Trump mulls FEMA's future

Jan 24, 2025

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THE CATCH-UP

President Donald Trump, along side first lady Melania Trump, speaks at a podium.

Donald Trump is using the first trip of his second term to float a massive overhaul — or outright elimination — of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA. | Mark Schiefelbein/AP

ON THE ROAD AGAIN — Donald Trump is in North Carolina today surveying the damage wrought by last year’s Hurricane Helene. And he’s using the first trip of his second term to float a massive overhaul — or outright elimination — of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA.

After landing in Asheville, Trump reiterated his frequent critique of the federal hurricane response: FEMA “has really let us down, let the country down,” he said, per NPR’s Asma Khalid and Deepa Shivaram. Trump indicated he’s examining “the whole concept” of the agency, and suggested that states should handle their own emergency response operations instead of the federal government.

Trump’s words: “I like, frankly, the concept that when North Carolina gets hit, the governor takes care of it. When Florida gets hit, the governor takes care of it. Meaning the state takes care of it ... I’d like to see the states take care of disasters.”

Ahead this afternoon: After departing North Carolina, Trump will head to California, where he’s due to tour the wildfire damage in and around Los Angeles. And Trump cleared up the rumbling that he’d extended something of an olive branch to his longtime nemesis Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) by inviting him to accompany him for the trip: “I didn’t invite him. Someone did,” Trump said, per CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.

The formal snub: California Gov. Gavin Newsom was not included in the lineup to appear with Trump for the official briefing on the fires this afternoon, Megan Messerly reports. Instead, Trump will be joined by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and several California lawmakers. Still, the Democratic governor said yesterday he plans on showing up at the tarmac for Trump’s arrival.

Related read: “Trump Says States Should Manage Disasters. Former FEMA Leaders Agree,” by NYT’s Christopher Flavelle

THE WORLD AWAITS — As the inauguration hubbub fades in the U.S., several storylines are playing out across the globe as the rest of the world waits to see how Trump’s foreign policy agenda shapes up.

What the Kremlin is watching: Russian President Vladimir Putin and his inner circle aren’t taking Trump’s recent sanction threats seriously, instead seeing it as posturing ahead of actual direct talks about the war in Ukraine. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov suggested that Putin is waiting for Trump to reach out directly, WSJ’s Matthew Luxmoore and Thomas Grove report. “Putin’s ready, we’re waiting for signals,” Peskov said on Friday about a possible call with Trump. “Everyone is ready.”

What Pyongyang is watching: Though Trump indicated in his recent Fox News interview that he is open to rekindling his relationship with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, the country's expanding missile capabilities and defense pact with Moscow could make it more difficult to broker talks than in the past, NYT’s Choe Sang-Hun reports. “Trump’s recent statement describing North Korea as a nuclear power clashed with a long-held agreement between Washington and Seoul that North Korea should never be accepted as such,” Sang-Hun writes. “Kim will likely wait until a Workers’ Party meeting in June or another parliamentary gathering in September to react to Mr. Trump’s overture.”

What Beijing is watching: Though Trump has frequently framed China as America’s primary geopolitical enemy, his first few days in office have signaled he may be softening his views in favor of a “more restrained” approach, Axios’ Nathan Bomey and Zachary Basu report. “Some experts believe Elon Musk could be a moderating influence on Trump's approach to China,” they write. Though time will tell, since Trump’s policies on Taiwan “could be the ultimate indicator of where U.S.-China relations are heading.”

What Guatemala City and Mexico City are watching: U.S. military aircraft began flying out migrants today after Trump tasked the military with helping address illegal immigration. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt posted on X about the flights to Guatemala, which officials said included two military aircrafts “each carrying about 80 migrants,” Reuters’ Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart report. Trump has already promised to send 1,500 additional troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, potentially including members of the Army’s elite 82nd Airborne division, per CNN’s Natasha Bertand.

Happy Friday afternoon. Drop me a line if you’re braving the crowd today to see Bao Li and Qing Bao at the National Zoo: birvine@poltico.com.

5 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., speaks during a campaign event.

Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., speaks during a campaign event on Oct. 12, 2023, in Miami, Fla. | Wilfredo Lee/AP

1. VAX NOT: Top advisers to Trump HHS secretary-designate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are “battling over how aggressively to target vaccines during his first days as the nation’s health secretary, amid fears of a political backlash that could quickly swamp his agenda and derail his relationship with President Donald Trump,” Adam Cancryn reports.

The battle lines: “The internal debate has pitted Kennedy’s closest and most strident anti-vaccine allies against a separate faction of advisers and Trump officials.”

What’s on the table: “The more far-reaching options that Kennedy has discussed with allies include disbanding the main panel of experts that advises the government on vaccines, evaluates their safety and recommends which vaccines should be routinely administered to children and adults.”

