President Trump’s second term continues to live up to its mission of draining the swamp—this time by targeting one of the bloated bureaucracies long seen as a poster child for government waste: FEMA. That’s right, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, long shielded by emotional appeals and natural disaster headlines, is now in the crosshairs of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and the Trump administration’s war on federal inefficiency.
During a televised Cabinet meeting on Monday, Noem dropped the bombshell:
“We’re going to eliminate FEMA.”
No fluff, no apologies, just a straight-up promise to dismantle one of Washington’s sacred cows.
Send it back to the states. Any Governor that needs to up their disaster response should look to Florida's leadership and disaster plans.
— Ryan Jacobsen (@Dndbreakfast) March 24, 2025
President Trump, seated at the head of the table, offered his support immediately. “That’s great. Great job,” he said, nodding along with Noem’s border security briefing, in which the FEMA elimination was casually sandwiched between national defense updates—because when you’re dismantling the deep state, even gutting an agency is just another Monday.
FEMA, created under the Carter administration and bloated even further post-9/11 when it was absorbed into DHS, has long drawn criticism from fiscal conservatives and federalism advocates. Trump has made it clear he believes disaster relief should be handled by the states, not some inefficient D.C. monstrosity loaded with red tape and even redder ink.
“You don’t need FEMA, you need a good state government,” Trump said earlier this year while touring wildfire damage in California. “FEMA is a very expensive, mostly failed situation.”
That’s not hyperbole. Anyone who lived through the Katrina-era FEMA debacle or watched pallets of aid rot in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria knows exactly what he means. The only thing FEMA consistently delivers is delay, dysfunction, and debt.
And let’s be real—Project 2025, the comprehensive policy blueprint guiding this administration’s reform agenda, has already laid the groundwork. It proposes shifting preparedness and response costs to state and local governments—where responsiveness, efficiency, and accountability still exist.
Predictably, the Left and D.C. lifers are melting down. “The states aren’t ready,” whined one FEMA employee to CBS News. That’s funny—because those same states were ready when the federal government fumbled COVID response, border enforcement, and wildfire management.
Trump’s message is simple: Big government isn’t the solution. It’s the problem. And FEMA, your days are numbered.