Kristi Noem: Trump Response To Texas Floods Indicative Of Future FEMA Response Practices

Forbes Breaking News

At a press briefing, DHS Sec. Kristi Noem discussed the future of FEMA.

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00:00Security needs addressed.

00:02Second, on a slightly different issue, but one important to this state is obviously FEMA.

00:07Yes.

00:08I know there have been talks in the past about sort of doing with FEMA in the states.

00:11In the wake of Texas, it's sort of hurricane season approaches.

00:14Is there any updated conversation about what to do with FEMA and getting rid of it?

00:18I know there's a commission out there sort of studying the idea,

00:21but Texas is obviously a big one and there have been some issues there.

00:25So I just wanted any update on the idea of getting rid of FEMA or where we are

00:29So I think some of what you saw for our response in Texas is going to be a lot of how President Trump envisions

00:35what FEMA would look like into the future.

00:38We did things in Texas for a response very different than Joe Biden.

00:41In fact, we were immediately on the ground.

00:44As soon as the flooding hit, we deployed our Coast Guard.

00:47We had helicopters and airframe that were deployed and swift water rescue teams out of Customs and Border Protection.

00:53Our BORTAC teams, which I like to call the Department of Homeland Security's ninjas,

00:58I mean they can do almost anything and they're specifically trained for situations like that where the unprecedented is happening.

01:04And then I went immediately there on the ground and talked to the governor about getting a major disaster declaration signed

01:11and within an hour or two of them requesting it, it was done, decided by the White House.

01:17And we pre-deployed dollars right to Texas so that they could make the best decisions responding to their people.

01:24Before, FEMA has never done that before, pre-deployed dollars to a state so that they could use that to save their people.

01:31So they could use that to go out and save lives.

01:33And that's what President Trump wants.

01:35He wants the states to be empowered.

01:37Listen, emergencies, and we're in the middle of hurricane season too, so it's important for Florida to know this too.

01:42Emergencies are locally executed.

01:45They are state managed.

01:47The state then manages, the federal government comes in and supports.

01:50You don't ever want to sit back and wait for someone from the federal government to show up and to save you

01:56and rescue you out of your house necessarily because that in the past has not served people well under the Biden administration.

02:03With President Trump, we were there immediately, but we will always rely on those local officials and those state officials

02:09to help execute and to manage the response because they're the ones who know their communities best.

02:14They know where people are the most vulnerable.

02:16Do you still contemplation of the idea of doing lawyer with FEMA entirely?

02:19I think FEMA will cease to exist the way that it is today.

02:23We are fundamentally reforming that agency.

02:26President Trump may want to, in his prerogative, as he likes to do, rename things.

02:33He may come up with a new name for this agency that reflects the fundamental change that's going to happen there,

02:39but this agency will no longer be the bureaucratic agency where people have to wait 20 years for their claim to be paid.

02:45It will be an agency that immediately says to that state and to that local emergency management director,

02:52what do you need?

02:53How can we support you?

02:54And then train them to have the skill set that they need to be serving their people immediately

03:00because they're always there faster.

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