(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump has never kept his contempt for the Federal Emergency Management Agency a secret, contending that the agency has been operating poorly and rarely helped disaster victims.
On Friday, while touring North Carolina neighborhoods that were ravaged by Hurricane Helene, the president said he was planning an executive order that would “begin the process of fundamentally reforming and overhauling FEMA, or maybe getting rid of them.” His order would create a task force that would look for reforms, according to sources.
However, Trump’s authority does not give him the power to terminate the agency unilaterally, according to federal laws.
Doing so would require congressional action.
FEMA is part of the Department of Homeland Security, which has an operating budget and disaster relief fund that needs to be replenished by Congress every year to help states deal with disaster recovery, preparedness, response and mitigation efforts.
The U.S. government uses the funds to reimburse local governments and states in disasters.
Congress late last year replenished the disaster relief fund by $110 billion, with $29 billion for FEMA’s response, recovery and mitigation activities related to presidentially declared major disasters, including Hurricane Helene and Milton, which President Joe Biden signed into law in December.
When a disaster hits, state and local governments are in charge, and a lot of what FEMA currently does is support them and reimburse states for disaster aid.
Trump has claimed this process has not worked well and hurt people in disaster areas.
“You want to use your state to fix it and not waste time calling FEMA. And then FEMA gets here and they don’t know the area. They’ve never been to the area, and they want to give you rules that you’ve never heard about. They want to bring people that aren’t as good as the people you already have. And FEMA has turned out to be a disaster,” Trump told reporters Friday.
However, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have traditionally supported FEMA, given assistance from the agency could be needed at any time. A majority of direct FEMA assistance since 2015 has gone to states such as Florida, Louisiana and Texas, which have been hit with several natural disasters, according to federal records.
Trump’s proposals have been echoed by many of his supporters, including the Heritage Foundation, which pushed forward proposals in its “Project 2025” playbook.
The think tank proposed moving the agency out of DHS and privatizing some of its programs, including the National Flood Insurance Program, which operates in vulnerable areas where, in some instances, private insurers won’t — and raising the damage and cost threshold that states need to meet in order to qualify for federal relief.
It also proposed changing the cost-sharing arrangement so that the federal government only covers a maximum of 75% of the costs of disasters instead of 100%.
There was little initial reaction from Capitol Hill on Trump’s call to end FEMA. However, one key Republican said she is not fully on board.
Maine Sen. Susan Collins told reporters Friday that she “informally” raised the idea of FEMA reform or elimination to her Senate Republican colleagues and that she expects an “oversight hearing or some reforms” regarding the agency.
“I still think you need some sort of FEMA-like agency at the federal level because states are overwhelmed at times of terrible natural disasters, but it sounds like an oversight hearing or some reforms based on the feedback I got today,” she said.
ABC News’ Isabella Murray, Rachel Scott and Ivan Pereira contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Executive orders signed recently by President Donald Trump state that diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs prioritize diversity over merit in hiring, claiming DEI efforts are an “immense public waste and shameful discrimination.”
Some experts in the DEI field disagree, and several tell ABC News that diversity, equity and inclusion programs are aimed at creating a true merit-based system, where hiring, salaries, retention and promotions are decided without bias or discrimination toward employees.
Before the anti-discrimination legislative movement of the 1960s — including the Equal Pay Act of 1963, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 — discrimination against certain groups was widespread, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“If you were from a dominant group — generally white people, generally men, straight, cisgender, fully-abled — you had a huge leg up in terms of getting employment recommendations, higher pay promotions,” Erica Foldy, a professor at NYU’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, told ABC News.
She continued, “So, Trump and his allies are harking back to this time that they say was more merit-based, but that’s not at all how these organizations operated.”
DEI initiatives — like implementing accessibility measures for people with disabilities, addressing gender pay inequity, diversifying recruitment outreach, or holding anti-discrimination trainings — are intended to correct discriminatory organizational practices, experts say.
DEI experts argue that diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives are “on the path of creating more merit-based companies, more merit-based firms,” Foldy said, aiming to ensure that qualified people of all backgrounds have an “equal chance of being hired; you’re going to be paid the same as employees at comparable levels.”
