STATEMENT – Former FEMA Official Slams Leaked FEMA Report: ‘New Name Slapped on a Gutted Agency’
WASHINGTON, DC — New CNN reporting reveals that Donald Trump's FEMA review council report recommends slashing FEMA's workforce in half and relocating many employees out of Washington, DC, while keeping FEMA under the Department of Homeland Security and Kristi Noem's control. The report represents the latest attack in a year-long campaign by the Trump administration to systematically undercut the agency.
Over the past year, the administration has already slashed 20% of FEMA's staff, proposed eliminating FEMA entirely, canceled the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program eliminating $4.6 billion in disaster preparedness funding, and imposed new bureaucratic requirements that have caused deadly delays in disaster response. This leaked report would further decimate an already weakened agency that Americans depend on during catastrophic disasters.
The recommendations stand in stark contrast to a letter Sabotaging Our Safety sent to the FEMA Review Council demanding that FEMA become an independent, cabinet-level agency—not only ignoring calls for independence but proposing cuts that will further undermine the agency's ability to respond to disasters.
"You can't save lives and rebuild communities while gutting the workforce and keeping the agency under such incompetent and overtly political control," said Rafael Lemaitre, Sabotaging Our Safety Advisory Council Member and former Director of Public Affairs at FEMA. "This administration has spent a year dismantling FEMA piece by piece, and this report is just their latest assault on the agency Americans depend on when disaster strikes. What we're seeing isn't reform—it's sabotage. Americans facing catastrophe don't need a new name slapped on a gutted agency."
Earlier this month, Sabotaging Our Safety released a new analysis of the politicization of disaster declarations under Trump and Noem’s control. Trump has approved disaster declarations for 78 percent of disasters in states he won in 2024 compared to just 33 percent in states he lost, abandoning communities after their homes are destroyed and their livelihoods decimated due to the political leanings of a state. Beyond this political interference, the administration has systematically dismantled FEMA’s capacity to respond as the nation faces an escalating crisis: this year alone has already seen at least 14 large-scale, billion-dollar weather disasters totaling over $100 billion in damages.
Last month, Acting Administrator David Richardson resigned from his position as FEMA Acting Administrator and Trump plans to install Karen Evans, whose reputation for eliminating programs and slashing staff signals an escalation of the administration’s assault on emergency response capabilities. This revolving door of leadership—combined with systematic politicization—makes the case for removing FEMA from DHS oversight entirely.
