President Donald Trump recently sounded off on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and California governance while speaking at a press conference in Pacific Palisades amid the devastating wildfires. The president argued that federal bureaucracy is incompetent and inefficient in helping Americans suffering from disasters, pointing to those still struggling in Western North Carolina.
During the conference, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) spoke up to contest President Trump’s criticisms of FEMA. “Mr. President, if I can just defend FEMA a little bit. They brought 1000s of people in,” Sherman began. “They’re doing a good job for us. Here, they’ve got a huge center that’s open from nine in the morning to late at night,” he added.
Trump fired back, “The problem with FEMA is they come from all over the country. They end up in arguments with your people from California because they want to do it a totally different way.” Pointing to the disaster in North Carolina, Trump said, “You haven’t gotten very much done with FEMA because and all you have to do is look at North Carolina. It’s one of the great disasters of all time.”
Building on this point, Trump continued, “You know, came in and fixed North Carolina … other states, people from all over the country came and you have the same thing. You have a lot of people from all over the country.” Claiming this is far more effective than slow bureaucracy, he continued, “Getting the people is not a problem. Getting the organization’s a big problem. FEMA is incompetently run, and it costs about three times more than it should cost.”
Pointing that these resources could be allocated elsewhere, Trump said, “We can spend money on schools instead of giving money to bureaucracy. It takes you so much longer.” Trump added, “FEMA has a standard, Brad, and I’m a builder. I was a good, a very good builder. FEMA has a standard that’s so slow they want permit on permit on permit, and then they want permits on top of that. If you use FEMA, you’ll be here for a long time.”
Addressing reports that insurance companies have pulled out of California, Trump suggested that California Democrats’ policies caused this. “With every insurance company in the country left California, that’s why you have no insurance, because you made it so impossible. People that think like you made it so impossible,” the president said unapologetically.
Continuing to highlight the problem, Trump said, “I’ve never seen a state where almost nobody has insurance. And they said, what happened? And they said, like, six months ago they all left, and two years ago they had different, you know, quadrants, but they left and you have very little insurance here. I mean, I’ve never seen anything.”
While acknowledging that insurance companies can be problematic, Trump maintained that California’s governance was a major issue. “Now, I’m not a big fan of insurance companies. They have their big drawbacks too, but the insurance companies I’ve been reading, I read the papers very well, and you know, they’ve been warning California for a long time. They’ve also been saying, We want water. You don’t have water. You’re supposed to get fire insurance, and the insurance company goes in, you don’t have any wood water in your fire hydrants. So it’s a tough situation. I’m not a big fan of insurance companies,” he said.
Watch Trump below:
