Trump nominates Cameron Hamilton to lead FEMA (again)

NPR's Ayesha Rascoe asks "Politico's" Thomas Frank about new FEMA administrator Cameron Hamilton and whether his appointment means a change in heart by the Trump administration about the agency.

AYESHA RASCOE, HOST: From the Palisades fires and Guadalupe River flooding in 2025 to this month's fires in Spokane, along with January's massive winter storm and April's severe weather across the central U.S., President Trump's second term has had its share of disasters worthy of federal aid. And yet, in many cases, FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has struggled to keep up. The DOGE attempts at government efficiency in 2025 reduce FEMA staff by the thousands, and as Politico reports, President Trump has denied aid at much higher rates to states led by Democrats than Republicans. Now FEMA has a new administrator, Cameron Hamilton. So we'll turn now to Thomas Frank, who covers extreme weather for Politico, to see what effect Hamilton's appointment may have on federal disaster response. Thomas Frank, welcome. THOMAS FRANK: Thank you for having me. Great to be here. RASCOE: So tell us what you know about Hamilton. FRANK: Well, he's a very interesting and unique person for a lot of reasons. The biggest one is that he held this job before. He was the FEMA acting administrator from the beginning of Trump's term to early May, when he was fired by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. A couple of things to understand about Cam Hamilton is that, first, he doesn't really have an emergency management background. Second, he was extremely well liked at FEMA in his first 4 1/2 months there, and he ended up being a huge supporter of FEMA who really took the time to understand the organization, its mission, its people and was fired, I think, largely because he was not going along with what was then seen as the agenda of trying to abolish FEMA. And so the fact that he is now back is the strongest signal, I think you'll ever see, that FEMA is not going anywhere. RASCOE: So what else does this nomination tell us about the Trump administration's approach to emergencies? FRANK: I think that President Trump started out his term as, you know, very passionate, very loud, clear and repeated criticism of FEMA. I haven't heard him say anything like that for more than a year. And I think at this point, he is at what is a sort of familiar position for presidents, which is - it's sort of like the Hippocratic oath - FEMA should do no harm. RASCOE: Quantify, like, what happened under DOGE, that staff shrinkage at FEMA. Is there a connection or a straight line between that and how the agency has performed during the second Trump administration? FRANK: There may be a straight line but let me just first fill out what you had said about staff losses. So FEMA has lost 22% of its staff since President Trump took office. It's gone from 26,000 to just a tad over 20,000. That's a huge staff loss. FEMA and really the entire country has gotten a little bit lucky so far in that FEMA has not been tested the way it was tested in 2024, when you had Hurricane Helene and Milton at the same time, or other times like Katrina, when you really find out what FEMA is capable. So right now, it's operating - it's in its comfort zone. RASCOE: How about your reporting on President Trump rejecting aid requests to states with Democratic leadership? What effect has that had on the ground, and do you think that Cameron Hamilton will have any effect on that dynamic? FRANK: The main consequence has been uncertainty. And what Trump is doing is he is denying aid that any president, including Trump in his first term, would have approved without a second glance. But now that he's denying supposedly qualifying disaster requests, nobody knows, and he's not giving any reasons, and a lot of people like me are spending a lot of time trying to figure it out. The one pattern I saw is that there was a huge disparity between his approval rate for states with Democratic governors and two Democratic senators compared to Republican states with a Republican governor and two Republican senators. RASCOE: What happens when the federal government doesn't approve this funding? Like, do states have the money to step in? FRANK: It depends on the state. It depends on the disaster. There are some states - small states - that don't have a lot of money, that don't have much in the way of disaster response. And then you've got states like Florida and Texas and California, which are huge states and have a lot of experience with disasters. But places like Kentucky really stands out as a place that gets a surprising amount of really damaging flooding. And it's, you know, one of the lowest-income states in the country. RASCOE: Do you think that this, you know, signifies maybe Trump going back to picking people who are more maybe institutionalists and less, you know, just loyalists, or do you think that FEMA is a special case? FRANK: I think that President Trump floated a trial balloon at the beginning of the second term about killing FEMA and that trial balloon got shot down by members of his own party, his own senators from places like North Carolina, Missouri, his own governors. And I think he basically realized, you can't just kill FEMA, that for better or for worse, it is an institution that plays a vital and familiar role. And if you want to try to shrink it, that's a long-term job. RASCOE: That's Thomas Frank of Politico. Thank you so much for joining us. FRANK: Thanks for having me. Copyright © 2026 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