“Business as usual, without attention to discrimination, is deeply, deeply inequitable,” Foldy said.
Amri Johnson, a DEI expert and author, told ABC News that the ideal of meritocracy operates under the assumption “that opportunities are fair.” Today, studies across industries continue to show that discrimination against a person’s race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, military background, or other factors continues to permeate the job market.
“If organizations truly want the best talent, companies need to be intentional about how they source and engage with talent,” said Johnson.
Each year, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission plays a role in hundreds of legal cases concerning ongoing discrimination against protected classes in the workplace.
The EEOC’s 2023 performance report offers a long list of lawsuits it settled or won that year. One lawsuit noted blatant racist graffiti or comments made by fellow employees, paired with the discriminatory designation of hard physical labor solely for Black employees; others noted the failures of several employers to make reasonable accommodations for pregnant or disabled workers that led to the employee’s termination or job offers rescinded.
One study found that racial and ethnic discrimination in hiring continues to be a problem globally.
“Relative to white applicants, applicants of color from all backgrounds in the study had to submit about 50% more applications per callback on average,” according to research from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that analyzed 90 studies involving 174,000 total fake job applications tweaked to include racial indicators but with otherwise similar professional credentials.
“Diversity doesn’t go away because DEI goes away. It is an inevitable part of any human community (business or otherwise),” said Johnson. “Not learning how to deal with its tensions and complexity is leaving value on the table.”
Some DEI experts point to research from management consulting firm McKinsey & Company that found that companies with more diversity financially and socially outperform those that are less diverse.
“The most successful companies understand that DEI isn’t just a ‘”nice-to-have,'” said Christie Smith, the former vice president for inclusion and diversity at Apple, in a written statement. “It’s a driver of innovation, talent attraction, and competitive advantage. The question is whether leaders will have the courage to stay the course and hold firm against political headwinds.”
On Thursday, Trump claimed, without citing evidence, that diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives for air traffic controllers at the Federal Aviation Administration were partly to blame for the tragic plane and helicopter collision in Washington on Wednesday night.
The accusation comes after Trump signed sweeping orders aiming to terminate “diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility” programs in or sponsored by the federal government and its contractors.
The White House argues that DEI programs “deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement in favor of an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system.”
“Americans deserve a government committed to serving every person with equal dignity and respect, and to expending precious taxpayer resources only on making America great,” reads Trump’s executive order.
The order revokes several decades-old or years-old executive actions, including the 1965 Equal Employment Opportunity order prohibiting hiring discrimination by federal contractors and its amendments expanding professional development, data collection and retention opportunities.
The order also explicitly revokes a 1994 order to develop environmental justice strategies that address disproportionately high health and environmental impacts faced by low-income or minority communities.
Among the list of orders that are now revoked is a 2011 order requiring federal agencies to develop strategies “to identify and remove barriers to equal employment opportunity.”
Those in favor of axing DEI programs argue that these initiatives could lead to lawsuits claiming discrimination following the Supreme Court’s ruling on SFFA v. Harvard that disallows race to be taken into consideration in college applications.
The National Center for Public Policy Research has been a strong advocate against DEI, submitting shareholder proposals to reverse the DEI policies at major companies like Costco, John Deere, and others. Ethan Peck, deputy director for the NCPPR’s Free Enterprise Project, told ABC News that such companies should be “colorblind.”
“We’re saying that companies have an obligation, a legal obligation, and an obligation to their shareholders, and an obligation to their employees to treat everybody the same, regardless of their race and sex, and we’d submit any proposal to keep that that way,” Peck said.
(WASHINGTON) — President-elect Donald Trump’s picks for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, are continuing to try to shore up support with senators ahead of confirmation hearings next month.
Gabbard will meet with incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., on Thursday. She is also expected to meet with GOP Sen. Bill Hagerty, a member of the Senate Judiciary and Foreign Relations Committees.
This is Gabbard’s first week making the rounds on Capitol Hill since being tapped by Trump to oversee a sprawling network of 18 agencies in his new administration, despite her inexperience in the intelligence field.
A former Democratic congresswoman and member of the National Guard, Gabbard has face scrutiny for 2017 meetings with Syria’s authoritarian leader Bashar Assad (whose regime was toppled this week) and for controversial views on Russia.
