President Donald Trump suggested an overhaul of the Federal Emergency Management Agency might be part of his broader plans to shrink the federal government in his first formal interview since returning to the White House.
The pretaped interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity covered a range of topics. But a few remarks partway through the interview made clear that paring down FEMA, which has long drawn Trump’s ire, may soon be a political priority for him, as he argued that the government agency should step back from natural disaster recovery.
“FEMA is going to be a whole big discussion very shortly because I’d rather see the states take care of their own problems,” Trump said, using tornadoes in Oklahoma as an example.
“I love Oklahoma, but you know what? If they get hit with a tornado or something, let Oklahoma fix it. You don’t need — and then the federal government can help them out with the money. The FEMA is getting in the way of everything,” he said.
Trump went on to highlight how he won all of Oklahoma’s 77 counties in the 2024 presidential election.
In the interview, Trump also expressed dissatisfaction with the response to wildfires in California, which he has repeatedly attacked Democrats over, and hurricanes in North Carolina this fall. He promised to travel to North Carolina “because they’re still suffering from a hurricane from months ago.”
In October, Trump promoted baseless rumors that the Biden administration was denying funds to heavily Republican areas and claiming the funds were going to migrants in other parts of the country. Wednesday night, he emphasized that he sees the agency as inefficient.
“What they’ve done with FEMA is so bad. FEMA is a whole nother discussion because all it does is complicate everything. FEMA has not done their job for the last four years,” Trump said. “You know, I had FEMA working really well. We had hurricanes in Florida. We had Alabama tornadoes. But unless you have certain types of leadership, it’s really, it gets in the way.”
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Em Luetkemeyer is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.