Byron Donalds Says He Knows How To Fix FEMA

Republican Florida Rep. Byron Donalds called for a major overhaul of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on Fox Business Tuesday.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Tuesday defended President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda and backed major staffing cuts at her agency during her first hearing before Congress. During an appearance on “The Bottom Line,” Donalds blasted FEMA’s bureaucratic delays and suggested a way to fix the agency.

“Well, I think that what needs to happen is you got to get it out of Homeland Security,” Donalds said. “That’s why I filed the bill with Jared Moskowitz out of Florida to do just that. Get it out of Homeland and out of that bureaucracy. Have it be a direct report agency to the White House. So the president working with the governor in that particular state can get real-time decisions occurring so people can get back on their feet.”

Donalds didn’t hold back in his critique of FEMA’s track record and cited unresolved claims from hurricanes as far back as Katrina. He said states like North Carolina and Florida still struggle with disaster recovery efforts long after the storms passed.

“Look, FEMA’s failures have been reported on for, frankly, over a decade. The secretary said Katrina claims are still outstanding. I can tell you Hurricane Ian claims are still outstanding. And we haven’t even gotten to Helene and Milton from last year,” Donalds said. “North Carolina still has a lot of recovery work to do. Obviously, Florida is still doing recovery work. A lot of this disaster recovery really falls on governors.”

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The Florida congressman praised Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for leading the recovery in the Sunshine State but warned that FEMA’s inefficiency hampers even the most competent state-level responses.

“Governor DeSantis in our state has done a tremendous job with that. Other governors, not so much. But FEMA needs to be an action agency, not the bureaucratic agency it has become. It needs real reforms. So, to quote the secretary, as it exists today,  FEMA needs to end,” Donalds said. “This is why the president and his team are going through the process of reforming FEMA, creating a new agency that can be responsive to the American people.”

In March, the Trump administration began moving to reform FEMA and shift more disaster response authority to states. Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to prioritize state-level preparedness and abandon the broad “all-hazards” approach. Trump slammed FEMA as “a disaster” and “a very big disappointment” during remarks at Asheville Regional Airport in January before touring Hurricane Helene recovery zones in North Carolina.

FEMA faced widespread backlash after Hurricanes Helene and Milton struck the Southeast, as reports emerged that some agency staff were instructed to avoid aiding homes with pro-Trump signs. Marn’i Washington, a former FEMA crew leader, was fired in November for allegedly telling employees to “avoid homes advertising Trump” while assisting Florida residents hit by Hurricane Milton. (RELATED: ‘We Need To Do Better’: Vance Torches FEMA For Hamstringing Local Hurricane Recovery Efforts)

Critics also blasted FEMA for poor disaster preparedness, with the agency failing to answer nearly half of the 900,000 calls it received from survivors just days after Milton made landfall. While struggling to meet demand for aid, FEMA spent millions on services for illegal migrants and launched a grant program aimed at boosting “equity” in disaster responses. In response, the Trump administration began a major overhaul of the agency, firing four FEMA employees in February and scrubbing terms like climate change and DEI from official documents.

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