Noem hits back at FEMA critics, reveals vision for disaster relief agency

FIRST ON FOX: Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem slammed a group of former and current Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) employees who wrote a letter criticizing the Trump administration’s handling of the agency as she outlined her vision for FEMA’s role in the U.S. 

More than 190 former and current FEMA employees joined an open letter on Monday “in response to the Trump administration’s dismantling cuts and devastating attacks on FEMA programs and missions.” On Wednesday morning, the agency’s current employees who signed on to the letter were placed on administrative leave.

“I am not surprised that some of the same bureaucrats who presided over decades of inefficiency are now objecting to reform; including many who worked under the Biden Administration to turn FEMA into the bureaucratic nightmare it is today,” Noem told Fox News Digital on Thursday. “I refuse to accept that FEMA red tape should stand between an American citizen suffering and the aid they desperately need.”

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“That’s why I am working so hard to eliminate FEMA as it exists today, and streamline this bloated organization into a tool that actually benefits Americans in crisis,” Noem added.

President Donald Trump, who has been critical of the disaster agency since his presidential campaign, told reporters in June that FEMA “has not worked out well.”

“It’s extremely expensive and, again, when you have a tornado or a hurricane or you have a problem of any kind, in a state, that’s what you have governors for,” Trump added. “They’re supposed to fix those problems, and it’s much more local and they’ll develop a system, and it will be a great system.”

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem snapped at critics of the Trump administration’s handling of FEMA. (Luke Johnson/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

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The basis of the letter, which was published by nonprofit Stand Up for Science, focuses on Hurricane Katrina and relays concerns that unpreparedness played a large role in the aftermath that shook the gulf and devastated New Orleans, Louisiana. 

Signees argue that Noem and the agency’s leaders “hinder the swift execution of [FEMA’s]…