Trump world’s fear: “Kennedy advisers and Trump officials fear that aggressively targeting vaccines would prompt an uproar among some in Congress and the broader electorate, creating a distraction that risks taking attention off of Trump.”

The mechanics of it all: Lauren Gardner dives into how exactly RFK Jr. could change vaccination policies, including revoking the legal shield for Covid-19 vaccines and altering the federal panels that advise HHS.

2. YOU DOWN WITH OMB: With RUSSELL VOUGHT likely to be confirmed as Trump’s OMB director, “an unusually large wave” of career staffers are leaving the budget office, WaPo’s Tony Romm and Jeff Stein scoop. Many of them are troubled by Vought’s promise to go to war against the civil service and push to wrest “some powers of the purse away from Congress,” culminating in a situation where “OMB — rarely a focus of the political spotlight — is set to become the foremost battleground over the nation’s fiscal future.”

The internal politics: “Even though the Senate has not yet scheduled a vote on Vought’s nomination, some budget staffers have quietly departed OMB. … More than 10 senior executive service positions are now vacant. While part of this turnover is due to retirements and normal attrition, numerous White House budget staffers are also apprehensive about Vought’s demands to shift money around in ways that may prove legally dubious.”

Related read: “Trump’s Early Actions Mirror Project 2025 Plan He Once Dismissed,” by Bloomberg’s Jonathan Tamari and Brandon Lee

3. MIDDLE EAST LATEST: This weekend is yet another crucial test for the fragile cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas, with Hamas officials expected to release four female hostages tomorrow in exchange for 100 Palestinian prisoners held by Israeli military forces, NYT’s Aaron Boxerman and Patrick Kingsley report from Jerusalem. “The truce also stipulated that Israeli forces would have to partly withdraw from a wide zone in central Gaza … And Hamas has also committed to supplying Israel on Saturday with information about the condition of the remaining hostages to be released during the six-week truce.”

What we know so far: “As of Friday, Israel says 91 hostages taken in the Oct. 7 attacks remain in Gaza … They include more than 30 who Israel has concluded are no longer alive, though Israeli and U.S. officials privately believe the number of dead is much higher,” WSJ’s Summer Said, Rory Jones and Anat Peled report. With the terms of the truce divided into phases, “even small details such as the sequencing of releases risk derailing it.”

4. SURVEY SAYS: As Washington waits to see how Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency will operate, a new AP-NORC Center poll shows that a majority of Americans are also unsure of what to expect from DOGE. “[O]nly 3 out of 10 surveyed say they approve of Trump’s creation of the panel, [while] 4 out of 10 disapprove and the rest were neutral or didn’t know enough to say,” AP’s Linley Sanders reports. More interesting results …

Musk underwater: Fifty-two percent of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of Musk (52%), while 36% have a favorable opinion.

Potentially good news for DOGE: “About two-thirds of U.S. adults say corruption and inefficiency are ‘major problems’ in the federal government, and roughly 6 in 10 say the same about red tape, such as government regulations and bureaucracy.”

Potentially good news for Dems’ messaging: Sixty percent think that Trump’s reliance on billionaires for policy advice is a bad thing.

5. RHODES TO NOWHERE: D.C. District Judge Amit Mehta altered conditions of release today for Oath Keepers militia leader Stewart Rhodes and some others who were recently pardoned by Trump, requiring them to seek the court's permission to enter D.C. or the Capitol, Kyle Cheney reports. Mehta’s new order comes days after Rhodes met with lawmakers and reporters on the Hill this week following the commutation of his 18-year prison sentence for seditious conspiracy.

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TALK OF THE TOWN

Donald Trump cancelled Anthony Fauci’s security detail.

The National Park Service rescinded 400 seasonal job offers following Trump’s hiring freeze.

OPM is going to try to email the entire federal government workforce at once.

OUT AND ABOUT — SPOTTED at a happy hour last night at Royal Sands welcoming Lane Lofton as executive director of Future Forum: Macey Matthews, Justin German, Dylan Sodaro, Molly Allen, Chris Davis, Lin Whitehouse, Dana Gray, Suzanne Beall, Pete Filon, Stuart Chapman, Michael McSwain, Chris Hartmann, Colin Craib and Tom Tilton.

TRANSITIONS — Andrew Bates has launched a strategic comms firm, Wolfpack Strategies. He previously was deputy press secretary in the Biden White House and is a Biden campaign and American Bridge 21st Century alum. … Faith Jablokow is now tax policy research associate for the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, where she’ll lead on tax reform efforts. She is a Cato Institute and AEI alum. …

… Alexander Mechanick is now a senior policy analyst with the Niskanen Center’s state capacity initiative team. He previously was senior counselor to the OIRA Administrator at OMB. … Lizzie Landau will be a VP in SKDK’s New York office. She previously was NYC comms director for Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and is a Harris campaign alum.

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Correction: Yesterday’s Playbook PM misspelled Ric Grenell’s name.