The director of the Federal Federal Emergency Management Agency, David Richardson, told the staff at a meeting of all hands that was not aware of the hurricane season, according to sources familiar with the meeting.
The hurricanes season began on Sunday, June 1 and spends on November 30. It is not clear if Richardson, who led the agency since mid -May, was joking at Monday’s meeting, but a spokesman for the National Security Department argued that he was.
When journalists asked him on Tuesday during a White House press conference if President Donald Trump “still feels comfortable” with Richardson after his comments, press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed the concerns and said that Fema is taking the hurricane season seriously “, unlike some of the reports we have seen based on jokes that were made and leaks of meetings.”
Reuters First reported About Richardson’s comments.
Richardson’s comments follow an internal review indicating that FEMA “is not ready” for the 2025 hurricane season in mid -May.
David Richardson official portrait.
National Security Department
The DHS spokesman denied that FEMA is not prepared, said: “Despite the evil attempts to falsely frame a joke as a policy, there is no uncertainty about what Fema will do this hurricane season.”
“FEMA is focused on the laser on the response to disasters and the protection of the American people,” added the spokesman.
Leader of the Chuck Schumer Senate Minority, DN.Y., criticized Richardson, Publication in x that he “does not know why he has not yet been fired.”
“Trump’s Fema Chief is incompetent,” Senator Ed Markey, D-Mass. aggregate. “People will die.”
The meeting was held on Monday morning after Richardson said he would update staff in a plan to address the hurricane season.
“It is not a secret that under Secretary Noem and the interim administrator Richardson, FEMA is changing an inflamed dead weight and focused on a DC force to a thin and drop -down force that enables state actors to provide relief to their citizens,” the spokesman added. “The old processes are being replaced because Americans failed in real emergencies for decades.”
However, the sources at the meeting said that Richardson is staying with the original plan, carried out during the Biden Administration, to avoid getting on the path of the FEMA Review Council, which was established by President Donald Trump and the Secretary of National Security Kristi Noem.
The tropical analysis meteorologist Aidan Mahoney analyzes the monitors while working at his station at the National Hurricane Center of the Oceanic and Atmospheric National Administration (NOAA) in Miami, May 30, 2025.
Bello/Reuters Marco
Dan Stonking, a former FEMA official and owner of Strategic Communications, argued that he reveals that the Trump administration believes that his best success of success that this hurricane season depends on the plan of the last administration, instead of his.
Even so, Stonking said the original plan was created with more funds and before thousands of employees left FEMA since the Trump administration took over, which said “it would clearly need changes in planning to succeed.”
“This is not focused on the laser. This is not empowering,” he said. “It is nothing more than a preamble to a less efficient federal response that this administration has caused, but it will still blame its predecessors erroneously and atrociously.”
“You can deceive all people sometimes and some people all the time, but you can’t fool all people all the time,” he added.
Leavitt denied that the United States is poorly prepared to handle disasters, saying: “The president will consider in depth and carefully any request for federal aid that reaches his desk.”