AYESHA RASCOE, HOST: From the Palisades fires and Guadalupe River flooding in 2025 to this month's fires in Spokane, along with January's massive winter storm and April's severe weather across the central U.S., President Trump's second term has had its share of disasters worthy of federal aid. And yet, in many cases, FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has struggled to keep up. The DOGE attempts at government efficiency in 2025 reduce FEMA staff by the thousands, and as Politico reports, President Trump has denied aid at much higher rates to states led by Democrats than Republicans. Now FEMA has a new administrator, Cameron Hamilton. So we'll turn now to Thomas Frank, who covers extreme weather for Politico, to see what effect Hamilton's appointment may have on federal disaster response. Thomas Frank, welcome. THOMAS FRANK: Thank you for having me. Great to be here. RASCOE: So tell us what you know about Hamilton. FRANK: Well, he's a very interesting and unique person for a lot of reasons. The biggest one is that he held this job before. He was the FEMA acting administrator from the beginning of Trump's term to early May, when he was fired by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. A couple of things to understand about Cam Hamilton is that, first, he doesn't really have an emergency management background. Second, he was extremely well liked at FEMA in his first 4 1/2 months there, and he ended up being a huge supporter of FEMA who really took the time to understand the organization, its mission, its people and was fired, I think, largely because he was not going along with what was then seen as the agenda of trying to abolish FEMA. And so the fact that he is now back is the strongest signal, I think you'll ever see, that FEMA is not going anywhere. RASCOE: So what else does this nomination tell us about the Trump administration's approach to emergencies? FRANK: I think that President Trump started out his term as, you know, very passionate, very loud, clear and repeated criticism of FEMA. I haven't heard him say anything like that for more than a year. And I think at this point, he is at what is a sort of familiar position for presidents, which is - it's sort of like the Hippocratic oath - FEMA should do no harm. RASCOE: Quantify, like, what happened under DOGE, that staff shrinkage at FEMA. Is there a connection or a straight line between that and how the agency has performed during the second Trump administration? FRANK: There may be a straight line but let me just first fill out what you had said about staff losses. So FEMA has lost 22% of its staff since President Trump took office. It's gone from 26,000 to just a tad over 20,000. That's a huge staff loss. FEMA and really the entire country has gotten a little bit lucky so far in that FEMA has not been tested the way it was tested in 2024, when you had Hurricane Helene and Milton at the same time, or other times like Katrina, when you really find out what FEMA is capable. So right now, it's operating - it's in its comfort zone. RASCOE: How about your reporting on President Trump rejecting aid requests to states with Democratic leadership? What effect has that had on the ground, and do you think that Cameron Hamilton will have any effect on that dynamic? FRANK: The main consequence has been uncertainty. And what Trump is doing is he is denying aid that any president, including Trump in his first term, would have approved without a second glance. But now that he's denying supposedly qualifying disaster requests, nobody knows, and he's not giving any reasons, and a lot of people like me are spending a lot of time trying to figure it out. The one pattern I saw is that there was a huge disparity between his approval rate for states with Democratic governors and two Democratic senators compared to Republican states with a Republican governor and two Republican senators. RASCOE: What happens when the federal government doesn't approve this funding? Like, do states have the money to step in? FRANK: It depends on the state. It depends on the disaster. There are some states - small states - that don't have a lot of money, that don't have much in the way of disaster response. And then you've got states like Florida and Texas and California, which are huge states and have a lot of experience with disasters. But places like Kentucky really stands out as a place that gets a surprising amount of really damaging flooding. And it's, you know, one of the lowest-income states in the country. RASCOE: Do you think that this, you know, signifies maybe Trump going back to picking people who are more maybe institutionalists and less, you know, just loyalists, or do you think that FEMA is a special case? FRANK: I think that President Trump floated a trial balloon at the beginning of the second term about killing FEMA and that trial balloon got shot down by members of his own party, his own senators from places like North Carolina, Missouri, his own governors. And I think he basically realized, you can't just kill FEMA, that for better or for worse, it is an institution that plays a vital and familiar role. And if you want to try to shrink it, that's a long-term job. RASCOE: That's Thomas Frank of Politico. Thank you so much for joining us. FRANK: Thanks for having me. Copyright © 2026 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

From the Palisades fires and Guadalupe River flooding in 2025 to this month's fires in Spokane, along with January's massive winter storm and April's severe weather across the central U.S., President Trump's second term has had its share of disasters worthy of federal aid. And yet, in many cases, FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has struggled to keep up. The DOGE attempts at government efficiency in 2025 reduce FEMA staff by the thousands, and as Politico reports, President Trump has denied aid at much higher rates to states led by Democrats than Republicans. Now FEMA has a new administrator, Cameron Hamilton. So we'll turn now to Thomas Frank, who covers extreme weather for Politico, to see what effect Hamilton's appointment may have on federal disaster response. Thomas Frank, welcome. THOMAS FRANK: Thank you for having me. Great to be here. RASCOE: So tell us what you know about Hamilton. FRANK: Well, he's a very interesting and unique person for a lot of reasons. The biggest one is that he held this job before. He was the FEMA acting administrator from the beginning of Trump's term to early May, when he was fired by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. A couple of things to understand about Cam Hamilton is that, first, he doesn't really have an emergency management background. Second, he was extremely well liked at FEMA in his first 4 1/2 months there, and he ended up being a huge supporter of FEMA who really took the time to understand the organization, its mission, its people and was fired, I think, largely because he was not going along with what was then seen as the agenda of trying to abolish FEMA. And so the fact that he is now back is the strongest signal, I think you'll ever see, that FEMA is not going anywhere. RASCOE: So what else does this nomination tell us about the Trump administration's approach to emergencies? FRANK: I think that President Trump started out his term as, you know, very passionate, very loud, clear and repeated criticism of FEMA. I haven't heard him say anything like that for more than a year. And I think at this point, he is at what is a sort of familiar position for presidents, which is - it's sort of like the Hippocratic oath - FEMA should do no harm. RASCOE: Quantify, like, what happened under DOGE, that staff shrinkage at FEMA. Is there a connection or a straight line between that and how the agency has performed during the second Trump administration? FRANK: There may be a straight line but let me just first fill out what you had said about staff losses. So FEMA has lost 22% of its staff since President Trump took office. It's gone from 26,000 to just a tad over 20,000. That's a huge staff loss. FEMA and really the entire country has gotten a little bit lucky so far in that FEMA has not been tested the way it was tested in 2024, when you had Hurricane Helene and Milton at the same time, or other times like Katrina, when you really find out what FEMA is capable. So right now, it's operating - it's in its comfort zone. RASCOE: How about your reporting on President Trump rejecting aid requests to states with Democratic leadership? What effect has that had on the ground, and do you think that Cameron Hamilton will have any effect on that dynamic? FRANK: The main consequence has been uncertainty. And what Trump is doing is he is denying