CNN's Gabe Cohen lays out the “big question marks and concerns” with Trump's “plans to dismantle FEMA and make states handle their own disasters”

Cohen: “I have heard from a long list of federal and state emergency managers who say that states are not prepared to handle disaster response and recovery alone”

Special Programs Climate & Energy

Written by Allison Fisher

Published 06/12/25 6:06 PM EDT

President Donald Trump restated his intention to dismantle the Federal Emergency Management Agency during remarks from the Oval Office on June 10, including that he plans to “wean” states off of FEMA after the current hurricane season and that aid will be determined by the White House instead of by the agency.

CNN correspondent Gabe Cohen laid out the “key takeaways” from the president’s comments that are ultimately raising “big question marks and concerns” about the federal approach to disaster response.

From the June 11, 2025, edition of CNN News Central

KATE BOLDUAN (ANCHOR): President Trump's latest plan for the country's lead emergency management agency: phasing it out. Forecasters are predicting this year's hurricane season will be particularly intense, with a higher than average number of named storms and major hurricanes. And the president is now saying after this hurricane season, he is phasing out FEMA entirely.

Gabe Cohen [is] tracking this one for us and joining us right now. Gabe, what are you learning about this?

GABE COHEN (CORRESPONDENT): Yes. So, Kate, this is significant. Trump saying in the Oval Office yesterday that he wants to wean the country off of FEMA. But not until after hurricane season, which, as you mentioned, is projected to be a particularly intense one. And this is really the clearest confirmation and the clearest timeline that we have gotten for the president's long-term plans to dismantle FEMA and make states handle their own disasters — something that we have been reporting on for weeks or months now. I want to play a little bit of what Trump said yesterday inside the White House. Take a listen.

(VIDEO BEGINS)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, it's not going to be so much the states. We're going to give out less money. We're going to give it out directly. It will be from the president's office. We'll have somebody here, could be Homeland Security, but we're going to give it out through a method. We think after this — Kristi, I'd say after the hurricane season, we'll start phasing them out.

KRISTI NOEM (SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY): Yes, sir. You set up a FEMA council over the next couple of months, will be working on reforms and what FEMA will look like in the future as a different agency, as under the Department of Homeland Security, to the president's vision.

(VIDEO ENDS)

COHEN: So, Kate, key takeaways — less disaster aid and now it is going to come directly from the president's office, cutting out FEMA. One big question there is what information then is the president going to be using to decide who gets money. Because, remember, FEMA offers a nonpartisan recommendation that the president typically follows. They usually guide him through disasters. We don't know who's going to be doing that guiding moving forward.

We also heard Trump say that governors should really be able to handle disasters on their own, and if not, they really should not be governor. But I have heard from a long list of federal and state emergency managers who say that states are not prepared to handle disaster response and recovery alone. And there are big question marks about how long it's going to take to bolster those resources on the state level. So we're going to see what this looks like in the years ahead, Kate.

And then this year, FEMA limping into hurricane season. They say they want to operate like they did last year, but they've lost like a third of their staff, including a lot of senior leaders. So, big question marks and concerns.

BOLDUAN: Lost a lot of leaders and lost a lot of time in trying to prepare for this hurricane season, as you have done such great reporting on, Gabe. Thank you so much for staying on top of this.

An internal FEMA document obtained by CNN in May warned that the agency “is not ready” for hurricane season. “As FEMA transforms to a smaller footprint, the intent for this hurricane season is not well understood,” the document states. According to the internal assessment, preparations for hurricane season have been “derailed” and issues abound at the agency, “including a general uncertainty around its mission, lack of coordination with states and other federal agencies, low morale and new red tape that will likely slow responses.”

Meanwhile, both federal and state emergency managers have expressed grave concerns about states’ ability to shoulder disaster response and recovery on their own, as smaller and poorer states — particularly red states which have received the most FEMA aid — often lack the resources to manage large-scale disasters independently. Emergency management professionals warn that such a shift could leave many communities vulnerable during major disasters, as state resources may become quickly overwhelmed.

Compounding the uncertainty is the fact that Trump has already delayed and denied aid after several major extreme weather events this year. Trump also politicized multiple disasters during his first term, including withholding “about $20 billion in hurricane relief for Puerto Rico following the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Maria in 2017” — a storm “that resulted in the deaths of 2,975 people and triggered the world's second-longest blackout.” The mayor of San Juan publicly criticized Trump’s response, which also drew public backlash when he threw paper towels into a crowd of people at a relief center and refused to acknowledge the full death toll from the storm.

After Hurricane Matthew devastated North Carolina in 2017, Trump rejected 99% of the aid Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper requested to support the state’s recovery. As CNN’s Abby Phillip noted, Trump seemingly refused the aid to Cooper “because they are in opposite political parties.”

Politico reported last October that the “former president was flagrantly partisan at times in response to disasters and on at least three occasions hesitated to give disaster aid to areas he considered politically hostile or ordered special treatment for pro-Trump states,” including refusing to sign-off on aid to California after the state's deadly wildfires in 2018 until the officials “pulled voting results to show him that heavily damaged Orange County, California, had more Trump supporters than the entire state of Iowa.”

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