“FEMA has really let us down, let the country down,” Trump told reporters Friday after Air Force One touched down in Asheville, North Carolina. “We’re looking at the whole concept of FEMA.”
On his first domestic trip as president again, Trump said he would “like to see the states take care of disasters,” with local personnel handling relief efforts. He previewed a “recommendation” he would make in the “next couple of weeks.”
Trump and first lady Melania Trump then received a briefing in Fletcher, North Carolina, on the recovery effort after the hurricane, which made landfall last September, killed 219 people, and caused $78.7 billion in damage. The first couple are also scheduled to travel to Swannanoa to meet with residents.
During his briefing, Trump declined to criticize new Gov. Josh Stein (D-NC) but indicated his preference for Republican National Committee chairman Michael Whatley, the former head of the North Carolina Republican Party, to take the lead on the recovery.
“I’ll also be signing an executive order to begin the process of fundamentally reforming and overhauling FEMA or maybe getting rid of FEMA. I think, frankly, FEMA is not good. I think when you have a problem like this, I think you want to use your state to fix it and not waste time calling FEMA,” he said. “I think we’re going to recommend that FEMA go away.”
Trump emphasized the same idea earlier this week during the first Oval Office interview of his second term, this one with Fox News, telling the network, “FEMA is going to be a whole big discussion very shortly because I’d rather see the states take care of their own problems.”
At Asheville Regional Airport, Trump added to reporters that his first military flights deporting illegal immigrants “are going very well.”
“We’re getting the bad, hard criminals out,” he said. “We’re taking them out first.”
The president went on to propose that California change its voter identification laws and release more water in exchange for federal funds as it fights fires near Los Angeles.
As Trump departed the White House earlier Friday, he told reporters on the South Lawn that former President Joe Biden had permitted “a horrible thing” in North Carolina to “fester.”
“We’re going to get it fixed up,” he said. “Should have been done months ago from the hurricane that took place almost four months ago. North Carolina has been treated very badly, so we’re stopping there, and we’re going to then go to Los Angeles and take a look at a fire that could have been put out if they let the water flow, but they didn’t let the water flow, and they still haven’t, for whatever reason.”
During the election, Trump criticized former Vice President Kamala Harris for continuing to campaign and fundraise before and after Hurricane Helene. Harris did update her schedule to return to Washington from the West Coast early for briefings and to participate in the response.
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“People in western North Carolina were drowning in their houses this weekend. Others were losing everything. President Biden was at his beach house, and Vice President Harris was hosting political fundraisers on the West Coast. Is there a reason that they could not be here,” one reporter asked then-White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre at the time.
“The president did exactly what a president in this moment needs to do, which is directing his team to take action,” Jean-Pierre replied. “I talked about how the vice president also did her calls. She’s going to be going to the FEMA agency center to get her briefing later this afternoon.”
