President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced he is planning to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) “as it exists today” after the 2025 hurricane season.
Trump said he wants to make disaster response and recovery the responsibility of states rather than the federal government.
“We want to wean off of FEMA, and we want to bring it down to the state level,” Trump said, as CNN reported. “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.”
Trump added that less federal aid would be provided for disaster recovery, with the funding to be distributed directly by the Oval Office.
“We’re going to give out less money… It’s going to be from the president’s office,” Trump said, as reported by The Hill. “As an example, I just gave out $71 million to a certain state. They were looking to do about $120 [million] — they were very happy with the $71 million.”
For months, Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have repeatedly criticized FEMA, calling the agency unnecessary and ineffective and vowing to phase it out.
WATCH: “We want to see FEMA eliminated.”
Trump & Noem say they want to end FEMA and give storm-torn states LESS money — while Trump takes personal credit for it. (Likely helping Red states more readily)
As they take credit for the job FEMA is currently doing.
— The Tennessee Holler (@thetnholler.bsky.social) June 10, 2025 at 1:34 PM
“You’ve been very clear that you want to see FEMA eliminated as it exists today, so I’m preparing all of these governors [so] that they will have more control over the decisions on how they respond to their communities so that it can happen faster,” Noem told Trump on Tuesday, as The Hill reported.
Noem and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth are co-chairs of a newly established FEMA Review Council, which is expected to give recommendations on how to dramatically reduce the role of the agency and reform its mission and operations, reported CNN.
Noem said the administration was “building communication and mutual aid agreements among states to respond to each other so that they can stand on their own two feet with the federal government coming in in catastrophic circumstances with funding,” as The Hill reported.
Plans to shutter FEMA have confused state and federal emergency managers, who do not believe localized efforts would be able to replace the agency’s strong infrastructure. They said the budgets and personnel of most states would not be enough to tackle the most catastrophic disasters alone, even with a federal financial safety net.
“This is a complete misunderstanding of the role of the federal government in emergency management and disaster response and recovery, and it’s an abdication of that role when a state is overwhelmed,” a FEMA leader told CNN. “It is clear from the president’s remarks that their plan is to limp through hurricane season and then dismantle the agency.”
NOAA predicts this year’s hurricane season will be “above-normal” with as many as 19 named storms.
Following months of upheaval and layoffs, the 2025 hurricane started on June 1 with FEMA short-staffed and underprepared.
The agency has lost 10 percent or more of its staff since January, including much of its senior leadership. It is projected that FEMA will lose nearly 30 percent of its workforce before the end of this year, shrinking it from roughly 26,000 to about 18,000.
Noem recently reopened some FEMA training centers and continued contract extensions for employees who are deployed during disasters in a last-minute effort to shore up hurricane preparedness.
The Trump administration has discussed ending the practice of FEMA staff going door-to-door to assist people in applying for disaster aid, reported The Washington Post. It has also talked about the possibility of raising the damage threshold for communities to qualify for federal assistance.
“It has not worked out well,” Trump said on Tuesday of FEMA’s historic disaster response. “It’s extremely expensive. When you have a tornado or a hurricane or you have a problem of any kind in a state, that’s what you have governors for. They’re supposed to fix those problems.”
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