In late December, the chief of employees for Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley despatched a sharply worded e-mail to the White House, topic line “Five Alarm Fire.” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s “ridiculous” stranglehold on FEMA was choking off funds his California district wanted — a district, the e-mail famous, that President Donald Trump had carried.
At challenge was a $2.5 million grant to assist fortify properties in opposition to wildfires. Stalled for months awaiting Noem’s signature, the cost was one of 1000’s of grants and contracts nationwide caught in the identical logjam.
“It’s going to be hell to pay if this simple grant doesn’t get done,” the chief of employees wrote.
“Can you help spare the Secretary some bad press and jiggle the handle on this?”
The e-mail got here as Noem’s tenure on the Department of Homeland Security careened towards its finish. Numerous elements led to her downfall in March, together with her position because the face of the administration’s immigration enforcement efforts, a lavish advert marketing campaign that includes her, and allegations of pay-for-play within the division’s dealing with of contracts. Her choice to withhold billions in Federal Emergency Management Agency funds didn’t assist. In the times after Trump fired Noem, Vice President JD Vance instructed it was FEMA’s lack of ability to get cash out the door that really did her in.
By the tip of final year, FEMA was sitting on greater than $15 billion in unspent funds, in accordance to sources and inside figures reviewed by NCS. Lawmakers throughout the nation, together with many Republicans, have been left fuming after months of asking for catastrophe cash that had been awarded but nonetheless awaited Noem’s signature.
During her 13 months operating DHS, Noem, alongside together with her de facto chief of employees Corey Lewandowski, waged conflict on FEMA, throttling operations, stalling funds, and driving out most of the senior management and by one rely roughly 20% of the workforce. Amid the havoc, a number of sources advised NCS the company failed to make crucial funds — from primary utilities to safety operators that shield harmful supplies like anthrax.
Now in clean-up mode, the White House seems intent on stitching again collectively a lot of what Noem and Lewandowski tore apart at FEMA — a placing reversal for Trump, who first referred to as for scrapping the company. The new head of DHS, former Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin, has already moved to unwind cuts and crimson tape Noem put in place. The DHS inside watchdog has additionally launched an investigation into Noem and Lewandowski’s dealing with of contracts, together with at FEMA.
Court data in a separate lawsuit present DHS coordinated a lot of the overhaul over dozens of chats on the messaging app Signal, some of which have been wiped, with attorneys elevating considerations that proof was destroyed.
In a exceptional turnaround, Trump has tapped Cameron Hamilton to lead FEMA — for the second time. In May 2025, Hamilton, a former Navy SEAL, was fired from his performing position atop the company after telling lawmakers he didn’t help the administration’s plans to abolish FEMA. His exit accelerated an already chaotic effort to dismantle the company — simply as his return underscores the extent of injury management the White House is now trying.
“If you’d asked me 11 months ago, I would have said it’s more likely we deport him than he gets that job,” one DHS official mentioned of Hamilton.
It’s unclear how a lot FEMA funding continues to be stalled. In an e-mail to NCS, Kiley’s workplace mentioned his district nonetheless has not acquired the $2.5 million grant. “It’s extremely disappointing to see government inefficiency at this scale,” the e-mail mentioned. Kiley is now running as an independent after leaving the GOP.
With the Atlantic hurricane season beginning Monday, company insiders warn that FEMA has been considerably weakened and can possible battle to reply to a large-scale catastrophe this summer time — the likes of which this administration, remarkably, has not but confronted. The company is racing to fill vacant roles, restart halted trainings and workouts, and shut gaps left by funding that was delayed or minimize. But sources say it will possible take years to undo the injury that’s been executed.
“All of those things made the mission more impossible,” mentioned Pete Gaynor, who led FEMA throughout the first Trump administration. “And they’re going to own the wreckage.”
Noem and Lewandowski didn’t reply to NCS’s requests for remark. In a assertion to NCS, a DHS spokesperson insisted the division is prepared for hurricane season.
“FEMA is leaner, faster and laser-focused on support states, local tribal and territorial partners before, during and after disasters,” the assertion mentioned. “States and communities remain in the lead; our job is to back them up with additional capacity and resources if warranted.”
Interviews over the past year with greater than 50 FEMA insiders, most of whom agreed to communicate on situation of anonymity for worry of retribution, present a detailed account of the chaos that’s beset the nation’s largest emergency administration company — revealing a story of political infighting, bureaucratic inertia, partisan favoritism and at instances blatant incompetence.
