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| FEMA continues to limp along, as courts stop some cutbacks. Also. politicians, including MAGA ones, are resisting cutbacks because of disasters in their states. |
And it looks like it will survive, in some form, unlike many other agencies that have been slashed or ended by the Trumpsters.
Other federal agencies were quickly stripped down or eliminated early in the second Trump administration, including the Department of Education Voice of America and USAID. But FEMA keeps rising from its near death.
Still, to this day, FEMA is still in serious turmoil, despite efforts to kill it.
FEMA was clearly on the chopping block last year. Trump, and his minions repeatedly said for more than the past year.
"'I think they're probably win a go-along-to-get-along kind of mode,' said David Richardson, who led FEMA as acting administrator for much of 2025 and has since left the government. 'I don't see there being a whole lot of change.'"
Inside the agency, the vibe has improved. FEMA employees anonymously told NPR that fears of mass layoffs have diminished recently.
But FEMA itself has also diminished, thanks to the Trump administration. All those effort to kill the agency has left behind understaffing and delays in getting disaster recovery to survivors, NPR reported.
In a way, it was Republican supporters of Trump who saved FEMA. Politicians of all stripes want to see disaster aid flow to their districts after a bad storm, so even MAGA Republican congress creatures didn't have the heart to tell a community that they're on their own after a big tornado or flood.
MAGA governors of Texas and Florida also blanched at the idea of FEMA shutting down.
Luckily, the Trumpsters are incompetent.
For one thing, Trump's effort to cut or eliminate FEMA keeps running into a buzzsaw of court rulings. With all his bluster, he often doesn't get anything done because his efforts are illegal.
Last year, Trump tried to end a big grant program for disaster preparedness died when the courts objected. Temporary workers who were fired earlier this year are suing the agency. Over the set FEMA started quietly rehiring many of those temporary workers who had been terminated.
Just last week, a federal judge said the Trump and the Department of Homeland Security attempts to seize control of FEMA, and a imposing a staffing cut that the judge said was "pulled from thin air." Homeland Security oversees FEMA.
"The judge found that DHS pushed FEMA to submit a plan cutting its roughly 23,000 employees down to about 11,500 by the end of final year 2026. FEMA supervisors and the agency's own' human capital chief had recommended keeping staff flat or even raising it. (U.S. District Judge Susan ) Illsotn granted partial summary judgment to a coalition of unions and local governments.
They had accused the Department of Homeland Security of stripping the Federal Emergency Management Agency of authority over its own workforce and ordering slash staffing by half."
The judge said Trump officials pulled the number of supposedly needed layoffs out of thin air They also deleted messages on the Signal app using an auto-delete timers, which the judge concluded that was done to hide evidence from the plaintiffs.
After word leaked about the plans to eliminate 50 percent of the FEMA work force, the Trump administration backed off on the plans to do so. Largely because of the above-mentioned blowback.
It's the Trump administration. They're always scheming. We've told you how Trump tends to give disaster declarations to red states while ignoring many disasters in blue states.
FEMA's rocky road will continue this way as long as Trump is in office. With El Nino going full steam now, I'm sure the nation's already busy weather and climate disaster year will keep getting more intense in the coming months.
For now, some disaster victims will continue to receive aid. It'll be uneven, bureaucratic, frustrating and too small but the aid will be there. For now.
FEMA certainly needs reform, but Trump and MAGA aren't the ones to do it. Let's hope the agency outlasts Trump so it can rise from the ashes.
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