Kristi Noem: 'Get rid of FEMA the way it exists today'

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said she supports the idea of getting “rid of FEMA” as part of President Donald Trump’s massive overhaul of the federal government.

"I would say, yes, get rid of FEMA the way it exists today,” Noem said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “We still need the resources and the funds and the finances to go to people that have these types of disasters, like Hurricane Helene and the fires in California, but you need to let the local officials make the decisions on how that is deployed."

Trump said he would consider the shuttering of the Federal Emergency Management Agency during a Jan. 24 visit to western North Carolina — an area devastated by Hurricane Helene last fall. He said state governments should handle disasters and, that same day, signed an executive order establishing a council to review the agency.

Cameron Hamilton, Trump’s appointee as acting administrator of the agency, has championed Republican falsehoods that accuse FEMA of depleting its disaster aid, including blocking shipments to North Carolina after Hurricane Helene.

While congressional Republicans have shown support for making changes to FEMA, many have outright dismissed Trump’s proposal to bulldoze the agency. Noem said that Trump would work with Congress on the agency’s reform.

Trump’s “been very clear that he still believes there's a role for the federal government to come in and help people get back up on their feet, but there's a lot of fraud and waste and abuse out there,” she said.

When asked about Elon Musk and the unofficial Department of Government Efficiency’s access to agency data that includes personal information about disaster victims, Noem expressed support for Musk’s work.

“Elon Musk is part of the administration that is helping us identify where we can find savings and what we can do and he has gone through the processes to make sure that he has the authority the president has granted him,” she said.

Over the past week, Musk has sparked criticism for his aggressive approach to his work in the administration, including his campaign to dismantle the United States Agency for International Development.