With backbiting and confusion so unhealthy it verged on the farcical, some sources in contrast the inner dynamics of FEMA to a real-life model of the satirical tv present “Veep.” A tradition of worry and mistrust permeated. Leaders have been polygraphed amid a top-down hunt for leakers. Communication traces throughout the federal government and with state and native companions have been shut down. Sweeping plans — equivalent to slicing employees by 50% — grew to become frequent fireplace drills, with profession officers repeatedly ordered to produce lists of names inside hours, just for the plans by no means to be carried out.
Between the sporadic firings, Noem’s political appointees overtly feuded, refusing to sit in conferences collectively.
Things have been so dysfunctional that at varied factors, FEMA’s electrical energy, telephone, web and e-mail providers risked being minimize off as a result of the payments hadn’t been paid amid a hunt for wasteful spending, in accordance to a number of sources. In quite a few incidents not beforehand reported, safe authorities websites housing harmful supplies equivalent to stay viruses, anthrax and ricin got here inside hours of shedding safety protection, two sources mentioned. Contracts that employees had requested DHS to renew have been left to expire as skilled guards threatened to stroll off.
“If you wrote this as a book, no one would believe it,” one senior FEMA official advised NCS. “It’s completely dumbfounding how it’s all played out.”
Sixteen months into the second Trump administration, FEMA has but to have a confirmed administrator at its helm, having cycled by means of 4 performing leaders and a rotating forged of political appointees jockeying for energy and affect.
When David Richardson stepped in to change Hamilton as performing chief final May, the hard-charging former Marine and martial-arts teacher promised on his first day to “run right over” anybody who obtained in his method. Richardson was ousted in November following criticism of FEMA’s response to final July’s lethal Texas floods, and a collection of antics that left DHS unwilling to let him characterize the company in public.
His substitute, Karen Evans, a veteran cybersecurity official and Trump loyalist, earned the nickname “The Terminator” as Richardson’s chief of employees for her penchant for slashing grants, contracts and spending requests.
Though they not often visited company headquarters, Noem and Lewandowski loomed massive. That was notably true after Noem’s directive in June 2025 that required her private approval for any expenditures over $100,000. For an company that distributes tens of billions of {dollars} in fast catastrophe help, reimbursements and wide-ranging grants, senior leaders predicted it would sow chaos — and it did. Sources say Noem, Lewandowski and their loyalists held again most of the cash — flat-out blocking some blue states whereas fast-tracking funds to allies’ states after non-public conferences.
As Noem and Lewandowski squeezed FEMA’s operations, a little-known contractor named Kara Voorhies accrued significant power, sources say. Voorhies reported to Lewandowki and was seen as his “eyes and ears” contained in the company. One senior official referred to as her the “Shadow Administrator.” Sources say she restricted FEMA’s means to speak to states, Congress and the White House, and that nothing obtained to Lewandowski with out Voorhies’ approval. Many FEMA staff didn’t even know she existed.
Voorhies’ contract — buried inside a bigger Department of Government Efficiency contract, sources say — was terminated in March after Noem was ousted. DHS investigators seized her authorities units and paperwork she left behind. Voorhies is now half of the broader investigation into Noem and Lewandowski’s dealing with of contracts throughout DHS.
And then there’s Gregg Phillips, FEMA’s head of response and restoration who famously claimed to have teleported to a Waffle House one evening in Georgia. Phillips arrived on the company in December, having spent a lot of the earlier decade showing on a selection of pro-Trump podcasts the place he usually unfold right-wing conspiracy theories.
Career officers have been overtly skeptical of Phillips. But after a few weeks, a number of of them advised NCS that, to their shock, Phillips’ help for the workforce and its mission — and his willingness to push again in opposition to Noem’s restrictive insurance policies — eased some of their doubts.
In a signal of how unhealthy issues had gotten, Phillips rapidly grew to become one of probably the most trusted political appointees amongst profession staffers.
“Gregg Phillips is FEMA’s best hope at this moment,” one high-ranking FEMA official advised NCS in January. “I can’t believe I’m saying that.”
The first time Trump raised the concept of abolishing FEMA, he was standing amid the wreckage of Hurricane Helene in North Carolina. He was 4 days into his second time period. It had been 4 months because the storm carved a 500-mile path of destruction throughout the Southeast. In the ultimate month of the marketing campaign, Trump blasted the Biden administration for its response, claiming FEMA ignored Republican survivors and diverted catastrophe help to undocumented immigrants.