Trump remarked on Gabbard, and his other Cabinet picks, during his interview with Time for the magazine’s “Person of the Year” honor. The interview was conducted on Nov. 25.
Trump said he was surprised by the criticism of Gabbard.
“I mean, I think she’s a great American,” he said. “I think she’s a person with tremendous common sense. I’ve watched her for years, and she has nothing to do with Russia. This is another, you know, a mini Russia, Russia, Russia scam.”
When asked if he’d rethink her possible appointment if foreign allies began withholding intelligence, Trump said, “I think probably, if that’s what’s happening. No, I don’t see it. Certainly, if something can be shown to me.”
Hegseth, another embattled Trump pick, is also back on Thursday to meet with senators, including Kentucky Republican Rand Paul. Notably, he’s also expected to meet with Democrat Sen. John Fetterman, the first to meet with him.
Hegseth’s faced pushback amid allegations of sexual impropriety, public drunkenness and other misconduct — which he’s largely denied. But this week, it appeared he was gaining some Republican support.
Trump’s doubled down on support for Hegseth, and pressure from his MAGA allies on potential GOP skeptics has shown early signs of paying off.
Kash Patel, Trump’s pick to lead the FBI, was also spotted back in the Senate hallways on Thursday.
Trump, in the Time interview, was pressed on if he was still considering recess appointments to install his Cabinet picks. Recess appointments would bypass the Senate’s constitutionally-mandated “advice and consent” role regarding Cabinet officials. Trump made a demand that whoever leads the Senate Republican Conference in the new Congress be open to them.
“I really don’t care how they get them approved, as long as they get them approved,” Trump said.
“But I think I have a very good relationship with Senator Thune and the others, all of them. I think almost, almost everybody, many of them I was very instrumental in getting, if not this season, last season, the season before that, I would say more than half,” Trump added.
So far, one of Trump’s pick faced insurmountable opposition.
Former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, also accused of sexual misconduct, was Trump’s first pick for attorney general. Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration as opposition mounted to his selection.
Trump was asked by Time what he’d do if the Senate balked at any more of his choices.
“Well, I don’t think they will,” he said. He said he told Gaetz, “You know, Matt, I don’t think this is worth the fight.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump on Thursday claimed, without citing evidence, that diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives for air traffic controllers at the Federal Aviation Administration — under Democratic presidents — were partly to blame for the tragic plane and helicopter collision in Washington on Wednesday night.
The air disaster occurred as an American Airlines passenger jet approaching Reagan Washington National Airport collided with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter on a routine training flight.
“I put safety first, Obama, Biden and the Democrats put policy first, and they put politics at a level that nobody’s ever seen,” Trump told reporters in the White House briefing room, referring to the policies, even as the investigation into what happened is just getting underway.
This is the first major commercial airline crash in the United States since 2009, when 50 people died after a plane crashed while landing near Buffalo Niagara International Airport.
“I had to say that it’s terrible,” he said, citing what he called a story about a group within the FAA that had “determined that the [FAA] workforce was too white, that they had concerted efforts to get the administration to change that and to change it immediately. This was in the Obama administration, just prior to my getting there, and we took care of African Americans, Hispanic Americans.”
Trump then signed an executive order later Thursday that appointed Christopher Rocheleau, a 22-year veteran of the FAA, as acting commissioner of the agency, which he had said he would do in the briefing. And he signed a second executive order “aimed at undoing all of that damage” caused by the “Biden administration’s DEI and woke policies.”
“We want the most competent people. We don’t care what race they are,” the president said. “If they don’t have a great brain, a great power of the brain, they’re not going to be very good at what they do and bad things will happen.”
When asked in the earlier briefing by ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce whether he was saying the crash was the result of diversity hiring, Trump said, “we don’t know” what caused the crash, adding investigators are still looking into that. “It just could have been. We have a high standard. We’ve had a higher, much higher standard than anybody else.”
Even as he made unfounded claims about the FAA’s diversity initiatives being a factor in the disaster, he said the Army helicopter crew could be at fault — and claimed he wasn’t blaming the air traffic controller who communicated with the helicopter.
