President Trump, visiting hurricane-ravaged North Carolina, vowed to dismantle FEMA, blasting its repeated failures and pledging to replace it with a system that empowers state and local authorities.
Residents of Swannanoa shared their frustrations with President Trump during his visit to the hurricane-stricken community in western North Carolina. One homeowner, whose property in Asheville was destroyed, told Trump he is now living in a camper, voicing disappointment with FEMA’s response.
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“They did what they could do, but it’s not enough,” he said, describing how Asheville seems to have been “forgotten” in the recovery efforts.
“Everything is stopped,” the man added, highlighting the stalled relief and rebuilding process in the area.
Before meeting the public, Trump told officials at a briefing with emergency responders he was considering “getting rid of” FEMA.
“I’ll also be signing an executive order to begin the process of fundamentally reforming and overhauling FEMA, or maybe getting rid of them,” Trump said. “I think, frankly, FEMA’s not good. I think when you have a problem like this, I think you want to go. And, whether it’s a Democrat or a Republican governor, you want to use your state to fix it and not waste time calling FEMA.”
While Trump pledged to help North Carolina, a battleground state that voted for him in each of his presidential campaigns, he also revealed future plans on how the federal government will assist California where wildfires are still raging out of control.
“In California, I have a condition. In California, we want them to have voter ID so people have a voice,” Trump said at the same briefing in North Carolina.
“We also want them [California] to release the water. If they release the water, they wouldn’t have the problem. If they would have released the water when I told them to, cause I told them to do it seven years ago. If they would have done it, you wouldn’t have the problem. You might have not even had a fire.”