“I think we’re going to recommend that FEMA go away,” Trump told reporters.
Noem made that a signature mission. Her argument was blunt: FEMA was riddled with waste, fraud and abuse — bloated, partisan, ineffective — and states ought to tackle extra duty when catastrophe strikes. With Lewandowski driving the trouble, they skipped methodical reform and took a sledgehammer to the company.
Hamilton, who had echoed some of Trump’s false FEMA claims months earlier, rapidly got here to see its mission as important and broke with Lewandowski over how aggressively to intestine the company. That cut up surfaced early. Three weeks into Trump’s time period, Elon Musk claimed on X that DOGE had uncovered a FEMA cost to New York City for migrant housing, accusing the company of defying Trump’s immigration agenda.
Noem seized on Musk’s publish and publicly fired 4 staff, together with FEMA’s extensively revered chief monetary officer, calling them “deep state activists.”
But emails obtained by NCS confirmed employees have been advised by DHS attorneys the cash needs to be despatched. Hamilton urged DHS to retract its public accusations and reinstate the staff. DHS refused.
“That was the moment people realized the ruthlessness we were dealing with,” one of the senior FEMA officers mentioned. “Suddenly, we were all paralyzed, and terrified to make decisions.”
After information leaked of a assembly between Hamilton and DHS about how to eradicate the company, he and most of FEMA’s high brass have been given lie detector tests.
Over the following few months, the company’s catastrophe prep work largely stopped, as DHS successfully froze trainings and journey and barred most communication with state and native companions.
DHS had already paused most of FEMA’s grant packages so DOGE might hunt for waste and “woke” priorities like range, fairness and inclusion initiatives — which stored billions in catastrophe help and emergency preparedness funds from going out the door, sources mentioned. DOGE buyout provides accelerated an exodus of leaders and rank-and-file staff, leaving those that stayed to shoulder a rising load.
“You’re talking about a massive brain drain in a field where experience really matters,” one other senior official mentioned.
In May 2025, NCS reported that an inside assessment discovered FEMA was “not ready” for hurricane season. Hamilton pushed again on efforts to degrade the company however by then, plans to oust him have been already within the works.
Just hours earlier than Hamilton was set to testify on Capitol Hill, he realized safety was getting ready to minimize off his badge entry. DHS advised him it was a mistake; Hamilton believed his removing was imminent, three sources mentioned.
He testified anyway — and when lawmakers pressed him about plans to eradicate FEMA, he broke with the administration’s script, regardless of warnings from senior company leaders that doing so would assure his firing.
A day later, Hamilton was escorted out of FEMA headquarters. He didn’t reply to requests for remark for this story.
Richardson arrived with a jolt, instantly making clear he would squash any and all dissent. During an all-hands assembly on his first day, Richardson mentioned he was there to ship on the president’s plans for the company. Later that day, he advised FEMA leaders he didn’t know what that imaginative and prescient was, in accordance to sources within the assembly.
Internally, Richardson grew to become recognized to some for his brash demeanor — long-winded conflict tales, profanity-laced rants and the occasional misogynistic remark, in accordance to a number of officers. In response to these allegations, Richardson advised NCS, “It’s typical of what you hear from recipients of white-collar welfare. There are many of them in FEMA.”
Noem and Lewandowski additionally put in roughly a dozen different DHS officers in FEMA’s entrance workplace and compelled out most of the company’s remaining profession management.
As Noem implemented her $100,000 policy, Voorhies (the “Shadow Administrator”) and Evans (“The Terminator”) grew to become gatekeepers and chief enforcers within the marketing campaign to root out wasteful spending and shrink the company’s footprint. They labored carefully with Victoria Barton, a longtime Trump ally who was much less eager on gutting FEMA and was relegated from DHS headquarters to a extra contained position on the company.
Approvals for contracts, grants and on a regular basis operations slowed to a crawl. Officials mentioned their days have been consumed by writing and rewriting memos and pleading their case for specific bills. The political appointees blamed profession employees for being disorganized. Routine requests bounced from workplace to workplace. Feuding among the many appointees deepened the paralysis.
“At some points, approval from one would mean disapproval from another,” mentioned one profession FEMA official. “It left many of the careers having to try to navigate playing the game rather than getting actual work done.”
Richardson wished management, however DHS quietly directed the opposite three to babysit and even sideline him, sources mentioned, blurring who was truly in cost.