When asked how he could come to the conclusion that FAA diversity policies had something to do with the disaster, he said, “Because I have common sense, OK, and unfortunately a lot of people don’t.”
DEI and any similar programs do not apply to air traffic control hiring, though — no one is given preferential treatment for race, sex, ethnicity or sexual orientation, a former FAA official told ABC News.
Applicants must pass a medical exam, an aptitude test and a psychological test that is more stringent than that required of a pilot, said Chris Wilbanks, FAA deputy vice president of safety and technical training.
In 2022, 57,000 people applied for an ATC position, Wilbanks said, and 2,400 qualified to attend the academy. Of that 2,400, only 1,000 made it to the first day of training.
Wilbanks said 72% make it through the academy and roughly 60% of those will finish training.
According to the FAA, the training process lasts about three to four years from the hire date. Applicants must be younger than 31 and must retire by age 55.
Anyone who has taken Ritalin or Adderall in the last three years doesn’t qualify, the former FAA official said.
No determination of fault in the crash has been made, and the National Transportation Safety Board is conducting an investigation.
However, the NTSB declined to say whether DEI initiatives were a factor in the crash when asked by reporters later Thursday.
“As part of any investigation, we look at the human, the machine and the environment,” NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said. “So we will look at all the humans that were involved in this accident. Again, we will look at the aircraft. We will look at the helicopter. We will look at the environment in which they were operating in. That is part of that is standard in any part of our investigation.”
In the White House briefing, several Cabinet officials spoke after Trump to address the crash, with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy saying, “What happened yesterday shouldn’t have happened.”
“And when Americans take off in airplanes, they should expect to land at their destination,” he added. “That didn’t happen yesterday. That’s not acceptable, and so we will not accept excuses. We will not accept passing the buck. We are going to take responsibility at the Department of Transportation and the FAA to make sure we have the reforms that have been dictated by President Trump in place to make sure that these mistakes do not happen again.”
However, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, while noting that a “mistake was made” in the crash, said the Department of Defense must be “colorblind and merit-based … whether it’s flying Black Hawks, and flying airplanes, leading platoons or in government.”
“The era of DEI is gone at the Defense Department, and we need the best and brightest, whether it’s in our air traffic control or whether it’s in our generals, or whether it’s throughout government,” he said.
Vice President JD Vance, too, alluded to DEI having a part in the crash, saying, “We want the best people at air traffic control.”
“If you go back to just some of the headlines over the past 10 years, you have many hundreds of people suing the government because they would like to be air traffic controllers, but they were turned away because of the color of their skin,” Vance said. “That policy ends under Donald Trump’s leadership, because safety is the first priority of our aviation industry.”
But when a reporter pressed Trump, saying that similar language on DEI policies existed on the FAA’s website under Trump’s entire first term, Trump shot back, “I changed the Obama policy, and we had a very good policy and then Biden came in and he changed it. And then when I came in two days, three days ago, I said, a new order, bringing it to the highest level of intelligence.”
Trump said Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary in the Biden administration, “just got a good line of bulls—” and said he had “run [the Department of Transportation] right into the ground with his diversity.”
“Despicable. As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying,” Buttigieg responded in a statement on X. “We put safety first, drove down close calls, grew Air Traffic Control, and had zero commercial airline crash fatalities out of millions of flights on our watch. President Trump now oversees the military and the FAA. One of his first acts was to fire and suspend some of the key personnel who helped keep our skies safe. Time for the President to show actual leadership and explain what he will do to prevent this from happening again.”
Illinois Rep. Robin Kelly called Trump’s comments “dangerous, racist, and ignorant.”
“President Trump twisted a terrible tragedy — while families are mourning their loved ones — to insert his own political agenda and sow division,” Kelly said in a statement. “This is not leadership. We need to investigate how this plane crash happened to give a sense of closure to grieving families and prevent future crashes.
“Trump would rather point fingers than look in the mirror and face the fact that he just cut a committee responsible for aviation security,” she added. “The issue with our country is not its diversity. It’s the lack of leadership in the White House and unqualified Cabinet. Trump’s actions and words are dangerous, racist, and ignorant — simply un-American.”
