Trump teases executive order overhauling or nixing FEMA

President Trump on Friday teased signing an upcoming executive order targeting the Federal Emergency Management Agency that could overhaul or eliminate the entire agency.

Trump, during a visit to survey damage caused by Hurricane Helene in North Carolina, took questions from reporters in Fletcher, where he suggested such an order. He continued to criticize the agency suggesting that bringing in FEMA was a waste of time for states.

“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’s not good,” Trump said.

“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.

Trump was also questioned Friday when he landed in the Tar Heel State if he expects to ask Congress for additional aid to North Carolina and California, while the latter faces raging wildfires, to which he replied he will but that aid will “go through us.”

“In all fairness to the governor, in all fairness to everybody else, FEMA was not on the ball. And we’re going to turn it all around,” he said.

Earlier this week, Trump suggested during a Fox News interview that FEMA gets in the way of cleanup.

Later Friday, the president is set to travel to California to assess the wildfires in the Los Angeles area.

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