“I sidelined them,” Richardson advised NCS final week, “due to their disruptive behavior and lack of operations experience.” Others inform a totally different story: that DHS stripped him of any vital authority.
Eventually, Voorhies, Evans and Barton have been consumed by their very own energy battle, with Voorhies cementing her position as Lewandowski’s most important conduit.
“There was a lot of infighting and backstabbing,” one other senior official noticed. “They had no idea what they were doing and no desire to understand the importance of what they were cutting.”
Voorhies, Evans and Barton didn’t reply to NCS’s requests for remark.
On July 4, floods inundated the Texas Hill Country, killing not less than 134 individuals, together with dozens of children. Suddenly, Noem’s FEMA overhaul was in the national spotlight.
Agency leaders advised NCS that Noem’s restrictions prevented FEMA from pre-positioning search-and-rescue groups, increasing name facilities for survivors or sharing satellite tv for pc knowledge with state companions.
Delays and confusion consumed FEMA’s entrance workplace — what one present official described as “bureaucratic stupidity.” Leaders requested Noem’s group to waive her restrictions so they may act, however a day later they nonetheless had no reply and have been advised one may not come.
“It was one of the absolute worst experiences of my career,” mentioned one former senior FEMA official who labored on the response. “Because people were suffering and dying and we couldn’t get anybody to answer the phone to tell us that we could send help.”
Richardson finally bypassed Noem and approved deployments himself, regardless of resistance from different appointees, two sources advised NCS. Noem later mentioned it was “the fastest in history that FEMA has ever responded to a disaster.”
“I laughed out loud,” one senior official advised NCS.
Richardson wasn’t invited when Noem accompanied Trump to Texas. The division had grown weary of his unpredictable conduct, a number of officers mentioned. He went on his personal a week later, displaying up in a straw hat, cowboy boots and collared shirt with the highest three buttons undone — refusing to put on seen FEMA insignia as company leaders historically do in catastrophe zones.
“I went to FEMA to shut it down or transform it and to get it through hurricane season, not to be indoctrinated,” Richardson advised NCS. “I’ve worn a real uniform before; FEMA’s faux one is comical.”
Over the following a number of months, the DHS stranglehold — and ensuing chaos — solely intensified.
More staff have been pulled from their jobs with out clarification. Abrupt staff reductions left ousted employees stranded on catastrophe deployments, whereas others have been advised they couldn’t depart the sector for well being or household emergencies with out DHS approval.
Critical instruments went darkish. After tornadoes ripped by means of the Plains and Midwest, native rescue groups found they’d lost access to a FEMA-funded tracker that maps a tornado’s path of destruction nearly instantly after landing. The contract renewal had been sitting with Noem’s group for practically two months, inside paperwork present. When rescuers requested for steering, FEMA had little to provide and beneficial they name the National Weather Service or activate the native information. DHS authorized the contract days after NCS reported the lapse.
In October, Noem launched a report claiming FEMA was not simply inept however systematically biased, notably in opposition to Republicans. It contradicted the findings of an inside investigation months prior, which Hamilton himself had successfully closed.
During this year’s partial DHS shutdown, Noem brought FEMA to a near standstill, despite the fact that a lot of its funding for catastrophe work remained intact. Some employees who ought to have been serving to communities rebuild or brace for future storms have been left twiddling their thumbs at their desks — taking part in video video games and studying as a result of they’d been advised not to work.
“It’s a huge waste of time and taxpayer money for no reason, just to make the impact of the shutdown more significant,” a FEMA official advised NCS on the time.
As the disfunction engulfed FEMA, the fallout had unfold past the company, the place the rising backlog of blocked catastrophe funds was quick changing into a political drawback.
Some of it was explicitly partisan. DHS directed FEMA to withhold funds from states equivalent to California and Colorado, whose Democratic leaders feuded with Trump, sources advised NCS.
But the huge logjam touched just about all states, and the anger grew to become bipartisan. FEMA insiders, state leaders, congressional lawmakers and even some administration officers mentioned they couldn’t inform whether or not the funds have been getting used as leverage — or just trapped in dysfunction so extreme that nobody might inform the distinction.
Desperate for a resolution, lawmakers pressed the White House and scrambled for face time with DHS leaders to pry free cash for his or her states, sources mentioned. In late January, Republican Sen. Ashley Moody of Florida met with high brass on the division and announced that roughly $500 million would promptly be launched to her state.
