, they’ve never been to the area,” he added.
“They want to give you rules that you’ve never heard about, they want to give you people that aren’t as good as the people you already have. And FEMA’s turned out to be a disaster.”
The potential FEMA executive order would join a flurry of orders signed by Trump this week, including several that touched on immigration, on climate and energy and on issues such as recognizing only two sexes and ending diversity, equity and inclusion practices.
