ICYMI - Former FEMA Official: Richardson Resignation “Adds to Laundry List of Chaotic Management” at Agency
Amid FEMA turmoil, new reporting shows Trump advisers acknowledged admin decisions would harm disaster response
AUSTIN, TX — In the wake of leadership chaos at FEMA, new reporting from the New York Times reveals that a task force formed by Donald Trump to review the agency recommended against abolishing it altogether, directly contradicting the administration’s earlier position. Trump’s own advisers acknowledged that the administration’s decisions would harm disaster response and risk American lives.
The admission comes amid unprecedented turmoil at FEMA following the resignation of Acting Administrator David Richardson, whose dangerous incompetence cost lives. Richardson was unreachable for 24 hours during the catastrophic September Texas flooding that claimed over 130 lives, abandoning vulnerable communities at their moment of greatest need. Sabotaging Our Safety Advisory Council Member Rafael Lemaitre welcomed the departure of a wholly unqualified political appointee who had no business leading the nation’s emergency response agency.
See coverage below:
NBC News: Acting FEMA head resigns
Some of Richardson’s critics gladly received the news of his resignation on Monday, including Rafael Lemaitre, a former director of public affairs at FEMA. Lemaitre serves on the advisory council for Sabotaging Our Safety, an advocacy group that focuses on disaster preparedness and emergency response issues.
“Appointing someone with zero disaster management experience to lead FEMA is like putting someone who’s never flown a plane in the cockpit during a hurricane,” he said in a statement.
The Hill: Embattled FEMA faces yet another shake-up
Rafael Lemaitre, who was FEMA’s public affairs director during the Obama administration, said that Richardson’s departure “adds to a laundry list of chaotic management at the agency since January.”
“The chaotic leadership changes, they’re bad enough,” Lemaitre said. “But remember, this is a workforce that has already had to undergo the trauma of the DOGE trolling. … They’ve had to undergo the longest government shutdown in American history, during which news reports and signals from the administration came out that they may not even be paid. … They’ve had to endure constant threats of the entire agency being eliminated or moved to another state altogether and so when you have a workforce that’s brutalized in that way, it impacts their ability to be ready and work in the most brutal and austere conditions you could imagine, which is after and during a major disaster.”
New York Times: Trump Wanted to Abolish FEMA. His Own Advisers Disagree.
A task force formed by President Trump to consider changes to the Federal Emergency Management Agency has recommended that it should not be abolished, according to four people briefed on the matter, a position that conflicts with Mr. Trump’s earlier assertion that the agency should “go away.”
The deliberations underscore a growing tension within Mr. Trump’s political coalition over the federal role in responding to hurricanes, floods, fires and other disasters across the country that are growing more destructive as the planet warms.
The deliberations over the document come at a tumultuous time for FEMA.
David Richardson resigned on Monday as acting administrator of the agency after just six months on the job. Karen Evans, a senior political appointee at FEMA who earlier this year led an overhaul of the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, will take over as acting FEMA administrator on Dec. 1.
