“FEMA has turned out to be a disaster,” Trump said in North Carolina on Friday while on a multistate tour to areas still recovering from the effects of last year’s Hurricane Helene and the ongoing wildfires near Los Angeles. “I think we recommend that FEMA go away.”

The acting head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency wrote to staff reassuring them that the agency's continued existence was vital to the country's disaster response efforts, after President Donald Trump said he wanted to overhaul or scrap it.

FEMA provides funds to governments and individuals to rebuild after natural disasters, but Trump has criticized it for being too slow and costly.