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No one was especially surprised when Donald Trump gave his first post-inaugural interview to Fox News’ Sean Hannity, since the two are longtime political partners. What did raise some eyebrows, however, were the parts of the interview related to federal disaster aid. The Washington Post reported:
President Donald Trump threatened to withhold federal aid from California as it works to recover from devastating wildfires, recycling several baseless claims and attacks against California’s Democratic leaders during his first sit-down interview since his inauguration. ‘I don’t think we should give California anything until they let water flow down,’ he told Sean Hannity during a Fox News interview that aired Wednesday night.
As the president really ought to understand by now, his comments didn’t make substantive sense. What’s more, he was presenting a threat without precedent in the American tradition: The federal government has never told an American community devastated by a natural disaster that its disaster relief funding would be conditional.
But that was not the only relevant exchange related to federal responses to disasters in the interview. USA Today took note of the Republican’s related comments about the Federal Emergency Management Agency, better known as FEMA.
‘FEMA is a whole ‘nother discussion, because all it does is complicate everything. FEMA has not done their job for the last four years,’ he said. ‘But unless you have certain types of leadership, it’s really, it gets in the way. And FEMA is going to be a whole big discussion very shortly, because I’d rather see the states take care of their own problems.’
In fact, the new president suggested that if a state suffers in the wake of a tornado, he envisions a model in which the federal government doesn’t respond much at all. “FEMA is getting in the way of everything,” Trump added.
He did not elaborate as to what, specifically, FEMA "gets in the way" of.
At face value, the Republican’s condemnations of FEMA and its work are difficult to take seriously. Just as importantly, Trump doesn’t appear to be interested in overhauling or reforming the agency, he appears interested in eliminating FEMA altogether.
It’s possible, of course, that this won’t be the White House’s new position. After all, Trump simply says stuff, and it’s anybody’s guess as to whether he intends to follow through on his rhetoric.
But if the president is serious about states “taking care of their own problems” in the wake of devastating natural disasters, it will create a new test for Republican officials. Are they prepared to go along with the elimination of FEMA? Even in red states like Florida, Texas and Louisiana, which tend to get hit by deadly hurricanes?
What’s more, it's worth appreciating where this idea comes from. An Axios report noted, Project 2025 suggests “reforming FEMA emergency spending to shift the majority of preparedness and response costs to states and localities instead of the federal government.”
Evidently, Trump is inclined to agree.