President Trump mused on Friday about shutting down the Federal Emergency Management Agency, saying that states could do a better job at responding to disasters.
“When you have a problem like this, I think you want to go, whether it’s a Democrat or Republican governor, you want to use your state to fix it,” Mr. Trump said in Asheville, N.C., which was devastated by the remnants of Hurricane Helene last year.
“I think we’re going to recommend that FEMA go away and we pay directly — we pay a percentage to the state,” Mr. Trump added. “The state should fix it.”
Mr. Trump does not have the authority to shutter FEMA, which would require congressional action. Historically, lawmakers from both parties have supported FEMA, knowing that their district or state could need the agency’s help at any time.
Mr. Trump’s comments suggested that he misunderstood FEMA’s role, which is to support state and local officials only if those officials are unable to respond to disasters on their own, and only at the request of a governor.
Disaster response work is “locally executed, state managed and federally supported,” Pete Gaynor, who ran FEMA during Mr. Trump’s first term, said in an interview. The agency is a backstop, not a first responder, he said.