U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a disaster briefing on a coat hanger as he was devastated by Hurricane Helene at the Asheville Regional Airport on January 24, 2025 in Asheville, North Carolina.
Leah Millis | Reuters
President Donald Trump said Friday he plans to take executive action to overhaul or potentially end the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, in an effort to hit the agency over its response to historic flooding in North Carolina.
“I think we're going to recommend that FEMA go away,” Trump said at a briefing in Asheville, North Carolina, which was devastated by Hurricane Helene in September.
Trump's first step in that direction could come soon: He will sign an executive order creating a task force to review FEMA and recommend changes to the agency, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed to CNBC.
The task force, called the Federal Emergency Management Agency Review Board, will include the secretaries of Homeland Security and Defense as well as other private sector experts.
The group is ordered to provide Trump with a report on FEMA that includes recommended changes. Semafor first reported the order.
The president arrived later on Friday in Los Angeles, which continues to battle wildfires that have devastated large parts of the city.
Trump spoke to reporters at an airport storage facility upon his arrival in Asheville and said, “We're looking at the whole concept of FEMA.”
“I honestly like the concept [that] If North Carolina gets hit, the governor will take care of it. If Florida gets hit, the governor will take care of it, which means the state will take care of it,” he said.
“Having a group of people who come from a place that doesn't even know where they're going to immediately solve a problem is something that has never worked for me,” Trump said.
Trump added that additional aid for North Carolina and California should come directly from the federal government.
“So instead of going through FEMA, it's going to go through us,” he said.
Trump's comments about FEMA appear to fall in line with the conservative policy plan known as Project 2025, which calls for reforming the agency's spending to “shift the majority of preparedness and response costs to states and localities instead of the federal government.”
Trump politicized Helene shortly after the hit in the United States, criticizing the handling of the federal response and the spread of falsehoods about FEMA's actions.
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In January, as Los Angeles' Pacific Palisades neighborhood was reeling from unprecedented wildfires, Trump sought to point the blame for the destruction at California's Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.
He also threatened to provide federal aid to fight the wildfires, which are contingent on a change in the state's water policy.
The Biden administration on November 5 had approved more than $2.7 billion in total FEMA assistance for survivors of Helene and Hurricane Milton, which hit the West Coast in Florida less than two weeks after Helene.
Lucy Bickers, Swannanoa resident Swannanoa, 2025.
Jonathan Drake | Reuters
The New York Times reported on Friday that while some former FEMA leaders agree with Trump that states should be responsible for managing their own disasters, states themselves tend to want more federal aid.
The Trump administration has not yet unveiled a formal proposal to revamp FEMA or federal disaster relief policy.
As he ponders eliminating FEMA, Trump continues to promise disaster-hit communities that they will receive federal aid.
“We're going to give you the resources and the support and the support that you deserve,” he said Friday in Asheville.
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