In February, Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey secured his personal assembly with Lewandowski over stalled funding. Afterward, Van Drew announced DHS had agreed to launch $24 million. Weeks later, his workplace was, as soon as once more, emailing DHS in alarm, asking why the cash nonetheless had not arrived and questioning whether or not Lewandowski had made good on his phrase.
Even some White House officers have been baffled by the injury. At one level final summer time, NCS learned that Noem’s group deliberate to slash practically $1 billion in homeland safety grants, regardless of warnings inside FEMA that the cuts would go away Americans much less secure. When phrase reached the White House price range workplace, Director Russ Vought bluntly ordered DHS to reverse it, two sources mentioned. Within hours, the department did.
DHS officers largely stored their strikes at FEMA out of view of Congress and the White House. One supply recalled a political appointee laughing over lawmakers’ mounting frustrations, at the same time as others begrudgingly adopted orders whereas warning that withholding funds — particularly from Trump-supporting states — was not simply unsuitable, however politically dangerous.
“They just didn’t think that they answered to anyone,” one senior DHS official advised NCS. “Or at least Corey didn’t.” A brand new court docket submitting reveals DHS officers, on the behest of Lewandowski, mentioned sending out “easy money” to “make people happy.”
Republican anger reached a breaking level over the extended maintain on restoration funds for North Carolina, which was nonetheless reeling from Hurricane Helene.
The state’s senators, Republicans Ted Budd and Thom Tillis, publicly condemned Noem over the delays and even blocked DHS nominees till the help began shifting once more. At a listening to on March 3, Tillis delivered a scathing rebuke, telling Noem that “you failed at FEMA,” accusing her of illegally interfering with catastrophe help, and urging her to resign.
Two days later, Noem was fired.
“We needed the new leadership to hasten that delivery of resources to the people of North Carolina,” Vance mentioned the following week. “We think it’s useful to have somebody come in and focus on some of this disaster relief and recovery stuff.”
With Mullin now entrenched at DHS, calls to eradicate FEMA have quieted. Some staffing cuts have been reversed, ousted staff reinstated, restrictive guidelines rolled again and hiring freezes lifted. This month, DHS reassigned Karen Evans out of the company and changed her with Bob Fenton — a longtime FEMA profession chief — to maintain the highest job till Hamilton’s affirmation.
Voorhies and Evans have been deposed in an ongoing lawsuit alleging DHS illegally slashed FEMA’s workforce.
The White House insists there was no reversal and says it nonetheless plans a broad FEMA overhaul.
“The President remains committed to getting resources to communities in need while also working with states to ensure they invest in their own resilience before disaster strikes, making response less urgent and recovery less prolonged,” a White House spokesperson advised NCS in a assertion this month.
The FEMA Review Council, a process power Trump created initially of the administration to assist reshape the company, launched its ultimate suggestions this month after a five-month delay. It requires sweeping modifications to pace catastrophe help and push extra duty to states, however stops effectively quick of earlier ideas to minimize the workforce in half, rename the company or dismantle it altogether.
Still, sources say FEMA is limping into hurricane season underprepared and faces a daunting highway forward. It’s already been an energetic twister season. Widespread drought has fueled main wildfires this year. A powerful El Niño may lead to an elevated danger of floods. The conflict in Iran has added home safety calls for, as will the World Cup and America250 celebrations.
For some, the previous year at FEMA stands as a vivid instance of what occurs when a presidential speaking level collides with the equipment of authorities: a rushed try to tear down a catastrophe company that as a substitute left it weakened, remoted and uncovered.
“It could take a decade to fix what they broke,” a high-ranking FEMA official mentioned. “And if we have a major disaster this year, we’re screwed.”
Hamilton’s nomination has raised cautious hope at FEMA. But others be aware his complicity within the efforts to dismantle it and argue he lacks the administrator {qualifications} that Congress put into regulation after Hurricane Katrina, when the federal authorities’s failures uncovered the associated fee of weak management on the worst doable second.
In the two decades since that disaster, FEMA’s veteran leaders constructed the company into a power designed to surge into a disaster and produce the burden of the federal authorities with it. Many of these leaders at the moment are gone. What stays — and what this White House decides to rebuild, reform or hold tearing down — might form how the nation responds to catastrophe for years.
“The end of the story is still to be written,” a senior official mentioned. “That might be the thing that matters the most. And it could still go either way in the long run.”